4 problems you can easily avoid when conducting consumer video research

We thought we’d spend a few minutes explaining how you can save hours, maybe days, when using video insights. For sure, there’s more than just 4, but these are the ones we hear all the time…

1. “Watching videos of people is boring!”

We’ve all seen bad films and good films.

Quality of content is crucial.

Lots of video is pretty dull to watch, especially if 1 video can run to an hour or more in length … and it’s of people sitting at a table in a plain room.

Yawn.

Focus on making the content compelling. Get the videos to be made in the moment. On smartphones. Keep them to less than 10 mins in length.

Could be in store, at home, at work, on the bus… they’re interesting to watch, and they will always contain powerful insights.

2. “I can’t find that video we did on…”

Video is often stored locally, rather than centrally, and no matter where it’s stored, what do you search for?

By title? Possibly tags if folks have made the effort. Maybe author… it’s not easy and is such an impenetrable wall that that most look up it, shrug their shoulders and not even bother.

EVERY VIDEO YOU DO MUST BE TRANSCRIBED.

That transcription must be made searchable.

And don’t just have a dumb-old search plying its merry way through the records. use a smart search. a semantic search. and on that can tell sentiment not just multiple meanings.

Meaning every time, you can find everything you want.

3. “I only want that bit from the video, not the whole thing.”

Ahh, editing.

Anyone know how to use Adobe Premier? Final Cut?

How many emails have you sent that say “Go to the bit that’s 20 minutes and 15 seconds in. Watch the 10-12 seconds of that.”  (Worse if there are multiple bits within the same video!)

It’s imprecise.

They may listen to the wrong thing.

Worse they have to load (download? heaven forbid) and then scroll through the video.

They may not even think it is worth that effort.

Use a service that allows you to clip your videos on the site. There are a fair few services out there (including ours) that allow you to do that now. Easy enough even for technophobes (including our own in-house ones).

4. “Can you send me that clip?”

Ugh.

It’s a dreaded request, what with the size of video files creeping up with terms like HD and 4K going about.

It can mean downloading, uploading, usernames, passwords, won’t play, attachments banned, site is restricted.

Use services that allow you easily share what you do. Without the download. Without the kerfuffle of passwords (there’s clever ways round that). That you know will play on mobiles, on tablets, on laptops, on desktops… OK… unless your business is still using an outdated IE browser… but then you REALLY need help.

It doesn’t have to be hard, and whereas bits of the above are rocket-science behind the scenes, this certainly isn’t rocket science. It’s simple and makes your life easier.

That connecting with the consumer programme just got a lot easier.

We’d love to tell you more about how we’re solving the problems of video. There’s a form opposite, or just give us a tinkle.