Using the iPad 2 to Make Videos for Your Community Hospital
November 10, 2011
With its built-in HD camera and easy-to-use interface, the iPad 2 makes it possible to shoot high-quality videos on the go. Learn how to make the most of your iPad 2 by adding a few accessories.
You’ve already taken the plunge, purchased the iPad and added it to your hospital’s list of technological assets. The iPad is perfect for a multitude of uses within your community hospital, from acting as a digital file keeper to being a quick reference tool, but how can you make the most of this portable and versatile device?
Use the iPad, with its sophisticated, built-in video camera, to replace other portable flip-style video recorders.
The iPad 2′s intuitive interface makes capturing video effortless. Simply open the default camera, toggle from the still camera to the video icon and press the red button in the center to start and stop recording. Voila! You have high definition video footage — and a large and clear screen on which to view it!
But there are limitations to the iPad. With its sleek design and rectangular shape, it’s hard to hold the iPad perfectly still while filming. The built-in microphone certainly picks up audio — but it also captures unwanted background noise — and the backside illumination sensor doesn’t provide enough light for low-light settings. Only basic editing, such as trimming your clip, can be done on the fly while you’re reviewing the clip.
To take full advantage of the iPad’s video capabilities, I would recommend a few tools.
The Essential Tools
- iMovie App ($5): This video editing application may be purchased from the Apple App Store. Significantly improve the editing capabilities of your iPad. Check out this video on editing using iMovie.
- The iMove app works with all video recorded from an Apple device — iTouch, iPhone or iPad.
- iPad 2 Movie Mount ($70): The Movie Mount is a special case which holds your iPad while you’re shooting video. The Movie Mount may be attached to a tripod for stable shooting. Video accessories — such as lights, lenses or microphones — may easily be attached to the case. It may be purchased online.
- LED Video Light: Consider purchasing an LED light such as this one with a hot shoe design, which will clip right into your Movie Mount. Lights range in size and price, depending on your needs.
- Camera Lens: The Movie Mount comes with a 37 mm screw fitting, which enables you to supplement the iPad with a variety of lenses. This will help you zoom in and focus more easily when shooting interview videos. I like this 37 mm lens.
- Shotgun Microphone: Use a shotgun microphone to improve your video’s audio.
Why Should I Shoot Videos?
- Audiences are moving online. Studies have shown that Americans spend an equal amount of time online as they do watching television. And of that time spent browsing the web, an average three-and-a-half hours per week are spent watching online videos.
- Online videos may elicit a response. A study from Burst Media found that 18.2 percent of online video viewers took some kind of action based on seeing an online video ad. And these are not just your young viewers “” older viewers were actually more likely to take action.
How Can I Use Videos for My Community Hospital?
- Introduce your staff or your hospital. Use the iPad to make a quick introduction video of your hospital staff, a new ward or new equipment. Make your patients feel more comfortable by allowing them to familiarize themselves with your hospital’s layout and doctors through your videos.
- St. Louis Children’s Hospital is using the iPad as part of its treatment regime to educate, distract and prepare its young patients. The iPad is used to educate the young patients about their health concerns as well as introduce them to hospital staff and provide entertainment.
- Explain procedures and capture patient testimonials. Make a video of a doctor explaining a procedure or interview patients who have undergone a procedure. Gain your community’s trust by openly discussing and demonstrating patients’ success stories.
- Disney Pavilion at Florida Hospital and St. Luke’s Health System in Idaho are running pilot programs of an application for the iPad called Medical Video jLog, which uses short, interactive clips to explain common medical procedures. Patients can then view videos and patient testimonials.
- Create simple advertisements. Make your own video advertisements celebrating your hospital’s quality and community involvement and post them on YouTube!
Additional Resource: Check out this article on Ten Tips for shooting iPad 2 Video.
Listening Helps to Tell Stories Through Community Hospital Videos
September 10, 2010
Video story telling is a powerful hospital marketing tool that is extremely effective to identify and make sense out of experiences.
Videos are quickly becoming the main way consumers search for health information. Community hospital’s videos often market the bigger over-arching brand using data and facts and miss opportunities for connecting through individual stories.
The initial step, before jumping into a storytelling video: community hospital marketers should organize and plan.
- Identify the context by analyzing the audience, purpose and delivery
- Identify the cast (people/subjects featured in video)
- Identify the storylines that provide context for each subject
- Write an overall OUTLINE of the story
- Schedule the interviews
- Outline the questions/points for the interview
- Interview each subject on-camera as a conversation
- After each interview, log and transcribe each interview
- Write final script
- Identify gaps in story
- Write narration and on-camera host scripts that interweave the interviews that display the story (beginning, middle and end).
- Edit the story. Be prepared to deviate from the script based on pacing and story execution. Place each piece of the puzzle together to support overall message.
- Revision cycle with stakeholders
- Deliver the message to the target audience
- Listen for brand ambassadors – Facebook, blog comments and Twitter postings are relevant up-to-date ways to connect to our future brand ambassadors. Use these channels to locate patient stories.
- Listen during the interview - Watching the subject’s facial expressions while you ask questions helps you understand what makes them tick. Does their mood change? Is now a good time for a hard question?
- Listen during the logging/transcription – Does it translate into the intended message? Log “soundbites” and opportunities for B-roll.
- Listen during the editing process - How does the story flow? If it feels awkward, forced, contradicting, etc; then be willing to change so that you feel “at peace” with the pacing.
- Listen during the revision process – Watch and listen to others as you present the story to your peers and the stakeholders. Watch their facial expressions. Notice when each person starts to lose interest or presents a complimentary emotion that matches the moment in the story. Does your audience smile or laugh when someone cracks a joke? Be willing to abandon ideas if they don’t reinforce the overarching goal.
- Most importantly, listen to your own instincts.
Before we can engage our audience with a message, we must know them! We must be able to look through their eyes, hear with their ears, feel their tendencies and understand their predispositions.
Your Community Hospital Will Benefit From YouTube
September 7, 2010
Video sharing platform YouTube, has become one of the web’s most popular search engines for healthcare, and community hospital marketers should definitely take notice.
Community hospital marketing is entering a new era and the game is about to greatly change. The web has given patients the ability to shop for healthcare solutions, compare quality and be better informed. With 32 percent of YouTube viewers watching health videos, YouTube should dominate your social media plan.
Kevin Silverman, healthcare specialist and vice president of digital strategy for Ogilvy, noted some of the current trends in video watching:
- Of YouTube’s 180 million viewers, 32 percent watch health videos – more than food or even celebrity videos
- Of those viewers, 79 percent of health consumers have watched videos about their specific health condition
- 93 percent take action after viewing health information
- 69 percent conduct further online research as a result of the video they watched
- 60 percent interact with their doctor
Kevin had an opportunity to meet with the healthcare team at YouTube and learn more about what these trends mean for healthcare:
- YouTube, and online video sources provide an avenue to reach patients with condition specific information, which could include treatment options, and drive them to speak with their healthcare provider.
- Opportunities exist on YouTube to provide patients with branded messages in advance of the patient-doctor conversation.
- Providers and pharmaceutical companies have another opportunity to reach consumers who are actively interested in receiving information on their conditions and actively searching for information.
Particularly for community hospitals, I would add these to Kevin’s list:
- Tour of facilities
- Introductions of physicians and staff
- Outcomes
- Patient stories
- Surgeries and other procedures which help to educate patients
Check out the examples below to see how other hospitals are using YouTube to reach their patients:
- http://www.youtube.com/user/muschealth
- http://www.youtube.com/user/ETMC1
- http://www.youtube.com/childrenshospitals
- http://www.youtube.com/hcavirginia
What does this all mean for community hospitals?
“It means YouTube, and online video sources provide an avenue to reach patients with condition specific information, which could include treatment options, and drive them to speak with their healthcare provider,” said Silverman. “And, opportunities exist on YouTube to provide patients with branded messages in advance of the patient-doctor conversation.”
YouTube is an exciting and becoming an essential tool for marketing community hospitals.
Read Kevin’s entire article: “Looking to reach consumers in the healthcare space? Consider tuning into YouTube”
9 Flip Camera Lighting Tips for Community Hospital Videos
August 18, 2010
The use of post production lighting tips for Flip cameras will deliver a well-lit video for every amateur videographer at your hospital.
Community hospital marketing departments are being asked to update static websites and blogs with videos. Understandably it is scary to start shooting, editing and distributing videos when you have never used a Flip camera before.
Flip videos deliver freshness and authentic videos that are economical and simple. These simple video cameras and social media websites like YouTube, make delivering patient stories, late-breaking news, employee communication and health updates possible for the community hospital marketer.
Here are 9 Flip Video Lighting Tips:
- Camera controls – The beauty of the camera is it’s simplicity. So lighting tricks need to be accomplished through simple solutions using natural or ambient light. This is light that is produced by the sun or existing light.
- Check natural light (existing) - The brightest and most beneficial light to video is in natural light. Normally there is not a lot of exciting light indoors.
- Open up blinds or shades – Add as much natural light as possible.
- Turn on all available lights – When there is little or no natural light indoors use overhead, lamps or under-cabinet lights.
- Move subjects as close as possible to the main light (natural light or the main room light) – Change your position to bring a subject closer to a main light source. Video will be dark and have extra grain because of low lighting. The more natural light you have on your subject, the better the video quality.
- Add or decrease light outdoors – Natural light is preferable to other light sources, but if the sun is too harsh move the subject out of direct sunlight into the shade. Sunlight can cause harsh shadows. In this environment, it is best to use a reflector to catch light and move it where you want it. It creates a more “studio” environment.
- Move subjects closer to the main light indoors – It’s best to move the main light (like a lamp) closer to the subject, or one of the best sources of light for naturally lit videos comes from windows. You can also add light to a face by bouncing the overhead light onto a reflector pointed at the face.
- Avoid backlit interviews – Do not position subject’s backs to the sun, windows or bright lights. Subjects will be dark. Potentially changing your position with the subject or finding even lit shade could be the solution.
- Indoor lighting may not be strong enough – Use a reflector to bounce light from other light sources onto the face. Or try removing the lampshade and using the bare bulb to add more light to a room.
Download the full guide to Audio Composing Lighting Tips. Flip Camera Video Tips.
9 Flip Camera Composition Tips for Community Hospital Videos
August 8, 2010
Using these post production tips for Flip for Flip cameras will deliver a consistent, unified and visually appealing shooting style for every amateur videographer at your hospital.
Community hospital marketing departments are being asked to update static websites and blogs with videos. Understandably it is scary to start shooting, editing and distributing videos when you have never used a flip camera before.
Flip videos deliver freshness and authentic videos that are economical and simple. These simple video cameras and social media websites like YouTube make delivering patient stories, late-breaking news, employee communication and health updates possible for the community hospital marketer.
9 Simple Flip Video Composition Tips:
- Use a tripod if available – This helps with camera shaking.
- Use the Rule of Thirds and video framing techniques.
- Review every corner of the frame and the background.
- Place camera at the subject’s eye level, unless you have a good reason not to. Direct eye contact can be as engaging in a picture as it is in real life. When taking a picture of someone, hold the camera at the person’s eye level to unleash the power of those magnetic gazes and mesmerizing smiles. For children that means stooping to their level. And your subject need not always stare at the camera. All by itself that eye level angle will create a personal and inviting feeling that pulls you into the picture.
- Stand about 2 feet away from the subject in order to not distort the subject
- Plain backgrounds are best – It shows off the subject you are photographing. When you look through the camera viewfinder, force yourself to study the area surrounding your subject. Make sure no poles grow from the head of your favorite niece and that no cars seem to dangle from her ears.
- Lead with the nose – Try to place subjects in the frame off-center, toward the side opposite the direction they’re looking. Professionals call this the “lead room.”
- Don’t chop the chin – Subjects’ foreheads can be cropped out, but never crop the subject at their chin.
- Don’t zoom – Using the zoom option on the flip camera will degrade your images (add more noise) and also add to the camera’s instability. Hold camera 30″ to 48″ from subject so their head and shoulders fill the viewfinder. Shoot with the camera close to your eye level and face. Avoid using zoom. Instead move the camera closer or further away. The closer you are to the subject, the better the audio quality of the Flip camera.
Download the full guide of Flip Camera Video Tips.
Social media marketing can be used as major communication tool for your hospital.
Are you like most healthcare marketers who are quickly trying to get on board with a social media plan for your community hospital? Well, you are not alone. A study by Greystone.net found only one in three current hospitals or health systems has a formal social media plan in place.
I had the benefit to attending the “SCHA‘s one-day social media workshop” where Ed Bennett, a social media guru spoke. Ed has been following social media data for years, and he shared some amazing statistics on social media users that had us all singing the praises of social media marketing. He said that in the past year the mega social website, Facebook, a relative newcomer to the scene has surpassed Google in website visits. At the same time there has been a 10 percent decrease in non-social media web traffic as people spend more time on social media sites.
Tony Chin, principal of Launch Your Movement, wrote a fantastic article on hospital success stories.
10 Hospital Social Media Success Stories
Proactive Outreach
1. Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center CEO Paul Levy blogs to run a better hospital.
2. Geisinger uses Twitter/Facebook to recruit gastroenterologists.
3. Lifespan reaches out to patients and family personally through Twitter.
4. Ob/gyn practice patient-to-patient interaction success using Twitter and Facebook. (PDF)
Concierge Services
5. Scripps uses Twitter to turn angry patients into loyal ones.
6. Norman Regional Health System spends 30 minutes a day on Twitter and Facebook.
Live Event Coverage
7. Children’s Medical Center in Dallas tweeted about a kidney transplant from a father to his son.
8. Twitter during live surgery.
- St. Luke’s in Cedar Rapids
- UNC Hospitals
- Henry Ford
- Sherman Hospital
- OSF St Joseph
- Sinai Hospital in Baltimore
- Methodist University Hospital in Memphis
9. South Coast Health System uses Twitter for real-time crisis communication.
10. St Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital
If you weren’t a believer in how social media can inspire, educate, recruit and create loyal ambassadors for your brand, you will soon be singing the social media jingle too! For more details, be sure to check out his article, 10 Hospital Social Media Success Stories.
Do you have a social media success story? If so, please share it in the comment section below.
Is Blogging Right for Your Community Hospital?
August 2, 2010
When you want to maintain control of your online social media content, blogs are the perfect tactic for reaching your target audience. But the community hospital marketer should be forewarned that they take time and commitment.
I know you’re being asked to do the work of three marketers now, how will you find time for social media?
Recent reports from the Nielsen Co. research firm may have you rethinking how you spend your time. The study found that the number of internet users who visited a social network or a blog increased by 24 percent from April 2009 to April 2010, while the average person spent 66 percent more time on those sites during that period.
And if you thought that social media was just for large healthcare systems, well think about your mom who is now on Facebook. Your community is already here, shouldn’t your hospital be here too?
First: Ask important questions.
- What is our overall plan?
- Who is our audience?
- What are our goals?
- What resources are available?
- How are you changing relationships?
Answering these questions will help others understand the content, media and resources that will be available on your blog.
Blogs are a great social media solution:
- Home base for all social media
- Complete control over content and functions
- Should be your first social media strategy to implement
- Cheap way to connect to your target audience in a controlled social media environment
University of Maryland Medical Center’s blog success story:
An excellent example of a blog success story is the University of Maryland Medical Center blog medcenterblog.org
Their blog became the central hub for all their social marketing efforts which included: YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. Using fans on Facebook, the University of Maryland Medical Center found patients posting about their good experiences who became brand ambassadors and advocates for their hospital.
After discovering these patient stories their blog showcased these patients’ stories through video interviews. You are then invited to share how the University of Maryland Medical Center has changed your life.
With the use of their blog, the University of Maryland Medical Center was able to find a way to connect and engage its patients. If the goal is to resonate, capture emotion and connect, then your blog is a great place to start your social media journey.
Do you have a community hospital blog that patients love? I would love to hear how your blog could inspire us!
Using these audio and interview tips for Flip camera your team can interview and capture audio that will communicate the appropriate message.
Community hospital marketing departments are being asked to update static websites and blogs with videos. Understandably it is scary to start shooting, editing and distributing videos when you have never used a Flip camera before.
Flip videos deliver freshness and authentic videos that are economical and simple. These simple video cameras and social media websites like YouTube make delivering patient stories, late-breaking news, employee communication and health updates possible for the community hospital marketer.
16 Flip Video Audio and Interview Tips:
- Beware of ambient (background) noise – Examples: air conditioners, loud computer humming, road noise, walking noises. Sudden loud noises are worse than a steady hum of activity. Close doors if possible to avoid access noise.
- Environment – Shooting where there is action behind the subject increases the interest of the composition and can enhance the story. Find a spot out-of-the-way, but in the subject’s typical environment. Get details of the subject’s routine, things they do every day, that will illustrate their character, their core values, or both. When shooting this type of content, treat the video camera like you’re taking a photograph. Compose the shot and clean up the environment so the area is not cluttered. Never have the tripod or other photo equipment in the video frame.
- Avoid stripes and other detailed patterns on clothes – Complicated backgrounds are difficult to reproduce on Flip cameras which have fewer pixels per inch.
- Interviewees should remain still – unless they are performing an action relevant to the filming. Watch out for too much head movement or nodding. Watch for twitches such as playing with their hair, jewelry, etc.
- Maintain eye contact with the interviewees throughout filming
- Before and after the take – Hold the camera motionless on a scene for 10 seconds and let people/cars/objects move through it. If you want to follow or track motion, try to start or stop your movement with a still shot.
- Have a general goal of what you want the subjects to say - Interview them with easy questions to get them to relax and also to get the info you want to frame the story with.
- Interviewees should use part of your question as the beginning of their answer – Make sure the videographer remains silent while the interviewees are responding.
- Use playback during the interview to review what you have filmed and see if any retakes are needed. Don’t hesitate to do more than one take
- B-roll - If you have time, B-roll is a great addition. Extra footage of the scene provides a visual overview and illustrates added detail of the story. It also helps the video in the editing phase if there are “bad” parts of the interview.
- Making the subject comfortable – When interviewing someone, ask some “softball” questions first to get your subject comfortable. Look for an entry to a deeper discussion. Try to get them to summarize their thoughts in a sentence or two.
- Have fun – Don’t worry too much about getting it “right.” Good content will compensate for technical difficulties (within reason).
- Record in one or a few segments – Final product will be easier to deliver rather than trying to “fix” it in editing.
- Speak at a normal speed. People get nervous and talk faster on camera. If they are a fast talker anyway, ask them to speak more slowly.
- 30 seconds of video = 75-80 words. 60 seconds = 150-160 words. Every word is precious. Make them count.
- Battery life – Flip video cameras require 2 hours to charge on your computer’s USB. Each charge will last for approx. 1.5 hours of video. Plan ahead. If you have a Flip Ultra, they take 2 AA’s. Swap in some new ones and you’re good to go! Flip video cameras hold 1 hour of video content before they need to be “emptied.” If shooting for more than an hour, either have your second camera ready to go or have your laptop booted up and ready to receive video.
Download the full guide to Audio Composing Lighting Tips. Flip Camera Video Tips.
