Last updated on June 16th, 2024
Sure, you know you need to get started with video marketing on YouTube, but how do you do it, exactly? Today we walk you though the essentials.
CHAPTERS:
00:00 INTRO – How to get started with YouTube marketing.
00:04 Fail fast.
00:45 Define your own success metrics.
02:25 Short form video.
03:48 Ask yourself this question.
04:52 Know, like, and trust factors.
08:14 Earning their business.
08:55 Who we are.
09:46 YouTube ads.
12:06 Study your calendar.
16:25 Trendjacking and Google Trends
17:48 Example: Alix Earle and Airbnb.
19:15 Example: Panda Dad.
20:01 Simple video equipment tips.
20:36 Editing videos on your phone.
20:49 Shelly’s iMovie Made Easy course – https://imoviemadeeasy.com/
21:21 Logitech Brio 4K webcam – https://amzn.to/44jMwnR
22:58 Audio Cleanup with Adobe Enhance – https://podcast.adobe.com/enhance
23:42 Basic Microphone: Audio-Technica AT2020USB+ https://amzn.to/3PMipAP
24:21 Finding your best topics.
25:50 Organizing your topics.
26:42 Canva Magic Write https://www.canva.com/magic-write/
27:54 Thumbnail factors.
29:52 Thumbnail photos and facial expressions.
33:42 Who to hire first to help with YouTube.
39:04 Filtering through job applicants.
41:09 Batch production.
41:44 Prompting your viewers and community.
42:21 Video publishing frequency.
43:53 OUTRO
HOSTS: The VidAction Podcast is hosted by:
– Dane Golden – VidAction.tv
– Shelly Saves The Day – ContentMinis
TRANSCRIPT
Dane Golden:
But how do you get started with video marketing and YouTube marketing? One of the first things that I say is you have to fail fast. And that’s a tech term for startups. They say you have to fail fast. And what it means to me is that you’ve have to be okay with making mistakes. Just don’t take a long time to make them.
Because if you do, you will have wasted a huge amount of time. So figure things out, do ’em wrong. Just be okay with doing YouTube wrong, right away to begin with. But don’t waste a lot of time in it. And that’s one big problem with YouTube production as it can take forever. So think of things that are small.
Shelly, what’s your first tip?
Shelly Saves The Day:
Wow, there’s so much when it comes to video marketing, and one I think that everyone forgets is what are you doing it for and how are you defining success? Like, who is the customer? Who is the end user? Because otherwise we get really swept away in how do we follow trends and how do we, you know, hijack the algorithm, but we forget we’re creating this in traffic so that we can get in front of a customer or hopefully someone who wants what we are giving.
So once we strip all of that away, We have to be able to define that first, and I feel like a lot of people think about all the other periphery before they think of the main thing.
Dane Golden:
And for me, one of the things you can start doing fast and you find out a lot about yourself and what you want to talk about is by doing YouTube shorts, you can do a different YouTube short, really only spend one day and, and you could talk about a different tip in your business or whatever you’re promoting.
Every single. Day only takes a minute or two to record it. What do you find out about yourself? You find out there’s a whole bunch of stuff that you actually didn’t need to say. You can cut down on your language and, and start finding out what you actually, what, what’s the key parts. The other part is, is that you can get a quick win.
You can say, Hey, somebody liked it, somebody didn’t, and those videos die after a day. So there’s. It’s, it’s almost like a Snapchat in a way, in that it’s hard to find them. You did a bad job. Who cares? No one’s going to watch it after a couple of days. What’s something that you would recommend if you are just getting started with YouTube or video marketing?
Shelly Saves The Day:
One thing I would definitely recommend, just like you said, is get started making short form content right away because the barrier of entry is so low, most people are doing it on their phones. You can get that quick hit whether instead of just doing an Instagram story or perhaps you’re repurposing it and it’s just a one minute it.
Breaks down that level of entry and makes it so easy for people and less intimidating, where they can respond directly to a question, they can respond to a comment, they can answer, a specifically asked question about their business. And it’s so easy to do that and put that content up, and I think we all want to.
Know, go on and create this perfect thing. But what we need sometimes is volume, especially for a brand or business, trying to get the word out and get ourselves known. And because we already have so much data that shows that we have to infiltrate and touch someone’s, you know, timeline multiple times before they ever remember us.
I think one of those first things is getting started and just getting it all out there and just like flooding it. Because when it comes to that short, vertical content, there really is no end. To the place that you can put it. And honestly, just like that, there’s too much content does not exist when it comes to YouTube shorts.
Dane Golden:
And one of the things that I like to, when somebody says, what should I put on YouTube for my business to let people know what’s going on or start a following. What should I put there? And I have a simple answer that sort of guides me. What type of information would your ideal customer want to know if they had no idea you existed?
Meaning your ideal, your ideal customer does not want to know what your price list is. They do not want to know what your features are. If they want to know things about what you know about, not necessarily what you do, so start by sharing your expertise about something that they want to know about, whether, frankly, whether it’s something you do or not.
It, it helps that, if it overlaps in what you do, but share what you know with your expertise, which is sort of larger. I see what you sell. As you know, right in the middle of that Venn diagram and outside is your expertise about. Your industry and your profession, find out what they would want to know. And then once they’re there, you can say, oh, and by the way, we sell something that does this.
How about you, Shelly?
Shelly Saves The Day:
I think that’s a really good point because we like to buy from people that we know, like, and trust, and we know that it takes repeated exposure to build up that relationship, but so many people are so quick to try and make a withdrawal from. A piggy bank that has never had any deposits and deposits are, you know, like, what did you have for breakfast today?
Or interacting with a comment or talking to you about my dogs, or, you know, other things that create this persona as a whole of who you are in a, in a better picture. Instead of, we all have those relationships with people. The only time you see them is when they’re ready to pitch you something and they just launch something new and it’s just kinda like icky.
And so for a lot of us, if we want to be that top of mind awareness and have someone be like, oh yeah, this person does have this. Thing that fulfills this need, but I also like them as a person. You have to show up for them consistently. And so I think that’s what a lot of people forget is, oh, we have a new product launch.
Let’s, you know, do five videos now. But then you don’t hear anything from them for the rest of the time. Whereas other brands are really good at kind of giving you either you know, behind the scenes or what’s happening or get to know the c e o or really all of that stuff that keeps you engaged and then all of a sudden you’re like, Oh wow.
What are they doing? I see behind the scenes they’re, it’s happening. Something big is happening and then all of a sudden it’s like, that sounds perfect. I want, you know, part of that. Or I want to see them be successful. When you have people bought in like that at that level, which you’re never going to get to if you don’t put out more pieces of content or get in front of them multiple times.
It’s really, it’s not doing you a service if the only time you ever show up anywhere on any social media is when you’re ready to sell something.
Dane Golden:
Right. Nice to meet you. Do you have insurance? May I sell you some insurance? and if you think about it, sort of in the old way of thinking, when we related to. Friends and neighbors in human form, the neighbors might say, Hey, can I borrow a lawnmower or can I, you know, did, do you have this? Or can you, you know, my car just broke down.
Can you gimme a ride because I need to pick up this thing. And then what happens when you help your neighbor? One, you like helping neighbors because you’re a good neighbor, but two. When something happens with your house, your car was broken into overnight, they’re going to be the ones like, Hey, Dane, your car was broken into, and I would just want to tell you about that so you can fix it and whatever.
Or you know, your house is on fire. I, I called the, the, the fire department. I’ll tell you something funny that happened to me. Totally not digital, but I was, On the other side of town at my favorite yoga studio doing yoga and a smoke alert went off in my house. My neighbors said, I called me, but said, no problem.
I’m just going to call the fire department. Here’s the Portland Fire Department. They went, they broke into my house and changed the fire alert. Found a way to break in without actually breaking any windows or doors. I’m like, and then left, left a note. Oh, we change your, your smoke alert. I was like,
Shelly Saves The Day:
Wow.
Dane Golden:
I was like, I was like, wow, no, no freshly baked cookies. Like…
Shelly Saves The Day:
above and beyond already. Wow. You didn’t have a couple like an ax in your door.
Dane Golden:
but, but how great that the neighbor, did that because this thing ran outta batteries just at the wrong time. But, would I do anything for that neighbor? Absolutely. It’s sort of the same when you do a YouTube tutorial about something that really does, isn’t designed to make you a ton of money, but share your expertise and demonstrate that you have the ability to do this while not really selling.
So, and when it comes time to buy, if someone’s watched many of your videos, you have a shot at that business. You may not get it because of price or timing or location or whatever. My theory is if someone’s watched three of your videos, they’ve asked for your advice three times and you have given it and they have been satisfied with it.
And when that happens, when it comes time to do business, you have a shot at that business. And I just want to step back and introduce ourselves for a second. my name is Dane Golden from VidAction,, and we actually help businesses with their YouTube ads. We’re a performance based industry, which means you only pay if you have success with leads or sales.
And my guest and great friend is Shelly Saves the Day. Shelly. Tell us about a couple of your great adventures lately.
Shelly Saves The Day:
The biggest thing lately on my radar has been growing and upscaling my company ContentMinis. And so we help brands, businesses, or individual content creators take their long form content and create multiple, you know, short vertical clips for YouTube shorts or TikTok, or any of the other platforms that accept it.
Dane Golden:
And a URL.
Shelly Saves The Day:
ContentMinis.com.
Dane Golden:
Okay, and, and that brings me to my next tip, which is YouTube ads. Now, You can start with a YouTube ad as a business, and these are really tot people Rev, you know, think of them as totally separate parts of YouTube, the ads. Oh, if you’re a big company, you can advertise. You can advertise. I’m telling you right here, you can advertise with a few dollars a day, no problem, and you can do a very targeted ad.
If you have a small business, either in a certain location or a niche that’s spread across the country, you don’t have to actually spend a lot of money in it. Not that hard to learn the basics. It’s hard to learn the advanced stuff, but not the basics. That’s on YouTube. You can start on day one with a YouTube add in.
If you choose. You don’t actually have to do that organic video. Step one, business, A Dollar Shave Club never did any organic videos or, or hardly ever. They had an amazing video to tell you about their razors. They ran it as an ad. They got bought by for a billion dollars by Unilever. So they did okay on the YouTube platform with one video mostly.
They just did it very well. What’s another tip? Shelly Saves The Day.
Shelly Saves The Day:
You know, it’s interesting that you mentioned ads because I think that some people get the wrong idea with ads. Some people think, oh, I’m going to do it just so I can get some views. And
so in my past, when I am doing YouTube consulting, I’m always like, if you don’t have something to sell, then maybe it’s not the best because you want to try and recoup.
That money. And so I was like, okay, if you’re a brand or business, yes, absolutely, then maybe you start exploring ads. But I do think there is room for creators to be using ads as well, especially if they’re doing brand deals with companies and that video that they’re creating could be an ad for that company, and I always think it’s a good idea to at least explore the option within their contracts of saying, if we were to allow list this video against a YouTube ad and let you run ads on it, that should be like maybe, you know, built into the contractor. There should be a budget for that. So I do want to point that out.
And of course, anyone who is looking to run targeted specific ads as well should definitely check out VidAction. But another thing for me that I’m going to say as a tip, Is to study your calendar. And what that means is a few different things when it comes to video marketing and any kind of marketing in general.
There are some things that come around every year. Calendly, the Super Bowl, Valentine’s Day, the 4th of July, right? So it would behoove you if you think about the. Quarters in which some of these national holidays may fit, and then actually think when would be the best time to buy supplies for it to shoot these campaigns and integrations to start thinking about scheduling or running ads on it.
Also, when I say study the calendar, I would say if you went back a year from now, are you looking at your analytics or the videos that you maybe produced or ads that you put. Produced at that time, how did they perform? What were the metrics and levers that were actually doing well for you? Is there anything that you can glean from that so that you can then take those learnings into the new campaign You may be doing may just be an updated campaign for the following year.
So studying your calendar is a great way in marketing to know like what has happened in the past and what might be happening in the future.
Dane Golden:
And, and when you talk about calendar, when you release a video, And you’re saying, great, let’s do a Halloween video. Should you release that Halloween video on October 31st?
Shelly Saves The Day:
No, usually not. So if someone is thinking of something for, let’s say Valentine’s Day or Halloween, you know, sometimes if, if you are, you know, into costume making and you’re teaching people how to make these things, it may take people a while to order these things, to get shipped these things, to actually start to sew or put together these things.
So sometimes it could be anywhere between two weeks to a month earlier. So when you’re searching for Valentine’s Day gifts or anything like that, it might not be, well, for some people it is. Actually on Valentine’s
Day, but for a lot of people, other people, they may be releasing this content at the end of January because as soon as February flips over, all of a sudden you have a whole group of people that are like, oh, it’s the month of love.
What are we going to do on Valentine’s Day? And they’re searching out this content. And if you can be there as this fresh batch of content, you may be exactly what they’re looking for. And as the trend rises, you don’t want to be too late and release on Valentine’s Day.
Dane Golden:
And it takes also a, a few weeks for the videos sometimes to get traction in the YouTube algorithm. So I, I always try to say, you know something, start, start thinking maybe you should release a month ahead if it’s a big holiday, a month ahead of Christmas, a month ahead of Halloween. because people are thinking about those.
Month ahead of July 4th because it’ll take a while for that sort of to get views. And if you look at that sort of search algorithm, on the YouTube trends, and it’s a holiday like Black Friday or something, black Friday starts actually the first day of October. If you look at the trend of when people start searching for it, so there’s opportunity much earlier than you might, might think.
Shelly Saves The Day:
You actually, mentioned a specific site, which was like the trends do Google and that’s also on my list as well. So when we were looking at calendar events or upcoming holidays, another is to actually use Google to, look at kind of funky calendars like I. Depending on your trade, there’s a, you know, like a hug a plumber day or you know, tradesperson day, or there’s, you know, something specific and it could be a wacky holiday that you can fully embrace.
You know, there’s like National Cinnamon Roll Day, and so if you’re someone who works at a bakery, all of a sudden, you know, when you find out when National Cupcake Day is or something and you know about these things and you search. For them ahead of time because you know your calendar. Then you’re also going to be able to perhaps even trend Jack with something that’s going on.
Google trends. Like recently there was the Real Housewives, reunion, I guess, and some big drama went down. I don’t watch a show, I’m sorry. But, if you were to. Do a national cupcake day with this trend of something that was happening with this, reality show television. What if you did National Cupcake Day with this thing that everyone is like very invested in?
You could have a very, you know, very special two day sale or one day sale as people are getting ready to watch this TV reunion special while eating this cupcake. You know, and that’s the type of thing that you can think of when you think about combining trends and looking at the calendar.
Dane Golden:
Explain trend jacking, and I should say also that. Google Trends. If you go to trends.google.com, you can search both by what’s called web search, which is just essentially what’s on Google and when people are searching for it. You can also toggle to YouTube search. You can toggle by country worldwide. You can toggle, toggle by time period.
I often like to toggle by five years just to see, hey, well you know what? Every year on Black Friday, This happens. But explain what a trend jacking is.
Shelly Saves The Day:
Well, sometimes there are just events in the, in the news that really grab hold onto people. And so, gosh, I am trying to think of something. So when all of a sudden, there was a little like granny that was like making YouTube videos and cooking and she became everyone’s grandma and like everyone was…
Dane Golden:
Oh, the woman from Mexico or, or Central America…
Shelly Saves The Day:
Exactly right. See, even people who didn’t even know, they still know. And so, you know, what if you were then, riding the wave of her newfound popularity that the internet now loves, and you are, you know, hex clad and you’re now coming along and being like, let me give you these amazing pops and pans that you can use for your, so you can kind of piggyback really on something else or something else that just recently happened.
Alix Earle, who’s a very large influencer. Took a group of girlfriends over to Italy and they rented through booking.com
and they tried to get a big villa and it turns out, I don’t know the whole story, but it was a scam and they made a video saying like they were basically stranded in Italy. So airbnb saw this video and hooked them up with an entire villa for themselves for like 20 girls, of which a whole bunch of micro influencers, some
mega influencers, right? They’re doing house tours, they’re making videos, they’re all saying, thank you, Airbnb. And there are studies that are showing, and this just happened in the last couple days that the combined not only reach of these women as well as the publicity that it drew in the millions of video views is probably worth somewhere in the range of like a hundred thousand dollars in advertising and PR that they were able to do by getting them into a place that was probably not even rented at that time. Just to say like, here, let me rescue you.
Oh gosh, aren’t we better than, you know, booking.com or this other site? They don’t even have to say that because everyone knows who you know, they originally signed up with and they’re not happy with, and now they get to come in as this rescuer. And so it’s really like grabbing onto something.
And riding the coattails of popularity. And that’s kind of what I’m saying. So it could be anything from the latest dance craze and music song or you know, some influencer or some event that’s happening in media. That’s kind of what I mean by trend jacking.
Dane Golden:
Now, this is technically, it’s not a, YouTube thing. This was like, sort of just as YouTube was sort of becoming, this was about 10 years ago. there’s this guy I knew. So do you remember the, like the tiger mom thing? The woman who says, I’m the tiger mom and this is the things you need to do.
Shelly Saves The Day:
I don’t think I do.
Dane Golden:
So it was this tiger mom thing and, and you need to do these things.
And this, this guy said, oh, I’m the panda dad, so you, I’m just the softie. That’s my whole approach. And he got on TV and just suddenly said, everyone’s saying, well, should you do the Panda dad approach instead of the tiger mom approach? So that was just hijacking a…
Shelly Saves The Day:
Yeah, absolutely.
Dane Golden:
a trend.
Shelly Saves The Day:
Okay.
Dane Golden:
I want to talk about equipment because people always stress about equipment.
I tell you, you can start your channel right this minute with your phone, whatever phone you’ve got in your pocket, nine times outta 10. It’s plenty good enough particularly to start those YouTube shorts. You don’t, you don’t even need an editing tool. You just, you know, go to the app, go to the U, download the YouTube app for your phone.
And start today. Just click that shorts button and start trying things. You want to do something a little bit different? There’s a video editor on your phone, but I would start by not doing too many edits initially, because that’s, that’s sort of in time intensive. I would, I would start by just doing some really quick edits on your phone or on a iMovie, like you have that iMovie course, right?
Shelly Saves The Day:
I do.
Dane Golden:
the name of that course?
Shelly Saves The Day:
It’s called iMovie Made Easy for people who want to basically learn the ins and outs of editing an iMovie and never have that hold you back from letting you be able to share what you’d love with the world through video. So I take you through, you know, from the very beginning, I give you clips to edit, I edit with you, and in one day you’ll, you’ll be good to go with editing.
Dane Golden:
So, I am also a big fan. Of, and, and this is, you know, starting, you’re just dipping your toe in the equipment world. But I’m just a big fan of the Logitech Brio webcam. It’s a 4K webcam. You never get 4k, but it just, it looks nice. It, you can use it on any call. You can hit record. I use it so much. It’s unbelievable.
I use it for all my video, almost all my videos or, you know, there’s, with the, with the Mac and the iPhone, there’s a way of just using your phone. For the camera and they even sell a little clip where you can put your phone right on your
Shelly Saves The Day:
Mm-hmm.
Dane Golden:
laptop. you just can’t do any calls while you’re doing it. Can’t text anyone.
Shelly Saves The Day:
Yes.
Dane Golden:
And, any, like, this would be the one equipment Shelly would recommend for every single person starting out. What would that be?
Shelly Saves The Day:
Ooh. You know, I, I think you’re right, honestly, with everyone having phones, that are good enough because unless. Gosh, I can’t even remember back how old it would be. Like even if you’re on an iPhone eight or newer, like you have full HD of capabilities on your, on your phone. So I really, I don’t think that video is really going to be the thing to hold back anybody.
I usually think it’s going to be, if I were to recommend like audio and lighting,
because we know that you can always sit through something, even something that’s poorly lit and sometimes people will forgive that because they’re not even watching, but. Making sure that your audio is clear and, even if you don’t have that, even running it through free programs like podcast.audio or, or like the new one from Adobe, you can drop your audio file in there and it’ll clean it up like it was in Studio sound.
So, I mean,
Dane Golden:
say that again. I
Shelly Saves The Day:
I will look it up for you. It’s it’s a specific one. It’s new from Adobe.
And all you have to do is if you have a video file, you can export the audio either into an MP3 or Wave file, and then drop it into the program, which is called podcast.adobe.com/enhance. It’s called audio cleanup.
So yeah, and it will make it sound like you were, Just a lot. It, it will make it sound better. It will make it sound more like it was in a studio recorded with better mics. So I would definitely recommend that for anybody, even if you don’t have a nice mic. But I would say probably making sure that you have a a microphone is probably going to be a, a good idea.
Dane Golden:
Yes, and there are varying levels. If you have, you know, one thing that I recommend to people just starting out is an audio technica. I can’t remember the number, but it’s around $80. Just a simple one. Anything like that is a, is a good place to start. But again, you don’t need a lot. What you need is you need to keep doing it.
You need to,
Shelly Saves The Day:
have to you
Dane Golden:
know, come up with a list of things. Let’s find some topics. One of the way, one of the world’s easiest way to find topics. Is actually Google, Google search. You can do this in YouTube search. They work very, very similar because hey, they’re the same company, but you can just start typing in Google A word.
We all have seen the auto complete. There’s another word that comes after that. That’s a good idea that that’s how you know, what someone is commonly searching for. Now, I will caution you, you do it a few times, it actually is taking your old searches, so if you search through the same thing, So you want to use your chrome incognito?
No. Wait. That, that, that doesn’t do that Well. You have to clear those searches. You just have to know that it’s, it’s influencing what you’re doing.
Shelly Saves The Day:
You can do the same thing on YouTube, and sometimes I recommend it, especially if you do have, let’s say a specific type of keyword or industry or something that you’re going after. Let’s say it was. iMovie because we were just talking about that. So if I go into the YouTube search bar and I put iMovie and then space, it’s going to start auto completing what they think based on the most popular searches and should start bringing that back.
But if you did space and then the letter A, it would also. Do that or, and then you do that through every letter, and then you do B, and then you do C and you go all through the alphabet and then you do an underscore, and then you just kind of look like what is coming up? This is what people are searching for.
This is what it’s giving you back in that order. So if you were smart, you would start putting those into a spreadsheet and then being like, which one do I want to talk about? What variation of this is going to be? Easier for me to put a spin on, is this a short or is this something else? And now you have Google helping you.
Which is kind of leading into my next point, which is you should be using the power of not only, you know, we talked about Google trends and the YouTube search bar and Google search, but there’s nothing wrong, I think with embracing some of the tools with AI that are available to us now. So even if you were to go into a chat, g p t and say, I’m thinking of creating videos about.
iMovie, what are some of the most, you know, commonly asked questions about iMovie or give me 10 topics of, videos that I could make around iMovie and let it do the work for you. And now you can start thinking and putting that into a list, and then you could start making videos on that. I’ve done something.
The AI is already built into Canva and they have something called Magic Rights. So I did something I said, give me 10. Motivational tips about how to be more efficient with my time. It, it doesn’t matter. You can give it a prompt, basically. And then, it gave it to me and then I exported to a csv and then I had a cute little graphic, and then I said, okay, now I’m going to give you the csv, make a graphic.
With this little template and insert each one of these little 10 tips that I just got from Magic Wright and now I have 10 Mondays worth of motivation, Monday posts or something, and I can schedule them out in my system inside of Canva or Agora Pulse or whatever else it is. And the, this is how you work more efficiently and smarter by embracing some of the ai.
You still have to, of course, check it, make sure it maybe is in alignment with your brand or maybe you want to change or tweak some things, but things like that. We’re all able to do in small pockets of time, and that is building out our calendar as well and making things a lot easier for you. So you’re still creating content, putting it everywhere without having to work as hard?
Dane Golden:
And you could do a calendar on paper, you can do it in Excel. You can use a tool like Asana or Click Up or other tools like that, or the ANA boards.
Shelly Saves The Day:
Yeah.
Dane Golden:
One of the things that, that I find on YouTube channels that is the most, it’s upsetting to me actually when someone does it, is sort of novice on at YouTube, is that the thumbnails look all the same and they have too much text and the faces are too small.
So, Basically you can make them yourself. You can make a big face, you can cut it out. You, you know, Canva has cutouts. That’s one way of doing it. You can do it with remove bg, you can do it with Adobe. That’s, it’s sort of built into everything now, but, you know, remove the backgrounds. That’s a great way of doing it and zoom in because 99% of people are going to be watching that thumbnail, not.
The size you submit, which is maybe 1280×1080 by 12.
Shelly Saves The Day:
by 720
Dane Golden:
Yeah. Or 1080.
by 1920 or something. They’re actually going to see it like 200 by whatever. So look at it small and think, you know, what’s the one word or two words that I can put in that that’s enough? And then how can I make my face bigger and how can I have a more expressive face?
Don’t use a profile photo for that thumbnail. It’s just you really want to have someone expressing some emotion and in profile photos we don’t,
Shelly Saves The Day:
mentioned this because if you think about it, there is something similar to what I was just saying with like batch creation. You can also do that as a human. So I know you’ve done it before with your clients and I’ve done it before where I just even sometimes against a plain background
or a green screen or just my background, I will go through a variety of poses and faces and expressions, and then I will, you know, remove the background from them and have them in a folder ready to go at any time so I can have.
Elements that I can put into any kind of template or any kind of social media post or thumbnail as needed at any time. And it’s so much easier if you can batch when you’re already in that, you know, hair, makeup position, lighting type thing to also have this consistent way of look and feel of the photo.
And it’s just so much easier when you’re able to do this in batch and draft and do this. En mass, and I know you definitely have a, a list of all kinds of expressions. So anyone who’s working with you and creating ads, I know that you probably share that list with them. Like, give me this expression, or you just heard the best news of your life.
How are you reacting? And those types of little prompts. And there’s a lot of that. Like even having a list of prompts, you could use chat g p T for that. Give me, you know, 10 prompts of faces and expressions that I could make that are very common on thumbnails. And then you just go through them and you just do them as videos and take screenshots of each one of those.
And that kind of batch content producing is going to reap dividends later when it’s, you know, everyone’s on vacation and you need to make a post and you don’t have enough assets to be able to create something you do if you think smartly about this ahead of time.
Dane Golden:
Yeah, I, I have, a library of about 200 photos of me wearing various different clothes. I have, my wardrobe for my YouTube stuff as I have colored shirts and colored hats, and I always ma mix and mix and match them differently. And so I have, I, you know, I’m taking photos. I’ll just, you know, change quick wardrobe change, just like I’m a supermodel, you know, I am not a supermodel, but I do that anyway.
And then I have this, this options of a whole bunch of different colors and facial expressions. In truth, I end up sticking with like the same, of the 200 photos I shot, like the same 15 photos because it just sort of, they’re the ones. That seemed to work best. But the great thing about it is that you know, you may end up with a title of something that is something that someone should worry about, right?
Well, you don’t want to have a smile, Hey, worry about this terrible thing. Yay. Or you know that you might want ’em to be concerned, a concerned look, or a wary look, or a. Fearful look or or maybe if
Shelly Saves The Day:
Mm-hmm.
Dane Golden:
you’ve just accomplished things like here’s your 10 things to be a winner, you’re like, awesome. You know, your victory face, whatever that is.
And people really respond to emotions and don’t. I think there’s a level, a degree, depending on your business of how silly you, you’re okay with being, but I
Shelly Saves The Day:
Right.
Dane Golden:
think it’s a lot more than you think.
Shelly Saves The Day:
Well, and one thing that, it’s so funny you just said, oh, I have two photos, but, or 200 photos, but I use the same 15. I actually have that same type of thing happen as well. But I will go in to like Photoshop or pick monkey and I’ll change the color of the shirt that I’m wearing with just selective editing.
So even if it is the same 15, I can, like for you, if you’re changing the hat and shirt combo color, but it’s the same photo, but I can manipulate the shirt or hat color. So, You know, it’s like, oh, I really like this one. Well, now it can be any color combination you want.
Dane Golden:
Well, that, that, that particular thing, I’m not that good at. but I do, yeah, you’re right. I did, I do have this list of like, so that people will make emotions, that sort of respond to something and then you can substitute that like, You’re driving, you’re tailgating a car and suddenly they come to a stop.
What’s your face? You know, something like that. And then that you can say, take that emotion. And this is actually, I sort of adopted this. It’s not too different than those people who, are actors and they are in the method, you know, they’re actually imagining they are the people instead of performing as the people.
And that gives you actually more, active emotions. So moving on, let’s talk about who would be the first person other than yourself, you would hire when you need YouTube help with something, what is the first person you would hire?
Shelly Saves The Day:
Okay. I don’t, I don’t know about just me, but I think one of the first people that most people are going to hire is either going to be someone who’s going to help them with editing, or someone who’s going to help them with growth. So that could be ads or that could be, you know, YouTube strategy. And I feel like those two kind of end up going hand in hand
because a lot of the time the strategist is going to be like, well, you need more pieces of content, or you need better content, or you need to show up more.
And then you’re going to be like, okay, well I need to have more of my, myself be free to do and create those things by giving away some of the editing stuff that’s holding me back. So I feel like those two end up going hand in hand.
Dane Golden:
I agree. it almost always happens that. You hire a video editor and then you hire someone to help you with some sort of strategy or execution or management. It really should be the other way around, and that person should help you hire the editor, but it never, ever happens that
Shelly Saves The Day:
Yeah, I was going to say it might be smartest to do and it’s kind of like when you’re in it are, and do you hire like an accountant or do you hire a manager?
You know? And then it’s always like, you probably want to hire the accountant and tax person first so that they can help you sometimes, know like where you should be spending or doing, or like, you know, what?
To bring into the mix or like how you can already save money so they can help you pay for not only them, but then manager you’re about to bring on. So I feel like people do sometimes do that stuff backwards, because if you had a strategist, you know, of course the first idea that comes to people’s head is, I need more time to, you know, make more content.
So they think editor, but the strategist is going to be like, maybe it’s not just about creating more content, but strategically. Content and this type of thing. So it is, it’s kind of backwards, but like both needed at the same time. And so if they can work together harmoniously, that’s the real ticket.
Dane Golden:
Yeah, and that’s a good idea. They’re, they’re going to be on the same team. I will give some advice about hiring video editors. Now, Shelly’s a video editor too, but you’re also a very specific per purpose. It’s not necessarily a bad. Idea to approach you with this, but I don’t think this is necessarily what we’re talking about here.
When we say video editors, we’re saying for long form contents that of taking long form and making into shorts. So if somebody says to me, which they do, how do I find an editor? I tell them, you hire three editors. You hire three editors for the same project. You say, I’m going to pay you each to edit this video.
Then you pick the one you like best, and then what you do, you say the others, you say thank you very much, you work with the other one you like best. You try them out for a few videos and you tell them, listen, we’d like to try you out for a month or two. And if you don’t like them right away you say thank you very much, and then you fi go to three more editors and you keep doing this until you find the right editor.
It is, it doesn’t sound like it is. Cost effective, but I think it’s very cost effective because you never know what skills someone’s has until they actually start editing. What their approach is, how they see your content. Do you work together with them well? Are they in the same time zone? Do they speak your language well enough?
Do they make the same errors all the time? So someone says to me, how do you hire an editor? I say, try with, try starting with three editors and whittle it down to one to start with. What, what are some tips you would have for hiring the right editor?
Shelly Saves The Day:
Ooh. Okay. I would say one, I don’t know if I would do three. I would definitely do two though, because sometimes if I give the same material to two different people and they both see it in different ways, I, I, I guess I would think of myself as a third editor and it’s like, is this any better than what I would do?
Or is this, you know, more artistic or better or faster than what I would do? So I, I guess that’s three in comparison, but one is yourself because, you
know, I, I, in particular about how I want some stuff to look, so I’m like, which one is like most. Closely mirrored to me or makes me feel excited about watching this, but when it comes to hiring an editor, one, I would say a lot of what we do as. Single entrepreneurs as you will creating it is, we know what we want, but we have a hard time articulating it. So if there are ways that you can clearly communicate what it is, because a lot of the time it’s not that the editor doesn’t have the skill set, they just don’t know you well enough or your content well enough because they haven’t watched their videos.
So part of it is give them homework. Like look at my previous. Videos, I want it in this type of style. Or here’s a video that I like and here’s what I don’t like about it. Or, if you can give them specific tasks like I’ve done the rough cut. I want you to do all of the B-roll. I want you to do all the titles.
I want you to add all of the stickers and onscreen graphics that can also help, because then they can also understand what it is you’re looking for in terms of pacing. And they get that from you. But then they have the other stuff they add in. And so once you kind of like gradually give them more stuff to do, you can also.
At the very beginning, be very specific. So when I’m hiring someone now, I’ll say like, I want you to reply as a part of the job application with a very specific phrase. And if you don’t do that, then I know that you’re not very good at following instructions or being really good with details, because it says specifically in there that I want you to answer these three questions and I want you to respond in the email with.
This as your title. If they can’t do that, I don’t consider them because I don’t want to have to, especially because I do work with people in different time zones. I want to be able to give them instructions in a written type of communication and know that they’re going to read it and apply it. And if I feel like they can’t even do that when they’re sh supposed to be on their best behavior and wanting to get the job and show you that they want it, it’s not going to get, usually get better as they start onboarding and working.
So that’s one thing that I do to kind of qualify and I learn that from. Justin Brown from Primal Video, when we were going through how do we hire external, and then yeah, you can either give them a project, see how they do jump in the deep end, but you should give them a written list of instructions.
This is what I want. This is what I definitely do not want. These are my colors. This is my brand kit. This is the general overall feel of my videos, and I want you to watch a couple of these videos as homework and then see how closely they align with it. And then it’s either so far. Off the mark after you give them, let’s say, one round of feedback.
If they don’t get it, then I’m like, oh, I, I don’t think that’s going to work. But if they have the right attitude, they show improvement, they take feedback, well then I’m definitely apt to usually give them like another try.
Dane Golden:
Yeah. Well one of the other things your qualification, your prequalification process does is if you have a hundred people apply, you can’t sift through all that. So the act of only eight people following the directions properly enables you to quickly sift through those 92. Fine. They’re off the list without actually having to con consider them.
Shelly Saves The Day:
Precisely.
Dane Golden:
Well, I think we’ve, we’ve given some great tips, huh?
Shelly Saves The Day:
Absolutely. We have more though, don’t we? Well, I have more.
Dane Golden:
Go.
Shelly Saves The Day:
Okay. So another thing is going to say, so we talked about batching. Talked about drafting, and I also think that some people, we talk about this so many times where we talk about people forget the comment section of their videos, and that is where you also add them into the list of ideas that you get as video marketers for things that your own audience is asking for that you should be making content on, and then also stealing like an artist where I say like, it’s okay to copy something that’s kind of on the trend jacking thing or jump on the coattails of something popular because sometimes not word for word frame for frame, but your own twist on it. And so I’m like, yes, absolutely. When you find something and you see it, that it works, get on that.
And then also you can use prompts. To, get feedback from people. So if you know that you want a specific type of question, maybe even a question that you’re going to end up putting in a video or, responding to as a short ask it in your community section, ask for that comment as something inside of your latest video and like, keep like, Going through that virtuous cycle of asking the question, responding to it, highlighting, and building that community as, as, as you’re doing it.
But last but not least is, figuring it all out as you go. But you have to go and do and try and learn and repeat, and you can’t just make this glorious plan that never gets executed. That’s my big thing.
Dane Golden:
How often do you have to be on YouTube?
Shelly Saves The Day:
Well, that just, that depends. It depends. I don’t know. Long form video, maybe once a week. Short form content, maybe multiple times a week. But really, it, it’s going to depend.
Dane Golden:
I’m going to, I’m going to add one last tip and we’ll be out. And that is watch YouTube.
Shelly Saves The Day:
Watch on mine. Yes. Watch Watch your competition.
Dane Golden:
Watch anybody’s videos, but it doesn’t necessarily just have to be your competition, for instance, if you’re in one type of business and something is just somewhere even like in the possibility that you could learn from. Watch that video. There’s no reason why you can’t do that just because people in your industry aren’t doing it.
So you can be 10 steps ahead of those people in your industry instead of one step ahead. Don’t, don’t forget to watch and watch regularly and you know what else? Watch on your phone. So take 15 minutes to 30 minutes a day if you’re investing this much money and time. Trying to make YouTube work, watch for 15 to 30 minutes of business videos and see what people are doing.
Not just that you can watch some entertaining ones too, because the techniques are similar sometimes, but when you’re starting out, you have to keep it, have to keep it easy.
Shelly Saves The Day:
Mm.
Dane Golden:
So, Great. So, my name’s Dane Golden from VidAction.tv, and we help you with your YouTube ads. We’re a performance agency largely for digital products.
So if you want to sell something, you come to us. We put together a plan, we put together a video, a landing page. We sell your business, we pay for the ads. You only pay for the leads or the sales. And Shelly Saves The Day, tell us how people can find you.
Shelly Saves The Day:
You can find me everywhere as Shelly Saves The Day, and you can always go to my website to find out more about ContentMinis or about my own YouTube strategy type of calls.
Dane Golden:
Until next week. Here’s the helping you help your customers through video.