In this article, we prepared some of the most popular video types offered by video production. There are many differences and similarities between them which you will see below, However, their division is not about the content they give to the viewers. Instead, they are based on the message they send.
Promotional videos
Many industries have benefited from technology development. More precisely, it made easier the process of promoting their products online. Nowadays, promotional videos are very popular. Logically, as people spend most of their time on their devices surfing on the Internet, there is no better way to present them some content than to promote it online through short videos. Different industries and companies can actually save their money by using videos in their marketing. The main purpose of the promotional videos is to include the most relevant information with engaging and interesting content with a short length and a strong message. Only in that way, it can influence people and intrigue them to think about the content they saw.
However, it is important to say that there is a difference between the promotional videos and advertisements we see daily on our TVs. When it comes to the promotional video, a viewer by himself chooses to watch the content. In other words, it is up to the person whether he wants to watch it. Also, they can stop watching the video any time they want to. On the other hand, TV commercial and video ads are turned on without the viewer’s approval.
The main goal of the promotional videos is to target a specific audience and give them the solution for a certain problem. In other words, these videos are made to help the viewers with their needs and to change their actions. The promotional video must have value in order to attract the viewer to take the action and to influence positively on his/her perspective. For instance, the viewer will like the content, so he/she will share and like the video or purchase something that the video sells.
Some examples of promotion videos are Event, Explainer, Product-Review, Giveaway, etc. All of them boost sales in different ways. Using all of them may be the best option.
Educational videos
As the title says, the main purpose of educational videos is to give to the viewers the opportunity to understand the concept and learn something from it. Studies show that people absorb the given information better from video sources than textual long-form content. This phenom is explained by the fact that we are receiving, understanding, and memorizing better the content through visual and sound interaction. Two science models prove this statement including multi-modal learning and dual-coding theory.
When it comes to educational videos, we can say with certainty that educational videos have a big impact on increasing viewer’s abilities to learn something. These video types go further than just giving the information. More precisely, they are created to represent to the people the importance of some occurrence as well as their main points. The whole content is well-discussed and explained to the audience, not leaving the space for them to interpret the lining. What makes this video type so popular is the fact that it can bring such complex ideas and approaches in a most simple way in order to educate the audience. As a result, people get a clear message and an awareness of some content in a way worth paying attention to.
In the further text, you will see some of the educational video examples, so you can have a clearer picture of what they refer to.
Documentary film and videos
The main purpose of making documentary videos and films is to document some event, an occurrence that happened in reality with the education, historical and informational characteristics. This type of video needs to have entraining content in order to attract viewers. Only in that way, it can become popular. Usually, they are short, so it would not be very tiring for people when they watch it.
There are actually three different documentary types including an observational type that does not have narration along the way, an expository that has narration aspect, and the participatory type with the main character in it.
Different types of documentaries such as performative, expository, and poetic are good examples of that. They can provide people with different types of information and improve their knowledge in an entertaining way.
Entertainment videos
When we are talking about this last video type, we must say that they have the only purpose – to intrigue people and entertain them. There is no limit when it comes to making entertainment videos which means they can include different genres, purposes, contains and goals. A good example of that is streaming platforms that people use to make their free time more entertaining almost every day.
Similarities and differences between video types
With so many similarities and crossovers that different video types have, it could be hard to distinguish them. For that reason, our first goal was to introduce you to all the genres there exist, and now we are going to introduce you to the similarities and differences between all of them.
Commonalities between video types
As you probably understand by yourself, all video types have the goal to share some content with the viewers, whether it was basic information, some story, knowledge, or any other essential piece of information. Despite the sharing of content, one more thing is common to all video types, and that is reaching the target audience and convincing them to interact. In that way, they can influence a special group of people based on their gender, age, location, interests, habits, etc. When it comes to the last similarity that all video types share, it is certainly giving some specific message to the audience.
The differences between video genres
Despite entertaining ones, all these video types have an almost identical goal. People are using them to positively influence the viewer and motivating him/her to take action. The promotional videos have the biggest purpose to persuade the viewers and changing their perspective and opinion about something. Educational and informational videos are more passive because their only goal is to present the content to the viewers and help them understand better some event or occurrence
However, there is one thing that you have to understand, It is not enough to produce a video and wait for the results to come. Your video content needs to be entertaining and engaging. Despite that, it also needs to feature quality. If you are not a good video producer, there are many video producing companies like Spiel Creative that can help you boost the quality of your videos. Doesn’t this seem like an easier option?