'You are not your audience': 5 tips for mobile video

Mobile and video are two buzzwords of digital journalism from recent years, but there were initial doubts over whether they could be combined successfully.

As screen sizes have grown and internet connectivity improved, the concept is no longer in question.

Mobile was the focus at last week's Online News Association event in London, and Cameron Church, director of digital video company Stream Foundations and previously of Brightcove, discussed his work in helping news publishers make the most out of their video offering, especially on mobile.

He shared his thoughts and advice on the subject.

'You are not your audience'

"Unless you sit there and click play a million times a day or week," said Church, "you're not going to be the one that gets to choose what works or doesn't work."

While producers or journalists may sit in their cosy, stationary editing suite or at a desk, the audience is out watching video on the move.

Editors still need to "empower [video producers] creative spirit," he said, "but rein them in a little bit because they have to get back into real connection" with serving their audience.

Keep videos short and strong

For news publishers that have a lot of traffic from social media there's no point trying to emulate the same "lean back" experience of broadcasters. For social and mobile, videos need to be "highly-caffeinated espresso shot content" Church said.

We don't have that audience that is coming for 30 minutes to go into fantasy land with usCameron Church, Stream Foundations

"You are competing with other news stories and [the viewer] is 100 per cent in control," he said. "They come in from Facebook, from YouTube, from friends' recommendations and then they go out so you need to get their attention very quickly."

Church said videos should "lead with the best joke or best part of the content", getting the viewer in and out in 60 seconds and certainly no longer than 90 seconds.

Viewers regularly have to take many steps between clicking the link that initially piqued their interest and actually viewing a video "and if you're still holding back by then, you've lost them".

'Limitation breeds creativity and profitability'

Video production for many news publishers is as much about a commercial offering as it is editorial, but digital is still a long way behind broadcast.

If you take a CPM rate (amount paid per thousand impressions) of £15 on pre-roll adverts before the main video, it would take 270 million pre-rolls to make a single episode of Game of Thrones.

"But you don't want to chase that," he said, "we don't have that audience that is coming for 30 minutes to go into fantasy land with us."

Instead, such limitations on funding should help editorial be more creative with their work. Church did warn against mining a particularly rich vein of ideas by making only slight changes, however, as the audience "will quickly turn on you" and question why there are so many similar videos.

Ditch on-screen presenters for mobile

"It's not that it doesn't work but that [publishers] run head long into it with a big screen broadcast mentality of the development and production process," he said.

I've seen it time and again, you go around to the newsrooms and all they're doing is saying 'is there a video for that? Is there a video for that?'Cameron Church, Stream Foundations

It may work at Vice where they find particularly compelling and engaging stories from around the world, but not all publishers can hit such a niche.

Without a background in broadcast and the accompanying infrastructure, employing on-screen "talent" can not only be costly but may not be worth the effort for mobile.

For one, not everyone has headphones, rendering a carefully crafted voiceover obsolete.

"It doesn't really add anything and in the mobile space it competes with the very limited real estate or 'screen estate'," he said.

What's more, presenters may inadvertently "geofence" videos' appeal.

"At the Daily Record, listening to three Scots talk about football in Scotland makes sense," he said, but when looking to US markets the Scottish accent can act as a language barrier even when the topic may be in high demand.

Don't do video for video's sake

"I've seen it time and again, you go around to the newsrooms and all they're doing is saying 'is there a video for that? Is there a video for that?'," Church said.

"But they're getting their heads out of the game of 'I have to tell my stories, I have to divide them'. Where does video work? Where does video not work?"

Anecdotally, the publishers who have found success are the ones who fulfilled the simple function of giving their audience what they want to see in the best possible format for the story.

"We're going back to the basics of journalism," he said, "and getting back to saying 'what story do you want to do and does the story demand video?'. Then go get it. Otherwise just leave it."

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