At the end of last year I was asked to be interviewed by a company and thought I’d post the interview here as well. One of the goals this year for the digital signage blog is to conduct more interviews with other companies, so if you’re interested please reach out to me. Here’s the interview:
Can you tell us a bit about your journey to where you currently are professionally with the Digital Signage Blog?
I am one of the brains behind a digital advertising company called Advertise Me which launched over a decade ago. Whilst attending a Marketing course I came up with the idea of finding a cost effective way of displaying advertisements using LCD screens. Back then, I didn’t know what this technology or industry was called as it was still at its infancy. At the time, all I knew was that there must be a better way than displaying static and boring posters. This industry started to grow and the term used to describe it was Digital Signage. That’s when we decided to start writing content related to this industry and after some research we discovered that the Domain Name digitalsignageblog.com was available. We were quite lucky to be honest, the domain just expired and we quickly purchased it. We started writing technical content, news and information relating to Digital Signage. Over the years the site gained interest from a number of people and is now one of the more popular Digital Signage Blogs in the industry. Several years ago we also decided to accept guest blogs and this has allowed other digital signage professionals to share their knowledge to the rest of the Digital Signage community.
Who should be visiting the Digital Signage Blog, and what can they expect to find there?
Anyone who is interested in Digital Signage should visit the website. This includes professionals wanting to learn more about certain aspects of the industry or even businesses who are thinking of installing a digital signage solution for their business. Over the years we’ve accumulated extensive content relating to the Digital Signage industry and we decided to share this on the Digital Signage Blog.
What are the most essential things that a professional looking video must have?
A professional looking video should focus on the following areas:
- Image Quality – use equipment that is able to capture video in high definition (at least Full HD quality). Viewers can easily get turned off by watching low quality video.
- Depending on your targeted audience, capturing a video on your mobile phone may not suffice so invest on professional equipment where possible. Also invest in learning how to use and optimise the equipment to achieve the best results.
- Audio Quality – make sure the video has clear and crisp audio. Use quality microphones if interviewing someone as you want to make sure the message to the audience is heard.
- Creativity – once you understand your target audience then come up with a creative video that will capture their attention. Have a look at some of the viral videos on Social Networks such as Facebook or YouTube to get some ideas.
- Clear call to action – professional videos always have a clear goal like getting people to subscribe to their channel, newsletter or even to visit their website. Make sure your video has a clear call to action at the beginning and end of the video.
This blog post also has a few more tips: https://www.digitalsignageblog.com/2015/08/25/create-great-corporate-video/
What are some of the most common mistakes you think people make in creating videos?
The simple rules of creating videos applies regardless of whether it’s a home video or something that will be distributed more widely. I think we’ve probably all done some of the things I’m going to mention below:
- Poor lighting – videos that are grainy, under saturated, low-contrast, and muddy is a big no-no. Always check your lighting conditions before capturing your videos and use lighting solutions such as flashlights, reflectors and umbrellas where required.
- Not well thought out script – planning is key. Before even pressing the record button make sure you have a script to follow especially if it involves more than one person in the video.
- No editing – most online Video platforms such as YouTube now have the ability to edit videos before they are published so there is no excuse for removing those unwanted bits from your videos. They even have a feature to fix the shaky recordings!
Do you notice any trends in corporate videos?
There are a few trends in corporate videos as more people are interested to find out about companies and their products. However, not everyone has a large marketing budget so I’ve noticed that there are now more companies that use stock videos within their corporate videos. Stock videos are great because it saves times, money and they already look professional.
Should you always have videos on your Digital Signage Screen?
Displaying videos is definitely more engaging than a slideshow of images or scrolling text. One of the reasons why you don’t see that many videos on Digital Signage screens is because it is time consuming and also expensive to create one. Sometimes companies forget to look at what they already have available. If you already have videos as part of your digital assets portfolio then it makes sense from a financial and business perspective to re-purpose the videos and display them on a digital screen or other digital mediums.
You have a Fail section of your website. What are some of the most outrageous things you’ve seen that are total fails?
I’m glad you’ve noticed the Fail section of the website! The most outrageous and humorous things we’ve seen were mostly DIY installations in small retail stores. This one in particular used a piece of cloth with two cutouts for the back of a stand. It didn’t look the prettiest.
Have a read of this Fail here: https://www.digitalsignageblog.com/2015/01/09/digital-signage-fail-unique-back-screen-cover/
We have received quite a number of Fails over the years and we like to share them with our readers so that they can learn from it and hopefully avoid some of these mistakes.
Is there anything else you’d like to share with our readers?
We are always interested to hear from people who have an interest or are already in the Digital Signage industry. Like any community we think it is important to share information and knowledge whether it’s about marketing, content production (video, banners, images), Information Technology or Audio Visual. So if you are interested in any aspect of the Digital Signage industry then subscribe to our blog as we try to cover all these areas. You can also follow us on Twitter and Facebook.
ABOUT MARCO
Marco Tran is the Chief Editor of a popular blog called DigitalSignageBlog.com He is also an avid entrepreneur and has established a number of companies in the Digital Space. Whilst Marco is not spending his time creating innovative products and services you will find him exercising or hanging out with family and friends.
LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/marcotran
Google+: https://plus.google.com/u/101322451886806533079
Twitter: http://twitter.com/marco_tran
LIKE WHAT YOU'VE READ?
When you subscribe you will also join other Digital Signage readers who receive our content right in their mailbox. Good luck!
