All web video is not the same. On the one hand you have user generated content video, or UGC, and on the other hand, you have everything else, or what we’ll simply call professional web video.

The differences are stellar. UGC is mostly what it sounds like. You know, YouTube type of videos where “users” (I hate that word) create, upload and share clips of video content they “generated” themselves. This video content is mostly unedited or scripted as well.

Now, professional web video is something different. This “business” type of video is more like traditional video production because it has a pre and post production process attached to its creation. A professionally produced web video is designed with marketing goals in mind as well, which means that the video is also measured over time next to some type of marketing goal (lead, sale, subscriber, etc…)

Let’s look at a few examples of the differences by watching a few videos.

Here’s a typical YouTube (UGC) video from a very talented college girl who likes to sing songs on her Ukulele.

Great video and great song, yes, but is this something you’d see on the front of your corporate website? Probably not, unless you were selling Ukulele’s.

Now here’s a video that’s a bit more structured. Hey, that’s me! Yep, this is my video where I talk about our Internet video production program here at Fathom.

You’ll notice in the video that I’m reading a pre-written script from a teleprompter. You’ll also notice that it has professional lighting, scene changes, transitions, sound, graphics, editing, etc… This is a video that was designed to be put on a business website in order to help promote a service. This is a professional web video.

In the next series of posts on the topic of web video, I will talk more about the specifics of the types of web videos and how they can be used to help a businesses meet marketing goals.

If you have a question about web video you’d like to see answered just send me a note at jkukral @ fathomdelivers.com.