If you or your ministry uses YouTube, I recommend recent research posted by Cru’s Indigitous.org. Some key findings in the research includes:

• Length matters (1’59” maximum)
• Make your video interesting*
• Color matters – color is emotion*
  • YELLOW optimism, clarity, warmth
  • ORANGE friendly, cheerful, coincidence
  • RED excitement, youthful, bold
  • PURPLE creative, imaginative, wise
  • BLUE trust, dependable, strength
  • GREEN peaceful, growth, health
  • GREY-WHITE balance, calm
• Establish your audience (See NOTES about personas)*
• Create a catchy headline of no more than 140 characters
• Offer a maximum of three major benefits to the viewer
• Support the benefits with:
  • short stories,
  • examples, or
  • statistics
• Show enthusiasm*
• Look for opportunities to use humor*
• Close with a clear call to action

A number of these points would work for other forms of video ministry. I used an asterisk to mark the points that could possibly be used for Instagram, Snapchat and Vine videos.

NOTES:

• See the entire Indigitous article at Making YouTube work for you.
• A persona is a fictional character that represents the majority of your audience for your website, social media feed or other online ministry.
• Learn more about personas from Indigitous.