Recently while doing a Personal Branding seminar at Stanford University, I was was surprised by the overwhelmingly favorable reaction to my Karen Kang Consulting website video (http://kang.com/?page_id=2), which was shown as an example. Basically, the room full of Continuing Studies students, which included entrepreneurs, real estate brokers, job seekers, a policeman and a professional matchmaker, said that they LOVED IT!
The students said that the video humanized me on my website, that they felt they knew me, and understood what my JumpStart Branding methodology delivered. In short, I seemed approachable and gave them confidence I could do the job. These were the simple objectives I had for the video. And, it looks like I succeeded.
Is the video perfect? By no means! However, you don’t have to produce a “perfect” video to create a favorable impression, which is what a video should do. There are tons of low-cost videos on You Tube that do an amazing job of educating, entertaining or promoting. But, you need to understand who your audience is, what message you want to convey and do it in a style that is appropriate.
Has the video helped my business? Yes, I even signed a new client sight-unseen because the CEO said he saw the video on my site. I can’t guarantee the same results, but in an age where Personal Branding is key, video can be a great way to help people to get to know you.
P.S. I’d like to give a shout out to The Spring Agency http://TheSpringAgency.com, a digital agency in San Francisco, that transformed my talking-head video into a much-improved final product with graphics.
