Quality is inherent, and just like a house that is starting to look a little dated with a few too many holes can be restored again to its prime with some fresh paint and a little TLC, so can old high-quality content be given a new lease of life. Even when it’s feeling a little tired, a few tweaks to the appearance or delivery of old content can bring it back to its full glory and make it relevant to a whole new audience. And just like in house renovation, sometimes when revisiting we can find gems we forgot were there.
There are benefits to converting old evergreen content, the hard work of creating and shaping the core message has already been done and you can be confident about how it will be received thanks to its previous performance. Whiteboard videos are a great way to convert your content; they can visualise the abstract and make the complex understandable. They can even make subjects not known for their excitement feel engaging and memorable.
Content is k…inda important
You know the old phrase, and you’ve probably read it more times than you care to remember. So, we’re not going to say it. There is no getting away however from the importance and value of content. Firstly, it is popular; this Neil Patel post talks about how much Google values content and how, globally, the consumption of content doubled in 2020.
Content also gives you the opportunity to show that you are not only an expert in your field, but understand the needs and challenges faced by your audience. By solving your audiences’ pain points, good content can be much more relevant, complete and compelling than advertising alone. With all this in mind, keeping your timeless and gold standard content up to date and relevant is a must. SEMrush found that 51% of companies say updating old content has proven the most efficient tactic implemented.
So, what goes into high quality content? Neil Patel have created a great list:
Be original
Answer questions
Be accurate and show your sources
Engage readers
Add images and videos
Be consistent
What makes video so special?
Video is a great choice when thinking about which medium to convert your old content into; Wyzowl found that people watch an average of 18 hours of videos online per week, an increase of 7.5 hours over the last three years! And when it comes to explainer videos, whiteboard videos stand out from the crowd.
Whiteboard animation videos are an ideal way of refreshing blog posts and bringing them to new audiences. Whiteboard videos start life as a script, so your blog post is already hitting the ground running. There will still be a few tweaks needed to make the text flow and feel right as a script, but by adapting a successful blog you know the content is popular and captures your messaging well.
The whiteboard animation process allows you to add extra depth and meaning to your words through the illustrations, cultural references you include and the voiceover artist you choose. By tailoring these to your audience, you can give your content a whole new level of relevance and communicative power., Professor of the Public Understanding of Psychology at the University of Hertfordshire, compared the impact of a ‘talking head’ video with whiteboard animations. Together we discovered that the whiteboard video:
Was 66% more likely to be shared the whiteboard animation
Resulted in a 15% increase in information retention
Was 33% more entertaining
Whiteboard animations are the perfect choice if you want to make information engaging, memorable, understandable and shareable.
Transforming a blog post into a whiteboard video
Whiteboard animation videos are an ideal way of refreshing blog posts and bringing them to new audiences. Whiteboard videos start life as a script, so your blog post is already hitting the ground running. There will still be a few tweaks needed to make the text flow and feel right as a script, but by adapting a successful blog you know the content is popular and captures your messaging well.
The whiteboard animation process allows you to add extra depth and meaning to your words through the illustrations, cultural references you include and the voiceover artist you choose. By tailoring these to your audience, you can give your content a whole new level of relevance and communicative power.
Converting old videos into whiteboard videos
Video is a great medium, which is only increasing in popularity. However, as our research with Professor Wiseman found, different video formats have different strengths - and whiteboard animation videos are great at explaining things in an accessible, memorable and entertaining way.
This makes a whiteboard video a great option if your videos are not performing as well as you’d expected, no longer as relevant or are not explaining your subject in an understandable and clear way. The benefit of converting an existing video into a whiteboard video is that you will have script already and based on the previous version, you will have a strong idea about the visuals and narrative you want to see. Whiteboard animations give you a much greater level of creative freedom, removing the limits your other videos may have faced.
One important consideration here is that if your video has more than one character, for voiceover purposes, you will need to make changes to your script to ensure there is only one speaker.
Adding a new dimension to podcasts with whiteboard animation
Research by PodcastInsights.com puts the number of podcasts out there at over 2,000,000, with 155 million listeners in the US alone. Podcasts are a great avenue of discovery, insight and entertainment, and part of their pleasure is that they don’t need visuals to do any of this.
This doesn’t mean that visuals can’t help however. The visual thinking techniques and visual freedom made possible by whiteboard animation are the perfect tools to celebrate the special moments and explain particularly complex ideas. These can make whiteboard videos great companions to podcasts, capturing the essence and detail, while supporting the show itself. We have done this previously for BBC Radio 4, supporting a radio series on philosophy with quick explainer animations to inform audiences about key concepts.
Not only do whiteboard videos like this celebrate moments in a podcast and inform audiences about the big ideas that will aid their enjoyment of the show, they also give you something to share on social networks and YouTube - allowing you to reach a much wider audience. We think whiteboard videos and podcasts are a perfect combination.
Giving internal comms greater reach and impact
There are a lot of things teams in the working environment need to know, and some of them can be more engaging than others. Nevertheless, they are all important. Whether it’s an old piece of content well past its shelf life or something which isn’t cutting through like you’d hoped, whiteboard video animations can help. As well as making a message engaging, memorable and entertaining, whiteboard videos are bespoke.
From the script to the visuals, everything is designed to share the message and explain key points in a way which is best for the subject and the audience. Throw in whiteboard animation’s ability to make sense of the abstract and the complex, and it is well placed to share key notices and messages far and wide. Whiteboard videos can also be based on documents and meetings, and provide plenty of room for personality and branding.
The whiteboard animation process
The options listed above are just a few of the possibilities. Whiteboard animation is very versatile and any content you have created has the potential to become a whiteboard video. Your existing content will already have an important part of the whiteboard animation process covered; it could be the visuals, the voiceover or the script. Regardless of what your old content is however, in it’s journey to becoming a whiteboard video it will need to go through key considerations. Find out more about the whiteboard animation process here, but here are some important things to consider:
Plan who the whiteboard animation is for and where it will be used.
Decide if the message in your original content needs to updated.
Make sure the script works for whiteboard animation; this could mean making it one voice not two or editing blog content to flow better. We recommend 140 words per minute. Podcasts are an exception though, as these draw on the power of conversation.
Work on visual ideas, illustrations, concepts and metaphors. It might be a case of updating what was originally there, but content might not have had them originally or you might want to reinvent them completely. We love the creative freedom of whiteboard video animations and encourage everyone to embrace it! This is a great way to tailor the animation to your story and your audience. We have more on visual storytelling here.
Think about your characters. Do they reflect you if you are in the video, your audience or the message you are sharing? Add emotion to them for added engagement and storytelling.
Get your branding and personality into your whiteboard animation video. It could be a logo, the tone of language and visuals, your choice of voiceover artist if needed or including people and things people think of when they think of you. There is more information on Whiteboard videos are perfectly placed to capture the information, personality and depth of your content, whatever it’s previous form was. The blank canvas and visual thinking possibilities offered by whiteboard animation allows it tackle the most abstract, complex or dry information - injecting life and understanding through storytelling, humour, charm and visual metaphors.
Whiteboard videos are perfectly placed to capture the information, personality and depth of your content, whatever its previous form was. The blank canvas and visual thinking possibilities offered by whiteboard animation allows it to tackle the most abstract, complex or dry information - injecting life and understanding through storytelling, humour, charm and visual metaphors.
We are passionate about whiteboard video animations and proud of the whiteboard animation services we offer. We love taking information and messages to new audiences and new levels of impact. We’d love to talk to you if you think whiteboard animation can help give your content a new look and added relevance, contact us today!
When done well, the ingredients in an explainer video combine to create powerful animations that inform, entertain, inspire and stay with viewers. In this post, we look at how they are made.