Low Production Quality Internet Video Can Be OK

You know that old expression “you get what you pay for?” Turns out, when we’re talking about Internet video, that’s not always the case. There’s an awful lot of emphasis on video production quality in the marketing world, and when you call your local video production company you may find out that shooting a relatively simple 2-3 minute video can cost thousands of dollars to produce. While I’m not saying that top quality video production isn’t necessary, your company doesn’t necessarily need to invest in top quality production to produce a successful online video.

The proof? Aside from hundreds of thousands of examples of successful low-quality videos on YouTube, we also have a Rice University study of Internet video and production quality which says that viewers don’t have a negative perception of a low quality internet video provided the message is good.

In my mind, we can simplify this and say that, unless your video is branding or advertisement, you can get away with lower production quality. Let me give you some examples:

1. How-to videos: This video explains how to remove a scratch from a DVD – yet it uses just one camera, the lighting isn’t really “perfect,” and it wasn’t shot in HD…but it’s a great video with nearly 4 million views to prove it. Q&A videos – such as Matt Cutts explaining Google’s webmaster tools system – are another format where low quality is A-OK (provided the content is good).

2. Socially appealing videos: Examples include viral videos, behind the scenes with the crew videos, check this new gadget out videos, etc. that could potentially fit into the “socially appealing” category. If you think your video would be socially interesting without regard to your company or your industry – such as this bizarre office behind-the-scenes video from ThinkGeek – then low quality is fine.

3. Entertainment for entertainment’s sake: There are tends of thousands of examples of companies producing videos, but very few companies are just trying to entertain. It’s probably because it’s difficult to calculate the ROI on making something funny.

Yet this swagger wagon video is more entertaining than anything else, and I’m guessing it’s sold Toyota a few vans. Of course, the production quality on that one is sky-high, so it’s not really a good example…but we’ve all seen funny yet low-quality videos that made us laugh.

TIP: Funny isn’t easy, and when it goes wrong it can be a disaster. Tread carefully.

The big take-away: You don’t always need to spend money on top-notch production to make a great Internet video. If your video is informative or entertaining, it can get by on a shoestring budget.

Here’s my unofficial video production quality decision tree that sums all of this up:

Some things to think about before investing in production quality for your company's next Internet video.