Why Your Company Should Be Using Video

Ryan Sigler | November 2017

Are you using video on your website and social media?
If not, you should be. We are finding out more and more that video will become very important to your company and its future in the next five years.

Here are a few staggering statistics to get you thinking.
• YouTube has over a billion users, almost one-third of total internet users.
• 87% of online marketers use video content.
• One-third of online activity is spent watching video.
• 92 percent of mobile video viewers share videos with others.
• Social video generates 1200% more shares than text and images combined.
• Viewers retain 95% of a message when they watch it in a video compared to 10% when reading it in text.
• By 2019, internet video traffic will account for 80% of all consumer Internet traffic.
Statistics source: http://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2017/03/08/video-marketing-statistics.

How would I use video in my industry?
Have an upcoming event? Have important news? Need installation information? How about using your product? You can effectively communicate any important information that you want your audience to hear through video and it will reach more viewers and at the end of the day which will increase your profits!

When specifically talking about the auction industry, we are finding that both aerial videography and surface videography are important. Aerial video works great to show large audiences at an auction, large portions of land and its individual tracts, a complete line up of equipment, and of course great photos and a different perspective to the viewer. Having video from on the ground and close up also works great by capturing “in the moment” video, great sound; and a close up look at the equipment or the auctioneer. Combine the two perspectives and you have great visuals to go along with your talking points.

The process of making a video.
1. You have two options in capturing the video. Capture the video yourself, or hire a professional to capture the video for you. If you are on a budget and you don’t growl at the idea of taking some video, then I would suggest buying the equipment and shooting it yourself. There is a learning curve that comes with shooting video and getting the best results, but lets not let that get in the way. Most of these videos are going to be 2 minutes or less which means you don’t need to be Steven Spielberg to get effective video. Being stable and smooth while capturing the moments you need is 80% of the battle.

2. If either, you have the video captured, or do it yourself, you will need to edit the video and have it saved for publishing. What you will want from this process, is the finished video product with motion graphics, maybe an intro, voice over, background music, color editing, etc. While I am biased to Blue River Digital (www.blueriverd.com) on being your video editing source, there are many professional media companies that could do the job.

3. Publishing your video is relatively easy. I would recommend using Youtube or Vimeo as your primary video platform. You can set up an account for free and upload your videos to either source. Once they are uploaded you can then embed the video directly into Facebook, your website, or any other web platform that you may desire.

The Equipment
Aerial Videography: We have chosen to use DJI products for our aerial video production. Why? Well, when I first started flying a quadcopter in 2014, it was one of the original DJI products and since then I haven’t had any issues with DJI and I firmly believe they have the best technology on the market and they are a step ahead of everyone else. Everyone else such as GoPro, Autel Robotics, Yuneec, etc are all in the game, but are slightly behind DJI. What DJI product do I recommend for you? It all depends on your specific industry. If it is large portions of land that you auction or farm then I personally would go with the DJI Inspire. The Inspire has significant range along with faster speeds to allow more land coverage with better camera resolution. It does cost about double over the other options which would be the DJI Phantom 4 and DJI Mavic Pro.

The DJI Phantom 4 would still work great for large land coverage and would also work great for large equipment line ups. It would be great for any outdoor events and the cost is roughly half of the DJI Inspire and still provides high quality video.
The DJI Mavic Pro is much smaller in size and therefore could work for close up video needed in tight spots, indoor scenes, and subject tracking video. The price for these are less, but you will sacrifice a little bit of video quality but is still a great choice overall.

For our interviews and on the ground footage, we use a panasonic GH4 camera, with a Nikon lens and Metabones speed booster. We place the camera on a large gimble that keeps the video stable. This gimble is the DJI Ronin and it’s well worth the cash. The GH4 has built in wifi which can allow an ipad with the panasonic viewer app control the GH4 and all of its settings remotely. Mount the ipad to the top of the ronin and you’re in business. Only one thing is missing, if you want or need high quality sound, purchase the Rode shotgun mic that is either built for DSLR cameras or the large shotgun mic that you can carry and pickup much better sound. An alternatvie low cost solution to all of the above is the DJI Osmo. The DJI Osmo is a handheld camera that produces stable, high quality video, and can be outfitted with microphones, phone holders and other accessories.

Aerial Certification and Laws
The FAA has several regulations regarding the flying of your UAS (Unmanned Aircraft System).
1. You have to register your aircraft with the FAA and can do so for $5 online via the FAA.gov website. This requirement is currently under review and may not be necessary in the future, but for now, I would recommend registering it.

2. To fly your UAS for commercial reasons the pilot of the aircraft must obtain a part 107 UAS Remote Pilot Certificate. I have personally taken this exam and would recommend taking this exam even if you are flying for fun. The knowledge I obtained during my time studying for this exam was very helpful in teaching me about weather, airspace, altitude, lattitude and longitude.

Without going into too much detail you can obtain all the necessary information that you need to take the exam from the FAA.gov website. I would be glad to answer any questions in detail regarding FAA certification. Just shoot me an email (ryan@blueriverd.com) if you are serious about getting your part 107 and I can give you some helpful information and save you up to $180 by choosing the right study tools.

In Closing
If you aren’t producing videos for your business, it would be a great idea to implement it into your marketing strategy. Video production is one of the fastest growing departments at Blue River Digital, and many of our clients are seeing the results everyday. What I tell our clients is this: “If you can place your video on facebook and other social media platforms and reach 1,000 new views for your auction, event, product or business and 10 – 100 (1-10%) of those viewers show up to your auction, event or even buy a product, that will increase your profits.”