One of the greatest features of the iPhone 4 was the introduction of the FaceTime option. Most of us have gotten used to skype calls with video, teleconferencing live with video, and now we can do right on our phone.
Nifty.
This is a great thing when you want to see your kids on the fly from a business trip. Not such a great thing when you haven’t showered or shaved yet and your clients want to discuss something urgent. But we seem to be choosing video over straight phone calls more and more. Maybe we just miss seeing each other.
I saw this neat video last week on Entrepreneur.com about video conferencing etiquette. It made me think that presenting or conversing over video can come across differently than in person but it’s still considerably more personal and it’s definitely a preference for many businesses. In fact, 75% of businesses will use video conferencing by 2013. There may be times when you can reap the benefits of a video conference without actually taking those calls live.
Let’s say you’re planning a meeting to present a client with a new strategy. You’re busy and the client’s busy and neither of you can make it to the other’s office in person. You can barely make it onto each other’s calendar for that matter, or worse, you have to coordinate with four other people for the one meeting.
Sometimes that works. Sometimes that doesn’t.
Instead of postponing the meeting for possibly weeks when everyone’s schedule synchs up, why not create a short video that they can watch as each person has time? It’s more personal than an email and sometimes easier to get through than a huge document. There’s something to be said about delivering your speil via video with the luxury of editing it first. Didn’t know you told bad jokes? Cut them out. Yawning every 10 minutes from over working? Start over. You now have more control over the message.
The best thing is video recording and editing isn’t a timely, costly, difficult task anymore. Most laptops come with the capability built in and LoopLogic has a tool bench to help you make minor edits and mix the video with other content. Better yet, if you don’t like the way you look, you can just as easily record audio over something else (as was done in the Entrepreneur.com video). This is a very simple and cool way to keep things moving when “live” isn’t an option. And in some cases may even be preferable. How many times have you finished up with a meeting and the client has asked you to book a meeting with someone else to repeat what was just discussed? A video is easy and faster to share than a live person. Plus you can guarantee that each person is receiving the same message so there’s little rom for a communication breakdown meeting to meeting.
Bonus: LoopLogic analytics help you see if the intended recipients actually viewed your video, when, and how much of it was seen. So you can follow up appropriately.
