Now that your video library is ready to launch, do you think your audience is ready to watch and interact with your content? Use the following tips to attract and hold your staff or customer’s attention and gain a positive ROI on your mobile video program.
1. Define learning personas. Before you create the content, it is important to determine what your audience needs to learn to be successful. By setting up criteria to meet the goals of the program, you will create content that is not only relevant but targeted too.
2. Create simple mobile video interactions. With mobile phone viewership, video presentation software should be simple and easy to use. Keep the video content short – no more than five minutes – and don’t use fancy or complicated navigation buttons.
3. Make sure your content loads fast. According to the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Akamai Technologies’ study, people don’t like viewing an online video if it does not load fast – as in two seconds or less. By the ten-second mark, if your video has not loaded, about 40 percent of Internet users will abandon the video, reports CNN.com.
4. Identify key staff to function as mentors and product champions. Choose enthusiastic and energetic early adopters who believe in the importance of the informal learning program. Encourage monthly meetings with the staff to facilitate the use of the mobile video library for new product pushes and offsite training opportunities.
5. Consider mobile bandwidth limitations. When viewing the content on a small screen, the end user may experience slow Internet connections or video downloading restrictions. A video library dependent on a high-speed Internet connection, or is graphic heavy, can affect the mobile video learning experience negatively.
It is also important to take advantage of the times mobile viewers have access to an Internet connection to synchronize with your video server and download large graphic elements and video files.
6. Think about context. It is important to know how, when and where the user will view the mobile content. For example, most users view tablet content and television content simultaneously. While people typically use their smartphones throughout the day to check social media sites, view text or email messages and watch videos. If you don’t know when and where your content is viewed, install an analytics program to measure user behavior and monitor video watching times.
7. Customize the experience for the small screen. Instead of reducing the size of your desktop video content for viewership on mobile screen, create new and relevant small-screen videos. In fact, when designing a mobile video program, you should strive to create a familiar and unique experience for the tablet and smartphone screen.
8. Be creative and make the experience fun. Make sure you choose video presentation software that allows for commenting and social media sharing. If you have a company-wide intranet, encourage users to create user-generated content to complement the video training experience. Encourage the staff to take pictures of each other watching the videos on their devices to show examples of engagement and people having fun learning.
Image: Anymeeting.com