Use videos as digital business cards

When we founded our film production company FilmSpektakel, one of the first things we did was design and order business cards. We thought of it as an essential first step when establishing a company. When looking back at the eight years we’ve been running this company, I don’t think I have ever got a call or an email because of our business cards. Instead, people reach out to us because of our viral time lapse videos. And that’s why you should use videos as digital business cards.

There’s no harm in having physical business cards

We use business cards because they are inexpensive, and there is no harm in having them in your pocket, ready to give away to potential clients. But I cannot remember the last time I called somebody because of their business card. We get them, they float around in our wallets for half a year, we put them in a folder at our office and never look at them again. It became a habit, like collecting stickers when we were young. You invest your pocket money in Harry Potter stickers, but you never look at them again because the fun part was collecting them and sticking them in the album.

As soon as you put business cards in a folder, they don’t look pretty anymore. They look like crap because you sat on this little piece of paper for six months. And when did you last try to find an old business contact by perusing your folder in search of the right business card among the hundreds of wrong ones? Right. Never.

Go digital

Whenever I want to dig up someone’s contact information, I enter the first word that comes to my mind into the search field in my email program, and I find the contact within seconds. Done. It doesn’t matter if I can only remember their first name, last name, company name, the project name or the campaign name – I’ll find the contact way faster than by flipping through my business card sticker album.

Videos are digital flyers

Videos are also a good alternative to flyers. Think back to when you last stood or sat at a table at an event, and there were random flyers of companies lying around. The later it got, the worse they looked because of spilled drinks and people playing with them with their sweaty hands. You don’t want your business associated with this kind of look, right?

So, instead of distributing flyers, think of your time-lapse videos as advertising material that you publish for the whole world to see instead of focusing on one single random event.

Here’s a fun side note about what we did while visiting New York City a few years back. We went to the famous Apple store, which is a major tourist attraction (we were Apple nerds back then). After testing some products and looking at our videos on their devices, we left the browser window open with our video running. We thought this might be of interest to the next person trying out this Apple device. If you are laughing right now, I understand, I guess it is a strange way to “put out flyers”.

I don’t want to tell you to systematically go into shops, open your time lapse videos on devices and leave. I’m telling you this to emphasise the fact that digital media is an excellent substitute to printed advertising material.

Wallets are going extinct

Another interesting way of thinking about this is that as more and more people use smartphones, wallets will slowly become obsolete. People are starting to pay with their phones, people have their train and concert tickets on their phones, people will start using digital ID. So, don’t try to get in their wallets with your business card, try to get on their phones with your time lapse videos.

If you’re interested in learning how to shoot time lapse videos, start by reading this article or consider subscribing to our newsletter.