Lumen5 Review

Detailed Reviews

Text and images don’t cut the deal anymore. There are tons of blogs and other forms of written content on the internet, and it is one of the reasons why the static form of the content doesn’t bring a lot of engagement anymore.

Videos, on the other hand, enjoy a great deal of engagement. If there is a web page with a short video and some written content on it, a viewer usually prefers watching the video rather than going through the written content.

It is also a fact that the web pages showcasing videos attract more traffic as compared to the ones having only text and images. It is tough for anyone to deny the dominance of video content on the internet.

But if it’s so obvious that videos are a better way to attract more viewers and gain more traffic, then why isn’t everyone publishing videos on their website?

Well, the answer is as obvious as the question itself. It is difficult to create videos for the internet. Tools are Lumen5 is an answer to that!

Pros

• Takes no time to create new videos.
• Can create videos from the content you have already published on the internet.
• Can create videos out of the text as well as media content.
• Has a huge media gallery.
• Comes with an intuitive editor.

Cons

• No option to record a voiceover.

Introduction

There is a lot that goes into creating awesome videos. The equipment is expensive, it isn’t easy to afford skilled people for the job, taking care of logistics can be a nightmare, and it usually takes a lot of time to shoot, edit, and publish a video.

Some people fret at the idea of standing in front of the camera and expressing themselves. These people need to find someone else to do the job for them, which is a task in itself.

It is an overwhelming, challenging, and ridiculously difficult task to create beautiful videos, especially for beginners.

Lumen5 is one of the very few tools on the internet that would let you bypass all such roadblocks and let you create videos in no time. You won’t have to spend an awful lot of resources, and your video be completely relevant to the content.

Sounds like a dream, right?

It isn’t. You will have to trade off some of the control and flexibility to be able to churn out videos like this. But for a lot of folks out there, it is as good a bargain as it can be.

The internet is becoming an increasingly competitive space, and one can’t ever have enough tools at his disposal. Right now, it seems that anything that can help you create amazing videos isn’t worth missing.

In this review, we will go through all the ins and outs of Lumen5. We will see how this tool almost automatically creates videos for its users and try to understand the process.

The quality of the videos produced by Lumen5 is also something that we are going to discuss heavily in this article. After all, the quality and engagement factor of the video are the reasons why one goes through the ordeal.

By the end of this review, you will have a better idea if the tool would be sufficient to fulfill your needs and if you should get it or not.

The process

What better way to understand the product than to use it. So let’s get right into it and see what Lumen5 is all about.

Lumen5 works on a fairly simple model. It creates relevant videos based on the textual content and media one usually has. If you happen to have images or video clips, you can use them for the video, as well.

There are two ways to start making a video on this platform. One way is to create videos based on some written content. Another way is to use templates and modify them to create the kind of video you want.

Create videos based on content

Let us begin with the method in which allows you to generate videos based on written content.

You will get three options in this case. The first one would be to add the URL to the blog or article for which you want to generate the video.

Lumen5 will go through the content of that page, and it will automatically generate a crude video for you. You can then introduce all the tweaks and changes into this video and shape it into the kind of end product you want.

It not only scans the text content in the article but also goes through media content available on the page. It then accommodates that into the video to sweeten the deal even more.

If you haven’t already published the article and have only got a script, then that is also not an issue. You can simply paste the script in the provided space and the results will be the same as the previous case.

In the third and final option, you can upload any media files that you have. Lumen5 would create a video out of those files, and you can polish it later.

Use one of their templates to create videos

The above methods allowed the user to create a video based on some content that they already have. However, if you don’t have a script or media files with you, and wish to create a video entirely from scratch, then you can do so using the templates available on the platform.

Lumen5 offers the user a ton of templates which are designed for different social websites and needs.

You can pick a template of your liking by browsing through the multiple category options. Some of the category choices available in the template section are banking & finance, Facebook, gaming, holidays, marketing, etc.

Once you find the template of your liking, you can add more images and clips from the gallery to turn it into a stellar video. There is also the option to modify the text displayed on the clips and elements to provide the video with a more personalized touch.

We think the two methods are enough to take care of the needs of most users.

The editor

The editor on Lumen5 is probably the one that requires the least amount of effort from the user. The software does pretty much everything for you automatically. There is hardly anything left for the user to deal with other than a few tweaks.

Depending upon the method you choose to create the video, you will find two variants of the editor. You will find a ‘story’ tab in one of the variants, and the other one will not sport that tab since you chose to create video either using media or the templates.

When you choose to build a video using written text, Lumen5 adds a story tab. And since this kind of editor encompasses everything that they have to offer, we will be discussing this one only.

In the beginning, you will find that the tool has already extracted bits and pieces from the content and created a video. We will be discussing the use of AI on Lumen5 for the generation of these elementary videos. However, that is a topic for later sections of the review.

The story tab shows the content used as the foundation of the video. If you feel that the prebuilt video missed out on some of the important points, images, or videos, then you can use the drag and drop feature to introduce the element into the video.

As you hover the pointer over the story tab, sentences and media get automatically highlighted. You can drag the highlighted media and add it to any appropriate section of the video. It is as simple as that.

The media used in videos will be sourced both from your content as well as their media gallery.

There is a particular way in which all the Lumen5 videos work. There is an image or video animation in the background, and there is some content on top of the video. You might have seen such videos on a lot of social media platforms.

Since the videos are built this way, there are two key areas to focus- the background and the text.

If your content already contains media, then Lumen5 will use them in the video to keep things relevant. If your content has insufficient or no media, then it will source it from the gallery.

You can easily remove the backgrounds that you don’t want to have in the video and import it from the media tab.

The media tab automatically sources multiple videos and images most suited to the keywords in your content. If you feel the suggestion doesn’t contain the kind of content you were looking for, then you can search for some yourself.

Lumen5 has a huge media gallery, and you will end up finding some appropriate media in most of the cases.

Coming to the text on scenes, you can do a lot with them. The most obvious thing is the editing. You can type in the content that you want to have in the video or edit whatever it has sourced.

One of the most useful features is the one in which you can highlight parts of it to draw more user attention. You can also change the font, color, and position of the text on the scene.

It might be the case sometimes that the content shadows an important part of the background image or video clip. In such a case, you can simply move the text to some other part of the screen.

If the background animation contains a video, you can trim it. If it’s an image, then you can zoom in or out on the image depending on what the situation demands.

You can choose to make the background animation dimmer to lay more emphasis on the text, as well. It is also up to you to decide the duration of each scene. It’s easier to stay in control this way.

Even though Lumen5 has a very elementary editor, the options seem countless. And we aren’t even done explaining everything that it has to offer.

The audio is a critical component of any video. It sets the whole mood for the experience and can make it a pleasant experience or an absolute nightmare to go through the video.

Lumen5 won’t disappoint you when it comes to the audio department. Their audio gallery contains plenty of awesome tracks that you can incorporate in the video. There is also the option to upload a track if you want something more personal.

The only disappointment we had in the audio section is that there was no option to add a voice-over. Even though there is a workaround of uploading recorded voiceover track, it seems a bit too much of a task.

Users also can’t trim audio files. Just a few subtle improvements like these can make Lumen5 a much better tool than what it already is.

The ‘Style’ section lets you add that personal touch to a video and make it truly yours.

As we already discussed, Lumen5 offers a lot of themes. You can apply one of those themes to your video from the style tab and then customize it to your liking.

You can switch between color schemes, change title and subtitle style, and the background, as well.

If you like a particular style setting so much that you think it should be available in all of your videos, then you can save it under the brand preset.

The brand preset will not only take care of the video style but the outro and watermark, as well.

There are a lot of avenues that accept videos, and you could be creating a video for any one of them. It is difficult to create a video that goes on all of them since they favor different aspect ratios.

You don’t want to ruin the viewing experience by creating the video in incorrect aspect ratio for the platform. The format tab will help you in this case.

It provides multiple options for aspect ratio and length of the platform, depending on where you want to publish the video.

It takes just one click to take care of the aspect ratio, and you can populate the same kind of video for a variety of platforms.

Even though it seems like a lot, you won’t have to do much on the platform. There are abundant options in case you want to change things.

Use of AI

The most remarkable feature of Lumen5 must be the fact that it automatically creates the video for the user based on text.

It is amazing how the software analyzes the text and decides what part of content is important and should be included in the scenes. They say their natural language processing algorithm is still a work in progress, and it is only going to make better decisions with time.

The AI also analyzes the important keywords and phrases in the text and automatically highlights them for the user. With features such as these, Lumen5 is rapidly progressing towards the scenario where you won’t need to interfere with the video at all.

The images and graphics you see on videos are also sourced using AI. It not only brings in the relevant media but takes care of a lot of other things, as well. The AI makes sure that the text doesn’t cover an important section of the media.

The duration of the graphic is also modified based on the length of the sentence so that the viewer doesn’t find it difficult to go through it. It would also manipulate the sharpness of the graphic depending on what’s shown it.

It is this extensive use of artificial intelligence that makes it such a breeze to use Lumen5.

The media gallery

Let’s face it, the most challenging task of the video creating process is to get the right graphic content. It is supposed to be relevant, beautiful, and so many other things.

Not everyone knows how to use a camera properly, not everyone can go to exotic locations to get amazing shots, not everyone has the money to hire superb actors for the video, and not everyone can get their hands on some of the professional-grade cameras used to create such videos.

Lumen5 offers its users a huge library of high-quality graphic resources. Sometimes, the issue with such galleries is that the user is unable to find the appropriate content because of the abundance of resources. But Lumen5 takes care of even that issue. It would automatically populate the right kind of images and video clips for you.

You can also go on the hunt for better graphics using their search feature. It is up to you as to which path you want to take.

Let us also not forget the ton of audio options that Lumen5 provides to its user. The ease with which one can find the track for a particular mood is a great feature for a lot of users.

None of the media items you find on the platform compromise with the quality.

There are a lot of video builders with galleries filled with amazing animations and videos, but Lumen5 gets slightly ahead of them since it comes with the capability of putting all those resources to best use.

The target audience

Let’s discuss the kind of people who can benefit the most from Lumen5. This platform creates only one kind of video. The ones in which there is an animation in the background with some text on top of it.

These must be the most appropriate videos for those who want to create it on the base of the literature they already have.

Another feature of videos created by this tool is that they are short. It is one of the necessary features you need to keep the videos engaging for the viewers. And since your videos are going to have considerable text content, you mustn’t drag the video far too long.

So, you get short videos with aesthetic animations and engaging text. Who would want these kinds of videos? Apparently, a lot of webmasters and bloggers.

Videos have now become a necessary element of the content marketing strategies, but it is too much of a hassle for everyone to create it, especially the bloggers. They already spend enough time and resources on the script, that creating high-quality videos is simply not that easy of a task for them.

So everyone with articles and blogs on their website but with no video content fall into the category of  Lumen5’s audience. It can be a review website, blog page, or even a company website that might benefit from the services of this tool.

Analytics

A video builder tool isn’t the one in which you expect to have a dedicated analytics section. After all, it’s just videos. But numbers have their way of painting a clear image of the situation, and they don’t lie.

Lumen5 has a section to give you all the numbers associated with whatever you are doing on the platform. The data is available for the past 30 days activity on the platform and gives the user a rough sense of the state of productivity.

You will get to see the number of videos you have published, the average length of the videos, the time you spent creating those videos, credits left in your billing cycle, and how many videos one has contributed as a team member.

The importance of all this information will vary from one organization to another. If you like to monitor productivity, the analytics section is going to turn out to be a useful section for you.

Conclusion

Lumen5 has almost created an entirely new category of video builders itself. It requires no work from the user’s side and does almost everything by itself.

There aren’t a lot of video builders that showcase such efficient use of artificial intelligence to create videos. And if we are to go by their words, things are only going to get better with time.

We have come across tools that would take care of the animation or would automatically provide the images and videos, but none of them had all-round capabilities such as this one. The fact that it can go through the written information and create videos out of it is simply a great feature that a lot of webmasters would like to have.

There are enough options to modify and polish the videos, and the editing options are as intuitive they can be.

They don’t leave much room for desire when it comes to the graphics section. The images and videos in their library are stunning, and it is a cakewalk to find the relevant ones for your use.

The same can be said for the audio tracks you find on the platform. The only feature that we felt missing was the option to add the voiceover.

It is up to the user if she wants to spend minutes or hours creating videos on Lumen5. The analytics section turned out to be a bonus for people who enjoy greater control.

Lumen5 comes with a free plan, which can prove to be a great place for you to start the video building process. We recommend that you should definitely give this product a try.