"Video" comes up in every website conversation I have with lawyers and marketers. Everyone wants to add video to their websites, but few know how to approach it strategically, uniquely and so that the end result is superior to what you had without the added media.
I have written about Richard Hsu before. He is a Silicon Valley technology partner with Shearman & Sterling whom I have never met in person. But we are fully connected via social media, following and encouraging each other. I have no doubt that when we do meet face-to-face, we'll embrace each other as old friends.
He has developed a video strategy that he posts on his excellent and quirky "One Page Blog" (www.hsutube.com), which is consistent with his to-the-point, no extraneous words approach to communicating. More lawyers should adopt his commitment to concision - clients appreciate it and want it. (The most compelling reason for jumping on the brevity bandwagon.)
But back to Hsu's video strategy.
After viewing several of his videos, I interviewed him to learn more about his strategy and how he does it. Before you watch these (groaning perhaps, thinking they might be typical talking head style CLE videos), understand that no video is longer than 100 seconds and they explain no more than one concept - and that concept must be conducive to drawing. Wait - drawing, you ask? Watch these and you'll see.
Hsu's inspiration was Salman Khan's TED talk about using video to transform education curricula - use simple drawings to illustrate complex concepts. Hsu can't draw, but his now-13-year old daughter, Maya, can. They used Beyond Pix to create the videos, creating six in one highly efficient eight-hour day. To keep cost down, Richard and Maya created all the content.
Richard says the response from viewers has been very positive, and he is getting additional exposure and traffic on one of the kingpin content aggregators, JD Supra (http://www.jdsupra.com/search/searchResults.aspx?sTerm=richard+hsu&x=-1445&y=-10).
Hsu is a left-brain lawyer with a right-brain approach to communicating. In my book, it's the most unique, appealing and cost-effective lawyer video strategy I've seen.
Here is a link to a bundle of the videos and a photo of Richard and Maya working. http://hsutube.com/original-videos/