Presentation And Image

Podcasting and online video evolved from grass roots origins as hobbyists began audio and video blogging. Production standards were usually low. Businesses began to participate and some of them mistakenly copied the production standards of the hobbyists. Regardless of whether it is a business card, brochure, video program or podcast, customers expect high quality offerings from your company. Poorly produced or absent multimedia content can make your business look small, behind the times, and unprofessional. Keep in mind that both the company’s spokesperson and brand will be poorly perceived by being associated with a low quality production. The production standards you use need to be in keeping with the image you want to present.

Perceptions

Well produced doesn't mean slick. Some Web 2.0 production companies jumped into the market with no production experience, saying that well produced video comes across as slick and therefore you should produce with their “home video” standards. As a result, you saw companies violating their branding guidelines and deteriorating their image. A video is slick because it is manipulative or doesn’t address the issues. A video is not slick because it is well produced. The biggest objection to poorly produced content is that it is boring. No one wants to watch a boring video or listen to boring audio. Audiences want to be engaged via well thought out and well produced content.

Overcoming Free

Because listening to podcasts is free some people have a mental block against spending money on their new media efforts. As a result, they create low budget media that looks “home produced” and has blatant quality lapses, both in the content and in the way it is distributed. This type of person also has trouble seeing quality differences and understanding how they effect brand perception. Some of this is understandable because audio and video are new and they have less experience. It is important to understand that the media you produce is seen by a significant portion of customers and prospects and it is essential that your company is perceived as you intend. As measured by us in April 2008, there are ten Fortune 100 corporations that have moderate to severe quality lapses and they seem unaware of the problem. Contact us and we'll take you through the examples.

These quality lapses might be because the buyers of these services aren’t of a generation that regularly consume new media. Even if you never go on iTunes, you should pay attention to what’s up there because millions of people are seeing it. Just as a company spends money on its events, collateral and other customer facing activities, companies must allocate people and capital to producing and distributing media correctly.

Assessing Internal Versus External Costs

Smart companies recognize their core competencies and focus on them. The practices used by MobileCast Media have taken years to develop and rely on technicians that draw upon years of experience in traditional media. Even though we have been around since the beginning of podcasting, the field changes so rapidly that we spend 50% of our time developing and maintaining service offerings that insure our media is as effective as possible for our customers.

Most people greatly underestimate the amount of effort required to develop podcasts and online media. Our first person observations of several companies show that on average it takes a company 9 months to complete their first piece of media. Unless they used well trained resources, most of these developed sub-par content and created syndication errors that gave their programs embarrassing listing errors. These errors look like typos and show up throughout their listing content. Just as Google crawls the web slowly, iTunes crawls RSS feeds slowly with certain parts of the feed, such as the header, only updating every few months; therefore, you must list your program properly the first time. Those that try to “hack it until it works” will find that they have months to see if their fixes are correct. I the meantime, the world sees its bungled listing causing untold damage to their corporate brand.

Wasting Dollars By Cutting Corners

Many companies try to save money by filming with lights from the hardware store, consumer quality microphones and cameras, and give little consideration to shooting location. More important than the equipment, they hire a poorly trained crew with uninformed quality standards and lack of awareness of safety practices. Audio and video production are special skills and the team that you hire can make the difference between success and failure. Making mistakes can cause more expense when you later need to fix the mistakes in post production. A microphone in the wrong position can mean you have to throw away and reshoot costing not only the recording day but all of coordination it took to make it happen. If an executive is involved, their time which is worth thousands of dollars per hour and will have been wasted as well. The average compensation for top executives is around $2K per hour and that doesn't take into account the value they are providing for their company, which is a higher hourly rate. (Details: Average top executive makes $5.8M, 50hr weeks times 50 weeks/year = 2500 hours per year. Divide that by $5.8M. Therefore the average high level executive makes over $2K per hour. Source: The Fortunate 2,500 of The Fortune 500.)

The Importance of Sound Quality

Sound is very important for conveying quality. If the sound is poor but the image is good, the content will still be poorly perceived. If you are making an audio podcast, sound quality is even more important. MobileCast Media spends tens of thousands of dollars on equipment, but more importantly, we implement best practices for sound engineering. If either equipment or best practices are missing it will not be possible to meet minimum production standards for sound. However, with best practices and proper equipment, MobileCast Media makes it possible to make quality recordings, in many cases, without going to a recording studio. That’s where the Mobile in MobileCast comes in — we come to you.

Recording via Phone or VOIP Software

Creating inferior quality media via phone line or Voice Over IP software is inexpensive, but produces inferior results. The quality is low as it doesn’t allow for the warmth of the voice to be heard. The overall impression is poor as a result. The exceptions for this are if you have a news show, especially if the content is rare and breaking news that is not captured anywhere else. Companies should do their best to avoid phone and VOIP recordings and if they must be used, keep the excerpt short.

Untrained Resources

Many companies will use their webmaster, administrative assistant or marketing resources to record their productions. Unfortunately, recording and producing audio and/or video is a complex skill that requires special training. Just like a graphic designer is best for composing diagrams, a PR person is best for writing press releases and a sales person is best at sales, a new media specialist is best to handle new media. At MobileCast Media we focus on podcasting and online video. We don't do anything else. That's why we're good at it and can do it better and for a lower price than anyone else.

Doing It Right

Have you heard that the clothes you wear determine how you will be perceived? It’s the same with the marketing and PR output of your company. You must dress for success if you want to look the part for your customers and prospects. Some companies feel that if their media is going to be released on the web, it can be of lower quality. This may have been true in the late nineties, but people now expect sharp video and audio. With the advances in compression, more and more broadband users now receive real-time high definition video on their computer, and many opt to view on their HDTV’s. The new video service, Hulu, is broadcasting in high definition as is iTunes. Everything at MobileCast Media is filmed in high definition because even if we later shrink the screen size it will still look sharper than if shot at lower resolution. It’s like cooking – you start with the best ingredients you can find.

Online media is new to most professionals and it is difficult for the beginner to put their finger on quality problems, but in the final analysis the effect is negative and the customer will most likely click somewhere else. You can create new media in-house if you are appropriately equiped and staffed. This is more difficult than it looks and that is why we ask that you consider saving money and getting better results by outsourcing to MobileCast Media.