I would like to add video of myself or staff promoting our business on my website. I would prefer not having to pay a virtual spokesperson company to save some money and change the videos whenever I like. Any suggestions?
I would like to add video of myself or staff promoting our business on my website. I would prefer not having to pay a virtual spokesperson company to save some money and change the videos whenever I like. Any suggestions?
September 3rd, 2010 on 2:13 pm
That’s quite a broad question with a lot of possible answers. There are two primary fields you’re describing here : Video production and Web Development. How comfortable are you (or your employees) with either?
Creating a professional looking video is harder than it might first seem, and getting good quality requires an initial investment on some decent equipment. If you don’t already have that, you might be looking at a price that’s near (or even higher) than a professional’s fee for a result that’s lower quality. Of course, if you’re already familiar with creating decent-looking videos and the technology behind them, this is all a moot point.
The second part of the equation is taking the video and turning it into a web-optimized format that integrates well with the rest of your site. Your main goals here are to make the video look good while maintaining a respectable file size and ensure the video isn’t intrusive to the rest of the browsing experience (can be paused or muted, does not immediately go to full screen, and does not break the rest of the page if it doesn’t load or loads improperly). Which technologies you employ to display your content will impact these goals quite a bit.
Okay, so that’s the overall spiel, now let’s talk specifics. I don’t hesitate when I recommend Flash as your technology of choice. It’s versatile, quick, and one of the most widely used multimedia formats on the web today. Adobe Flash CS 4 is the most recent authoring platform for professional Flash files. It’s as pricey as it is powerful, and is only worth the amount of time you expect to invest in it.
This forum thread lists several free and low-end, affordable applications that convert digital movies (AVIs, MPEGs, etc.) into the Flash format FLV. The forum thread can be found here : http://forum.videohelp.com/topic315188.html .
This is a Do-It-Yourself kind of thing, so the more savvy you are, the better the result is going to be. To that end, I suggest you try and enlist the help of someone trustworthy who may be more in-the-know than you (a friend, an employee, a family member) and make it worth their while to give you some help. A crappy video blaring on your website may serve to drive patronage away, rather than attract and encourage them.
If you need more specifics, you’re welcome to shoot me an e-mail.