Using Videos in Communities

We don’t generally recommend using videos in the community.

Especially not for introducing a community or explaining how it works.

The data shows few people watch them and fewer still watch more than 10 seconds.

If your technology is so complicated to use it requires a video, simplify the technology, don’t create videos to explain it.

There are better uses for videos. For example:

1) As a celebration of community. An annual roundup of the best discussions and content on the community. Something which really helps people see and feel the difference the community made and their own role within it. Facebook’s year in review is good at this.

2) As a teaching tool. Videos are useful for teaching members about the topic. You can create a 101 video series shared solely on your community to attract more newcomers and help people get up to speed quickly. This, in turn, makes them better at answering questions. You can also have an exclusive video series created by engineers/product people to help your top members learn how to answer questions even better.

3) Testimonials and advocacy. Okta is a great example of this. The community can be a phenomenal source of testimonials to support your company’s sales and marketing efforts.

4) As a video library. You don’t need to create all the videos yourself if you and your members can collect them from across the web to create a video library for the topic. The problem today isn’t finding information, but filtering it. This is where a community can step in and create a top 10 list of videos all members should watch.

Skip the generic tutorials for using the site or explaining what a community is. Instead use videos to create lasting value for you and your members.