Tutorial videos provide an engaging way to connect with audiences. They are useful in many different industries. Perhaps you have just downloaded some graphic design software and you have no idea how to use it. Your first step is probably to search for a video tutorial. Whether you’re an educator, content creator, or employer, you can successfully use video tutorials.
What are tutorial videos?
Tutorial videos provide instructional content. This is usually information that helps individuals to perform a certain task, such as assembling a piece of furniture. They can also explain a process, concept, or subject. The information is presented in sequential steps that are easy to follow.
Video tutorials can come in different forms such as demo videos and how-to-videos. By providing tutorials to your customers, you can earn their trust and establish yourself as an industry leader. Viewers are able to pause, speed up, rewind, etc. when watching tutorial videos online. The ability to learn at their own pace is one of the reasons they are so popular.
Define your video tutorial’s purpose
It’s important to clarify the goals and objectives of your video tutorial. The topic should be relevant to your specific target audience. It’s important to take demographics like age, language, interests, and even geographic location into account. This will help to decide how best to communicate with your audience.
Knowing your audience’s specific pain points can help you to provide answers in your video. Try to imagine what viewers already know about the topic and why your content would benefit them. A combination of audio and visual content increases the possibility that they will seek out a tutorial video rather than just reading text.
Plan your content
Even for a short video tutorial, you need to plan your content. You need to deliver tutorial videos clearly and concisely. You don’t have to focus on every detail but a simple script will give you a sense of direction.
Using an AI tool like ChatGPT can help you to create your video script. Make sure you give ChatGPT a clear and specific prompt to get a quality script. You aren’t likely to succeed on the first try. You can keep changing your prompt and adding clearer instructions until you get what you want. The content should be easy to understand and follow.
A storyboard may include a sketch of each scene in the video. You may number them to show the sequence of your shots. You may also include the script or dialogue. Note any visual information you want on the screen, such as video footage or you carrying out a step.
The introduction should set up what the video is about and grab attention. It’s a good idea to mention how long the viewer will take to go through the steps and the difficulty level. Your conclusion should give key takeaways and answer common questions.
Equipment and software
When creating video tutorials, it is essential to ensure high-quality audio and visuals. The equipment and software you use to record your video will determine its quality.
Rather than rushing into buying sophisticated software, it makes sense to use simple equipment suited to making tutorial videos. You can always purchase more sophisticated equipment at a later stage if necessary.
There are many video screen recorders on the market that make creating tutorial videos easy. The beauty of screencast videos is you can use information from your screen to clarify a concept or answer a question.
RecTrace is a video screen recorder from Cincopa, a leading video hosting company. Using the RecTrace extension on the Chrome browser allows you to capture video from your screen, and record your voice and webcam. You can use RecTrace even if you’re not a Cincopa user. Sharing your video is made easy via a direct link. RecTrace optimizes your playback on any device.
It’s worthwhile purchasing a decent microphone. Even a fairly inexpensive one will usually provide better sound quality than the one built into your computer.
Record your video tutorial
- When you record your video tutorial it helps to speak solely with confidence and maintain a conversational tone. You don’t have to be too formal if you want to come across as authentic and relatable.
- Close any unnecessary applications and turn off notifications that might interfere while you’re recording.
- It will help to practice a little and make sure you make eye contact with the camera lens. Make sure your body language is relaxed and assured.
- If you make a mistake while recording, it’s not the end of the world. You can pause and then continue. It’s possible to fix this in the editing process.
- Voice-overs are common in video tutorials. You can record your voice-over as an audio file and then film the video separately. This can help you to exercise more control over cutting and mixing audio and video content.
- If you’re including camera video make sure your recording space has good lighting. Either record in an area with good natural lighting or add lighting to your equipment list.
- If you record indoors, ensure that the background is plain or it could be too distracting.
Edit your video tutorial
When you’re happy with your recording, you can refine it. If you did a few practice runs before creating your video, you may not have to make as many changes. You can focus more on trimming, adding a cool transition from the intro to the video, and adding some background music.
There are a number of features you can add to your videos in the editing process
- Chapters allow users to go immediately to the content they want to view without having to watch an entire video.
- Annotations can highlight key points and make information more digestible without interrupting the flow of the video.
- Subtitles ensure that as many people as possible see the video, even if they are hard of hearing or speak a different language.
- CTAs allow you to get viewers to take action such as downloading an ebook or watching another video.
- Contact forms allow you to capture contact details for your email list.
- Eye-catching thumbnails can help to generate interest and clicks.
- Quizzes or polls are interactive elements that can make tutorial videos more engaging. Quizzes can help you to assess how much viewers learned from your videos.
Publish your video tutorials
You can choose to publish your video tutorials on your website and on social media platforms. It helps to use a video hosting platform to host your tutorial videos as the file sizes are large. They can take up space and slow down your website. When you use a video hosting site you upload video content to its servers and then embed it into your website.
Use a video hosting platform: Using a video platform for hosting ensures a seamless viewing experience. This can make a huge difference to the effectiveness of tutorial videos. Viewers can watch them on any device and enjoy a smooth experience without any buffering.
Corporate video portal: Your business can use a corporate video portal for employees to securely access tutorial videos. You can also broadcast live via a corporate video portal and then save the videos to use as VOD for your employees. They can select content from the portal and watch it at any time.
It’s helpful for businesses to have a corporate video tube consisting of an internal portal and an external portal. An internal portal allows employees to share documents, collaborate on videos, etc. Setting user permissions means that employees can only access information on the internal portal they need to fulfill their roles. An external portal gives access to external users to view videos.
E-learning portal: If you have an e-learning institution you need to be sensitive to video privacy, branding, security, and analytics. You can upload video tutorials to a video portal where students can access them but they aren’t accessible to others.
Customer/client portal: A customer portal gives customers access to the information they need. Tutorial videos can give answers to their questions and instructions they need to solve their problems.
A client portal can give clients access to information in the form of tutorial videos, and client services. A customer portal and a client portal serve the same purpose which is to give them support and help them to make the best use of products and services.
A B2B video platform should provide marketers with the tools and features they need. This includes tools that help them to score leads according to how they engage with tutorial videos. B2B marketers should be able to get the best use out of videos for marketing purposes and the B2B video platform should provide ways for them to easily share tutorial videos.
Disadvantages of using YouTube for hosting: Using YouTube for hosting your video tutorials has a number of disadvantages. Your video content is not fully in your control. You can’t brand your videos to build your brand image. You can’t even use your own logo. Viewers are distracted from your videos by other video suggestions. You should be able to guide them to more of your own videos once they have completed watching one.
Without full control, you may suffer negative consequences such as a banned video. Maybe you won’t have a banned video but you do have to abide by all YouTube’s rules and regulations. YouTube also has limited video privacy and security options. Your video tutorials may contain confidential information so robust security features are essential. The analytics on YouTube are quite superficial and don’t give you the in-depth insights you need to assess how well your tutorial videos are performing.
Cincopa for video tutorials
The Cincopa video platform is a comprehensive solution to help you create, upload, host, manage, and publish your video tutorials.
- Make video screen recordings: You can create high-quality tutorial videos by using RecTrace to record your screen with audio and a webcam.
- Use customizable templates for your video tutorials and add your own brand colors and fonts.
- Enhance videos with annotations, subtitles, CTAs, surveys, etc.
- Embed videos on a dedicated landing page (your own CincoPage) to share with specific viewers.
- Live stream tutorial videos and use them as video-on-demand: Using corporate video tube allows you to live stream your videos and save the recordings to use later as video-on-demand. You can create a video portal where students or employees can access these videos.
- Integration with other software you use improves your productivity. For example, integration with email management software like Constant Contact allows you to use videos in your emails.
- Secure your video tutorials with Cincopa’s advanced video privacy and security features. Some of these features are encryption, 2FA, SSO, watermarks, and domain lock.
- Track viewer engagement by using Cincopa’s advanced analytics. Monitor the success of your videos and see which ones engage viewers most and where engagement falls off. See heatmaps to understand how viewers interact with tutorial videos at a deep level. Use these insights to make improvements that increase viewer engagement.
Cincopa’s video tube solution called CincoTube enables you to set up public and private video channels. This videotube has different types of users, such as administrators and contributors. On the private channels, employees can access video assets in a secure way. Invitations can be given to viewers to watch videos on public channels. Team members can make screen recording videos from within a channel and share them with colleagues or with clients. Viewers can like, comment, and share videos on videotube.
Conclusion
It’s important to define the purpose of tutorial videos and plan them carefully. Choosing the right equipment to record can influence their quality. It’s important for audio to be clear. A calm and confident tone and relaxed body language can contribute to their success. Adding features like chapters, annotations, subtitles, CTAs, and quizzes makes them more engaging and interactive.
