From showcasing multimedia artist’s videos to marketing their business, a portfolio website makes doing business effortlessly.
Videos aren’t limited to just entertainment. Websites like Udemy are using them to educate people around the world and ‘live videos’ are the latest addition to the marketing suite offered by the social media channels.
In a nutshell, videos are being used from education to marketing. Videos are perhaps the most easily consumed content on the Internet.
Over the last decade, video consumption has increased as a result of mobile internet usage. This consumption is going to hit an unprecedented number in the next three years, as more millennials get access to faster internet connections, more data, and Wifi availability.
The number of millennials watching videos on their mobile phones alone would account for 70% of the mobile traffic by 2023.
Marketers are coming up with all possible ways to turn this trend to work in their favor. And the obvious thing is to make more videos.
What’s in it for a multimedia artist?
A study conducted by Buffer in 2016 revealed that marketers had already started looking for videographers, animators, and other multimedia artists to make videos for them to up their video marketing for 2017.
In fact, a lot of prominent brands hire in-house videographers while those with limited budgets are still looking for freelance multimedia artists.
This indeed is a great time for them to get out there and show off their skills.
And a great way to do this is to build an online portfolio that does more than just show sample videos.
Craig Good, who spent over 30 years at Pixar, puts it ‘If you want to hire experienced animators you would want to see a reel that demonstrates those skills.’
How To Build A Portfolio For A Multimedia Artist?
Now that you know that a portfolio website could be really helpful, let me tell you how to build one.
WordPress, among others, is the most popular choice among professionals looking to build their websites.
It’s manageable; with an easy-to-use backend that you can operate to make changes to your portfolio website after your website is up and running.
However, there can be challenges at first. Like looking for a compatible theme that compliments your videos and indispensable integrations such as an eCommerce store, payment gateway, or blog, if you want to sell video tutorials online like Raunak.
The other factor that you should consider is the amount of storage space you would need for your videos. If you’re planning to sell videos online, make this the single most important factor on which to base your decision.
Buying storage space could be a challenge if you have to frequently upgrade your hosting plans. Alternatively, you can use a portfolio-building tool like Pixpa which is specifically meant for creative professionals to build their websites.
All of the required integrations in WordPress for a creative professional come built-in with a Pixpa portfolio website. With Pixpa, you don’t have to worry about storage space since you can upgrade with a click of a button.
Branding For Videographers: Moving Beyond Youtube, Vimeo, And Other Video Distribution Networks
For a videographer or any multimedia artist, Youtube is the best marketing channel. With a massive base of over a billion users, for almost a decade, it has consistently been a tremendous platform for artists to distribute their videos and get recognition for their work.
In addition, Youtube’s amazing search capability (it processes over 3 billion searches a month), the convenience to host videos, and its humongous community of viewers make it a platform that any multimedia artist needs to be a part of.
However, the one aspect that gets completely overlooked amid all this is building a brand, which is crucial if you’re trying to grow as an independent multimedia artist or build a business.
Let me explain this with a simple example.
Consider yourself shopping on New York’s Fifth Avenue (I know it’s exciting). You would see luxury boutique stores where you get top-notch elegant apparel. Your purchase would be profitable for the store. On the other hand, if you go to a Target store, the chances are you would be overwhelmed with the number of choices of brands there.
The brands here are competing for your attention.
Irrespective of the brand you buy from Target, they would still make a profit from your purchase; other brands would lose a prospective customer.
Youtube is a marketplace where reportedly 300 hours of videos are uploaded every minute. A YouTube user hopping from one video to another other is just the right example that impersonates the above scenario.
So how do you get over that?
Perhaps create your own ‘luxury boutique store’?
This might not guarantee views for your video but it definitely lowers down the competition. A visitor landing straight on your ‘boutique store’ aka your videography portfolio website thus has a greater chance of watching all your videos.
Getting More Out of A Portfolio Website
Optimization is the key to success in every business. And optimizing videos on YouTube is no different. Videos on YouTube can be optimized to rank them higher with Video SEO.
But what’s even better? Ranking your videos on Google.
It means that your videos would show up on Google when someone looks up a ‘video keyword’. Google considers certain keywords as video keywords for which mostly video (on YouTube) results show up.
As your videos are hosted on YouTube, Portfolio websites retain this trait. If you utilize written content (blog) this can further result in better rankings for your videos.
There you have it!
From showcasing multimedia artist’s videos to marketing their business, a portfolio website makes doing business effortlessly. What else can you ask for?
