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Video Killed the Online Technical Writing Star
HEADLINE: Video killed technical writing aka “Video killed the Radio Star.” Well, not really, I mean we still have our favorite singers and we still find them mostly through some sort of radio station, be it local, or satellite, or streaming Internet.
- Image by fataetoile/ Cinzia Rizzo via Flickr
The same goes with text and blogging sites. I follow a few bloggers religiously and one day I stumbled across post about using Google to find keywords. Now this post starts out innocently enough with text, but then ends up in a video to explain the meat and potatoes.
I have nothing against videos so don’t get me wrong, however, on this particular day I was reading through the blogs I follow in a Panera Bread on a laptop that has a sound card that doesn’t work. So as you can imagine, the video was a show stopper for me.
I looked around the post, but there was no text option. In fact, this frustrated me so much I started doing more research. I like webuildyourblog (did I say I follow this religiously?) so this is not going to stop me from following him, it’s not his fault I have a laptop that has bad speakers.
The Good Video
Adding video does open up a huge market for people. It’s a quick way to bring someone in and tell them about your products or services. It’s a great way to build rapport with the people who follow you. I’ve also seen some products which have video only tutorials on how to use said product. Video is a great added benefit.
Notice I say ADDED benefit.
The Bad Video
What I dislike about so many bloggers and sites today is that some of them offer video only and some have replace text all together. Maybe they have an intro to the video and maybe not all their posts are video, but it seems like the one’s I want more information about are video. They ignore a good many people that may not have broadband, maybe they have a download limit, or don’t care to sit through a 5-10 minute video to learn how to do something. Or don’t want to sit through the video again to remember how to do that one little step they forgot between entering data in the name field and submitting the form. Or maybe they just have a bad sound card that they haven’t replaced yet.
The Ugly Video
You may say that there are few people that would be effected by video only. I mean video blogs are popping up almost as much as text based blogs. I have seen some really outstanding videos, then again I have seen a guy sit in front of his web-cam jamming to music that was distorted on my end. Then he paused, “Because he wasn’t ready yet.” Made us listen to more music we really couldn’t hear before he launched into his sales pitch on why we should buy his software. Want to know how far I got? Let’s say I still don’t know what he was selling.
Here’s a few questions to think about:
- Does a Video based post add a benefit to a Text based post?
- Is your Video professional?
- Do you want your target audience to be global?
- What about the people who live and/or work in rural areas?
- What about the connection to people that live in Europe or Canada or Ireland or Mexico? I don’t know enough about those countries to know with any certainty if they are mostly on broadband or not. Do you?
- Can all the people who follow your blog, hear? Yes I said hear. Do you have a hearing impaired option?
Text Benefits
No, not Tax Benefits, TEXT Benefits. I’ve done a lot of technical writing jobs creating user-manuals for a wide variety of companies for several industries and while I have integrated video into the online help or web site, I always give them a choice of reading text. Text does something that video cannot do: get to the answer quickly.
You can search text and find the keywords you are looking for. You can search for an answer to a question and get detailed instructions about how to solve your problem.
While I’m not advocating Death to Video, I am advocating for alternatives. Something I learned about writing online help systems is that you never know where a person is coming from or where they are going to. So giving your audience limited options may be self-defeating.
Text Is ALIVE!
You can do things with text that you can never do with video.
- You can print text for future reference like a Quick Reference Card that gives you a cheat sheet on how to do something.
- Text is in needed in order to be found in a Search Engine. Unless you know something that I do not.
- You can give multiple examples in a short space of time, easily found via Headings.
- You can link off to other sources of information.
Can you tell I root for the underdog too? Well, I am a Philadelphia Eagles fan 
So the next time you put video in a blog or create how-to’s in video only, think about it for a moment. Are you losing some potential customers because you think Text is dead? I hope not, because there will be a lot of sad Online Technical Writing Stars out there. Me included.
Ivan Walsh
February 13th, 2010 at 10:50 pm
Hi Folks,
Another small seo-type tip is to add a small thumbnail at the start of the article and add VIDEO into the ALT tag.
Google will then index this page and put it under Video in it’s search results.
Ivan
Ivan Walsh´s last blog ..“I never really understood that feature, so I left it alone…”
Andrew from Blogging Guide
February 14th, 2010 at 11:27 am
CJ,
Firstly, thanks for liking and linking to my site.
Secondly, I’ve never thought about the point you raise – which is a very god point.
I shall start adding a text version of the post as well.
Have you seen my recent videos that are text based videos – what do you think of them?
Andrew
Andrew @ Blogging Guide´s last blog ..The Pros and Cons of Social Bookmarking
CJ
February 15th, 2010 at 9:15 am
Ivan – Thanks for the tip. I didn’t realize that putting video in the alt tag would put it in the Video search results. I usually put a short descrption or name in the alt tag for SEO purposes. I’ll give that a go. Thanks.
CJ
February 15th, 2010 at 9:17 am
Andrew – no problem. I love what you say. It has been one of the most helpful sites I found out there. I love it.
No I haven’t seen the text based videos yet. I’ll hope on over there and check them out.
Gail from Do Follow Lists
February 16th, 2010 at 5:57 pm
Amen to this! I prefer reading to listening to videos and can share many reasons why:
1) Some are stuck with either slow Internet access or access that either limits bandwidth or charges extra for it.
2) The audio on PCs seems to want to only work when it feels like it. If I have my PC up too long it quits working and most of the time I am not willing to clear everything and reboot just to listen to your video.
3) There can be other people in the room that would be disturbed by my listening to a video.
I know many love video blogging and that is great; however, we need a text version too. Double work I know but search engines only index text so if you want to be found you really need to do this anyway.
Gail @ Do Follow Lists´s last blog ..KeywordLuv: How Using It Benefits Us All
CJ
February 16th, 2010 at 9:51 pm
Gail -Thank you for your input. I didn’t even think about other people in the room when I wrote the post. Lucky me, I have headphones. And yes, at least at this time Search Engines don’t have the ability to index videos. I wonder if they’re working on that in some search dark algorithm room?
Patty Mooney
February 24th, 2010 at 3:17 pm
Andrew, you have raised some good points about video in this post. As a video professional for the last 28 years, I’ve seen the industry grow from only a few people willing to spend large amounts of money on video production equipment to a time now when you can buy a decent video camera for under $1,000. However, trying to produde a professional video because the equipment is now more accessible is like me trying to plumb my house because I own a wrench. Poor video reflects badly on your business. Anyone who wants to go that route will quickly learn the lesson that you get what you pay for. I post articles about video production at my blog. Yesterday’s post is about working on a production with Speed-Skating god, Apolo Anton Ohno. Tomorrow’s will be the first in a series about how to produce video on a modest budget.
CJ
February 24th, 2010 at 9:58 pm
Patty — welcome to the discussion. I think some of the appeal of today’s video blogs or tutorials is because the end user sees that it’s not professionally done. It gives them the confidence that they can not only do what the tutorial is saying, but even the confidence that they can be an expert in their field and not have to spend an enormous amount of money to do it.
I do agree, not matter your budget, a bad video will do more harm than good. In fact there are some sites I not only left quickly because of it, but recommended others not to bother with that company. There’s no excuse for a bad video, even on a small budget you can do a professional video.
Sally from debt consolidation help
March 2nd, 2010 at 3:57 pm
Too many bloggers are using videos as the meat of their posts. It makes it easier for them and they think they are getting on the video bandwagon. But until videos can be indexed better text is still the better thing for search engines to crawl. And besides if I wanted to see a video on the subject I would have went straight to youtube.
CJ
March 2nd, 2010 at 6:36 pm
Sally — I totally agree. The problem with jumping on bandwagons are that everyone’s going to bail sooner than later and in the meantime you’re still fighting to get seen in the midst of every thing else. As for indexing videos, I think it’s only a matter of time. In the meantime, I’m not on the video bandwagon and even should I decide to climb aboard, you can bet I’m still going to have a text version too.