Three Reasons Why You Should Care About High Quality Media
Hello, and welcome to the inaugural edition of “Fresh off the Vine”, a blog by Branch and Vine Media! Now, I know what you’re thinking: “ANOTHER blog? Why should I even care?” Well, that’s a fair question. We plan to cover a variety of topics on the subject of media, ranging from the most basic ideas for beginners, to the more advanced stuff that industry professionals will find interesting. However, our intent is to help you learn and grow in any creative discipline, not just those relating to digital media! If you’re anything like us, you have an insatiable curiosity, and want to know how stuff works. If you’re involved in any business, non-profit, church, or even some sort of passion project of your own devising, we bet you’ll find something useful in the topics we have planned. Virtually everyone needs to make use of media in today’s world, or risk falling out of relevance. Our goal is to help you avoid that unpleasant outcome, and stay relevant without needing to spend hours doing research or thousands of dollars in equipment for services you might not need! So sit back, grab your favorite beverage, and let’s dig in to this broad and deep subject!
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So, what exactly is media? Well, the word is generally used to refer to some form of communication, such as radio, TV, newspapers, etc. Sometimes you’ll hear the word “media” thrown around in reference to news networks like FOX or CNN, but we’re referring to is specifically digital media, such as YouTube, social media ads, or nearly anything involving digital video, photography or design. At Branch & Vine Media, this is our specialty, so naturally, we’re very passionate about it! We get that not everyone is going to share that passion, but you’d be foolish to ignore this subject completely. Digital media is practically everywhere we look nowadays, streaming from our smartphones, sending practically any show or movie we want right to our TV, and even some billboards have gone digital!
It cannot be overstated how big an impact this has had on our society! Young people are consuming increasing levels of digital media, and older forms of it, like newspapers or radio are slowly falling out of favor. The largest and most profitable companies have long been making use of this to get their branding and products in front of as many people as possible. However, we’ve often found that small businesses, nonprofits or churches have fallen behind in this trend, sometimes to their detriment. If you work for one such organization, now might be a good time to start thinking about these things.
To be fair, sometimes these entities just don’t have the budget to do much in the way of advertising or creating a social media presence. However, just as often it can be due to a lack of knowledge or simply not caring enough to bother. While we can’t make anyone care about these topics, we can certainly help you to remain informed and armed with the right knowledge to get started!
So, here are three reasons you should care about using high-quality media:
Increasing your reach.
This first one might seem painfully obvious, but it’s shocking how many people simply choose not to use modern technology for advertising or outreach. The simple truth is that many organizations either feel they don’t have enough time to bother with it, or can’t afford to hire someone to do it for them. Well, if you’re a small business/ non-profit, let me ask you a simple question: “can you afford NOT to advertise?” Sure, if you’re a charitable organization, profits aren’t your first concern. But even so, are you really going to let word of mouth be your primary means of marketing? Long gone are the days of people standing around in the town square, and exchanging information about which shop has the best deals in town. This sort of chatter has moved almost exclusively to digital realms like social media.
If social media really isn’t your “thing”, then there’s still good news! Advertising on social media is actually pretty cheap! For as little as ten bucks, sites like Facebook will allow you to “boost” your posts, making them appear in front of more users. Social media marketing is a complex topic, and frankly, deserves its own post entirely. So we’ll leave it at this: ignoring social media is tantamount to ignoring new customers. We’re not saying you have to ENJOY Facebook, Twitter, etc, but ignoring them outright is just shortsighted!
2. Creating a positive impression of your brand.
Whether you’re a church, taco stand, dog kennel, or anything in between, people want to feel like they can trust you. If you don’t pay careful attention to your branding, design and other media elements, it can give off the impression that you don’t care very much. For example, we’ve all seen that poster or sign that looked something like this:
Perhaps the most chaotic poster ever?
A great example of what NOT to do.
Yikes… it’s a little hard to know where to even start with this example. Since this post is not meant to be a crash-course in graphic design, let’s stick to the most basic problem: would you view this person/ organization as competent or trustworthy with your hard-earned money? I don’t know the story behind this poster, but it certainly gives the impression that whoever made it couldn’t be bothered to hire a graphic designer who knew what they were doing. It definitely comes across as a little lazy and a LOT chaotic.
“But wait,” you say, “not everyone can afford a professional designer! Maybe they’re a perfectly competent person with a low budget!” Yes, perhaps, but the poster makes you second-guess them, doesn’t it? First impressions are INCREDIBLY important when trying to bring in new customers! Why would you give them a chance to write you off as a newbie who doesn’t know what you’re doing?
A lot of things can fall under the umbrella of “media”, including graphic design, and just like a rude employee or a hair in a salad, sometimes it only takes one negative impression or experience for a customer to write you off entirely. You can save yourself a lot of trouble and generate positive impressions by investing in high-quality media and branding for your business or org.
And as for the notion that professional design work is “expensive”, well… I wouldn’t go so far as to call it “cheap”, but it also doesn’t have to cost a fortune either. Sometimes the most effective design work is pretty simple and straightforward. Most designers can put something like this together for you for a very reasonable price. Video is another matter, and we’ll cover that in future posts, but don’t be discouraged. You don’t have to break the bank to stay relevant (something we specialize in here at Branch & Vine Media). We’ll cover the aspect of relevancy shortly, but I want you to take away one simple lesson from this section:
So to those who say “I can’t afford the high-quality stuff”, I politely rebut "You can’t afford NOT to have the high-quality stuff!”
3. It will help you stay relevant.
We’ve all heard stories of brands who either refused to change or were unable to identify the need to do so. Yahoo had opportunities to buy both Google and Facebook at various points, but turned down each offer, thinking they were too expensive. Blockbuster famously refused to buy Netflix, saying it was a "very small niche business." While Yahoo has managed to soldier on, Blockbuster has since gone belly-up, having been toppled by the likes of the very company they refused to buy.
Not every decision is going to be life or death for your company, and I think we can all agree that change simply for the sake of change isn’t usually a good idea. There’s no need to bow to the whims of every single fad that blows through our society. However, ignoring the changes that stick simply because “that’s the way we’ve always done it”, will likely leave you out of touch with your customers. Social media as well as the various other forms of digital media we’ve covered are clearly here to stay. I totally get that each business is unique, and not everyone can or should follow the same formula. But for must of us, we can either utilize these new trends to grow our brand, or risk going the way of Blockbuster.
Don’t be the one left behind, wondering why you no longer have a steady stream of customers!
