How to Make Video Content on a Smartphone

Video is a highly effective marketing tool and its popularity keeps increasing year by year. Despite its effectiveness, many marketers are not using video as part of their digital marketing strategies yet as they think video production is expensive. But we have great news! You do not need fancy cameras nor a big budget to create video content. All you need to get started with video is a smartphone. Not all phones are of the same quality, but it is safe to say that they are all pretty good these days.

Follow along to learn how to create video content with your smartphone. 

Beginners guide to making a video with your smartphone

  1. Plan out the shoot before you start recording. Do some research and break the content down into key points. Be clear and concise if you aim to retain your audience’s attention. 
  2. Put your phone in selfie mode and find the best camera angle. When possible, use clean backgrounds (i.e plain walls, bedsheets or backdrop papers) to avoid distracting viewers.
  3. Make sure subjects face the light. That is, do not place subjects in front of windows or other reflective surfaces.
  4. Clear the space of unnecessary background noise (kids, pets, cars…). Plus, put the microphone (or the phone if you are using the on-camera microphone) as close to the subjects as possible. The closer they are, the better the audio. 
  5. Keep the phone steady. If possible, use tripods. But if you are on a budget, use alternative surfaces such as a desk, bookshelves or a table to steady the device.
  6. Do a test shot. Make sure everything works and looks nice. I suggest using the normal camera as its quality is superior to the selfie one. If you do not feel comfortable, you can still use the selfie mode, but make sure you look at the dot and not at yourself. Otherwise, you will be looking off-screen 

Now that all the footage is on your phone, it is time for the edit. There exist many video editing apps out there. Some good ones are:

*The word freemium refers to those apps that offer basic or limited features for free and that charge users for more advanced or premium features. 

Importance of video thumbnails

720,000 hours of video are being uploaded to YouTube every day. And this number keeps increasing over time. The amount of time people have to watch videos remains flat though. As a consequence, people have become more and more selective about what they watch. Now, they only click on videos that they think are going to be of value. 

Therefore, creating compelling thumbnails is key to driving traffic to your channel. It does not matter how good is your content, you won’t get click unless your thumbnails catch people’s attention. 

Planning and clarity are two things you should bear in mind to end up with attractive thumbnails. 

Summing up

Consumers watch more videos than ever before. Therefore, to stay up to date, you will have to start producing videos too. 

As you have seen, the only tool you need to start filming videos is a smartphone, so no excuses are allowed. Start filming today. We are sure you are going to start seeing results sooner than you could have ever thought. 

Thank you for reading,

Maria.

 

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