The HOW of Creating Video on Demand
1. Low Hanging Fruit
Make sure your service and message are both available as VOD. You don’t want these airing live on Sunday morning and then disappearing into the ether. Also, highlight your whole service and just the message as different VOD content because some people want to see the one, but not the other. There are a number of great platforms to archive your service and message. YouTube is great because it is the second largest search engine after Google. Vimeo’s interface is clean without ads or unwanted suggested videos. And Facebook allows for robust interaction with sharing, comments and likes. I recommend investing in all three, but if you only had the bandwidth for one, archive your VOD content on YouTube. In the long run, it will give you the greatest reach and impact.
2. Doesn’t Have To Be Difficult
Video production can seem daunting. Which sometimes prevents us from using this valuable communication tool. But it doesn’t have to. When I was the Creative Arts Pastor at Liquid Church we did a twenty one day Daniel Fast. We realized this was gonna be hard for our church so we wanted to give them daily encouragement. We recorded short devotionals from staff members for each day. These videos weren’t high production. They were a single take (we encourage staff to practice a lot before stepping in front of the camera) and had no post production work. The majority of work was on the shoulders of the talent to write and deliver a compelling devotional. Look for similar easy ways to create compelling VOD content.
3. Stories Of Life Transformation
Some of the most exciting VOD content for churches to produce is stories of transformation. There are two main types, salvation and sanctification. Salvation stories are usually shown before a baptism. They highlight the transition from death to life. Are usually pretty straightforward and highly celebratory. Sanctification stories are different. They aren’t as dramatic and are a little more messy. Because of this, many churches inadvertently shy away from these types of stories. But this is a discredit to the work of Christ in our lives. His transforming power wasn’t just active in the past, it is also at work in the present. So let’s create more VOD content that focuses on sanctification.
4. Create Evergreen Content
This type of content is applicable whenever anyone watches. It isn’t tied to a date or time. So a video predicting who God wants in the white house wouldn’t work because it will end up feeling dated. Also, there are many other reasons why not to create the above stated video. Outside of the topic, the location and wardrobe also helps make the content evergreen. Shooting indoors avoids people being able to place the time of year the content was created. Also make sure your talent doesn’t wear shorts and flip flops cause then it will feel odd watching in the middle of winter. Creating evergreen content gives your video a longer shelf life which will make it a pleasure to watch for years instead of months.
So that is why and how of creating video on demand content. If you are looking for additional coaching on this topic, let me know. I would love to come alongside and help you better leverage video to accomplish your mission.
This article on creating video on demand originally appeared here, and is used by permission.
