7 video types for every startup

We all want to do more with video, but where do you even start?

There’s so many options, but thankfully I’ve made a useful list here to get you started.

‘Wait, why should I listen to you?’

I’ve a decade of experience of working in video, for both startups and big names (M&S, Barclays and British Gas to name a few).

This list aims to break down the key video types you should get on a whiteboard right now, and start adding ideas to.

So, let’s get right into it.

#1 How it Works (Explainer) Video

When people land on your homepage, how do they know what you do and how your service/platform works?

Take Dollar Shave Club’s original ad from 2012 that went viral.

It’s funny, but to the point and you understand the concept quickly.

But what if your product or service is more complex?

Here’s an animated explainer video I created for SyndicateRoom’s Access EIS fund in 2020.

The trick was finding an analogy to represent how the fund works: it follows angel investors with great portfolios, and invests in future startups they pick.

I went with an ‘orbit’ idea. The startups are moons that orbit the angel investor (planets), who orbit the fund (star). It also allows for lots of exciting visual possibilities.

#2 Company culture videos

You’re building a crew from scratch? You need a team!

Most startups say their company culture is a great, friendly mixture of minds.

Prove it.

A short video that explores what it’s like to work with your team can be a great visualiser for potential candidates.

#3 Short portrait videos

I’ve been known to be extremely against portrait videos in the past.

In fact, I made this (short) animation about it back in 2017: 😬

Alas, it looks like people kept their phones portrait. 🤳

Along came TikTok (2018), Instagram Reels (2020) and Youtube Shorts (2021). When you can’t beat ‘em…

You should be repurposing all your video content for organic posts to these platforms to maximise your reach.

You want to be uploading at a full HD 1080x1920 resolution.

If you shot the video originally landscape (1920x1080), you have two options:

SCALE IT UP:
You’ll be scaling up that 1080px height picture by 1.8x to fit the 1920px height. That’s almost twice as big. You’ll notice a drop in quality, and a cropped image.

SCALE IT DOWN:
Alternatively, you could shrink the picture to 0.6x so it all fits in the portrait frame. But you’ll have a lot of blank space.

Neither solution is great.

Your alternatives?

SHOOT IN PORTRAIT:
This the simplest solution, but then you have a similar problem if you want a landscape version.

SHOOT IN 4K:
That’s a resolution of 3840x2160px, so you’ll actually be shrinking your image down by 0.9x to fit - no loss of quality!

#4 UGC (User-generated Content)

So if you accept portrait video content, what else is possible?

If your customers are using your product and posting about it online, you should celebrate their love.

Share any positive video content from your fans.

Not enough UGC video content? You have two options:

OPTION 1: Pay influencers (fairly) to shout about you:

People trust people, not companies.

Influencers are a great in-between that can give honest public reviews of your products, that their pre-existing following will consume.

OPTION 2: Make your own UGC-style videos:

Put down that DSLR, that expensive lighting kit and everything any videographer would tell you to use.

This is do-the-opposite day.

Talk to your phone, jump on the week’s trend and upload content that looks homemade.

Even if your audience knows you’re a brand, your content will fit seamlessly into their feed and not standout as an ad.

#5 Case studies

Want a little more control over what UGC gives?

It’s essential to celebrate customer success with your brand, to show others proof the product/service works.

You’ve two options:

Easy option: Record a Zoom call interview

All you need is to block out 30 minutes with your customer / client, have a bunch of questions ready, and ask away!

Editing is very important to keep these types of interviews moving, and not bore your audience.

But done right, these can be a very quick way of getting case studies in.

Pro option: Go to your customer

This works especially well if you’re a B2B.

You can show your customer in their natural (office) environment, pictures on the walls and colleagues they work with.

It really builds a story around your interviewee, so their answers are more grounded in reality.

When our clients at SyndicateRoom were getting investment through the fund, I hopped on the train to London to show other investors what their money was doing, in a very human way.

#6 Live Video

I’ve produced over 50 live events with 680 hours of audience watch time.

On average, audience retention was 2.7x higher than on-demand replays.

Attention is greater when something feels like it’s happening now or recently, and webinars and live-streamed events capture this emotion perfectly.

If you have a large collection of leads signed up to your email newsletter, try setting up a webinar to bring a handful of them into a high-converting atmosphere.

Of course, you need to make your webinar or event interesting!

Make sure your speaker is captivating, engaging, and reacts to comments coming in. Your visuals should be exciting too. No walls of text.

Take any TED talk as a good example.

Here, Kelly is welcoming, encourages audience interaction and uses her slides as a visual aid, rather than a script.

Also, take a page out of Mr Beast’s book from Youtube. He’s discussed in interviews about ‘escalations’ in his content.

How can you escalate your live event as it continues?

Can you bring in a well-known second speaker with a different viewpoint? Can you have a live giveaway? Can you leave the order of your presentation to the fate of a spinning wheel? Be creative to be remembered.

#7 Do something different

One of the things no list will tell you is to do your own thing.

That crazy idea you had at 3am last night? Yeah, try that.

Why? Because no-one else is doing it.

In this short ad, I added a cat on Chase’s head for a brief moment.

The team laughed it off and we all gave each other a look. “Are we actually going to run this?”

It worked. People clicked.

And Youtube loves creators who use the latest tech. It’s pushed 4K, 3D and HDR content higher up searches in the past.

So, make a list of crazy ideas, and go for it!

Want more ideas?

I’ve written an idea-packed ebook guide you can download for free.

There’s 60 video examples, across six categories, with commentary against each.