One of the most important things in corporate education are the training videos. There are other ways, like seminars, classroom type education and team building, but the biggest part, and one of the most preferred ones, is the training video type of education.
You all know something about this by now and you have seen one or two videos of this sort. They all have several things in common and some of them are, they are educational, they are made to show and teach you about things, they are short and not very tedious. With this in mind we also see a lot of these videos that are made with some mistakes and that lose their effect. This is why we decided to talk to you about this and to tell you what to avoid when you are creating training and educational videos for your staff and employees.
Before we dive straight into the meat and potatoes of this article we want to tell you that there are other things that can help you make these videos, like Free screen recording tools that you can find here.
1. Show, don’t tell
This is something that most forget is available to them, and forget to use everything a video can offer them. This means that most of you forget to show rather then tell. The problem occurs when the video host or the main acter starts explaining things in video just like he/she is in classroom. This is the wrong approach and this is where most training videos fail. Since you have the capabilities to show trainees what you are talking about on a live example utilize that rather than talk about it. thanks to its nature as a visual medium training videos are great way of demonstrating how things work/operate, how they look like and most of all how to do certain things. When combining show and tell the video is complete and it will be much more effective and it will keep your audiences’ attention far longer as well as their interest in what they are learning.
2. Make it short and pinpoint
Another common mistake is that we all tend to make long training videos trying to show and explain as much as possible. This is a bad approach and making a video long will not serve you or those trying to learn from it. there are numerous studies that show how longer videos loose audience every minute after a certain point and there is another study that deals in short videos as a new way of capturing attention. The shorter and more concise the video is the more attention and efficiency it has. Just think about all the videos on social media that are minute to 10 minutes max and how much attention they are getting. There are those training videos that simply cannot be shorter than half hour or 20 minutes, but in these you should also try to trim as much of unnecessary info as possible and keep those as short as possible. Keep them as short as possible with clearly communicating the key information.
3. Put yourself in the shoes of the audience
One way of making perfect training videos is to make one for yourself first. You put yourself in the place of those that are learning and see what that video feels like. Is it too long, is it too short, did you get all the info needed, was it easy or difficult to understand and was it understandable at all. After you get all of these answers you go back, adjust accordingly and at the end you should have a training video that will be the most effective and efficient.
4. Exclude the boring stuff
We all know that there is a lot of boring things in every training video and that those boring bits tend to zone out those that are suppose to learn. what you need to do I locate these boring bits and cut them off totally if possible, if not and if they are somehow integral part of the video, then find a new and interesting way to present those so they don’t feel boring.
5. No jargon
Making a video that is simple and straightforward is the key to learning. Less is always more and if you use simpler terminology the audience will feel more connected to you as a presenter and to the training video itself. Never look down on to your audience and newer be condescending when you are communicating to those that you are trying to teach. It will create a barrier between you and the whole teaching and learning thing will fail.
6. Comedy
Having certain parts be funny and interesting in a training video can really help, especially when the videos are longer and when you are trying to make it easier for your audience to stay interested. It is also important to know that comedy in training videos can prove to be effective if done correctly, but you also need to know that it is subjective and something that is funny to you may not be to others. Training video should train your employees not to entertain them, meaning sometimes it is safer to be wiser than sorry.
7. Track the success of your videos
Great way of getting some feedback for your training videos is to use the view tracking or heatmaps and engagement. These are things that can give you feedback on the engagement, interest, places where the attention went down, the moment where they stopped paying attention and much more. You can also do surveys after videos and get an honest feedback from your employees to see what you need to do better, when you need to do it or simply to know what and how they feel on the training video. If you want tot check the efficiency of the video you can do some sort of a test or a quiz afterwards. This will show you if they payed attention and where, if they learn something and how much and if your video had and efficiency at the end.
Although these things can sound a bit strange, training videos and learning by visual stimulus has proven to be effective and still is effective way of learning. Making a good training video can make a huge difference so next time you decide to make one try to use these tip s and avoid thing we mentioned here today.
