This free workshop will help you get to grips with social video

When it comes to social video, there are people doing it incredibly well, and others doing it incredibly badly. In the case of the latter, it’s largely because the people running the accounts know they need to have a presence, but aren’t exactly sure what to do with it.

In a bid to remedy that, the Red and Yellow school of advertising is hosting a free workshop on 20 April 2016 in Cape Town aimed at developing participants’ social video skills.

The school has partnered with cinematographer Stephan Hambsch for the event, which it says will address the fundamentals of shooting effective short videos on your smartphone – and how to use it strategically.

The benefits of being able to create effective video content are obvious too. Online video has seen exponential growth in the last few years. YouTube now sees over 500 hours of video uploaded every minute (up from 100 hours in 2013). And it’s not just PC users on broadband watching videos – in 2012, 37% of Africans watched videos on their mobile phones at least once a day (and 72% did once a month).

As with images, creating videos has become cheap and accessible. Anyone can film a clip with a webcam or mobile phone and edit it together quickly using free apps; hosting on YouTube or Facebook is free and potentially reaches a massive global audience. But video also pushed us into an ever more real-time, authentic and personal social space. Instagram limits its videos to 15 seconds and encourages users to share experiences in the moment. Vine, Twitter’s 6-second video service, is similar. And then there are the ultra-instant tools like Periscope and SnapChat, where the goal is to document one’s experiences live, sharing those broadcasts with private or public communities.

One of the primary concepts the course is looking to push is the fact that you don’t necessarily have to produce high-end footage every time you shoot a video. Far more important is that the video be brand appropriate and compelling to watch.

Space at the workshop is limited to 100 guests! RSVP to registrations@redandyellow.co.za with your name and contact details to secure a place before 18 April 2016.