How to Tell a Meaningful Story through Your Videos

Image created with PixTeller graphic maker

A video isn't just an engaging audio visual tool. It's a means to telling a meaningful story!

Telling a story that grabs the attention of your audience, retains their interest, and gets them to share it among their social network is an art. That's why we're dedicating this entire article to helping you learn the art of telling a meaningful story with the power of videos.

So if you're ready, let the fun begin!

1 Know the Message You Want to Convey

People don't watch videos, they watch stories. And that's why you must begin with the end in mind. Before you start creating any type of video, you should ponder over its purpose, and the message you want it to convey to your audience.

Answering the following questions will help you uncover key insights to initiate the video making process:

1. ● Who is the video for?
2. ● What is the real message you want to deliver to the audience?
3. ● What emotions do you want to arouse in your audience? Do you want them to feel happy, excited, sad, surprised, bewildered, or angry when they watch your video?
4. ● Why should your audience watch your video?

The answers to these questions will reveal the pearls of wisdom you need to tell a compelling, emotionally engaging story that stimulates your audience's attention. This exercise will also help you write a great narrative that flows coherently, and connects with people.

2 Do a StoryBoard

Once you know the story you want to tell, it's worth your while to start creating a storyboard. A storyboard acts as a skeletal structure that contains all parts of the video in an organized, sequential manner, so the video making process becomes a lot simpler.

It's best to use a combination of tools to create a storyboard. You can include images, text, graphics to capture the core message on every slide within the storyboard. Every slide will cover a part of the story you want to tell through your video, so this is a great stage to make any changes to the story you want to tell.

While you're doing a storyboard, you can utilise some of the following key elements of great storytelling:

1. ● A great introduction to set clear audience expectations from the get go.
2. ● A protagonist with a goal. This could be the ‘heroic' character in your story.
3. ● Obstacles to the goal, which provide some trials and tribulations to the story.
4. ● A turning point, which changes things around.
5. ● And finally, a resolution, a happy ending.

While the above ingredients are usually the key ingredients in a film video, you can use certain aspects of it, or follow a similar structure depending on the type of video you're making. You could showcase your talent, inspire people, explain a process or pitch a product through your video, it's all on you what story you'd like to present.

3 Humanize Inanimate Objects

Another great way to tell a story through your video, especially if you're making a product video, is to humanise material objects. This idea has been utilised by a few product companies, including Motorola for a recent mobile phone advertisement.

Have a look at the ad in this video they made. What they've done is compared the way a lousy mobile phone works to a lazy human being. Surprisingly, there are a ton of similarities between the two! And that's why this ad film was really successful in getting the point across.

Learning from Motorola's video storytelling skills then, if you were making a product video about shoes for your website, and wanted to present the qualities of what makes a great pair of shoes, you could use an amazing actor that personifies the emotions a great pair of shoes arouses.

4 Make Your Video a Song

You don't always have to follow the usual pattern of making animations or videos, and telling stories the conventional way. An unconventional, creative and fun way of telling a great story is to create your video as a song or music video.

For this you'll need to write the lyrics of your song first. The words will determine how the video will flow, and a lot depends on how you write the lyrics. So investing a little extra time in this direction can never be a waste.

Once you've got the lyrics nailed, it's time to start shooting with your camera, which is the easy part. The hard part begins with post production, when you're in the editing room. Using a variety of editing techniques, you can mould your story to suit your needs.

You can add videos within a video, to explain the lyrics and make your story easy to understand. Music adds life to your video and stimulates the senses of your audience, so placing at the points in your video when you want your audience to pay attention can pay off.

5 Engage A Voice Artist To Be Part Of Your Video

If you're planning to include a voice over in your video, make sure you hire someone with a great voice. Some voices are better received, and felt than others. A deep, profound, clear voice that communicates your video script can be magical for your story.

That's why, if you engage a celebrity who's voice is well known (like Morgan Freeman), you might attract more attention from your audience. A well known voice can be well worth the investment you make to have it on your video!

Wrapping it up

You must load your video with emotion. It's impossible to engage an audience without stimulating or arousing their emotions in some way! Continuously seeking feedback on your video can be an excellent way to know how well it's working with your audience, and if they're feeling truly engaged by it. You're on track if your story is arousing your audience's emotions.

Until next time, Be creative! - Pix'sTory made by Ryan Gould

Vice President of Strategy and Marketing Services @Elevation Marketing

From legacy Fortune 100 institutions to inventive start-ups, Ryan brings extensive experience with a wide range of B2B clients. He skillfully architects and manages the delivery of integrated marketing programs, and believes strongly in strategy, not just tactics, that effectively aligns sales and marketing teams within organizations.