Customers can be a real pain can’t they? Our best advice is that you should never work for another customer again. We never work for any. It really isn’t a good thing to do and your business would do a lot better if you did the same!

So, I am joking – right? No I’m not. I really mean it. Working for customers is extremely bad for your business.

But before you go off and tell others that Cracking Media are Crack Pots – wait a moment…

It is true that customers can be a real pain – we have all had customers like that.

It is also true that you should never work for any customer, BUT we do wholeheartedly recommend that you should work with your customers. So not for but with!

The difference in the two statements above is a subtle but important one.

You will have heard people say of a sales person that he/she could sell snow to the Eskimos. It’s as if we should be impressed at how brilliant the person is at sales. But did anyone ask the Eskimo if he needed any snow? The fact is, he didn’t!

But that’s the same thing that happens when you are so obsessed with the things you can do for a customer – because selling a solution is really the focus of your attention – that you fail to understand the problem your customer needs solving.

Many companies have great products or services, but are really poor at listening to their customer. Rather than taking the time to fully understand the problem their customer needs solving, they impose a solution on them. This often results in the customer spending lots of money and the company they employ solving very little. In fact, in some cases, the solution has solved nothing and ended up costing the customer even more. They were sold snow but didn’t need any!

Finding the right solution for your customer comes about when there is a marriage of expertise. Your customer is an expert at what they do and so will understand their business better than you do. You are of course an expert at what you do – your customer wouldn’t expect anything less – but the key to providing a successful solution for your customer is to work with them not for them.

That means listening to your customer – the expert on their business.
That means taking time to understand the problems they need solving.
That means working with your customer to work out how you can best help them.

It sounds simple, but many businesses fail their customers because they get carried away with finding and imposing a solution without ever really understanding the problem.

That doesn’t mean you should be passive in your relationship with your customer. Listening and understanding the problems your customer needs solving is an active role but it is only part of your role. As an expert in the products or services you provide you must also be an educator. It is your responsibility to give your customer advice and direction whilst remembering that although the customer isn’t always right, they are always the customer.

So, if you want to be successful at solving problems for your customers then start working with them.

And if you are a customer looking for a business to solve your problem, make sure you find a business that will listen to you and work with you, not for you.

Video as a visual medium has exploded on to all types of gadgets and devices in recent years. The rise of video has seen a huge increase in video content being created for all different purposes, such as personal memories, events, instruction and promotion to name a few.

Videos can be exciting, factual or fun, however one important factor in making a video easy to watch is quality audio.

Veiwers can forgive shaky, badly framed or boring video footage if the sound is clear, crisp and helps to push the video forward, essential if your prime directive is a marketing message.

Here are a few things to consider when recording video with interview or narrated audio…

Always consider how a location sounds as well as how it looks. Find a place with no unwanted noises (traffic, background chatter, buzzing air-conditioning units, etc.). Try listening to a location for a few minutes to pick out any distracting sounds that might come across in your recording. Never rule out the possibility of having to find another location.

Another important considration is good acoustics. Recording audio in a highly reverberant space will cause echoes. These echoes can mix with the intended recording creating a dull, indistinct and  difficult to understand soundtrack. Rooms with carpet and soft furnishings usually have better acoustic qualities.

Use an external mic as the mic that’s attached to your camcorder is a compromise designed to pick up as much as possible. That means foreground noise, background noise and everything inbetween. External shotgun mics are designed to be positioned very close to your interviewee or narrator and have a very directional pick up pattern so won’t pick up so much of the surrounding ambient noise.

Another option for interviews is a quality lavalier mic (clip on mic/tiepin mic). These types of mic are attached to your interviewee in close proximity to their mouth, all but ensuring crisp audio.

Always watch audio levels closely. This is a critical part of the process and should always be done with headphones. Many videographers set the levels based on what they see in the levels indicator on the camcorder screen.  Only by using headphones will you be certain that the sound being indicated is the sound you want to record and not a background noise.

Turn off your camcorder’s Auto Gain Control (AGC) and set audio levels manually… The AGC will compensate for level changes by trying to match a constant volume of the recording to the sound being recorded. This sounds great, however AGC will introduce increased background noise in quiet portions of the recording.

By remembering these basic points when recording sound you will have an increased chance of consistently capturing better quality audio time after time…

The fact is, YOU’RE PRODUCING CONTENT!!!

Successful social media campaigns take dedication and awareness…

If your goals for Social Media are to improve your profile and create business opportunities, then the content you produce needs thought and focus if it’s to be productive for your business.

The first job is to clearly define your key objectives for social media by preparing killer branding and content to back up your posts. Have a clear vision of how you want the social media world to think of you. Do you want people to think of you as a provider of high quality, fast turnaround, customer friendly or maybe cutting edge in your field.

It’s very important to narrow your branding messages as being all things to all people rarely works.

Social media is all about building connections and building connections takes time. Whether in the virtual world or the real world connections are all about trust and providing useful, trustworthy content is the first step.

The social media world is constantly changing so be sure to stay abreast of updates to social media functionality such as uploading images, videos and other content, keep an eye out for new portals in your field that can be tapped into and don’t waste time on ones that miss your target audience.

Always measure the results of your work on social media sites. After your social media campaign has been running for a while, determine whether you are making any progress and if so is it meeting your goals.

Be very aware of the numbers… Check the number of people responding to your posts and social media offers, make a note of the number of people who are subscribing to your content and connection lists.

Most of all pay particular attention to responses you’re getting to posted content. Only by doing this will you start to understand what you need to change to improve your online reputation with killer content that really hits the mark…

We’re told by Apple that sharing between Mac and PC is a straight forward process and that Macs love to play on a windows network. And for the most part this is true..!

One question we do get on a regular basis is this…

Why won’t the media exported from Final Cut Pro play or edit on a PC system..?

The answer is don’t Export, Share instead.

Using the ‘File|Share’ option in FCP you have the ability to choose from a range of high quality formats that keep your footage bright and clear ready for adding in to a DVD structure, online video presentation or even a re-edit. Using the ‘File|Export’ method give you a file that will only work on a Mac. Quicktime on a PC doesn’t appear to have this restriction, we’ve never had a Quicktime file from a PC not transfer to a Mac.

As long as the destination PC is running the latest version of Quicktime and possibly ProRes Decoder for Windows, then there shouldn’t be a problem with editing and playback.

Just to point out that we are not talking about final delivery formats through compressor such as, mp4, H264, etc. These formats should never be used for re-edit, Ever, EVER, EVER and that’s an end to it..!