[intro] Once you’ve got all of your footage together on your mobile phone, the next step is to edit it all into your finished project, before uploading it to your social media profiles. [/intro]

Video length

The length of your video is dictated by your subject, how you’ve filmed it and what platforms you wish to share your videos on. If you’ve planned quite a long video with lots of different shots, this is a lot more complicated to make rather than a single take. 

Many videos on social media don't have intros and are just uploaded as an when, however, if you plan to make videos for your brand on a regular basis, an intro of just a few seconds helps your viewers quickly identify what they're watching and helps unify your videos in terms of branding. 

Remember though that minimally, you only need an extro on YouTube videos, as this final 20 seconds is used to add end cards (links to other videos) to your video. Don't forget this 20-second gap as otherwise any end cards you add to your YouTube video will be overlaid onto the video content itself. For the 20-second gap on the EKM Support Centre videos I make, I have a standard static image I add to the end of each video to ensure my end cards don't overlap onto my content. 

For videos you made that you want to share on the likes of Instagram or Twitter, you can either leave your video without an extro or instead add a static image for a few seconds which displays your EKM online shop URL and your profiles on other social media platforms. 

Editing your video

Obviously, you’re using your video to promote your own brand, so make sure that any graphics that you add to your video match the ones on your online shop perfectly - this includes fonts and colour scheme as well.

If you choose to use filters of any kind, make a note of what you used so you can use the same in future videos so that your content remains consistent. 

On most video editors, ‘transitions’ are the name of the things that joins two lots of footage together. Don’t be tempted to get silly and use all of them, and try and avoid excessively zazzy ones, like star fades, wipes or pixelation. Whilst these were cool effects in the late 70s and early 80s, they’re not now. Unless your brand is particularly nostalgic about this era, avoid these - simple cuts will do fine 99% of the time.

Circular wipe transitions - good for Star Wars, not so good for most videos.

Adding music

Adding a soundtrack can make your video a complicated affair. Music can also work wonders if your sound is bad - such as if there’s a room echo or you can hear a lot of background noise.

Some video editors will let you export the audio from your video, which is useful as you can add this to a free audio editing program like Audacity and add your music there too. This means that you can dip the volume low for the parts when you’re talking, and gently turn it up when you’re not. If your video editor does not allow audio export, and instead offers the ability to upload music directly to the editor, be sure that you have some control over the volume, as you could end up drowning yourself out by the music you've used.

Where do I get music from?

You need to use royalty-free music on your video, but be aware that royalty-free on one platform doesn’t necessarily mean royalty-free on others, in terms of how the platform works. For example, if you used some of YouTube’s royalty-free music on your video and uploaded it to Facebook, you might find that after a couple of days, Facebook will remove the video for copyright infringement. YouTube is also notoriously quick for spotting copyright infringement too and although you may have uploaded your video just fine, you might find that it is muted within minutes of it being launched. The best thing to do if you’re determined to us music is to get a royalty-free track off each of the platforms that you want to publish your video to and mix two different versions. 

A quick Google for 'royalty-free music' reveals a whole host of websites where you can subscribe to download music, often for a fee. Royalty-free music is not free to use (unless it's provided by the platform itself, such as YouTube), but by paying for it you are purchasing the license which gives you the rights to use a specific track. 

Remember subtitles

Rather than use automatically generated subtitles, opt to add your own, regardless of what platform you are making your videos for. Automatically generated subtitles often mishear the actual words, and don’t include commas and full stops, so although they read ‘okay’ they could read a lot better when manually produced. Bear in mind too that subtitles are not just for viewers who don’t want to listen to the audio on your video, they’re also for the viewers that can’t hear the audio for your video, so correct punctuation is essential. 

Take a break when you have edited all of your videos and then return to them the following day so you have fresher eyes. If you find there’s lots of jump cuts, bad sound or bad shots, this will make the viewer lose interest, so you may need to re-edit some parts. Remember that a good video is one that people can watch with a seamless experience, but when you're editing something, it's very easy 'not to see the wood for the trees' so it's a good idea to put your project down for a day or two before returning to it to make final edits. 

[more]

[/more]

[contact] If you need our help with your EKM online shop, contact your Ecommerce Expert or the Customer Support Team, who will be able to point you in the right direction. We're open from 8am-6pm weekdays and 9am-5.30pm weekends. If you'd like to suggest a feature or an upgrade on any of the EKM platforms, please let us know on the EKM Suggestions Board. If you have a non-account-specific question to ask the EKM Team, join us in the EKM Community. [/contact]