TOP TIPS: Capture great videos for your business promotion

Posted by: Katie King

Thu 26th May 2022

If you’re a small business navigating the world of social media, you’ll soon realise that video content is the most popular way to attract most of the younger generations.

Most of the footage that we see online is captured by mobile phones and to the inexperienced, it can seem quite daunting. But with today’s apps and hacks, getting video content out there to your audience through your own channels has never been so easy.

Here are some of our basic tips for capturing content on your phone. Don’t forget to upload it on The Spirit of Alfreton to share your company news with the community.

FILMING BASICS

– Be mindful of background sound and distractions
– Always try to film in the quietest place possible and if audio is important, get as close to the sound as possible (or use a smartphone mic.)
– Items, people, and general movement in the background can detract from the subject in focus, try to avoid filming with busy backgrounds.

Focus on the subject

In video mode on your iPhone camera app, press the screen on the subject that you want to focus on (a person, a building or something else). This puts the subject in focus and brightens it.

Keep still

It sounds simple, but even the lightest shake of the hand can cause a less than ideal piece of footage. If you can, rest your elbow on something to get a smooth pan.

Portrait or landscape mode?

Depending on what your video is for, which way you hold your camera can make a difference. For sharing on social media platforms such as Instagram and Facebook stories and Reels and TikTok, film it in portrait mode.

CHANGE YOUR HD SETTINGS

Most iPhones are set at a low filming quality to save battery life. You can adjust this to get the optimum filming quality.
Go to Settings – Camera – Record Video – set it to 1080 at 60 fps.
You’ll notice immediately the difference in film quality.

CROP YOUR VIDEO

After you have filmed your piece, you can select ‘Edit’ from the gallery and crop the video either side – trimming out the bloopers.
Here you can also adjust the colour and brighten videos. It’s worth experimenting with.

CREATE A VIDEO INSTANTLY FROM YOUR GALLERY

To create a cool video, you can either download a video creating app, or simply create a video from your iPhone gallery.
To start with, create a new folder in your albums (the + sign). Now add to this all the images and videos that you’d like featuring on your video.

Remember to crop the videos to the section that you want, or it will automatically select a random part). If you want to remove sound, you can do this in edit mode by tapping the mic icon on the top right.

To create the video, in the desired folder, click the three dots in the top right-hand corner and scroll down to: Play Memory Movie. Once it has downloaded, you can choose the mood you’d like and it will change the music then you can save the video.

If you’d rather create a video in sequence, choose the slideshow option.

GET CREATIVE
There are many ways of filming videos on the latest smart phones. There are countless features and filters on apps like TikTok and Instagram.

But to get creative footage that you can edit later on, consider doing things like time-lapse. A time-lapse of sunset, the process of a makeover, a busy office or bustling shop floor for example. Just be sure to keep the phone in one place.

Slow motion is also a creative mode of filming. It creates dramatic detail in an otherwise quite ordinary shot. Great to use for things like executive interviews, cooking clips, staff in action and so on.

Now that you have some great footage, you can upload it to the social media channel that best suits your target customers. You can create Reels and Stories on Instagram and Facebook as well as videos on TikTok by following the simple on screen steps and learning some of the tricks for each app via content already shared by other successful accounts on the platforms.

Image Gallery