Short-form video has become massively popular in the last few years, and is part of the landscape now. We’re talking here about videos of maybe 30 seconds, possibly not that well shot, which just get to the point and end. It’s what’s made TikTok the most downloaded app in the world, and has other social media sites struggling to keep up.
Now, I doubt many of us are planning to get into TikTok for our businesses – I mean, who wants to share videos about blue widgets? However, the format can be very useful. If we have something to demonstrate, and video is the best format to do so (operational and maintenance matters being a good example), why not just make a video of a few seconds to show it? We don’t need high production values, we don’t need titles and intro music – just get to the point and show what needs to be shown.
Inspired
I was inspired to write this by getting frustrated with a gadget the other day, and wondering how I could get it to perform a certain function. A “how do I…?” search on Google took me to a page on the company’s website called ‘user tips’, which had exactly my question, and the answer. The text was probably enough, but next to the written answer were little symbols for (if I recall correctly) YouTube, Instagram and TikTok, each of which linked to a 5-second video showing someone doing exactly what I hadn’t been able to work out myself.
If it’s all about turning what might have been a bad customer experience into a good one, this manufacturer nailed it.