So, this is something that I stumbled upon early on. Back in 2016, I had an opportunity to get my first personal video created for my website. Ever since then, I’ve always made an investment in video content.

Just as I said above, I stumbled upon the power of video early on. It was early 2016 when I was working on my first personal video project I titled, Project Storytelling. This was my attempt to create a personal brand website, in hopes of getting hired by another employer. And I wanted to get a short video created that focused on showing who I was as a designer and developer. You can learn more about Project Storytelling in a previous article I wrote a while back.

Now, this was the first video project that I’ve ever got to work on, and it definitely shows. My voice is very flat and my body language is stiff, to say the least. Obviously, being in front of the camera for the first time with a decent video setup of lights, a teleprompter, and a high-end camera can be very nerve-racking. Plus speaking in a room with someone else looking right at you will throw off most people who aren’t used to that.

Doing a lot with a little

The reason why I love video content so much is that you can do so much within such a short amount of time. Yes, people can look through my site and see my photos or take the time to read through my content, but that’s not what most users will do. Most users will be quick to judge and will only stay if they feel it’s worth their time to go a little deeper.

And that was my mindset when I first looked into getting a video about myself put together. I wanted to grab someone's attention immediately when they landed on my website. Now, this was back in 2016 when video content was really starting to become a focus in social media. Looking at these days (now 2022), video content has become such a focus that it almost seems odd for me to say to my clients that they should be investing in video content.

The budget barrier

Trust me, I understand that getting some good video content put together usually comes with a cost. This was definitely a worry of mine back in 2016 because I was currently in the middle of looking for a new job. That meant this was not an investment as a business owner, where I could justify this as marketing, this was an investment into my career that was going to be straight out of pocket.

So I started simple, first doing my research into ideas of what I wanted this to look like or could be. Then moving on to the hard part, finding someone to help me. At that time, I didn’t know anyone who did this type of work. So I just started asking around to some past colleagues of mine, and luckily, I knew someone who knew someone.

This was very exciting to finally get the chance to speak with someone about my idea, but my worry was still my low budget, of under $1,000. So, I did my best to frame it as, here’s my vision and ultimate goal, and let them run the show, without being a pain in the ass client. I told them if they had some cool ideas that they wanted to do, to just do it and use this as a passion project.

Thankfully, he was totally on board and we were able to achieve the result I was looking for. I think it was a combination of I got lucky, and being in the right place at the right time. Ever since then, I’ve been reinvesting in video content every 2 to 3 years, and I'm currently looking to reinvest for 2023 (very excited about that).

The last thing I would say about trying to keep costs down would be to see if they’d be willing to do a service trade. Now, I know not everyone will have a service worth the trade in their eyes, but this is what I did on one occasion. One video for one website. If you think you have something worth their time, it’s worth asking at least.

Start small, video background loop

An idea you could do to get something small would be to just get a background video loop on the homepage of your website. As an example, if you go to the homepage of my website Devonstank.com, you’ll see that I have a video playing in the background. This is a great way to entice the user into wanting to watch your video or at least it could subconsciously let them know there's a video to watch.

The loop itself doesn’t have to be complex. And in my situation, I just grabbed a few clips from the final video that showed off some nice-looking scenes of me being me, what they call “B-roll” in the video industry. The nice part is, you don’t have sound on a video background loop, so you can just focus on getting some nice-looking shots.

This could also literally be where you can start to keep your costs down with a video person. Not having to deal with getting a script put together and having them work with you for a full day, or even multiple days will definitely keep costs down. Yes, I’m sure you’d like to have a complete video put together, but if the budget is tight, this is one way to get some type of video content done on the cheap. And it will still convey more information than a still image.

On a side note, I would only recommend having a loop be around 20 to 40 seconds long. Being that the video will have no sound, it just needs to show a few quick cuts of what you’re trying to convey. The other thing I’d suggest, if you’re planning on having website text over top of the video loop, like what I do, is to not have complex text in the video as well (this would be too much of a distraction for most viewers).

Starting a vlog of your own

Another area you might want to consider when it comes to video content, especially if you're trying to keep it simple and the costs down, is to create your own vlog. Back in 2018 that is exactly what I did for myself. Now, this is me being me, and this definitely isn’t for everyone. But I’ve always said if I wasn’t in the web development industry, I think I’d be in video production, it’s kind of a second love for me.

That said, I just started with the idea of documenting my journey of trying to grow my business to a certain financial goal. Once I had that concept, I just hit record on my iPhone hoping that I could create something that someone might find interesting. The nice thing about a vlog is that it can be a bit more real and not so staged. 

This worked very well for me, being that I was now running my business as a personal brand. And a core concept when it comes to building a personal brand is the power of relatability. So, showing the grind and the not-so-fun side of things helped to show me as a person first, and ultimately, it helped build a connection with my audience.

Just note that I was only using an iPhone X to capture all of the footage and iMovie to do the video editing. Just as I said, I started small and went from there. If you’d like to know more about the vlog I created back in 2018, Building SQUAR, feel free to read the past article that I wrote a while back.

Now might not be the right time

It could be as simple as, you just can’t invest in video content right now, and that’s fine. Maybe this is something that could be done down the road, but the good thing is, you can at least start thinking about video content for when the time is right. If you’re interested in seeing all of my past video projects, you can take a look at my Video Projects page.