How To Capture Great Social Content From Events
Hosting an event for your brand is a great way to bring together community and build excitement around new ventures. It’s also an opportunity to capture content for social media that can considerably boost your company’s marketing efforts in the long-term.
Using an event as part of a wider video marketing strategy can seem like an added challenge on top of the resources and time necessary to make the event itself a success. But in 2022 video content is more powerful than ever, with 54% of consumers stating that they’d prefer to see videos from brands over other forms of content.
At Avviso Media we specialise in events marketing and social attention, our team has extensive experience capturing and editing successful video content for social media - so we know firsthand the rewards of a strong video marketing strategy. Here are some key steps to capturing great social content from events.
Set an intention
What message do you want footage from your event to convey? Setting an intention for your content is the most important step of any marketing strategy and will ensure congruency throughout the production process and resulting videos. Key decisions to make at this stage are:
What platform do you want to market the content on - you want to cater your video format to wherever your target audience is spending the most time online.
Will you create short-form video content from the event, long-form video content, or both - depending on the platforms you choose to market the event on, capturing video with a specific length in mind will ensure you get the type of content you need.
When do you want to release the content - before the event as a teaser, during the event as a live story, after the event as a resource or utilising all three for the most comprehensive strategy.
Research
Knowing what you’re competing with on the existing market and what the most successful videos in your industry look like will make your strategy stronger. Look at competitors and brands that inspire you to inform the kind of videos you want to create.
There are a variety of events videos to take inspiration from, ranging from livestreams to behind-the-scenes clips. To narrow down your choices you need to gain some insight on what your audience wants to see and what would be most relevant to them. This way the resulting videos grab their attention and are shared more online.
Creating a poll on social media or utilising existing audience insight tools that your business has can be helpful in informing your video marketing strategy.
Create a shot list
Whether it’s a one-man-team or a range of people involved in your video marketing strategy, it’s crucial to develop a clear image of the style of videos you’re going to create prior to the event. Making a shot list that maps out everything you want to capture will reduce stress on the day of the event and prevent you from missing anything that would be important for the resulting video.
Certain types of videos will need additional planning for i.e. if you’re filming people you’ll probably want to get prior consent. Some winning shots for events can include footage of the event space filling up with people entering, third-party testimonials at the event and a mix of close up and wide angle shots. Think about not only what shots you want to capture and use in your videos, but the equipment needed to take them.
Choose your method
Utilising insights from your intentions, research and shot list, you’ll want to decide on the method of production. Depending on your budget this could be using a production company, filming the content yourself to pass on to a video editor or shooting and editing the content yourself.
At this stage you’ll need to consider whether the style of videos are realistic for the method you want to use. You also need to decide on what sound you want to use for your videos, whether that’s using sound from the event exclusively or mixing in sounds from an external source that you will need to pick out in advance.
Test the equipment
In a similar environment, test that the equipment is fit for purpose.
Is the filming steady - you will probably need a stabiliser.
Does it create the high quality of image and sound that you need - in some settings a mobile phone is good enough, in some it isn’t.
Is your shot list comprehensive enough - have all the possibilities for interesting footage been considered.
Will your equipment last the duration of the event - you may need to bring provisions so that you can charge the equipment or replace its batteries.
If you can, even if it’s just a few hours before the event, scout the location to run these tests again as elements that can affect the video, such as lighting, will be different.
Get filming
On the day of the event you should feel confident, with a clear plan and vision in mind of the end products you’re going to create towards your video marketing strategy.
Additional tips:
Coordinate with the head of planning prior to the event - you may need access to a key location or person that you need to accommodate for.
Take more footage than you need - too much is better than not enough and if you’re planning to get B-roll footage it’s important to get a variety of shots.
Use an extra pair of hands - for backup and variety it’s useful to have more than one person filming the event; if budget is an issue you can even ask attendees and give them an incentive to film their own footage, utilising the benefits of User Generated Content.
Label footage clearly - for quicker editing.
Set realistic deadlines for the finished products - after a successful event where you’ve captured great content, rushing the finished videos can result in low quality, which is the last thing you want.
Still have questions about developing a comprehensive video marketing strategy for your brand’s event? Contact us today to see how we can help your brand stand out online.
Written by: Amy Moretsele