Want to know how you can optimise your course videos for maximum engagement?
I’m sure you’re aware that video is one of the most effective online training tools available. With the ‘talking-head’ style video being the most commonly used. But did you know that they’re not always as effective as they could be?
A video of one person talking, recorded by one camera, from a single perspective isn’t dynamic enough to engage any audience. It’s said that the average persons sustained attention span is 20 minutes. But for online training videos, it’s much shorter. Here the optimal video length is 6 minutes. Yes, you read that right, only 6 minutes.
Here are 3 tips to help you ensure that your course videos are effective.
Start with the important stuff
Now you know that you’ve got 6 minutes to work with before people lose focus. You need to make sure you cover the important takeaways in the first few minutes. If you have a lot of important points to cover and lot to say about each of them, create a separate video for each point. The ideal structure should look a little like this:
- Introduction: tell them what they will be learning – 1-2 minutes
- Main point: Cover this in no more than 6-8 minutes
- Conclusion: Review the main takeaways – 1-2 minutes
Break the visual monotony
Think back to your school days. If your teacher stood at the front of the class delivering a monologue, how long would it take you to zone out? But if your teacher drew an interesting diagram on the board while they were talking, you’d probably stay focused a bit longer, right. It works the same with online course videos. A great visual with a little bit of text is all that’s needed to both, break the monotony and highlight an important point. Visuals help your audience pay attention and allow you to extend the length of your videos a little.
Tell stories
I discussed the power of story-telling before. Who doesn’t remember a good story? Storytelling is part of our DNA and including them in your course content guarantees engagement. You can enhance your videos with storytelling in the following ways:
- Design your course content to follow a natural path the way a story would.
- Describe a transformation
Try to find at least one story to highlight your main point. And if possible include some humour to lighten the mood.
Conclusion
If you’re going to spend all that time and energy in making course videos, why not make them as engaging as possible. These three tips aren’t difficult to implement. All it takes is a little planning, so why don’t you give them a try and let us know how it goes?