Do Your Videos Shut Out a Third of Your Audience?
I don’t like watching videos. I don’t like listening to audio clips either. I know that this is the new face of web interaction and that more and more sites are beginning to dabble in new ways of reaching people. I also know that many people enjoy watching lively videos or hearing human voices over reading text…
…but I don’t. I can’t learn this way.
Well, I won’t say can’t. I dislike learning this way. I prefer having something written that I can refer to whenever I feel like it. I can’t pull out a video in the car, and I don’t want to take training lessons with me on the go.
I want something I can read. Think over. Highlight. Skim and scan. Jot notes. Come back to tomorrow. Revisit next week. Print out and take with me.
I can’t do that with a video. I have to focus and listen hard to make sure I’ve captured everything. I have to concentrate and follow along. I can’t get distracted. I can’t set it down and come back later, unless I’ve bookmarked the video or noted the URL somewhere.
It’s painful for me to have to listen to learn.
Are You Leaving Out Learners?
People don’t have one standard when it comes to learning. Humans typically belong to one of three learning type groups: tactile, auditory, or visual. So while you may love your video training courses, you can’t be sure that your friend learns well using the same media.
Here’s an example of different learning types. When I began as a trail guide, a map on the wall of the stable outlined all the paths and intersections available in the forest. I looked, asked for landmarks I’d spot at various points, and traveled each path once.
That was all I needed. I never got lost.
A co-worker of mine was the complete opposite – no, she didn’t get lost. She just didn’t need a map. She didn’t ask for landmarks. She asked for a spoken description and listened intently. She’d repeat the information back to make sure she’d gotten it all, and that was it.
Don’t Make them Listen to Learn
The current trend leaning towards teaching videos is a good one, because it lets auditory learners get the information they want in the media they like best. The problem is that in leaning towards videos, people are leaving the visual learners behind.
No more articles, no more posts. No more text. It’s all about video – and that’s… not very smart.
If you’re choosing to move away from text into the video world, you’re neglecting a third of your potential customers. All the visual learners would be happy to give you money for your expertise, if only they could get the information you have to sell them in a format that works best for their learning preferences.
So help them out. Offer them downloads.
I don’t mean offer a PDF checklist to go with your one-hour video. I don’t mean giving them a link to the video’s slideshow cue cards. I mean giving them transcripts, hard copies of every word spoken in that video you recorded.
When I get a PDF transcript option on a site, I’m relieved. I’m thankful. I’m grateful. I love the person for remembering that people who have my learning type and people who prefer old-fashioned text-only-please really do exist.
We’re not all into the coolness of video. Really. Especially when it comes to learning.
Speech-to-Text is Dead Easy, Folks
Here’s the long and short of it: If you’re going to do a video, it’s a really nice thing to offer your audience a PDF transcript, too. Really. Even if you don’t think PDFs are cool. Even if you hate text. Even if you’re the trendiest person on earth.
There are people who don’t want to listen to learn. Those people want what you’re offering. So forget being cool. Forget being trendy. Sure, stay on top of technology, but don’t forget that people learn in different ways.
It’s not hard to create a PDF transcript. Get a copy of Dragon Naturally Speaking. Turn on your video and play it back into your microphone. The speech-to-text software gived you a pretty good rough draft of your transcript. Edit it, and post that PDF up for people to download.
Or, hire a transcription service. Many transcriptionists can turn your video or audio into a nice text document in damned good time. Heck, even we can transcribe audio and video for you. (Yes, there’s a difference between transcription and learning through listening. The two are not the same.)
Call me old-fashioned if you’d like. Go ahead and laugh that I’m behind the times. Poke fun that I’m resisting change or shunning technology. But just keep this in mind:
If you’re excluding your customers, you’re losing sales.
Before anyone mentions it, yes, this post may have hypocritical tendencies, considering we have no audio or video content available on our blog. We apologize. Someday we’ll get with it. Cheers!
38 Responses to “Do Your Videos Shut Out a Third of Your Audience?”
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Amen James! I’m cheering you on here! I absolutely hate video. I have to take copious notes to refer back to later, I don’t have the patience to sit here and watch a screen for more than a few minutes and I find too many other distractions as a result.
There’s another point that you didn’t mention, and that is that there are some people in this world still on *gasp* dial-up! Or like me, on a restricted amount of bandwidth per month. I currently have only 2Gb per month to use – that comes to around 64Mb per day. If I download a video then there’s a few days worth of bandwidth gone in one hit. And I can’t even watch it again later – I have to download it all over again.
I do listen to audio’s, when I’m doing housework, walking or driving. That’s the only time I have for it. However I can read the transcript of a one hour audio in around ten minutes. 15 minutes if I’m adding notes and highlighting as I go. And I’ll get more out of the reading as well, plus I can come back to it later.
Whilst I probably will go to using video and webinars at some point, I will always have a downloadable pdf available as well – for people like us.
Melinda´s last blog post…11.3 Steps to Great Testimonials
It really depends on the topic. The real questions you need to ask are:
1. What medium will suit this topic; and
2. What will garner a bigger audience.
Some topics work better in text, some are better in video, and video can make some really boring text come alive. You need to be able to pick which works best in the right situation.
Video usually works best when the text is so boring or niche that you can use video to expand it to a wider audience.
For example – I am looking into incorporating video posts into the line up of my own blog, and you guys just did some custom coding for me to give a text based theme video playback capabilities.
The reason for this is I am looking to use video to discuss very dry topics which so far have been left to academia and government. But more people will be intrigued by the prospect of watching a video on these topics – it won’t be the wall of uncompromising text that usually accompanies such topics.
That said – I also agree on the general point of your post, which is to offer all mediums. Plus, you can leverage it to get two posts out of one topic – one in text and one in video.
I add my hallelujah to the chorus! I don’t like being trapped by videos – and that’s what it feels like when that’s the only thing offered. I’ve noticed Microsoft is going more and more to video only for office help files. I hate that. Invariably in a situation like that in an effort to cover all contigencies they give way too much information for what I’m needing at the moment and it just irritates me. I don’t like audio files either, and I won’t sign up for anything that’s only offered by phone. I can’t stand to be on a phone longer than about five or ten minutes.
Christie´s last blog post…Find out what they want
in case of tutorials for technical stuff i prefer vdos but for instructions on writing and the generic stuff yupp agree with you james all out, that vdos rnt agood shot. There is so many info that you need to read through in order to get a better perception and to jot down your own nodes to do so….
Amy Dyslex
Admit it – you don’t use videos because then we’d know what you guys look like, beyond an arm or whatever!
(But I do know what Tei looks like!)
I won’t say I detest video myself – however – I can read around 900-1200 words a minute depending on the content at first glance, to see if I really want to read for detail.
So… I tend to prefer text. Video doesn’t work too well at 4x fast forward!
James,
Ugh, yes, I hate videos and audio. Like you, I’d rather not learn that way, though I make exceptions for extraordinary presentations like TED.
I can read faster, get the info I want, maybe even print, highlight, and keep if I like. And if a blogger, especially, is going to use video, I very much think it should be as a companion to an article. Let the two work together and make different points.
(Let’s not forget that for accessibility’s sake you are leaving out a portion of your audience unless you close-caption your video—or as you suggest, offer a transcript, also.)
Melissa’s point about slower connections is definitely still true in so many places.
And lots of folks are trying to read your stuff at work. Which means your video or audio goes to the bottom of the pile for someday when they think of it at home.
But…
They work. Really well.
I read just yesterday (maybe Michel Fortin wrote it?) that as part of a sales process, videos placed right under the headline make a page convert 44% better. If they’re doing that for sales pages, you can bet they’re doing it for blog articles, too.
Note—the sales page is still there. In that case there is companion text, as I think there should be for a blog post, too.
I’ve thought about video for a while, but until I come up with something I can say in a vid that I can’t in print, I don’t expect to hop on the bandwagon. My blog’s always been about simple, fast loading articles for a page that loads quickly no matter how slow your connection and ease of use for anyone, and video for its own sake seems to violate that (for me).
Nice, thoughtful article.
Regards,
Kelly
Kelly´s last blog post…Inspiration Points: Eric Clapton Sings to Your Inner Control Freak?
Well on your comment about making exceptions for extraordinary videos Kelly – let’s not forget that running a GOOD video-only blog is ridiculously expensive in terms of time and money.
Camera and mic for $3000, video editing and After Effects for $2000. Then you can’t just host things on YouTube, so that’s another $100 a month for private video hosting.
Then you can’t really just throw footage together as you recorded it – you need takes and editing.
You need to spend the time and money, otherwise you might just detract from the blog quality.
It’s far better I think to not go all out on video, but base it around text. Otherwise you’ll just end up with either much lower quantity of information as you spend all your time editing video, or higher quantity but lower quality.
Diversifying the communication style allows you to keep up quantity and quality without breaking the bank or burning out.
Like the article – I’m a video producer working specifically on online projects. We spend A LOT of time talking to clients and trying to coax them off the video bandwagon and back towards thinking about ‘what content suits my target user groups’.
Video is great in some contexts – end of story. It engages, illustrates and impacts more than any other kind of content. Fact. And this is how video should be used – not taking over your site but integrating with your other content.
I’m slightly overlooking the specifics of the article (video/audio as a training device) but in general, we need to be more strategic about content and stop assuming that the next big thing works for everyone. How long before we see a slew of mobile content platforms that are utterly pointless and user-alienating?
Patrick,
My plan is just to speak at TED.
Kelly´s last blog post…Can Big Air Deliver Anything but Hot Air?
@ Kelly – You prime the crowd for me with your speech, and I’ll sweep them up after, sound like a plan?
@ Patrick – That’s another complaint of mine. If soeone’s going to do a video, they shouldn’t do it dressed like a hobo in a shitty-looking room with a face that looks so tired you wonder if they just smoked up. And I’m not talking about new-to-video people, either. I’ve seen some pretty big names put out scrambled-together videos that make me question their credibility.
You know who does good videos? Frank Kern, actually. (Yes, I know, everyone, you all hate him. But he *does* do good videos…)
@ Kelly – I think TED videos are different and special. They are, in short, performances. They are the stage brought to your home – and the performances are WORTH you stopping everything and becoming engaged. They just *couldn’t* do that via text.
TED is video done right, because it’s done with good reason.
I’ll agree that putting video on a page HELPS a page. Yes. But as you say, offer *both*.
And don’t – oh please don’t – give me text and video that isn’t the same. There’s nothing worse than a partial article that tells me to watch the video if I want the rest. I’m so gone.
@ Write – I’ll agree on technical. “Push here. Press there. Attach this to that.” Changing strings on a guitar, for example. Learning a bass riff, perhaps. There are some things that video works best for visual instruction that text would… well, fall short.
But a video on how to blog? Come on.
@ Patrick – Heheh. You, sir, I approve of your ventures. Because you’re going to rock a world that’s boring. Yes.
That’s like the video I did for Solo Practice University. It was just a slideshow with some rock music and funky stuff, but there was no better way to make an impact on students.
Of course, the rest of the material and lessons are in text – they can read, skim, come back to, print out, highlight, enjoy.
@ Brett – I told you it was a hypocritical post!
@ Christie – Hehehe…
“Where’s the part that says how to change the font…” Fast forward. “This it? Crap, no.” Rewind. “Here? What’s that doing here? All I want to know is how to change the font…” Fast forward. “Here?” “Fast forward again. “Now? Crap, no.” Rewind. Fast forward. Rewind. Fas-…
Frustration.
Customer experience? Shot to death. Go Microsoft.
@ Mel – I live in a region where dialup is common. A friend of mine is working off 24.6 kbps. One single picture takes about 20 minutes to download. She can’t load many sites at all. Video? Forget it.
@ David – Now there’s an interesting comment. Your business *is* video and you note that you actually tell some clients they’re making a mistake by doing video.
First of all, huge kudos to you for being an ethical business. (Everyone, we like David.)
Second of all, you’re so right. People leap on the coolest thing without any thought at all to cause and effect. They just want to be “in” and be “right up there.”
Hallo, people. You guys have businesses to run. Don’t be clever or cool. Be customer oriented.
@James,
Hypocritical or not, I did enjoy it
Can I add my “hurrah!” to the chorus? I very, very rarely watch videos on blogs. Like others who’ve commented here, I’m a fast reader, and I much prefer to take in information by reading because I can flick back and forwards in a way that’s just not possible in video or audio.
Text is also searchable: if I have a long text document, like an ebook, and I’m looking for a particular bit that I remember, it’s incredibly easy to search for a word or phrase.
I’ve done those “what sort of learner” are you type tests and quizzes, and I always come out VERY strongly on the reading/writing side. I don’t learn easily by listening, mostly because I find it too slow and I stop concentrating.
There are some benefits to including video and audio on a blog — they make me feel much more personally connected to a blogger — but text is always gonna be king for me.
Oh, THANK YOU. Sometimes I feel all alone out here, preferring to actually read my instructions than to watch videos. If I’m watching a video, I can’t do anything else. Because, say what you want about the negative aspects of multi-tasking and how it wreaks havoc with your attention span, if I’m stuck watching a video that seems achingly slow in all its explanations, I at least want to glance at my email or something to keep myself entertained.
Besides, listening to somebody tell me how to do something is always going to take longer than my simply reading the instructions in the first place. Given a choice of watching a 15 minute video or spending 5 minutes reading … I’m always going to pick the reading!
The point about the bandwidth is a really good one, too…
–Deb´s last blog post…How Not to Get Hired as a Writer
Here, Here!
I also hate video. I can get information from print at a much faster pace. If you are not an engaging and animated speaker, videos are doing you a disfavor!
I have watched a couple of painfully slow videos this week. Just the tone of voice of the speaker had me moving away from my computer and working on other tasks.
One thing that worries me is that it might be an age thing. Maybe I am too old to appreciate video? Middle age is a scary thing.
John Bardos´s last blog post…Interview with Guatemala Expat, Christoph Maichel
So very true, James. A lot of Internet marketing specialists seem to relate to everyone as they relate to themselves – with either tons of copy and no video or photos, or video with no copy. And as Melinda said, not all video lovers have the capability of efficiently viewing that video anyway – creating the necessity to have both if you’re going to successfully market a product, service, etc. We’ve tried to strike a balance on our website, but sheez! It’s still difficult to get out of our own heads sometimes.
Thanks for your insight.
I completely agree! I dislike videos. My husband will watch stupid videos for 20 minutes at a time, but send me a video link? No thanks. I don’t want it. I’m a reader, too.
Maybe it has something to do with being able to read quickly. I can scan a page and find what I’m looking for rather quickly. But in a video, I have to wait until the person on camera gets around to saying what I want to hear. I have no patience for that. And besides, I have a terrible memory, so I like being able to go back and re-read from time to time. You can’t do that with video, because re-visiting the video several days later will require waiting for the stream to finish downloading before you can get to where you want to watch!
I love video. So much so that I’m considering starting a video blog (no more than 5 mins each). BUT, what your post taught me is that transcribing the video to be available as a pdf is brilliant. I think I’ll go a step further and cater to all 3 learning styles and make it all SEO friendly at the same time. I’ll post the video, for the visual learners. The auditory learners will get an audio file for download. Tactile/Text learners will have a PDF download. But, as Google doesn’t yet crawl basic video, audio or pdfs, I will put the entire transcript at the bottom of my post. If I’ve gone to the trouble of making the pdf, adding the text transcript is easy and could be effectively crawled. Voila! Everyone gets what they need.
Adele McAlear´s last blog post…Twitter Hatchlings and History
I agree with this for most situations. But there are times when a text option doesn’t add anything for the type of person you want in your blog community.
For example, I have a friend who is a very talented woodworker… but he can’t put a sentence together to save his life. He hates writing only slightly more than he hates reading and his target audience is just like him.
He has a lot of knowledge and skill to share that is better demonstrated than described and he would lose his audience if he tried to write too much. *Not* writing is his personality and he can communicate that better through video only.
What it really comes down to is to find out what your audience wants and give it to them. MwP knows what the audience wants (not video as clearly demonstrated by the cheers in the comments here) and delivers.
Henry Bingaman´s last blog post…3 Crimes We Commit Against Our Writing
There are some great uses for video, but I have no desire to watch a talking head. I do like really short videos (say 1 – 2 min) as they let me ‘meet’ the person behind the blog/website/product/etc. Just long enough to get a quick sense of who you are – what you look like, what you sound like, your personality. That’s it. Now on to something useful – text, or maybe a screencast or demo of some sort. If the talking head continues, off you go.
Another peeve is videos where you can’t see how long they are before starting to watch. If it *is* something interesting I don’t want to have to stop in the middle because of another commitment; give me the courtesy of letting me know how much of my time you want me to invest.
Mary McRae´s last blog post…Social Media Marketing
I love video. I was once a broadcast journalism major, so I’m always looking for opportunities to use those skills.
I’ll often skip video on blogs, but I divide it into two categories:
1) Videos that were created because there was a reason to have a visual component.
2) Videos that were created because the blogger didn’t want to write things down or because they felt like it was time for a video.
I’ll happily watch the first if I’m able, but any webcam-style video (which is usually a clue that it’s the second kind) gets skipped. I use Google Reader, and videos interrupt my flow.
Like Patrick said, videos can make boring topics more interesting–but unless I’m particularly interested in your boring topic, I’ll skip it.
I think Adele is on the right track with giving options–that’s something that I tried to do with my most recent audio interview.
I’m currently working on a post about considerations for using video–it will definitely include a link here.
David Garcia´s last blog post…Interview: The Secrets of Diversity PR
I always skip over video interviews and presentations. I don’t have the time to listen to them. I want to be able to skim the information and look for what interests me rather than be held captive for 3 to 30 minutes to see if there is anything there that I will find relevant.
@ Suzanne – That’s another concern of mine – being able to skip to what I need.
Oooh. Just thought of something cool. If we could have bookmarks in videos that we could easily see and click on to get right to the point… then again, maybe they already do have that. I wouldn’t know! Ha!
@ David – I agree. There’s a time and place for everything, so if it *really* needs a video and would enhance the moment (say, how to change guitar strings accompanied by a demonstration), I’m all for it.
@ Mary – I’ll do the occasional short video myself, but I’ve seen many like you mention that don’t note that the so-called short video is actually 45 minutes… Lose. Yuck.
@ Henry – I’ll agree with you – not everyone is an expert typer and video lets them get their message across, but as I mentioned, that’s where Dragon Naturally Speaking comes in. Record the video, play back into the micro, and voila. There’s really no excuse to cover all mediums and reach a wide audience, right?
@ Adele – If you do that, I will like you muchly forever!
@ Christina – Someone sent me a TED video from Elizabeth Gilbert once (before I knew who either were). It took me a long time to actually get around to watching the video, simply because I knew what was in store for me – drop everything, focus all my attention, lose a half hour of my day…
LUCKILY, I was delighted in the video *that time* and TED became a winner. The site, as of yet, is the only one that I’ve found worthy of actually using video with no other medium offered.
And, I was sad that other crappy video experiences had jaded me so much that I waited that long to watch Ms. Gilbert speak.
@ Shannon – We’re all egotistical that way. I prefer text, so I’m the first person to think that *everyone* wants text. Not so. Many people prefer video and others prefer pen and paper versus screen and all sorts of stuff like that.
That’s a problem. We forget what our target market likes most, and thus, end up harming our own business!
@ John – It could be an age thing (so, are you saying we’re old?) but I’m not so sure. I know many people in their 20s that listen to music videos en masse… but the rest is all text, all the way.
@ Deb – Hear, hear! “Say what you want about multitasking…” I agree. I’m not multitasking because I want to. I’m usually doing it because something isn’t holding my attention 100%.
Because if it was, I wouldn’t be multitasking, now would I?
@ Ali – Hehe, I’d actually pegged you for someone who’d like the videos, so I lose. (wah!)
You raise a good point: text is searchable. Amen. Thank god. My memory thanks god too. “I know it’s in here somewhere…”
@ James Maybe, but sometimes excluding a certain audience actually attracts more of the audience you want. Build up a reputation as a video only blog and you’ll attract a video only audience.
I guess what I’m saying is that Video Only could be a USP. The ultimate “Show don’t Tell” blog.
Having said that, I still agree with you. 95% of the blogs out there using video should make their sites as accessible as possible to people who don’t want to spend the time to watch.
@ David Good point to consider RSS readers when using video.
Henry Bingaman´s last blog post…3 Crimes We Commit Against Our Writing
James,
Yep. That’s out there. TED uses it, and somebody pitched me on a scaled-back version of it a while ago, too. Wanted me to talk it up, on my blog, where there’s no video…
*sigh*
Until later,
Kelly
Kelly´s last blog post…Can Big Air Deliver Anything but Hot Air?
On the topic of long videos and not being able to find the place, that’s really why you want to construct a video properly – short videos, only one topic per video. So when you click on it you know exactly what is going to be told.
As I mentioned before, good video can make a world of difference. Crappy video is worse than a crappy text post.
Adele, I loves you too. I am deaf and there is so much out there for me to learn, when one of my favorite bloggers puts out a video, if I really am interested I will email and ask for a text version. You would be amazed to find out how many people email me back and say “Sorry don’t have a text version.”
FYI, I don’t feel as connected with that person anymore. Although I do usually continue to follow their posts, I know they’re not “hearing impaired” friendly. Knowing I am missing a big part of their posts, I have been known to unsubscribe.
Another hearty amen! I do lots of research for the books I write, and I routinely ignore video and audio results in my searches. I know I’m missing some great content, but if there’s no accompanying text, I automatically close the page. Even apart from research, I seldom follow links to audio or video files. I’m a visual learner, and it’s a rare video or audio presentation that sustains my interest for very long. You’d think video would appeal to a visual learner, but lots of videos just show a talking head — hardly competition for words on a page or screen for people like me.
Absolutely right. The author not loses one-third of the audience not just because some people hate video but because it isn’t such a good idea – technically speaking.
Video doesn’t run smoothly on many internet connections or consumes a lot of Kilobytes (People have to pay for the data transfers!). So many of these people simply don’t hit the play button.
They may not hate videos but it simply isn’t economical enough or simply a frustrating ordeal.
I’m late to the conversation but I agree with you James. No matter how advanced technology gets, the three types of learners will always be there.
I do believe that it is important to know how to do video and audio (an area I’m lacking sorely in). If you want to experiment, start with an introductory video on your website’s side bar. Do an audio recording of one of blog posts you’ve written, either expanding some more on the topic or simply stating that you’ve put up a podcast of the blog for the commuters and the auditory learners.
The important thing is to respect all three kinds of learners because they all are/can/will be your customers.
Being a written word geek, I too prefer reading and have actually created my coaching niche in that vein, focusing on email-based coaching especially for those who like to read and think before responding (in writing).
At some point I am thinking of offering teleclasses and at that point I’ll look at audio/video blog options to include those that up until now my choice niche has left outside the blog.
Alex Fayle | Someday Syndrome´s last blog post…Make a Decision, Any Decision: Lea Woodward Interview
Thank you thank you thank you. I also dislike video except for things like amazing animal accomplishments or funny things, but even then, not in a blog. Just give me the link and let me go on my way. Not only can I read far faster than a video can display, but teven with DSL, the whole thing loads too slow. Can you imagine what will happen when bloggers start to accommodate the knesthetic learners?
Dot´s last blog post…Mad Lib-eration Answers
James,
I came across your post today – I couldn’t agree more with the sentiment of you and many of the comments here. (So much so that I actually blogged about this very topic yesterday.)
Admitedly, I am not a person who watches or learns from videos, but one of my video pet peeves are those that are “talking heads.” If you’re going to create a video, at least make it entertaning and use all of the visual and audio elements at your disposal.
Great post!
Michele
This is so true! I prefer reading newspaper than watching news on Television. I mean yeah watching is like feeding it to you unlike reading, you’ll feel like you have an effort to at least know what is happening. I totally agree with you!
“Humans typically belong to one of three learning type groups: tactile, auditory, or visual.â€
Have you looked at Coffield et al.’s critique of this categorization? Wikipedia reference here:
http://bit.ly/VCAXu
Me, I don’t care to watch a video when I can read. That this is the result of my “learning styleâ€, however, may be a bit of a stretch.
Lump me in with the video haters. I never watch an instructional video unless it involves the instructor getting kicked in the crotch by a donkey, or something.
With written posts/articles, you can quickly scan through the irrelevant stuff and focus on the useful parts without wasting time, but you can’t do that for a 10-minute video.
Michael´s last blog ..French student hoax wins photography prize