It pays to be prepared whatever you’re doing for your business. That includes producing videos – they’re not as easy to correct afterwards as something like an article and – as a number of celebrities have found – they’re not as easy to recall as you might like.

1. Decide on a topic

A good rule of thumb is one topic per video.

The topic will form the basis for the video title and the contents of the video itself.

If you’re not sure of a topic – or you’ve made so many videos recently that you’re suffering from idea burnout – then go back through your frequently asked questions or choose a video you made a few months or years ago and watch it to see what you’d say differently now.

2. Sketch an outline

If you’re using a PowerPoint style slide show then you can create the outline at the same time as you create the main slides for the video.

Put your main headline at the top of the first slide. You can change it to reflect the subsequent slides or you can be lazy like me and keep the main title for the complete video (this has the advantage that if someone changes tab whilst watching the video it still reminds them of the subject when they tab back to it).

3. Write a script

The script elaborates on your outline.

You may decide to make it a complete script that you read out. Or, once you’ve gained confidence, you may prefer to make it a series of bullet points or even a mind map that you talk around.

For most of my videos, I prefer to use a basic script and then talk around that, so it’s a mixture of the two options. There’s no “correct” way that you have to follow so, over time, it’s worth developing your own style.

4. Check your equipment

If you’re using a phone or camera to record your video that means making sure that your battery has enough power to shoot the whole video as well as checking that the device hasn’t sneakily changed any settings whilst you weren’t looking.

If you’re using a program on your computer then do a sound check – I’ve managed to get through a complete video with the microphone switched off because I’d changed a setting and forgotten to change it back. Which meant I had to re-take the video. Fortunately I realised my mistake before I uploaded the video and made it live.

A few seconds checking before your video shoot is a lot better than having to recreate your complete video.

5. Make the video

If you’re creating a short video – normally the best for sites like YouTube or instructional videos as shorter times fit with people’s attention span – then it’s likely you’ll make your video in one take.

If you’re creating a longer video or a series of videos then you’ll need to make sure that everything is congruent. That’s why men wore hats in early movies as it made the continuity person’s job easier.

You’re in charge of continuity for the videos you create so make sure you pay attention to these small details otherwise they can distract your viewers.

6. Publish it

Once your video has rendered you need to publish it.

That’s normally a matter of uploading it to a site like YouTube or Vimeo and making sure that all the necessary boxes are created.

It’s also worth pressing the play button once the video has rendered on the site – this has the effect of giving you your first view but, more importantly, lets you know that the rendering process has happened correctly and gives you one final chance to recall the video before you put up something that isn’t quite what you expected.

If you’d like more help, check out my YouTube video creation recipe here.

Or check out this way to write top quality scripts for your videos in just 7 minutes!