Well, cats and kittens, I’ve had video on the brain for a while. It started with the tiny camera of tininess. The Japanese-only instructions are slowing me down, can’t lie, but I have figured out how to shoot stills. (They’re gorgeous, but they don’t move.)

DFWSEM’s speaker for May 13 is a factor, too. You haven’t heard? Casey Henry. Wistia wiz. Video marketing guy. He’ll be presenting on how to use video to up your marketing mojo.

And of course there were the roughly 197268345716234 articles about 2015 being the Year of Video in Marketing. Hey, they weren’t wrong. We got Periscope and Meerkat just this year, after all, making web streaming practical just about anywhere with WiFi. And we even got free apps to shoot and quick-edit right from your phone.  

No, really. Why aren’t you?

Naturally, with all this ease and these shiny new tools, there are also 197268345716234 articles about how You Must Do Video Right Now or Perish Like Unwary Dinosaurs in the Path of a Meteor. But let me provide a counter-argument.

Dude, no.

You can’t do it just to do it. You can’t go flailing away and pointing your camera hither and yon. Like any other aspect of social media marketing, you need a plan, man.

With video marketing, as in all other marketing, you ask yourself questions. What are we trying to accomplish with this campaign? Does it fit with our brand voice? Is it awesome?

For an example of answering all those questions right, check out Prada, courtesy of Wes Anderson. Then think about what you can do with a smaller budget and a bigger jolt of your own personality.