First Principles

If you're shooting video to keep on your phone and watch 5 years from now, you don't need to think about your audience. It's you. If you like what you're shooting, have at it. But if you're shooting video to intentionally share with other people– your family, your customers, your followers– all the rules change. Why?

Because watching is voluntary. To hold someone else's attention, you need to shoot something that is valuable to them. Because if you don't, they'll click to something else.

Oh, they'll intend to watch your video. But they'll get busy. Or distracted. Or watch just enough to know they don't want to see more (and can credibly lie about watching the whole thing when you ask.)

Whether you're an individual who shares her barbecue video with the family, or a company trying to build market share, or an educator trying to make a point, the people who decides whether or not your video gets watched is the audience. Forget about SEO or buying views. Those may trick people into clicking, but it won't make them watch past the first eight seconds. The only videos that get watched are the ones that hold their attention. That make them feel. That tell them a story. That take them on a journey.

In other words: videos that entertain.

Being entertaining is mandatory– it's the entry level to getting your video watched.

"Entertaining" is not a bad word. It doesn't mean pandering. It means pleasingthe people who are watching such that they will continue to watch. It means you've made it interesting to them. Because if they don't watch, all your time and effort making that video goes to waste. They won't get your story/your message/your brand/your life because they'll be clicking away to another episode of Real Housewives.

The people who most skillfully reward the audience for spending their time get the most applause, the most views, the most ticket sales, the most purchases, the most participation. The ones who don't reward the audience get nothing.

This means that YOU are now in the entertainment business—competing for eyeballs against pros like me, millions of gifted influencers and semi-pros, and the giant corporations who, in one form or another, have been making entertaining film and video for over 100 years.

Sounds daunting, but all they're doing is what you also need to do: making video that your audience will want to watch.

Welcome to the entertainment industry.