Video Production Comes With Higher Risk Than Articles

Online video production is a high-risk venture for content producers because of the amount of time and effort it takes to get it right.

The time and effort for producing a short, medium-quality video is higher than the time and effort for a short, medium-quality article. So the risk of producing a video is higher than the risk of producing an article.

A knowledgeable writer can easily produce an article of more than 300 words — widely considered the minimum for getting attention from search engines — in less than an hour. Some writers can do it in even less time.

Then there is the matter of ranking, audience reach and total views of a video on YouTube versus the same for an article in search results at Bing and Google.

In truth, different articles have different needs. Some require research and others none of it. Some beg for graphics that also go into the total labor time for an article, while others need none. Good time managers use graphic templates to save time.

Enhancing an article with search engine optimization also adds labor to an article. Then there is the editing process. Even a quick edit of an article for grammar, misspellings, clarity and other standards will increase the overall effort.

Still, a writer can do all of the above for a short article of moderate quality in two hours.

Why Video is More Risky

In contrast, a simple two-minute video can easily take four hours of labor. For perspective, a two-minute video is shorter than average.

That four hours assumes a modest effort at quality including the shooting, editing and narrating of the video.

All of the above means the quality of a two-hour article is similar to the quality of a four-hour video.

So a video of moderate quality is double the effort and double the risk of an article of similar quality.

Of course, the above assumptions are just assumptions. Some people are better at writing, while others are better at videos. But the important point remains: for at least this company and others, video production is more labor intensive than writing.

Therefore, the risk of not getting enough viewership to make the effort worthwhile is higher.

The Audience is the Judge

Of course, the real measure of the effort is the response rate. If an online publisher or business is consistently getting twice the response of videos than articles, the effort is worth the risk.

For that reason, the publisher or business should have a set of standards for both articles and videos in order to judge the results fairly for each effort.

Producing enough videos and articles over time will establish trend lines that are useful in tracking results and adjusting future efforts.

Either way, the business that invests resources in both videos and articles will find useful insights from standards and avoid wasted time, money and effort.