5. Post-Production

Post-production is where all your hard work comes together. Here, you'll use editing tools as well as motion, visual, and sound effects to piece together the vision for your final video. Start with the most essential piece of your production: the footage.

Cutting scenes and piecing them together to create your story is tedious work. Follow these three foundational steps for each video you edit in post:

Review

Watch your footage and make notes of what scenes fit well together. Also, look out for anything that doesn't look right (mismatched color balances, lack of room tone, etc.) and add notes so you can fix the colors and audio later.

Delete

Scene doesn't look right? Some of the footage isn't needed for the final cut? Delete it. The less footage you have to work with, the easier it'll be once you start the final edit.

Tidy

Compile the footage into files and folders so it's easier to piece together during the final edit. For example, if you have scenes that are shot in different locations, label them (i.e., office scenes, warehouse scenes, etc.), so it's easy to find them once you're creating the finished version of the video.

Once your footage is organized, and the video is starting to come together, start focusing on the:

Sound

All of the time and effort shooting great footage will go out the window if you don't have decent audio in your final video. Focus on levels, consistency, ambiance, and room tone in every scene. Depending on what editing software you are using, there should be a level reader to help you maintain consistent levels throughout your entire video.

Graphics

Adding graphics, visual effects and transitions into your edit can take it to the next level. Elements like animations, fades, dissolves, and wipes can make your video look more professional when moving between scenes. Most non-linear editing (NLE) software has made this easy for (even novice) editors to do thanks to built-in templates and drag-and-drop transitions.

Call to action (CTA)

When adding graphics and transitions, don't forget to add a CTA. A CTA tells the viewer what you want them to do next, like subscribe to your channel or visit your website for more information about a product. Although it seems like a small addition, CTAs are an essential tool in turning viewers into subscribers or paying customers.

Compression and storage

If your video is going to be distributed on your website or social media channels, it's a good idea to compress the size of the file. If you've never compressed a video before, learn more about it here.

Social media video marketing 101

Video is now so popular on social media channels (hello… TikTok!) that the giants are pivoting to say that it's the most important content on their platforms.

Facebook is now full of videos. Over 4 billion video views happen on the platform every single day. And Twitter is experiencing the same trend with its 320 million users. With over 2 billion video views every day, Tweets with video are also getting 10x more engagements than Tweets without video.

Last year Instagram pivoted from being a platform where people share images to a "video first" strategy because of the popularity of other channels like YouTube and TikTok. Adam Mosseri, the Head of Instagram, said the change reflected what audiences now want: entertainment.

What does this mean for video marketers? It's a sign that any video distribution strategy must take a serious look at what social media channels will appeal to your target audiences.

Lead generation 101

Lead gen is just a fancy word for all the different ways you can help nurture potential customers who are interested in your products or services. The cornerstone of lead generation is usually collecting an email address, so you can keep in touch with your customer.

There are lots of different methods you can try, like:

Organic SEO
Paid social media advertising or boosted posts
Content marketing (blog posts, eBooks, white papers)
Organic social media posts

And businesses can generate leads from videos, too. From placing open-text contact forms anywhere in videos to collect data to embedding GIFs into email follow-up campaigns, there are lots of ways small businesses can repurpose their videos to drive more leads into their marketing funnels.

Interactive video 101

Interactive video allows for users to interact directly with some elements of a video’s content, be it through clickable links, hotspots, or overlays. In a typical interactive video, viewers can take digital actions, such as clicking, scrolling, and dragging, within the video experience.

There are a few main features that classify videos as “interactive”, including:

Hot spots

Hot spots are a clickable section of a video that, when clicked, can result in a wide variety of actions, from a popup to a video branch.

Overlays

Video overlays typically appear as a ‘layer’ in front of a video that appears after interacting with a hotspot or other clickable element within the video. These overlays can include text, images, call-to-actions, and even additional audio or video.

Branching

Video branching refers to the audience's ability to “build their own adventure’ as they watch by jumping to key frames in the video based on the user’s interest. A watcher can skip, loop, and replay sections to ‘gamify’ their viewing experience.

Time Triggers

Time triggers allow you to trigger events at certain video timestamps without requiring action from the user. Triggers might include jumping to branching points, opening overlays and more.

Learn more about Vimeo’s interactive video platform

Use cases of interactive video

Interactive video can be a useful medium in a wide range of use cases. Some of the most commonly seen deployments include in marketing campaigns, ecommerce businesses, and even people operations.

Marketing campaigns and ecomm businesses can use interactive video platforms to create product explainer videos, shoppable videos, interactive ads and much more. People operations leverage interactive content to give their employees training content like quizzes and ‘build your own adventure’ videos with workplace scenarios.

Event marketing 101

Kimberlee Meier