Are you creating content the right way?

You’ve created a PowerPoint (PPT) video for a client and they are using it for in-person meetings. But now they want that same presentation on their website.

If you are a writer, you should consult with your web designer/developer for production suggestions.

Recently, this happened to one of my clients and the writer who created the PPT presentation was converting it to a Windows Media Video (.WMV) and that takes hours upon hours to build as a movie file.

The presentation itself was having timing issues because the slides were turning before they could be read, so it needed to be revised more than once. Because it takes so long to generate the file, it was preventing her from doing other work.

If the writer had discussed this with me, I’d have recommended we create the movie using software I have, Camtasia. It would have been pretty easy.

Camtasia and PowerPoint can work together as a team.

There is an “add on control bar” that can appear in PowerPoint and record the file’s slides as you turn them. Then you can easily edit and save the movie, once in Camtasia.

Camtasia and Powerpoint as a team

Here’s a great tutorial page that explains how they can work together. PowerPoint and Camtasia.

(You could also have created the Camtasia video in other ways without even using PowerPoint, such as creating jpgs in Photoshop and bringing them into Camtasia, and adding music or a voiceover, as well.)

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How does a client know they are asking the right person to create what they need?

The client wanting a video for their website should ask their web designer how best to achieve this, but in this case since they were having a writer build the content, they assumed the writer would know best.

As you can see it can be tricky to know for clients. My tip would be to ask the person responsible for the end platform of where the content will be viewed. In this case since the video is intended for the website and YouTube, they should have consulted with the web designer first.

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