mobile and social video: best practices robb montgomery
TRANSCRIPT
Smart Film School Robb Montgomery
Best practices in Mobile & social video
Robb Montgomery
Smart Film School Robb Montgomery@robbmontgomery
A field reporter carrying a smartphone (and the knowledge to use it for visual reporting) is a tremendous asset to news outlets.
A properly outfitted and trained reporter can file live reports at broadcast quality, file raw footage and even produce a complete news package entirely on their phone. In addition, the types of social video content that can now be produced with an iPhone is astounding.
The key is strategy, training and retooling newsroom workflows to suit the needs of mobile consumers.
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Short form video. (As in ‘really short.’)
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Some trends
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75% of Buzzfeed’s top videos are under 60 seconds in length, and square in format. – Forrester
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Social videos attract 3X more inbound links than plain text posts – Moz
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Facebook loosens its video ban on publishers – Digiday
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Mobile people, mobile video
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Video formats for Mobile Millennials1 second - Boomerang
3 seconds - Live photos
6 seconds - Vine
10 seconds - Snap Chat
15 Seconds - Instagram
30 seconds - Twitter
1 minute - Facebook
2 minutes - YouTube
10 minutes - Vimeo
13 hours - Netflix
While there is an emphasis on short-length videos, it would be a mistake to think that this group cares only for short attention span content. What they pay attention to,
actually, is visually-led content.
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Storytelling questionsLinear or Non-Linear?
Silent or VR Surround sound?
Vertical, Horizontal or Square aspect ratio?
Live or 360°?
Short or long?
Promotional or serialized?
For which screens?
The calculus for using video to reach mobile consumers now has many inputs for variables. In 2015, we had our Big Bang with the convergence of autoplaying videos
and mobile consumption stepping up into the dominant behavior. And just like in those explosive nanoseconds after the bang. we see the mobile video universe is rapidly expanding. There are new announcements, mutations and behaviors being born at this moment.
Smart Film School Robb Montgomery
10 types of social video 1. Live streaming
2. Video collage
3. Story cards
4. Graphics packages
5. Long form multimedia
6. Cinematic shorts
7. First Personalities
8. Kinograms
9. Walkthroughs
10. Quick hits
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These are 10 types of video reports that I teach field reporters and producers how to create with just their
smartphone. As I struggled to classify and name the many types of popular social video available just at this moment, it became
clear to me that we indeed have to find some common language to describe the new cinema screens in our customer’s pockets.
And we need common language about video because, in our reporter’s pockets, that same mobile device is also a
phenomenal video capturing, editing and sharing machine.
We all need this so we can decode and begin to speak with greater precision and story language about exactly what we mean when we are making assignments and measuring results.
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Insights from my clientsLarge broadcasters and pure-play digital media news outlets in Asia and Europe
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S
Make social videoSmart Film School
Mars Studio
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As I have been consulting with media clients recently on social and mobile video, we have been examining these behaviors and comparing it to research that suggests a
roadmap for best practices.
Smart Film School Robb Montgomery
The best-performing videos are visual and action-based
Avoid talking heads.Instead, show stunning imagery, action shots, and a lot of movement.
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Smart Film School Robb Montgomery
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The pictures are the story
It is possible to produce video stories without a storyboard, script, or talking head.
Today, social stories are being written first with the smartphone camera.
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Find, capture, edit, and file a polished video story from anywhere.
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Story snacks
The attraction of short-form social videos lies in their “snackable” nature.
See examples on my Twitter feed@RobbMontgomery
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Quick hit videoFun, simple and informative.
The reporter writes with their camera and then writes text to support the visual story.
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Always on the go
Short videos suit our busy lives, brief attention spans and the need to consume content easily and quickly.
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Breaking news: Live from my iPhone.
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Add a call to action at the end of the video SHARE THISVOTETELL ME MORE
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Video memes
Highly visualized data stories can be illustrated with title cards, graphics, and text animation.
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Video memes
Short lifestyle HOW-TO videos Visual recipes, fashion and cosmetics tips, relationship advice, sports talk, video gaming strategies, and gadget tests.
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R
Short recipe videos for social streams
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That clip was filmed, edited and shared using an iPhone.
View on YouTube
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Video memes
Travel deals, health tips, career advice.
Think ‘Columnist,’ but this kind ofpersonality- driven content is presented as an ongoing series of 10-second Snapchat video clips instead of a series of 10-inch columns.
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Smart Film School Robb Montgomery
VJs
Specialists
Generalists
Video strategy
To support a higher level of video literacy across the enterprise, managers must allocate video skills and resources wisely.
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A Kinogram video made entirely on iPhone
Smart Film School Robb Montgomery
www.SmartFilmSchool.com
Step-by-step tutorials in social video, mobile journalism and smartphone video production.
Contact me for site licensing.