The Best Video Apps, According to an Expert Who Uses Them
Thanks to apps, you don’t necessarily need “experts” to pull off the most impressive-looking marketing tactics, video included. Generally speaking, it’s easy to watch and create videos, whether you’re doing a full-length tutorial or splicing clips together for a teaser. However, editing raw footage is sometimes harder than it looks.
The best way to decide which video app works best for you is to try them out. You’ll quickly learn which one vibes best with your work, content, and workflow. When you’re trying out video content, go for completion, not perfection. You’ll quickly learn what your audience wants to watch and what you enjoy creating.
If you’re a beginner, don’t have an editing background, or want to pick up a new skill, here are five easy video apps that you can download to your phone right now.
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Videoshop
This is a one-stop editing shop and I use it for everything. It’s a simple, easy to use editing app that allows you to edit video, add music and subtitles, and export in many different sizes–from square, 16:9, IGTV, and more, without compressing and losing video quality.
You can take videos from anywhere, whether it’s a time-lapse video or a regular video, and quickly import them right into the app. You can trim, cut, split, speed it up, reverse it, or slow it down. (Though, slow motion is always best if you use it in your camera app when you’re filming. Slow-motion in post-production does not look the same).
As for music, they have a built-in stock music and sound effects library and have just added more than 7,000,000 popular songs. Or you can pull in popular music from your phone library. The best part is you can have someone speaking in the video and adjust the sound levels of the song in the background. You can also add a custom voiceover. The interface for editing is highly user-friendly, and should only take you a few times to learn. Currently, the app is about $2.99, but they also run specials where it is free for a limited time. If you have no other video app but this one, you’re in good shape. Download it because it’s worth every single penny. (P.s, that’s 299 pennies. You’re welcome.)
Clips
This app is exclusive to Apple devices and has built-in live captioning. It also allows you to select from an array of green screen backgrounds, which is ridiculously fun, and perfect if you want to green screen yourself into Monster’s Inc or Finding Nemo. But the live captioning is the best part of this app. This is a great tool to use if you just want to talk to your audience in stories, and have it auto captioned.
More than 80% of video is listened to without sound, so this makes the viewer experience perfect. And don’t worry, live captioning is not always accurate, but you can easily edit within the app. So go on, record your first underwater captioned video with Nemo or Dory randomly swimming behind you. Clips is a free application.
Adobe Rush & Adobe Spark
Adobe is a leader in video editing. Their free companion phone apps are fun tools for simple video editing or even animated text videos. Adobe Spark allows you to import photos or videos, add fonts, and then animate the text for quick, attention-grabbing snippets. Adobe Rush the phone version of its desktop editing suite and similar to Videoshop. You can add video, multiple audio tracks, subtitles, etc.
TikTok
“TikTok, don’t stop.” Insert some extremely complicated dance here. I love TikTok. And I’m not 15. I can’t do any of the dances, not for lack of trying, but because I’m not under 20 and a dance genius like most people on TikTok. Simply put, TikTok is one of the most creative spaces online. From politics to tutorials to dances to humor, to pretty much anything you’re looking for, the video creativity that you will see in this app cannot be matched. You can make short 15 second or 60 seconds videos, add music and voiceovers within the app.
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You can upload your own green screen background photos and videos, or you can “duet” other creators, which simply means you try and mimic what they did. It has hundreds of easy to use filters and video effects. Musicians, photographers, and filmmakers all thrive on this app. Oh, and also 8-year-olds, who will one day be our bosses, and I’m fine with that. TikTok is free to download, and it might take you a day or two to get the hang of it. Plus, each day you’ll learn something new.
Be warned though: it’s a time-suck. You open the app thinking, I’ll just watch one or two videos, then 60 shuffle videos later, it’s suddenly 2AM, and you think you too can do those shuffle dances, but really you can’t. TikTok is free to download and currently the #1 entertainment app.
Reels
This is Instagram’s answer to TikTok. Truthfully, I haven’t used this as much, because TikTok has more fun features that I’m used to. In the next few months, I have no doubt that Reels will introduce more tools. But until then, people can repurpose their TikToks and upload to Reels.
The benefit of using Reels is that Instagram “reely” wants users to use it–and similar to when they introduced IGTV, they might boost your Reels to be seen by more people than regular videos. Reels is built right into Instagram so you don’t need to download an additional app.
Don’t be afraid to show your personality in your video content. There’s a reason people are following you. It’s because they enjoy you and your content. So give the people what they want.