By Tim Elder 

Adoption profile videos are the fastest and easiest way for hopeful adoptive families to connect with an expectant mom who is looking to make an adoption plan for her baby.

Videos are your chance to tell your story in a way that sticks in the mind of the viewer. Videos are easier than ever to create, edit, share and especially watch – on your phone, tablet, or computer.

Profile videos are simply this: a short “mini-movie” where you highlight your life, interests, personality, hobbies and most of all your excitement to become parents through adoption. The purpose is to get the expectant mother or father to feel a connection with you. Creating a “sneak-peek” of your life will help them see that connection.

When my wife and I started making profile videos, we had no idea what to do – especially creating one that would show our family in the best way. We even wondered if a video would make us look worse to an expectant mother, especially if we stumbled over our words or didn’t know what to say.

We fought through our fears and, with some trial and error, we created many successful adoption profile videos that have helped us adopt three times.

Here are 7 tips we’ve learned through creating our videos:

1. Keep it short. Profile videos work best when they are 2 to 3 minutes long. Anything more will lose the attention of an expectant mother (trust me, our first one was 10 minutes). Better to keep it short.
2. Shoot video with your phone.
   You don’t have to have professional equipment. Most smartphones have good video quality.
3. Be genuine.
   Share just enough about who you are and what life would be like for a child in your family. Don’t try to share things you THINK an expectant mom wants to see or hear. Be yourself.

4. Don’t create a photo slideshow set to music.
   Photos are great, but you need to add video clips showing what your life is like. You also need to add video clips with you looking directly into the camera, which leads me into my next tip…
5. Talk directly to the expectant mother.
   This may be hard, but it’s worth it. Believe me, she wants to hear from you, so take some time to look at the camera and tell her about you, your excitement to adopt, and what life will be like for HER child in YOUR family.
6. Provide contact info.
   Let her know how to contact you at the end of your video. You could say “thanks for watching – we would love to talk with you! Contact us at …” If you are working through an agency, this could be your agency contact information.
7. SHARE your video.
   While creating a video is great, if you don’t share it you won’t get noticed and it won’t help you adopt faster. Share it on social media (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc). Share it on your online profile through your agency or on profile sharing sites like Adoptimist or  Parentfinder.  Ask family & friends to share it too.

In all three of our adoptions, the profile videos my wife and I created made the difference with our kids’ birthparents. They LOVED our videos. They said our video is what separated us from the other families.

I hope these tips have inspired you to go make an adoption profile video so you can adopt FASTER!

Have fun!