[D] The Message is Most Important

Your job is to elicit emotions from your audience. You’re looking to garner a reaction of sorts. That reaction all depends on what you’re trying to inspire them to do. Your video content is a means to persuade your audience to do something. Whether it’s to buy a product, follow a social account, be a better person, learn something, or for pure entertainment, you are always trying to persuade your audience.  

"You should spend the majority of your production time thinking about who’ll be watching this and how you’re trying to make them feel and act."

Spend time defining your audience and really understand what makes them tick. Write your content directly to them, like a conversation. Your goal isn’t to be general and hope that everyone watches and loves it. You want to be specific, speak directly to one audience, and if it’s done well, it will naturally be passed around your audience’s networks and be more effective.

EXAMPLE: Pampers diapers [Procter & Gamble] is most likely to write an advertisement specifically for expecting mothers, new mothers, and mothers of toddlers.  It makes sense right? The people who would most likely benefit from the products being sold would be the ideal target audience. Conversely, if you shared that same diaper ad to teenagers and college students, the results would be tremendously different because the new audience doesn’t get any benefit or solution from those products. The whole point is to provide information and solutions that match the specific needs and pain points of your audience.