2 Reasons a Video Matters

“How can a video like THAT get a thousand views?!” My husband punched the next button on Youtube after growling out his protest. The video’s title indicated a subject about a trail. Little of the trail was actually shown. Most of the video was a selfie of someone talking, his face taking up the whole screen.

Lesson here? 

If you log into your own Youtube account, you’ll see the actual view time of one of your created videos. According to Cynthia Hoppe of Mobile Ministry Forum and other sources, videos need to be 2 minutes or less.

“This breaks my heart a bit, as I was in a classic literature program during my university days, and the Torrey Honor’s Institute gave me a strong respect and appreciation for dusty tomes of wisdom. I love literature. But with literature, in particular, there has been very little serious effort to translate Aristotle, Plato, Dostoyevsky, Spencer, Chesterton or Augustine into engaging popular level, 2-minutes-or-less videos. Which in turn, makes it very difficult for me to share compelling insights from those works with my peers.” 

According to Cynthia’s article from here, video is becoming more influential than text. Her article indicates that…

  • Videos mean 1200% more shares. Shares are viewed in marketing terms, but from a discipleship viewpoint, it’s great for building your own personal brand. Brand is a fancy term for, “the core of who you are.” More shares means fostering relationships and meaningful discussion.
  • Viewers, Hoppe says, retain 95% of the message compared to 10% in text.

Two minutes or less is not a lot of time, but if you follow Strunk and White’s Element of Style, whatever material you write, eliminate unnecessary words. Learn to to tell the visual story of your church, your faith, and help people come to know the hope you have within.

And this isn’t just positive talk or some New Age hype, but sharing the hope visually and meaningfully through video or photography with some words can be an effective way to share the Gospel.