If you want to increase engagement with your students, video creation is the best option for you. With over 78 percent of people watching videos online each week and 55 percent of them consuming digital content daily, it’s safe to say that you have a built-in audience. Learning how to create content that is relevant and appealing to them is a process that requires good editing tools and excellent subject matter. Once you have come up with both, you’re able to draft a content calendar that promotes your remote classes and drives new students to your website regularly.
Video Creation 101
In today’s world, it only makes sense to take your classes to an online platform where people share them with the masses. It’s the easiest way to generate a lot of interest in what you want to teach. It’s also a format that people can watch on-the-go and from the comfort of their homes as opposed to in-person classes held locally. Viewers are said to retain 95 percent of what they learned when the lesson is in video format.
To better help you understand what teaching remotely entails, I’ve listed some of the go-to resources that teachers of all subjects use regularly. Each takes the guesswork out of video creation by providing you with user-friendly platforms and interfaces, helpful tools, and unlimited support from the companies providing the software or service to you.
How to Shoot Footage for Your Educational Videos
There are many ways to shoot footage for your educational videos. You can do it with a DSLR with video recording capabilities, from your smartphone, tablet or even on your laptop. The quality will depend mainly on the set-up that you have and the budget you have available for equipment.
Having access to a microphone, noise canceller, tripod, backdrop, and secure location where you can record your content without interruption is highly recommended. It allows you to produce the best quality footage that you can later edit to create a seamless learning experience for anyone wanting to take your class. Having access to a good video editing program is essential, too, as it allows you to finetune the final product you present to your students.
No-Cost Video Editing
If your main objective is to make money without spending a lot on production and editing costs, you’ll want to explore the world of no-cost video editing software and apps first. Once you’ve become aware of the different options available, you can then determine which offers the most tools and features as well as the cleanest final product. You want videos that are clear, easy-to-follow, and understandable.
A free video editor such as FilmForth is packed full of features that you’ll use regularly, such as trim, split, and combine videos. You can add audio and video transitions with ease. It’s one of the many options you have available to choose from today.
Marketing Your Classes
Once you’ve finished the video editing process, you’ll need to market your classes so that your students know what you have to offer them. As you would with any other product or service that you sell, you must extend your reach online to your website, blog, and social media accounts. Saif from Incify.co advice to cross-promote on each channel to ensures that you generate traffic organically and get people to sign-up for the classes you’ve spent time creating, filming, editing, and promoting.
Online marketing can be expensive, and not every channel is a good fit; some businesses work best with Google ads, and some work well with Search engine marketing or email marketing.
You need to keep an eye on your marketing spends and measure the return on investment (ROI), if you noticed a marketing channel is draining your budget without getting you any results, cut that channel and try with other channels that fit your business more.
Marketing is as important as creating quality classes for people to view remotely. Without awareness of the content’s existence, it will be a hard sell for you. By taking the time to identify the different platforms that your audience frequents, you’re able to focus your promotional efforts on them. A Facebook or Instagram ad can increase interest in the classes you have to offer and turn fans and followers into students of yours.
Create Classes That Your Students Find Engaging with Greater Ease
If you decided to teach online, you might be searching on how to publish your classes online, and that is easy, and you don’t need developers, designers, or content writers. You can do all that with one of the SaaS technologies available that offer all in one solution, like the one provided by Teachable and Squarespace. Depends on your budget, some are more expensive than others.
Teachable for example cost more but it’s loaded with features that allow you to host, give certificates of completions, organize your content, or even engage with your students.
Squarespace is another good option and its affordable, a simple drag/drop features where you use blocks to build up your website. However, to sell courses online you need to either customize it further (require a developer) or use a plugin like MemberSpace and that adds additional costs on top of your Squarespace subscription.
Remember to always give your viewers the educational experience they desire. The videos that you create can be entertaining, too. The more you familiarize yourself with the software that you’ve chosen to use, the more comfortable you become using its different tools and features. You’re able to enhance your videos in multiple ways, which leads to a more polished and professional presentation for your students.