Content has become one of the most important tools for businesses today. Whether its images, videos, blogs or audio, content is how modern brands can advertise their products and connect with consumers.
Customers today have come to expect a certain level of quality when it comes to the content they see. If you want your business to flourish and beat the competition, your content creation must be of a high quality. Below, we’ve outlined some strategies you can use to raise the production quality of your content.
Analyse Your Competitors
Competition is a natural part of business. You are always going to have rivals that are looking to target similar customer groups. The hallmark of a successful business is the ability to learn from competition, rather than wilting in the face of it.
Look at your most successful competitors and analyse the type of content they produce. While it’s likely they have a larger budget available, there is still lots you can learn from the kind of stuff they put out there.
What kind of topics and themes do they cover? Do they use humour? Animations? Assess each piece of content on its own merit and evaluate how well it is performing on social platforms.
You should also look at when and where the content is posted. This can give you an idea of what works best on what platform and the best time of day to publish.
Use Free Resources
Let’s say you analyse a video posted by one of your successful competitors. The professionalism and production value can be intimidating, and you may feel like you will never be able to produce something as slick.
Hiring filming crews and cameramen is expensive, but there is a workaround. By using free resources, you can put together a professional video without breaking the bank.
Stock footage can be used to plug visual gaps in your content. Intercutting stock footage with your own clips can make your video visually interesting and dynamic.
Another effective strategy you should look into is the use of free sound effects. Sound is an incredibly important part of video content; it can make or break the success of a video. With free sound effects, you can avoid the tricky process of recording sound yourself, which can come fraught with technical difficulties.
The Importance of Lighting
When making a video or taking a photograph, lighting is perhaps the most important factor to consider. Poorly lit images look bland, dull and uninspiring. They will never be able to deliver their intended message.
Before you shoot a scene, pay close attention to the lighting. If you are outdoors or near a window and there is lots of natural sunlight, angle the light towards your subject and shoot with the sun at your back.
If you are indoors with no access to natural light, you will have to light your scene artificially. This can be a process of trial and error, so experiment with different lighting arrangements until you find one that you are comfortable with.
Quality Control
In the previous points, we’ve covered the production process. This point concerns what happens after you have finished producing your content.
Before you publish any kind of content, be it a video, image or blog, ensuring it undergoes a process of quality control is absolutely essential. It’s not enough to look over the content yourself, you need a fresh pair of eyes to spot anything you might have missed.
A comprehensive quality control procedure can help you spot things like spelling errors, which can impact the reputation and performance of your business.
It can also help you spot any potential culturally insensitive or offensive gaffes. These happen more regularly than you might expect, and they can lead to catastrophic backlash for involved brands.
Online Courses
Another effective way of improving the production quality of your content is by taking online courses. There are plenty of courses out there that cover everything from copywriting to video production.
These courses are often taught by seasoned professionals who have plenty of experience creating compelling content. They will know exactly what consumers are looking for and can impart key tips and techniques to help you ensure your content can deliver.
If you don’t have the time for a full course, you can find plenty of free tutorials on specific subjects. For example, say you want to make a professional-looking infographic for your business’s Instagram, you will be able to find countless tutorials for doing so.
Conclusion
Content is more important than ever before. However, you shouldn’t expect to be able to make high-quality, professional content straight away. It’s a learning process, whatever kind of content it is you’re making, and you’re going to make some mistakes along the way. Use the above tips to raise the production quality of your content and ensure it has the desired impact.
