An observation this week. Video, you see, is a story telling medium, perhaps the most powerful story telling medium. To engage your audience, you have to tell a story. So while modern video production software packages make it simple to animate a sequence of photos into a seamless video, if you're not telling a story then all you've done is create a slide show with limited interest and even more limited appeal.

Your video can have the best tags in the world and be highest up the Google rankings, but what happens when the viewer actually hits the play button? Will what they are watching leave them cold? You might think your video is saying lots about your products but what is it actually saying about you? What sort of impression is it making? What story is it telling?

Whether you're filming, animating a set of images or combining sequences of stock footage, focus on the story before you even think about opening up your video software package. Follow the same basic rules of journalism that you would with a press release or a sales page or a blog post. Don't just show your audience what you've got, make sure you tell them why they need it or how to do it or when to use it or what makes it unique.

How long is your video? How many people do you think actually get to the end? How many get past even the first few seconds? If you don't grab the viewer at the start, you can't count of them viewing the middle because chances are they'll never get to the middle. And if that happens, I'll ask again, what impression of your company have you left them with.

Summarise the key points right at the beginning, tell the viewer where the story is heading or find some way to pique their curiosity. Find an angle that's unique to you, and build upon it. Make it almost impossible for the viewer to bail out. Keep the story building. And at the end, sum up your points and offer a conclusion.

I'll point you again towards my work-in-progress video as an example; a simple animated sequence of images with a bit of stock footage thrown in. It starts with a challenge to industry, it offers a solution, and it sums up the results and benefits. In short, it tells a story - amazing what you can get across in 90 seconds. And it doesn't matter what sort of video you're making, all the same rules apply.

Tell a story, keep the audience engaged. Every video makes an impression. Make sure your videos are making the right one.