It may be an approach you haven’t yet considered, but one we used recently with a client wanting video marketing for a social media campaign There was no time or budget for shooting new content and they needed to motivate viewers to take action quickly and in a creative way.
Rather than scrabbling to recycle what limited and low quality B-roll footage they had, we took an unconventional approach: creatively sourcing and editing stock footage together to create a series of social media videos to resonate with their community
And it worked: driving traffic to their website in a flurry they hadn’t witnessed before.
Whether you’re a business owner or marketer, you don’t have to film everything from scratch to get your product or service noticed.
Sure, creating video from scratch is preferable and you need to stay true to the five key elements needed, but sometimes time and budgets mean it’s just not possible. Or the limited footage you have or your business is looking a tad stale. Instead, you can buy pre-made imagery and footage from stock libraries and edit them to create a bespoke video with your desired message.
So if this tickles you’re fancy, here are some elements to consider:
Blue Sky
Thinking “outside the box” creatively to source pre-made stock or library footage can create highly visual and quirky campaigns to promote your brand. Look at the video as a way to invoke emotion, to build connection, to inspire or motivate. Using innovative search terms and spending the time to scroll down lists and not just grab the first thing you find, can yield great results.
Check out our portfolio of videos to get you inspired.
Fromage
Sure there IS a load of cheesy content out there in stock video land, but largely the quality is of a high standard. And who doesn’t need a bit of cheese occasionally – this off-the-cuff, tongue-in-cheek footage can strike a cord, grab attention and add humour to your message
Flexibility
Sometimes you may want to give the same message but to multiple audience segments as part of a Video Strategy. Stock footage can provide opportunity to create different versions of videos efficiently.
Post Production
A strong editor should take your preferred stock footage, add motion graphics and music (or even some original client footage) and transform it all into amazing videos that tell story, deliver emotion and build a buzz. Heck you might even go viral. Either way, using stock footage can make it look like a business is batting way above its’ video pay grade.
Everyone’s doing it
Don’t be embarrassed about using stock. More and more marketers are using stock visuals, both stills and footage as part of their content strategies. You’re not alone.
Venngage reports 40% of marketing teams said they use stock images for their content marketing.
Give them what they want
Take advantage of stock media trends and search terms can also give you clues to what audiences are looking for. What is trending? Using these insights means you can strengthen your video strategy and ideas and create videos audiences want.
Causes
Using stock footage is particularly powerful for cause-related campaigns by using empathy and emotion to bringing a sense of empathy to campaigns. And stock media searches have skyrocketed for these themes. Shutterstock, for example, reported a 660% and a 540% rise in searches for stock media related to “International Women’s Day” and “activism,” respectively.
We did the same for this campaign with The Butterfly Foundation.
Authenticity
Yes in spite of the fact the footage was not specifically created by your business, using stock footage can actually help make your business more relatable and real. Real footage as opposed to filtered, curated, marketing-type content can help you earnestly connect with your audience.
Experiment
Using stock libraries can yield high quality, quirky and often comedic footage, the likes of which would cost a fortune to create from scratch. It’s an easy way to breathe life into your brand’s personality and boost your profile beyond the usual corporate nature.
Try and out different videos, footage and styles, have fun and play around and if it doesn’t work, re-edit and try again. Or go back to the drawing board, there’s still thousands of clips you haven’t discovered yet!
Learning and How To Videos
We regularly hark on about how businesses should become You Tubers. Not only are viewers actively seeking out through search content that helps them make, do, practice and succeed but they’re more likely to engage with longer form content on the platform than elsewhere. Plus it’s home to far more than music videos and inane Gen Zers showing off their blessed lives. So if this is content that works for your audience and you’re lacking of footage to use, head to a stock footage site to access footage that you can use to demonstrate what – and what not – to do in your How to video.
Where can you find footage?
There are plenty of sites available to download footage and whilst some re free or offer free downloads, the choice is limited. For quality and diversity you should expect to pay. Someone has gone to the effort to shoot the footage, catalogue and upload so deserves payment, but it will be at a far lower cost than commissioning a shoot yourself.
Luckily most sites enable you to try before you buy, meaning you can download a low resolution or watermarked preview file to use in your edit before final sign off.
When you know what you want to buy, most sites charge a fee per clip, with the amount dependent on the quality or file format, eg HD vs 4K or widescreen vs 4 x 3, so be sure to compare like to like. Many also offer bundles, bringing down the-per unit cost.
Because of the volume of footage we use for clients, we prefer an annual subscription-based service. Videoblocks is our favourite, but there’s a whole heap of places you can go.
- Shutterstock
- iStock
- Videblocks
- Vimeo
- Pixabay
- Pexels
- Pond 5
- Adobe Stock
- Envato
- Dissolve
Where ever you get your stock footage from, you’ll find that with a clear message, quality graphics and tip top editing, you’ll be able to easily and affordably create professional video, that delivers emotion, is memorable and helps you earnestly connect with your potential clients or customers.
So what are you waiting for? contact us to see how we can help you create toe-tingling social media video with stock footage.