How to Develop In-House Video Competency, Part 3: Cloud-Based Video Content Management
In this segment of our 5-part series on best practices for in-house video operations, we'll focus on cloud-based technologies for multi-point content creation and distribution.
In Part 2 of our 5-part series on best practices for developing an in-house video compentency, we discussed staffing and budgeting. A key component of the budgeting picture is technology, which may require significant investment, depending on how much you plan to do with video within your organization once you’re up and running, and in this segment we'll focus on cloud-based technologies for multi-point content creation and distribution.
When you begin exploring your technology and equipment options, and planning related investments, you need to answer two questions:
- What will I need for video capture and creation?
- What is my video distribution strategy?
Most of your technology investment will fall into those categories: video capture and creation, media management, and content distribution. You’ll need to invest in and use different technology and equipment to support each of these areas of video production and publishing.
Online Video Platforms
As for publishing and distribution, you’ll want to look into an online video platform (OVP) that can meet your professional video publishing needs. You can get started with an OVP for as little as $500/month. At videoBIO, we work with Kaltura. Kaltura’s media management and distribution services start at $500, but their services scale up to $5,000+ for major content producers like NBC. I highly recommend investing in an OVP.
Video Capture and Creation
The next items to look at are video capture and creation technology. OVPs are generally in the business of distribution and plumbing, but you actually need to capture video before you can start to distribute it. If you’re working with different departments within your organization at different locations, or outsourcing any part of the content creation process, you’ll need a cloud-based video content creation cloud-based to facilitate multi-point capture within your organization.
You’ll also need tools that are going to help them start producing content like a pro, from script management to teleprompter to web presentation and distribution.
As we talked about in Part 1 with regard to equipping your studio, that can range anywhere from $1,500 to $25,000, depending on the kind of studio that you want to build, and certainly we've seen studios that cost $250,000 and up in the millions.
Media Assets
You’ll also need to identify a source of royalty-free media assets. Any time you create a video, you're going to want to pull in assets such as stock footage and images, graphics, and music. There are lots of online resources to choose from; one of my favorites is videoblocks.com. For $99 per year you can get unlimited access to stock footage, graphics, and music. That's an incredibly inexpensive investment as a way to build your asset library. Other well-known sites such as shutterstock offer extensive libraries of stock footage and graphics.
Related Articles
This final installment of our 5-part series on in-house video is focused on outsourcing. What functions or roles should you consider to outsource to vendors after you bring much of your video competency and production in-house?
In this 4th segment of our series on developing in-house video competency we'll look at content production and strategic issues surrounding it: How much content should could you be creating and what types?
In this second segment of our 5-part series on best practices for developing an in-house video operation at your organization, we'll look at staffing needs and the level of investment you should anticipate as you build your video program.
In this five-part series, we'll examine all the elements you need to consider when developing an in-house video competency at your business or organization, beginning with studio setup in Part 1, then moving on to staffing, investment, gearing up,, content and marketing strategy, and concluding with the elements of a video publishing program that you should continue to outsource.