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Skill Scout Blog

Inspiration, tips & stories to help you make awesome videos.

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Videos To Attract Customers

11/20/2019

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One question we get a lot...

"Can you guys make videos to show potential customers what we do?"

Yep, we can do that. Customers, like prospective employees, are interested in a peek behind the curtain of your company operations. They want to get a feel for what things are like and what they can expect as a customer. BTS (behind-the-scenes) video is all the rage these days. 

While you could easily spend $100k on a commercial ad video, customers are often more interested in hearing a message directly from your employees and other customers. That's why we take an ethnographic approach to discovering stories from your customers and employees alike. Talk to people who experience your company, and you'll uncover stories to share!

Here are 4 examples of videos that speak to customers and prospective employees.

Want to make your own video?

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Brighton Eggert Animal Clinic

As a small business, Brighton Eggert didn't need to be convinced about the virtues of video to show off their sparkling clean facility, happy pets and caring veterinary staff. They chose to create a video that would get the most bang for their buck: an overview showcasing what they offer to their clients and employees. 

Purple Bloom School 

Lisa, Katie and the team at Purple Bloom School wanted to share their approach to early childhood education -- something that potential families and teachers were interested in! So they used the Skill Scout DIY Starter Kit to create this video. 

SSM Health at Home

The team at SSM Health in St. Louis had just created a recruiting video. In the interview with this fantastic nurse, there was way more content than could fit. We created this video about their Health At Home Program for them to share with families who wanted to learn more about enrolling in the program. 

Skill Scout Client Experience

We believe in video (obviously!). So sometimes we ask our DIY video clients to send us a few clips sharing their experience. This video from the team at Thermo Fisher Scientific in Grand Rapids tells prospective partners and friends what it's like to film a video with our DIY Video Kit. Even better --  they filmed this on their own with our kit. 

Download the recipe to make your own video!

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Skill Scout Video Recipe | Client Testimonial
File Size: 6388 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File

Another question we get a lot - how should we edit? That's exactly why we created our DIY Video Packages. Click below to catch them while they're on sale!
DIY Video Sale
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5 Things You Need to Capture Great Video On Your Phone

11/11/2019

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That phone in your pocket has the potential to be a powerful tool to capture and share video. With a few pieces of equipment, you can go from amateur cat videos to high quality workplace videos before you can say "action!" Here's the list of our team's favorites. You can get them all, along with an edited video in our DIY Video Starter Kit. 
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A microphone for crisp sound

Phones are built for phone calls, with the microphone at your mouth. Filming a few feet away makes it tough to capture crisp audio with the built-in mic. We recommend this microphone that plugs into your phone and captures very clear sound. If you have an iPhone, you'll also need the tiny white adapter that came with your phone. Third party brands sometimes don't work to enable the microphone, so make sure to buy this direct from Apple if you need one. 

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A tripod made just for your phone

Blair Witch was cool, but nobody likes a shaky job video. Stabilize your shot and go hands-free with this sturdy, lightweight tripod. 

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A lens cleaner

Our phones go everywhere with us, and can get a little...grimy. Bring along a microfiber lens cloth as a reminder to wipe off that camera lens! Any microfiber cloth will work, but we like this one. 

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A handheld tripod

Your tripod can do double duty as a mobile setup if you fold in the legs, pick it up and bring it along. But for more active environments, location tours, or small quarters, this little tripod is a great tool. Pro tip: the handle folds out and turns it into a small table-top tripod you can use for stable shots. 

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A recipe for great content

Cook up great content with a recipe for a realistic job preview. You can download the recipe, interview questions and shot list below. 
Job Video Recipe
File Size: 474 kb
File Type: png
Download File


Need a hand with any of this? We've got you covered. 

As a video client, you get everything you need to discover, film and share stories on video. We assign a Story Guide to lead you through pre-production planning and do the editing for you!

You also get a DIY Video Kit  shipped directly to you. It includes everything above, plus a Video Recipe Book to know exactly what to capture, a sassy t-shirt and tote bag. 
Check out Skill Scout Video Kits
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A Month of Gratitude: Giving Thanks for People

11/7/2019

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Continuing our month of gratitude this November, hear from Erin, Jason, Elena, Zoei and Abby share the people they're thankful for. Video is a human-centered way to send a message to your team, work besties and customers. 
What are you most thankful for this year?

Thank YOU for following along with us. As a token of our appreciation, we've put all types of video on sale through the end of the year. Click the button below for details, or email abby@skillscout.me.
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Check Out The Sale
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We're kicking off a month of gratitude this November.

11/1/2019

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So I asked an original
Workplace Film Star to help.
 ​


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​​Join me and my amazing team at Skill Scout in a month of gratitude, celebrated through video. 

With love,
Abby

​p.s. If video is in your plan for 2020 check out our End of Year Sale!

p.p.s If you know Elena, you know she's hyperventilating right now, because The Office is her favorite show (she's watched 4 times all the way through). 
Check out the sale

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Silent Video is Taking Over the World

7/29/2019

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What was the last video you watched?

​
A cat video? The Mueller testimony? A recipe? 

Did you watch on your phone? With or without sound?
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Video will make up 70% of all mobile traffic by 2021. And most viewers are opting to watch video without sound. Facebook reports a whopping 85% of videos are viewed without sound.

So what does silent video mean for you, video storyteller? Two things: captions and using text in the narrative. Both of these tools can make your videos more likely to be viewed, and without losing your message!

There is a difference between burned captions and modern captions.

Let’s start with the easiest and fastest way to get ready for silent video: adding captions to your video. In years past, captions were sometimes burned directly into video, which creates a layer of text over the video. Burning captions into the video forces the viewer to see them all the time. It also misses an opportunity for your content to be found by search engines byway of the text in your captions. 

Modern captions give your viewer the option to toggle them off or on and can accommodate multiple languages. Captions are different that subtitles. It’s important to offer the option of both if you have viewers who span languages. 

Here’s how modern captions work.

Rather than editing your video itself, you can use a tool to auto-generate captions (ex. YouTube’s machine-generated captions), or a service that has a real human transcribe and timecode your captions. Captions transcribed by a real human are more accurate, in my experience. 
Both methods generate a separate file, called an SubRip Subtitle file or “SRT” file. An SRT file is just a text document with time codes that you can generate and open with any text editor. It doesn’t contain any video or audio, and is usually a pretty small file.

Here’s how to upload SRT files.

SRT files can be uploaded to most places that host video (Facebook, YouTube, Vimeo, LinkedIn, etc.). You will see a screen like this one as you’re uploading your video file.
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Let me pause and save you the hair-tearing frustration I experienced when first uploading captions to Facebook, who’s interface is pictured above. Sometimes you need a really specific file name and extension for your captions to be ready correctly. Facebook likes you to have your file structured like this: filename.en_us.srt 

​Pay special attention to the name of your caption file if you’re having trouble. Not speaking from experience or anything…

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Captions are an easy win to get more views of your video, in the way your audience wants to watch. A+ for human-centered design. 

Now, let’s talk about another cool way to design your video experience for silent viewing: text narration.

I’m pretty geeked about this trend, and I don’t think it’s going anywhere soon. Rather than captioning words that someone is saying in your video, think about using text as your silent storytelling narrator. 

Use text call outs to tell the story. 

​Using text on screen to call out moments in a visual story is powerful. It allows for the viewer to consume a beautiful video without sound, and forces the filmmaker to be thoughtful in crafting a story with visuals and text alone.

Into this silent video? Here are some other helpful references. 

https://www.newmediaandmarketing.com/know-online-users-wrong/
https://blog.hootsuite.com/silent-video/
 

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  • Services
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