5 ways to get more from your online video content

Graeme Spencer Author

After spending lots of time, energy and finance creating video content, here are some ideas about how you can get more value from what you create.

We spend a lot of time, energy and effort creating media. Often, we only focus on our “Sunday Service” – whether live or pre-recorded – but what are you doing with all that content you create? This article explores how you can repurpose your content in a way that it’s possible to get more value out of the media you already have, and thus increase your its impact and longevity.

Before I give you my top 5 things you should consider doing with the media you create, I have two quick caveats. First, in order to do this, you need to make sure you record your content locally. There are other reasons to do that as well, read this blog for my thoughts on that.

Also, where possible you want to make sure that the recording is a “clean” version (with no graphics etc on the output). Second you will need to use some kind of editing software to take the footage and create other media from it. You may have professional editing solutions like Final Cut or Adobe Premiere available, but if not, there is free editing software available too. iMovie is a solution for basic editing and DaVinci Resolve is a great free editing solution as well. There are plenty of other free or low cost options too.

GETTING MORE FROM YOUR LIVE STREAM VIDEO CONTENT

So, assuming you have taken care of these things, let’s explore how can you use your media more effectively. Here are 5 easy things you can do right now.

Create “shorter” unique content from your weekly live stream service.

Taking the long form content, one thing you can do is create different types of content from this. You can, for example, edit out the “message” from the service and upload that for people to watch as a stand-alone video. Or, you can take the worship segment from the service and create a unique worship experience that you could upload. Or, you could even create individual songs from the worship set and upload those. Or, how about posting a worship song to Social Media for people to share with their friends.

Create playlists of different types of content and make it easy to find.

The next stage, once you have started creating different content, is to then start grouping the different types of content together. Look at creating things like playlists on YouTube etc so that people can access the type of content they want without having search for it. This will also help to keep people engaged with content for longer. Develop different categories for your content in a way that makes it easy for people to find what they are looking for.

Create a Podcast from your message – or what about some blogs?

People don’t all like consuming content the same way. Some love video content, others written content and some of us like audio content. I often like to listen to content through podcasts rather than watch a video - its particularly useful for those "on the go". So, why not take the audio of your Sunday message, edit on a new recorded intro and an outro and upload it to a Podcast hosting site. Some people will like to consume your content this way and it may also mean you get more distribution, again creating more value from it. You can also create blog posts from the messages as well. Written content can be valuable for use on websites, via emails etc.

Create short “sharable” videos from your messages

This is a great thing to do if you have time and can help to promote your church/ministry as well. This is also where you can get more “creative”, editing short pieces from the content, adding graphics, effects, video filters, and also re-formatting for different outlets. What you are looking to do is to add production quality so the content stands out. The key thing to make this work is finding short punchy pieces that are self-contained. You want to make sure they make sense when they stand alone outside of you Sunday service. If you start down this route and it becomes successful, you can show the impact the media is having to the preacher who may even change some of the way he delivers his messages to accommodate your desire to create these short pieces. BE AWARE, this is something that can be very time consuming BUT it can also increase the impact of your media in a big way, so is worth considering.

Create “Moments” from your media.

In many live stream services there will be “moments” that stick out – a powerful exhortation from the preacher, a time of spontaneous worship, or a great testimony. Note these as they happen and then afterwards edit them out of the body of the service and create special “moments” for use on social media posts or promotional clips on your website or via YouTube etc. The key here is to recognise them, edit them and then to use them. Used well, they can provide great extra content for your media outreach. One other thing that adds more value here would be good to create some kind of graphics package to place these in so you brand them in a recognisable and consistent way. You may find this helps expand your reach to new audiences.

These are a few basic things you can consider doing that will expand your media outreach without the need to produce more content - you already have the live stream service so you are making more of what you are doing. All of these need work and planning BUT done well can have an impact on your audience, allow your media to live on after the Sunday service and give significant added value to your media ministry.

One final thing to note though – anything you do like this you need to also point people to where they can consume the original content related to the clips you are using as it’s a great way to cross promote the full content using these shorter pieces.

I recommend you ensure you have regular discussions with your team and your leadership on this and it becomes a part of your vision for media - I talk more about the need for a "media vision" in this blog.

What are other creative ways you can get more value from your content - let me know in the comments below?

Categories: Broadcasting, Content, Foundation, Platforms, production, quality, Strategy