Short-Form Video Strategy for Business With Reels and TikTok – YouTube Transcript
Expertise
3 pillars of Content
What you do
Secret Sauce (for authenticity, Foundational)
Pats – How did you arrive at being this expert?
Present – Who are you now?
Professional
Lighthearted
Business (bite-sized, actionable)
Soft Sell
Hard Sell
OPTIMIZING
Hook
Patter Interrupt w/diff clips, angles, backgrounds, etc.
Cover Photo with Text
Transcript:
(00:00) if you love photos and captions and carousels I don’t think that you have to completely abandon those I’m never going to be the one to say you can only post video that is your only option however in the current landscape of social media in 2023 we really are living in this video first world on Instagram on Tick Tock and of course other platforms today I’m very excited to be joined by jarrah Bean if you don’t know who Jared is she is a short form video strategist and speaker who helps service-based businesses and content creators grow
(00:40) their businesses with video her course is called the video editing Rodeo Jara welcome to the show how you doing today I’m doing so well thank you so much for having me I am excited to have you on the show today Jared and I are going to explore short form video strategy but before we go there let’s roll back the clock to your story I would love to hear how’d you get into short form video Start wherever you want to start we’re gonna rewind back kind of a far ways here because the the origins
(01:11) have have uh begin when I’m like a wee girl on my mom’s lap so my mom is in the world a video she works on Films commercials TV so from a young age I’ve been sitting on my mom’s lap as she edits different perfume commercials and fashion shows and documentaries and so video and film and very much editing have been in my blood since those early early days and as I grew up anytime I would have a school project like I remember in eighth grade having a biology project on the artipithecus
(01:45) Rambis and rather than like create a poster or you know have a talking presentation I would create these like feature length uh videos as my final project and I think my teacher still shows that to this day granted it was on VHS so hopefully he’s transferred that over by now so video’s been in in my realm for quite some time and I grew up in New York City I graduated and went off to college in Los Angeles I went to USC went in Undeclared didn’t know what I want to focus on ended up
(02:18) being a fine art major with an emphasis in graphic design so in that creative world like I’ve always loved art I’ve always expressed myself visually in some shape or form and so I graduate from USC I get a job as a freelance graphic designer working at a advertising company and funny enough as most of us do these days we all have to wear multiple hats so yes I was doing graphic design but I remember teaching myself after effects because I had to learn these little animations for the different presentations that the the like the salesmen were doing and I edited videos little
(02:59) promo videos so yes it was graphic design but I’m still kind of learning these skills I’m still creating video projects if I think to the next place that I worked at it was a fashion startup I edited their Kickstarter video that made forty thousand dollars so once again this video creative thread is weaving in and out of my life well we come up to 2015.
(03:26) I’m still a graphic designer but I ended up working at a startup that wasn’t the best let’s just say they definitely kind of manipulated me a bit didn’t treat me so nicely and I remember one day I’m standing in the mirror at a wework and I’m exhausted I’m probably getting paid less than minimum wage at this point with the weekends that I’m working in late hours and I part my hair in the mirror and there’s a bald spot on my head I started to lose hair due to how stressed I was from this job it was also during
(03:59) this time I realized I was struggling with social anxiety I started to see a therapist for that so I look back at that time as just challenging dealing with some stuff and that set the scene for me making a positive change in my life now at the time did I go I’m gonna make a positive change in my life not necessarily but hindsight’s 2020 and there was definitely something pushing me to pivoting in some shape or form now at the time I had an Instagram account for my hand lettering
(04:33) I used to draw letters and spend hours on it and that was the first time I really tapped into the power of community on social media this is like pre-2015 we’re talking like 2013 or so I remember connecting with different artists from all around the world and collaborating them on these drawing projects so I had that in my back pocket when I decided to start a workout program in 2015.
(04:59) and I started that workout program it’s called or was called BBG uh bikini bodyguide by Kayla it’sinus it was a total movement at the time and I started an Instagram account workout Bean at the time to accompany my journey to help hold me accountable and one of the main reasons why I started that Instagram account was because I felt the power of community from my drawing account that I had already had for about a year or two so I start this workout program I start this Instagram account and this was the positive change this was the Catalyst towards it sounds so
(05:38) dramatic but literally changing the rest of my life because what happened was at the time the word influencer didn’t exist so I can label it as at that now but I became a fitness influencer without there even really being a word for it I became an Adidas Ambassador I then transitioned to becoming a soul cycle instructor which is spinning so Fitness just took over my life in the best way possible in addition to social media it was this beautiful coupling of these two forces that just brought me so much joy Community creative expression and so on and that went
(06:14) on until about mid 2018 I had grown my Instagram account I was uh pretty much working full-time as an influencer doing brand Partnerships but I decided to leave Soul cycle pursue that full-time and that’s when I entered kind of a little bit of an unknown era I think Soul Cycle and Fitness had been so part of my identity for so long that to no longer have Fitness was a bit of a shock to the system and it was a year and a half of sort of rediscovering myself again and feeling quite lost if I’m being totally totally honest by the end of 2019
(06:52) it’s like I got I got to do something here I I need more I feel pulled to do more than just create content and I don’t mean that in a condescending way because one can be a full-time content creator and be absolutely fulfilled but I just wanted to add something else to my toolkit hired a business coach and that was my official pivot into the world of social media coaching and education so with my almost five or so years of experience in social media at that point building my own brand my own account I then begin to transfer those skills to my students so
(07:29) I created a group coaching program and I ran that program for about seven years and that is what also helped to launch my speaking career uh speaking on stages Keynotes as well as working with some major brands like Estee Lauder and Mac Bobby Brown Adobe ATT and that really brings us to current day where I am still very much a content creator I I love creating for Instagram for tick tock video specifically I also have the coaching aspect of my business with one-on-one as well as my programs and that third pillar is the education and speaking um on on stages and virtually as well
(08:13) so that’s jarrah in a bit of a nutshell for you that’s a really cool nutshell so Jara who are you um creating content for like who is that ideal somebody who might be listening who might want to check out you like who is your who is your customer Avatar I guess here is the overlay okay I’m gonna explain something first because it’s going to make sense when I give you my answer every single person who is using social media to support some sort of a goal Vision business is a content creator and that’s what I think is a little bit different than
(08:52) a content creator and an influencer an influencer might be really working towards those brand deals and Partnerships whereas a content creator is not necessarily working towards those Partnerships but they’re using social media in a strategic way so we are all content creators if we’re showing up on social media for something specific whether it’s a mission whether it’s our business Etc now if you are a business let’s say you’re a service based business or product based business you are still
(09:21) a content creator but we’re just adding on that additional layer of your business so everyone’s a content creator and then from that pool we have people selling specific things Services products and that’s where that business this layer is added on so in terms of my ideal person I say content creators absolutely I really specialize in building personal brand helping people show up authentically finding their voice and their confidence their secret sauce as I call it but in
(09:50) addition to that I love helping I would say more so service based businesses because they are the face of the brand and so that content creator aspect really translates really beautifully to their social media strategy but we get to add on that layer of oh how do we promote our business how do I talk about my services how do I get more clients Etc so content creators as well as service based businesses excellent so there are a lot of people listening right now that first of all we’re
(10:19) completely locked into your story but might not be sold on the idea of creating short form video so what do you want to say to those people because there are lots of people who might be uh comfortable writing or using photography or images but maybe when it comes to short form video they just haven’t really understood um why it’s so critical what do you want to say to those people couple things couple things I want to say to those people first and foremost I don’t think that if you love photos and captions and carousels I don’t think that you have to completely abandon
(10:59) those I’m never going to be the one to say you can only post video that is your only option however in the current landscape of social media in 2023 we really are living in this video first world on Instagram on Tick Tock and of course other platforms as well and I think when people are resistant to video a lot of times it comes with the overwhelm of video video has a lot more moving parts to it than just a photo and a caption with video sometimes we have to show up on camera we have to show ourselves use our voice there’s editing involved that’s a whole other other layer
(11:47) of technical skills and things that you have to get used to then we have adding text and music like whoa we just went from a photo and a caption to listing off like five to ten different things that we now have to understand and specialize in so the first place that I want to start is that video can be simple video can be simple and effective I know as we’re scrolling through our reels Tab and it’s currently in the moment because reels is having a a moment where we got all this trendy editing and it’s a little bit more aesthetic than Tick Tock is and it can feel
(12:23) like holy cow in order for me to be successful I need to do all these transitions I need to have the high quality stuff and sure that is an option if you are someone who has those technical skills if you’re someone who’s really driven or has the time to pursue that type of visual aesthetic content by all means however video can be as simple as setting up your cam camera right here as I’m talking on my desk putting it on a little tripod or you know what sometimes I don’t even use a tripod I lean it against a plant or a water bottle or the lamp and pressing record
(12:57) letting that run as I’m typing as I’m talking boom We trim that down that’s about 10 seconds find a trending song put text on top and you know we want to make sure that we’re still delivering value so I’m not just saying oh just like put some text on it we want to think about what that text and that caption is but that is how simple video can be so I always like to start off with that to um convey that video can really be this low barrier to entry if we see all sides of it and not just
(13:29) the super fancy stuff the other thing that I love so much about video is the authenticity Factor when we show up on video and show ourselves when we use our voice there’s this instant transfer of energy that you will not get in a million years from a photo and a caption and I know it can be absolutely terrifying to show up in that way to reveal yourself in that way a lot of people have fear around using their voice and talking to camera and seeing themselves but once again social media has evolved and it’s no longer this glossy highlight reel I think people are really
(14:13) wanting to connect with the human the realness the genuine the imperfections they want to see themselves in you in some shape or form so we don’t need to show up perfectly which once again really lowers that barrier to entry for anyone who’s feeling super resistant to it at the moment excellent okay so we’re going to talk about strategy specifically uh with reels and Tick Tock and there’s a lot of people who um are listening who um don’t know where to start right so let’s
(14:47) start with like what’s the first thing we need to be thinking about uh before we start creating reels I have a three-step process so I’d love to walk you through that three-step process but each step has kind of a lot going in it so stop me at any point but where I want to begin of course is with step one so step one with where the heck do I begin with video is the content ideation we want to come up with strategic and intentional ideas that make sense for our business or if you’re not selling something that makes sense for your personal brand okay we have that general
(15:24) direction but then how do we come up with those ideas you want to zero in on your content pillars some people say content buckets and there’s a lot of information out there about content pillars and the best way to think about it is we are just sectioning off we are grouping together different parts of you and your business and that sectioning off then allows us to get really organized and then from those bigger pillars or Buckets come come up with more granular ideas so it’s kind of
(15:58) just following this flow I’ve been teaching content pillars for years now and I have my proprietary mixture of pillars that I love to walk you through and there are three types so there’s three types of pillars and those that’s what helps us come up with individual pillars first we have the expertise pillars the expertise pillars is all about providing value we want to teach what you know give advice shed light on things speak to your client or your customers pain and pleasure points it’s really value-packed so that one when someone consumes
(16:35) a piece of expertise content they maybe want to save it or maybe they’re sending it to a friend come back to it later but they’re benefiting from that piece of content in some shape or form when it comes to your expertise pillars more often than not you’re going to want to have three of them so can you figure out oh out of all my expertise out of all the things that I’m good at of course that pertains to your business how can I categorize them into approximately three categories could it
(17:05) be mindset nutrition and movement for a personal trainer could it be messaging personal branding and converting followers to clients for a social media coach keep it simple it’s not groundbreaking by any means but at most you’ll have maybe four or five at the absolute least two three is usually the sweet spot so that’s our first type of content pillar expertise quick question um so when we’re coming up with these content pillars it sounds like we should pick at least under this expertise category things that we’re comfortable talking about that we feel like our
(17:44) our domain expertise for example if it was for me I’d probably say entrepreneurship content creation and marketing you know what I mean like those are the things that I tend to talk about a lot right and they’re distinctly unique from each other just like mindset nutrition and movement are unique from each other and from them can spawn a whole bunch of ideas is that what I’m hearing exactly hit the mail on the head beautiful summary of that okay keep going so our second type of pillar is
(18:13) secret sauce and Secret Sauce is just my fun little word for essentially authenticity if you are a content creator or if you are a service based business you are going to want to share some of you share your personality share that humanness that I mentioned earlier now when someone says show up authentically as a tip or a piece of advice it’s really well intentioned and we all probably go oh yeah show up authentically like great but then you go wait a second how do I do it yeah like how do I do that that sounds great but transforming the real life you into
(18:49) the digital you it is really challenging it’s something that took me a very long time to do myself and then to actually translate that and teach that as a whole other level so what I’ve done is taken this framework for secret sauce and divided it into four pillars so there are four secret sauce pillars we have foundational Secret Sauce this focuses more on your past then your present so we want to think of the challenges that you’ve overcome achievements pivots any of the big stories and moments that have brought you to where you are today that’s foundational next we
(19:27) have personal secret sauce and this is very much focused on the opposite it’s the present moment it’s what are your hobbies what do you like to do on the weekend who’s the human outside of the business what are the things that are making up your life in the moment right here right now then we have professional secret sauce professional as it sounds focuses more on the professional side of you so who is the entrepreneur what’s the founder story what are your values as a
(19:56) business or an entrepreneur how do you do things differently um really focusing once again on the human but very much through the lens of your business lastly and perhaps my personal favorite we have light-hearted secret sauce and this is as it sounds this is the more silly goofy random uh parts of you that are just usually the most fun to share via stories and that’s the secret sauce framework foundational personal professional light-hearted the really cool thing about this framework is that you do not have to show up or use all four pillars you can pick and
(20:36) choose and this provides Nuance to the tip of show up authentically and the resistance that people usually feel towards it either not knowing how to do it or thinking oh gosh well in order to show up authentically do I have to share everything I don’t want to share everything you don’t have to share everything you can choose so maybe you are really heading in the buckets of uh foundational and professional but personal and light-hearted either you don’t want to do or does not make
(21:05) sense for your business now or at this time maybe you reconsider in the future so not only does it make this concept of showing up authentically more tangible but it gives you options as well allowing you to create boundaries if you need them when it comes to sharing you and your life online this is uh this is a fascinating one and I really love and I’m grateful that you’re putting these categories together because it’s helping me not just with short form video both any video right
(21:32) um this is even the written word I mean this stuff is applicable to almost any kind of content but the um the idea of like you know to show up authentically for a lot of people they think it means to show every Scar and every challenge they’ve ever faced in their life and I love how it could just be stories about experiences that you’ve had in the past and it could be uh if you are light-hearted showing some of those mistakes you made right and when you’re recording instead
(22:02) of editing them out is that kind of what I’m hearing you say that kind of stuff absolutely and and what I love about Secret Sauce is that yes we have these categories but it’s also up to you for interpretation so you might consider sharing the outtakes as light-hearted but I might consider that professional because you know podcast business this is a professional moment and it just to me gives Dimension to secret sauce and it’s all open up for interpretation and it’s whatever makes
(22:30) sense for you and those are starting categories but in terms of labels like we can move things around however it makes sense in your brain but what you described sharing those outtakes perfect example of a type of Secret Sauce yes Okay so we’ve got uh content pillar number one is expertise content number two is Secret Sauce we just talked about a bunch of little sub pillars what’s the next these I think you have the third one right yes our third type of pillar is the business pillar and the beautiful thing about having these three types of pillars
(23:02) expertise Secrets awesome business is that they all work symbiotically so if you imagine like three circles representing each type of pillar overlapping and we have the middle section where all three touch that is your content strategy and when you uh Share value share your expertise when you share the humanness it’s going to make it that much easier to dive into the business pillar a lot of people have fear around selling or talking about what they do or feeling pushy and that’s
(23:31) a whole other subject but it should feel a lot better when you incorporate the other two types of pillars to begin with now within the business pillar we’re going to subdivide this as well just as we did expertise as well as Secret Sauce but this time we’re going to subdivide it into two different subpillars we have hard selling and we have stop selling and I love creating this distinction because oftentimes people equate hard selling to the only time type of selling they think it’s buy this sign up now it’s the selling that you do during a launch or promotion
(24:05) and yes that is absolutely selling but that’s hard selling and there’s nothing bad about it we gotta do it when when we have a Time specific thing or for wanting to make a sale or make money so it’s absolutely part of the business pillar but where the Nuance comes in is the secret oh sorry is the soft selling uh pillar because this is where we can be more nuanced and a little bit subtle about presenting our business about talking and sharing about what we do or what we sell so let me give you some examples when it comes to soft selling you want to ask yourself
(24:39) how can I creatively feature what I do or how can I share the value of what I do so when it comes to creatively featuring if you create a day in the life blog where you’re walking your dog drinking coffee hanging out with a friend but you’re also recording a podcast responding to speaking clients doing a coaching call and you can you you interweave all those together in one video it’s a soft sell because you’re not asking anyone to do anything but you’re saying hey just
(25:13) so you know this is something I do this is part of my business if we think about sharing the value of what you do that’s when things like testimonials come in reviews sharing client Transformations sharing press features essentially hard selling is when you’re talking on the business like this is on the business content versus soft selling it’s around it’s like the subjects that surround your business and that also incorporate other parts of your life and soft selling is something you can
(25:47) do all the time versus hard selling is something you want to do part of the time so that makes up our our business pillar and completes the three types of pillars that help us with our content ideation in terms of coming up with specific and strategic content ideas that are born out of those those pillars I want to reinforce the value proposition of soft selling um if you tell a story and it’s got a moral and a value proposition to it and you just plant in the middle of the story I
(26:22) was talking to a client and this happened believe it or not what you’re doing is you’re soft selling that you take clients right and what would he even notice is it but Sublimity they’re like oh Jara takes clients oh I didn’t even know that right I mean that’s an example of soft selling it could be the most subtle little thing yes like I posted on um a long-form piece of content recently on all the social channels that take long form and I I shared a story and right in the middle of it I
(26:49) said I was talking to someone on my team about launching social media marketing world and you know it was just embedded right in the middle of a long story about why I should create more content but it was it was carefully crafted to be in there to be like oh yeah social media marketing world I should check that out right but it was subtle and if you do that over and over again and then people love your content all of a sudden they’re gonna go check you out or they’re going to check
(27:12) out your product right now I’m ahead yeah and and it can be that simple it can be that simple just dropping in on a podcast and having that line or mentioning it in your stories or a sentence in a caption and and that’s how subtle and sort of dainty soft selling can be which means once again we can incorporate it almost daily into our social media content Okay so we’ve spent a really lot of valuable times specifically talking about coming up with creative ideas for Content specifically
(27:43) for short form videos now you said this is a three-step process and there’s lots of little sub there’s pillars and subpillars and all that fun stuff but there’s this is the first step so the next step good thing that’s definitely the most complicated kind of dense step so whoo we got step one done it’s the most fun too I think because this is like you can get creative here right yeah exactly exactly so we got the hardest work done I think at this point and step two I think out of all three steps is definitely the easiest and when I explain it I
(28:14) think most people listening you’re gonna go oh I know this already and jara’s just kind of putting a name to it so with step one we came up with content ideas but when it comes to social media the idea isn’t the finished product we have to turn that idea into a piece of content and I’m going to focus specifically on video so how do we take an idea and turn it into a video well if you are able to label the four most common video formats it then search the bridge the gap so the four most common video formats for reels and Tick Tock is either talking to camera
(28:51) voice over a text overlay or a trend and these are pretty much exactly as they sound if you do a talking to camera video you are talking into the camera and delivering that message if you’re doing a voiceover you’re using b-roll which is just different shots depending on the subject matter and you’re adding in your voice as a layer if you do a text overlay we have what I described earlier like a shot of me typing at my desk I plop some text on top and that text conveys the message of
(29:19) that content idea and then when it comes to Trends well that opens up a whole world because we have trending content on both reels and Tick Tock that can be a lip dub that can be a transition that could be pointing towards on screen so that is a format that has a lot of sub formats within that but once we have that idea we can go okay well how do I bring it to life let me identify those four formats what makes sense also what do I have time for today because doing a text overlay will like
(29:47) likely be a lot quicker than talking to camera for example so that’s the second step identify buying those four formats and choosing what your content idea is going to be within those four formats okay I’ve got a couple questions um when we are recording uh direct to camera um I just recently got this cool little DJI mic thing I don’t know if you’ve ever seen these things but I’m showing these for the listening audience no these little tiny microphones that you can attach to your iPhone and then you can put a lapel on it and uh it’s really good audio
(30:23) right but um and then you have the audio separate if you wanted to all that fun stuff it’s it’s more relevant for people that are doing long form video or and want to maybe make podcasts out of it but do you find that you’re just talking to your phone and you don’t even really worry about the audio a hundred percent I’m pretty low Tech and this is coming from someone who has a video background like I could be high tech I have a fancy camera I have lighting but because short form video content
(30:50) is so casual and it’s nature for the most part and because simple not super high-tech content can be impactful and effective like I got a business to run so even though I have the ability to create that fancy content and use high-end equipment I don’t feel like I need to so yes most of the time when I’m talking or well actually all the time when I’m talking to camera I’m setting my phone up and as I mentioned earlier oftentimes I’m not even getting my tripod out I’m that lazy I’ll put
(31:21) it up on the windowsill over there and kind of you know go up on my toes a little bit or bend down if I need to and call it a day for the majority of my content okay so um I found that sometimes if you hold your phone in your hand the wrong way you could be covering up the mic because I think the mic is on the bottom of the phone isn’t it or have you not found that oh I haven’t I haven’t come into that issue I do think it is on the bottom though so okay let’s talk about framing
(31:45) because I know you have that video background so like when we’re actually recording ourselves are we talking like arm length away typically and and how do we need to even worry about where we are in the frame because anybody who has a video background as you know there’s rules of thirds and all this kind of stuff um should be really close up does it look a little different on on one iPhone versus an Android do you understand what I’m asking as far as absolutely so I’m sure
(32:08) people will have different opinions on this so I don’t think my my opinion is is necessarily my way or the highway but how I approach it usually I as a creator of content as well as a consumer of content if I’m looking at someone and we’ll just keep it to talking to camera for now I do like for there to be a bit of a a little bit of a distance I think sometimes when it’s just your face filling the whole frame it’s kind of confronting and a little bit suffocating visually so having a little bit of space from the camera where I can see the top of your head
(32:40) messed up or something or belly button yeah let’s say at least kind of chest up belly button up um I think is nice as well because then we can kind of see how you gesture and how you move as well the other important thing it’s not just the distance from the camera but I call it Headroom how much space is above your head and the top of the video frame oftentimes some will have a way too much Headroom where you are in the lower half of the frame and then half of the frame the rest
(33:09) is Headroom then you are you need to like lower your tripod or you know kind of stand up on your tippy toes a little bit or sometimes the head will be right at the top and then we want to back up a little bit so that’s also something to consider is not just the distance but your Headroom and these are these are more polishing pieces so I don’t want to scare anyone away who’s super beginner and and worry them too much about this but when you kind of get the general hang of things then
(33:34) you can start to worry or just think and consider about these other additional visual considerations let’s talk about voiceover for a little bit I think people understand what I mean I’m sorry what uh text overlay because I think people understand voice over presumably would be you’re recording with the better camera on the other side of your phone and then you’re just going to be recording your audio and then somehow sewing the whole thing together that’s really what you mean by voiceover
(33:58) am I right you could if you’re a podcaster you could use a podcasting rig to record the darn thing right and then just put a bunch of video to it is that as simple as it is that’s as simple as it is and I think the best example of that is a day in the life video where you’re waking up walking the dog we’re working out grabbing coffee whatever I’m just talking about the generic things but you are guiding us through that by adding in your voice and you’re not you’re not like I’m
(34:23) waking up you you just get the shot and then you add in that voice over track later on as you’re in editing mode so let’s talk about text overlay like what exactly how is that different than what we just talked about with these two different first formats text overlay the way that I think about it is separate from talking to camera and voice over because text overlay does not use your voice now well caveat when you are talking to camera and when you are doing voice over I do recommend
(34:52) adding text because there’s a whole strategic way to use text but when I specifically say format number three of text overlay that is specific to video text no voice and it’s a great option for someone who needs to create quickly it’s also a great stepping stone for someone who is really terrified to use their voice and maybe they’re not ready yet and we’ve got to work our way up there so it’s just a great option for both speed as well as um sort of comfort level as well okay so just
(35:24) so I’m clear you film either yourself or something else maybe it’s the way that the sausage is being made in the factory or whatever yup yup and then maybe you just put some words up there and add a music track and that’s it and that’s it but the the words of this are very important because every single piece of content has some sort of message if we go back to Step One something is either sharing your expertise something is sharing about you as a human or something is sharing about
(35:50) your business so with text overlay actually let me talk about voiceover and talking to camera the way that the main message the main point is delivered for the most part is going to be via your voice in text overlay how is the main message delivered there’s no voice so it has to be via the text that you put on screen so we don’t want to just like when I say plop on text I’m not being flippant about it but I do mean yeah we’re just putting some text on there but that text is what
(36:21) delivers the main message of the content idea now the caption can complement that so it doesn’t have to be the entire idea but we want at least part of that main message in the text that you overlay okay um I believe this is my last question on this particular step which is talking about all these different formats duration of the actual final product my understanding is that I don’t is it true you can do three minutes on uh Tick Tock now and 10 minutes 10 minutes okay yeah and
(36:54) reels is what 60 seconds now I I think we’re at 90. I think we’re at 90 unreal so how long should we make these videos is really where I’m going with this hmm okay I got a couple I got a couple thoughts about this so my initial thought is that I don’t want to prescribe a specific length because sometimes we need all let’s say 60 seconds at most just to keep things simple to deliver that message which will really round out that story so I never want to say oh only make short videos
(37:24) however we do have to think about retention which is how long someone’s watching your video for and average watch time so if you are in the mode of creating around 60 second long videos all the time and your views are quite low I invite you to pull up your analytics both on Tick Tock and Instagram and look at that retention or average watch time and you might be really surprised to see wow I’m making these 60 second long videos and people are watching three to five seconds and that’s why the views are so low it’s telling Instagram where it’s telling Tick Tock ah this is
(37:56) an interesting I’m gonna just you know I’m gonna swipe away and therefore it’s not going to push it out to more people so that’s where we start to get a little bit tricky is that the lower the the shorter a video is the higher the chance is for retention because it’s easier to retain someone for 10 seconds than it is 60 seconds but then we get into the nuanced conversation of well sometimes we need we truly do need that fully that full six 60 seconds and sometimes those videos can
(38:22) absolutely perform well one thing I will add to this is that when I do content audits these days I would say pretty much every single time no matter the business no matter the type of person people are jamming way too much information into every single post and so when you create regardless of the format I want you to ask yourself is this a bite-sized piece of content is this actionable as well if you are talking about like a full customer Journey like this is what a customer journey is
(38:57) and you’re listing off all the things that’s going to go over people’s heads because it’s too broad and it’s just way way too much versus if you took that one big idea and then squeezed it like lemon to make a nice little fresh juice of content lemonade and got really specific with all the ideas that make up a customer Journey For example can you describe what an opt-in is how do you grow your email list all these different things these ideas are much more tangible and
(39:28) potentially actionable as well so you might be making a really awesome 60 second video that covers a broad topic but it’s not actually going to perform well on social media because people are craving more of those bite-sized actionable pieces of content outstanding Okay the third step in your process is drum roll please drum roll please thank you for that step number three is the optimization and there’s a couple things within optimization and it’s not necessarily a finite
(39:59) list I find myself kind of uh rolling through the top three sometimes and sometimes those top three things change depending on what I’m seeing or perhaps depending on what the audience needs um when it comes to optimization we want to think how are we polishing off this piece of content to essentially perform better so a really great one that I think most people are aware of these days is the hook I consider the hook the first about three seconds of your video and usually when I say the hook I’m thinking about what is being said verbally however we also can think
(40:40) about what’s being shown visually because we have about three seconds to capture someone’s attention actually less I think and what are we showing what are we saying in order to entice them to keep watching so a common mistake that I see with hooks is people pausing for about one full second which I know sounds short but that’s an eternity in short form video content lands pausing before anything comes out of their mouth or they start with hey everyone how’s it going today today I’m
(41:10) going to show you XYZ when you have an intro that says hey everyone how’s it going that’s really nice maybe for stories but for our reels and Tick Tock I want you to be brutal and mix that out and just start with exactly what you’re going to say if you want to start optimizing Your Hooks then we can think of oh what are things that we can say Beyond just here’s what I’m going to show you today such as here are the three things that are going to change what you think about XYZ subject
(41:35) or how comes no one’s talking about XYZ subject I want to dive into that there’s a million hooks you can google google them but it’s essentially how am I enticing someone to keep watching quick question on the hooks um do you recommend recording the hooks after you’ve kind of finished up your content and then dial in that hook in because you can always add the hook in editing right can’t you absolutely absolutely apps one who come to them ly as you are recording or perhaps as you’re writing
(42:05) if you write out a script or bullet points you can let the content flow a little bit and then maybe you watch the content maybe you edit down the content first and then as long as you know you’re in the same outfit the same lighting I mean you could change up your outfit and then we have a little bit of a pattern interrupt but most likely recording around the same time in space you can just add that in later on if the hook comes to you during your process absolutely excellent okay what
(42:32) else is uh part of this process of refinement if you will another one one is pattern interrupting in pattern interrupting is a technique in editing where you are making different cuts to your video to your Clips in order to keep people engaged so if I record a talking to camera video about how to grow your community and it’s 60 seconds long and I just talked to the camera for 60 seconds and I just trim off the end in the beginning so there’s no dead space and upload that that video has zero
(43:05) pattern interrupts however if I take that 60 seconds and I cut out any ums I cut out any odds I essentially condense time a little bit and there’s clear cuts and I’m creating Clips in my timeline that’s the most basic form of a pattern interrupt it’s jumping from One Clip to the next to hold visual tension we can get a little bit more exciting with our pattern interrupts if it makes sense for the content and for your business where maybe I’m talking to you first in front of
(43:36) a white wall and then I change to talk to you in front of a blue wall or maybe I’m recording super high and then I change the angle and I’m super low where I change my hair like that’s a much more dramatic pattern interrupt in order to keep people engaged so that’s really important in general but I think when we’re creating talking to camera videos very essential to hold people’s attention with those pattern interrupts what do you want to say about captions and or cover photos
(44:05) when it comes to struggle a little right when they’ve created this reel it’s like wait I have the real do I need to say anything in the caption and I always like to think about it this way your video your real will either contain the full message the full content idea and the caption can just be you know a cute little fluffy one or two liner or the video will contain part of the idea and then entice people to then go to the caption so that’s great balance of course you can go
(44:41) the route of the real has the full idea the full message and then you reiterate that in the caption if you just want to hit people with both the video and the written so there’s nothing wrong with that but in order to work smarter and not harder and not have to write a whole caption out if you don’t want to either contain the whole message in the Reel with a you know little complimentary caption or entice people to learn the rest no more in the caption that’s how you usually think about
(45:05) it cover photos incredibly important because you want to think about those as the hook when someone lands on your Instagram profile or your Tick Tock page if someone comes across your reel and they go oh this is interesting let me check out jaira’s page and then they arrive and every single cover photo is just an image they have absolutely no idea what each piece of content is about and we’re in this state age where it’s quick I need to consume I need to know fast and if they don’t
(45:35) know they’re going to swipe away and I’ve lost that potential Community member client Etc if you have a text overlay let’s just say not on every it doesn’t have to be everyone but most of your cover photos that either acts as a headline or you can really think about it as a hook into that piece of content it’s going to entice people to click and to consume that content so cover photos play an incredibly important role I think in new followers and and building your community do you recommend
(46:05) that they we sample a piece of the actual video or do you typically take separate pictures and just create something unique like a lot of YouTubers tend to do I go both ways so I have really from my content creator days when I was like full content creator mode before 2020 when I really wanted my feed to be beautiful and now I’ve like thrown that out the window and I don’t I don’t really care anymore it’s I mean invite anyone to take a look at my feed Now versus like pre-20 days very very different energy and feel but sometimes I want a little pop of color or I
(46:42) want you know I’ve had all these screenshots of me mid-sentence with my mouth open and text overlay and I’m like let me just grab one of my nice photos and kind of sprinkle that into my feed so I think you can go one of both ways either grabbing that screenshot and adding that text on top and it’s sort of a low-tech fast easy way to create your cover photos or you can also go the route of grabbing a different photo if you so choose and you can do both like I do as well let’s talk about your preferred apps for doing
(47:11) um editing so as I mentioned I have my background in my early days sitting on my mom’s lap and she’s editing on professional software and that’s how I learned to edit I think originally on Final Cut Pro I learned Premiere Pro I’m back on Final Cut Pro now so that those are my editing Origins however when it comes to short form video content I do everything on my phone and my app of choice these days is cap cut that is what I edit most of my I say 90 of my videos on sometimes when
(47:42) I’m doing like a fancy transition where I need keyframes and layer mask which is very Advanced most people do not ever need to know that or do that then I will use video leap which has those capabilities as well but most of the time I’m on cap cut Jara this has been absolutely did you say video being as being is that what you said no video bean I like I hope it all never multitask like I’m trying to do what was that what was that last cap cut and what was the other one oh oh you it sounds close video leap l-e-a
(48:16) -e-a it’s a big leap for me to go from video leap to video beam but we’ll take it and we’ll keep this thing we’re being authentic here Jara um this has been phenomenal if people want to discover more about you where do you want to send them you can find me of course on social media Jara Bean but there’s a dot in there so it’s jared.
(48:39) bean on both Instagram and Tick Tock it’s jerabin just straight through.com for my website and I have my new course launching soon my video editing course it’s called the video editing rodeo and if you want access to that wait list if you want some freebies as well I have a special link for everyone listening today that’s jerabeen.
(48:58) com SME and you can access those freebies and get that info for the video editing waitlist as well chair Bean thank you so much for sharing all your insights with us today we’re so much better because of it oh thank you thanks for having me I appreciate it
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Short-Form Video Creation Cheat Sheet
A comprehensive guide to creating engaging short-form videos for platforms like Instagram Reels and TikTok.
Table of Contents
1. Planning
Define Your Objective
Determine what you want to achieve with the video. Is it to educate, entertain, or promote a product?
Identify Your Audience
Understand who your audience is and what they are interested in.
Choose the Pillar
Decide which of the three pillars (Expertise, Secret Sauce, or Business) your video will fall under.
Brainstorm Content Ideas
Use your chosen pillar to brainstorm specific content ideas.
Example
If you are a fitness coach, under the Expertise Pillar, you might plan a video on “3 Quick Exercises for Busy Professionals”.
2. Scripting
Outline Key Points
Jot down the main points or steps you want to cover in the video.
Keep it Concise
Remember, short-form videos should be quick and to the point.
Add a Call-to-Action
If applicable, include a call-to-action at the end of your video.
Example
For the fitness video, your script might include a greeting, a quick intro to the exercises, demonstrations of each exercise, and a closing call-to-action encouraging viewers to check out your coaching services.
3. Recording
Use a Smartphone
You don’t need fancy equipment; a smartphone will suffice.
Ensure Good Lighting
Make sure the area is well-lit, preferably with natural light.
Stabilize Your Camera
Use a tripod or steady surface to avoid shaky footage.
Be Authentic
Show your genuine personality and be relatable.
Example
Record yourself demonstrating the three exercises, ensuring good lighting and a stable camera setup.
4. Editing
Keep it Simple
Use basic editing tools; you don’t need to be a professional editor.
Trim Unnecessary Parts
Cut out any mistakes or unnecessary parts to keep the video concise.
Add Text or Graphics
If needed, add text or graphics to emphasize key points.
Ensure Clear Audio
Make sure your audio is clear and easy to understand.
Example
Edit the fitness video to smoothly transition between exercises, add text labels for each exercise, and ensure the audio is clear.
5. Captioning
Add Captions
Include captions to make your video accessible to a wider audience.
Keep Captions Concise
Ensure captions are short and to the point, mirroring your spoken words.
Use a Captioning Tool
Utilize tools or apps that can help generate captions for your video.
Example
Add captions to the fitness video, ensuring they accurately reflect the instructions for each exercise.
6. Posting
Choose the Right Platform
Decide whether you are posting on Instagram Reels, TikTok, or another platform.
Optimize Your Caption
Write a compelling caption that encourages engagement.
Use Relevant Hashtags
Include relevant hashtags to increase the visibility of your video.
Engage with Your Audience
Respond to comments and engage with your audience after posting.
Analyze and Learn
After posting, analyze the performance of your video and take note of what worked and what can be improved for next time.
Example
Post the fitness video on Instagram Reels with a caption like “Quick 5-minute workout for all my busy professionals out there! #Fitness #Workout #QuickExercises”, and engage with any comments or questions from your audience.
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