I had a revelation yesterday.
I’ve wanted to do more videos for my blog. Well, actually “wanting” may be pushing it. Although I love watching other people’s videos, I felt that I just sucked when it came to making my own. More specifically, I didn’t like the way I looked in a video.
Then there was the perfectionist in me that wanted the video to look polished, which meant editing it. And of course, that took time, which in my busy schedule, is not appealing.
I tried to make a video yesterday using my MacBook Pro and iMovie. It was only around five minutes. However, iMovie took 25 minutes to “stabilize” the clip! Unbelievable.
I didn’t like the video, so I scrapped it. Then I remembered I had recently just upgraded to a new iPhone a few weeks ago and still hadn’t tried the video feature. Why not record a video with my still-new-to-me iPhone 4S?
So I did. And the beauty of it was that I could immediately upload it to YouTube which only took a few minutes. Quick. And. Easy.
Now the video itself could have used some stabilization. I’m going to have to work on holding the device in such a way that cuts down on shaking, but I was amazed by how quick and easy it was to upload the video.
Now some of you may be saying, “Well, Maguire… welcome to the modern world!” Yeah, yeah. I know this technology has been around for years. But how the process made me feel was what intrigued me.
Before, I had excuses. Admittedly, one of the larger excuses was how long it would take to create the video, edit it, upload it to YouTube and then prep it for public viewing. When I used to create videos for my former employer, it would take me hours to edit the video, add callout text, maybe some intro music, etc.
But is all of this necessary?
In today’s fast-paced world, we’re wanting snippets of ideas and thoughts more and more. Witness the explosive growth of Vine and Instagram, which records six-second and 15-second videos respectively. We want to do things faster and, we want it to be quick and easy.
Which is why I was actually delighted that I was able to shoot a five-minute video and upload it to YouTube within the amazingly short time span of seven minutes. I didn’t spend a lot of time creating a description and the process of uploading the video was quick.
The whole experience was the epitome of “quick and easy.”
If you’re offering a service or product and can make it quick and easy for your prospect, you will definitely get some attention. Guaranteed.