Because video production and hosting are easier than ever, more business owners are creating their own videos as marketing tools.
Hosting on YouTube, Blip.tv or other video hosting sites makes video sharing easy, and cameras like the Flip that easily transfer video to computers make the entire video production process easier.
Creating basic videos with captions, backgrounds or other professional enhancements is not necessarily a must, but if you want to be taken seriously by your customers (or prospects), it's important that your video looks as good as possible.
Your video doesn't have to be professionally produced, but in the same way that you wouldn't create your own business cards from index cards, you should consider improving the overall quality of your videos.
To do this, you could use the free video editing programs that are built into most operating systems. But if you want to take video editing to an entirely different level, you might want to consider a video editing tool that lets you select a background, making your video look much better.
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Video Presenter, for example comes with a "green screen" that you lets you customize the background you want for your video, very similar to your local weather forecaster. You can add whatever background you want.
At the much higher--and more complicated--end, Adobe Premiere lets you do a full range of professional video editing. The product is more expensive ($800) and complicated for the average computer user, but in the hands of someone who takes the time to learn it, it's one of the best video editing programs on the market.
Ramon Ray is Entrepreneur.com's "Tech Basics" columnist and editor of Smallbiztechnology.com. He's the author ofTechnology Solutions for Growing Businesses and serves on the board of directors and the technology committee for the Manhattan Chamber of Commerce.