LAST YEAR, INDIANAPOLIS-BASED&nbsp;building-restoration company Hays + Sons had a website and a Facebook and Twitter presence, but it tended to get lost amid a horde of competitors. Then tornadoes hit&nbsp;Kokomo, Indiana, and the company decided the time was right to try social video. A Facebook clip documenting the tornado damage has clocked 9,500 views on Facebook&mdash;extraordinary for a local business in an industry not known for its &ldquo;clickability&rdquo;&mdash;and, says co-founder Mark Hays, &ldquo;it helped us communicate our message from the customer&rsquo;s point of view. It sets us apart from our competition when the user is trying to pick between companies.&rdquo; Facebook generates an average of eight billion video views per day, and YouTube reaches more 18- to 49-year-olds than any cable network in the U.S. Yet only around half of small-business owners have made a video, social or otherwise, in the past year. That opens the field for companies like Hays + Sons. &ldquo;In our industry, you&rsquo;ve got everything from corporations like us to two dudes and a truck,&rdquo; says Chris&nbsp;Novotney, the company&rsquo;s director of business development. &ldquo;Now when people go online and search, our videos pull up. It increased our sales.&rdquo; Joining the video vanguard is surprisingly easy. Use these tips to start shooting. &mdash;ETELKA&nbsp;LEHOCZKYKNOW THYSELF, KNOW THY VIDEO&nbsp;Have a strategy before you shoot. If nobody in your industry is doing video, keep your budget low and your approach down to earth. At Des Plaines, Illinois&ndash;based payment-technology provider Integrity Payment Systems, founder and CEO Mike Ponder records straight-to-camera recruitment segments for potential salespeople with a Canon&nbsp;DSLR&nbsp;and a lapel mike. &ldquo;Having&nbsp;my office as the backdrop personalizes it,&rdquo; says Ponder, whose top video has gotten 1,200 Facebook views and helped recruit 60 new sales staffers last year. Your view counts may be modest if you&rsquo;re in a specialized industry like Integrity&rsquo;s, but video can have a big impact with highly targeted audiences. When&nbsp;Fortville, Indiana&ndash;based Thursday Pools began posting 360-degree videos made by local agency&nbsp;MediaFuel,&nbsp;&ldquo;it was the first time we&rsquo;d heard dealers saying, &lsquo;This is something I&rsquo;m going to show my customers,&rsquo; &rdquo; co-founder Bill&nbsp;Khamis&nbsp;says.PICK YOUR PRICE POINT Video can have almost any budget these days. At the bottom end, you can shoot with your phone. &ldquo;Users see the&nbsp;authenticity&nbsp;in it and they can really engage with it,&rdquo; says Miami marketer David&nbsp;Verjano. If your competition already has a video presence or you&rsquo;re trying to establish your brand, a high-end approach can set you apart.&nbsp;IceMule&nbsp;Coolers, based in St. Augustine Beach, Florida, spent $11,500 on the atmospheric clip &ldquo;Bring the Party&rdquo;and two shorter videos, limiting its shoot to one day to keep costs down. &ldquo;Our video has garnered more than half a million impressions at a cost of 5 cents per view,&rdquo; says marketing manager Guy&nbsp;Barnhart. &ldquo;Since creating it, web sales are 10 times what they were.&rdquo;BE QUICK ABOUT IT&nbsp;Short videos are good videos. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s nothing better than capturing moments of passion in 90 seconds or less,&rdquo; says Jorge Rodriguez, founder of Fort Worth&ndash;based contractor Alliance Reconstruction, whose videos have gotten more than 11,000 Facebook views. &ldquo;I introduce myself, introduce different parts of the company. They want to know who the owner of this company is.&rdquo; The visuals don&rsquo;t have to be elaborate. In February, South Florida restaurant chain&nbsp;Pincho&nbsp;Factory saw the power of social video when&nbsp;a bare-bones clip of its burgers grilling made it onto the Food Network&rsquo;s Facebook feed. It got more than 180,000 views and produced &ldquo;a spike at all the stores in sales of the burger they saw us cooking,&rdquo; says co-founder and CMO Otto&nbsp;Othman. Such basic content is surprisingly effective. It &ldquo;gives people a peek behind the curtain and makes a company a little more authentic,&rdquo; says Chris Kelley of V2 Marketing Communications. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s almost mesmerizing to watch some of this stuff.&rdquo;

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