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You Too, Can Use Video on Your Web Site

YouTube has made popular what some have been doing for at least three years - using video to give your web site users a richer experience and better service.

GRR churches are using this medium to help their sites be more inviting, personal, and informative - to be of better service to their users.

Here are a few pointers from what we have learned. (From August 2006 through July 2007, your GRR site offered more than 100 video clips. During that 12 months, there were over 18,000 viewings of these videos.)

• Plan a 2 - 3 minute presentation. Write a script. Make it warm, personal, inviting.

• Use a web cam or video camera to record the person. Use a plain, non-busy background. Use a good microphone. Audio quality is important. Hint: Don't take your viewers on a tour of your churchbuilding and/or campus - even Willow Creek learned this is not to be the focus.

• Import the video into your computer. (If you use a web cam, this has already been done. If you use a video camera, use a firewire cable from your digital camera to the computer. Using a PC? Then open Windows MovieMaker and follow the steps to import. Using a Mac? Open IMovie and follow the steps.)

• Edit as needed in MovieMaker, IMovie, or a third party video editor such as Adobe's Premiere Elements.

• Export the finished movie into a format best for the web. This will often be called "streaming." The dimensions most recommended balancing quality and download speed for you users is 320 px wide by 240 px height.
  
  

  Appropriate formats include WindowsMedia, Quicktime, RealMedia, and Flash. (Flash *.flv is now the default standard of the Internet. Download WAX, a free video composting tool with Flash output. Look also into Adobe's Premiere Elements (Download) or Premiere Express (online service). You may also want to try out Adobe's Flash Encoder as part of Flash, or Sorenson Video's Squeeze for Flash. These last two are not cheap.)

   

• Upload the finished exported file to your web server.

• Write an introduction and / or link to this video on the page of your web site where you want this to appear.

• Upload the page with the link.

Now your users have the opportunity for a more personal networking with you.

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