Areeb Mirza says business owners uncomfortable on camera can hire someone else to be the face, or outsource to an agency if you need polished production. A decent phone, a $40 ring light, and a good microphone beat expensive cameras. Make videos answering customer questions instead of generic posts.
So you understand that you want content and you understand the importance of content, but you don't want to be the face of it or you tried it and you just don't like speaking on camera because it's not for everyone. But it's just one of those things where it is required for every business. So like the balance is off here. So you can do a couple things here. You can either get good on front camera, just like repeat it multiple times, put in the reps just like anything else, Hire somebody else. Just hire like a separate face of the brand, hire like a model or something, or just have somebody in the family do it. Just have somebody who could be the face of the brand potentially and then just can make predictable sources of videos just on a consistent basis. And then the last step is of course, if you have staff, just ask the staff to be the face of the brand. Most of them would say yes, just have them sign a document or something and then just have them create content for you. And most of the time like a receptionist or anyone else, it doesn't even have to be a receptionist would be more than willing to create content for you. So these are multiple ways where you can create content, but the only caveat with this is that they won't be the same expert as you are in the field. So for example, if you're a lawyer or even if you're like a web developer, any service or product, you are the most educated on your own product. So if I ask you a question on a certain topic within your field, you will know how to best answer that. Your staff can't do that. They might be able to on a certain extent, but the more detailed questions you would be only able to do that. So if you have somebody on that level who can answer those questions, like perhaps it's like another lawyer you have or just another player in the team who could answer the same level of questions you do, by all means, just ask them to do it. But most of the time a staff member would not be able to answer those high level questions. So either train yourself to do those or have like a script ready or something for someone else to do it. Because the high level questions is where all the money will be made.
I'm done that done content maybe got my staff involved, whatever that looks like. But now I'm looking for the next step of like making more quality content and strategies and I have, I have no idea how to do that. And then I'm looking into hiring a marketing agency or content agency to do that. Why? Why would I choose that decision?
So if you like when I ask people like if you want to hire a marketing agency or just like doing content yourself, like if you have enough time, just do content by yourself. Like if you think you have like two to three hours, four hours a day, just do content yourself and just like outsource the editing or something. Even with editors, like you have to manage them and that's another whole time consuming thing. But we'll get into that later. But the only reason you would want to hire a marketing agency is or a content agency is you want just higher quality content. You were just tired of doing this whole thing yourself because it takes time, scripting, the recording and the publishing of it too. Like most content agencies, we publish it like ourselves, we have social media managers. But however, just that part alone, like the scripting takes a lot of time, editing takes a lot of time. Recording and being directed live on camera. Like it's a tool that a lot of people require. Like having like having direction on, like fix your posture or say this word again. Or like use a different hook. Don't say this word again. Like that is pretty useful because it affects the overall performance of the video as well. So yeah, like there's a couple things that content agency can help you with, like a structure of the clip, like making sure you have all the structure correctly in the clip, the hook value and a call to action as well. Because I've seen most businesses, they would just turn on the camera, speak some stuff and then just add some captions on it and that's their videos done. The only problem with that is like they forget to edit properly and they don't know what properly is so they can't even edit it properly. So that is where a content agency is just a knowledge part of it as well. If you hire the right content agency, it's going to play a big part.
What if I haven't started creating content yet but I want to as a business owner and I don't know what I need to get started.
So if you want to. So let's say you're like a, you're just starting to, you're starting a business or you know you want to create content but you don't really know how to and you're looking at like other sources and materials. You already have your iPhone and I'm guessing that has a good camera. If you have an iPhone, then it does have a good camera. Anything iPhone 12 and above, it's a good camera. Samsung S22 and above. Has a good camera. So if you have anything like in that line, you don't. I don't think you really need to buy another camera. Just use that for lighting. If you have like a good outdoor setting, you can perhaps just sit outside and use natural light. Because the phone camera is best exposed to like the natural sky and the natural light and you'll just look the best outside. This is how it is. But if you want to do it indoors, just buy like one ring light. You don't need to go crazy on it. Just buy like a $40 or even $50 ring light, put it on like a 45 degree angle if you want. Just close out all the lights and just have that ring light on and invest in a good quality mic. Like a mic is something you need. Like even me, like even us, we're wearing a mic and the visuals and the lighting is extra. We could do this with an iPhone as well. But the mic, the quality stays the same. The mic quality stays the same. If we remove the mic or if I cover it, it just sounds horrible. Like immediately you don't want to watch this video anymore. So that's why audio is one of the number one things I recommend. Like, don't buy anything, just buy a mic. Like just buy a mic because you already have your iPhone. Just kind of just buy a mic that connects with your iPhone and just use that now. That way you have good quality audio and then you also have good quality video. Of course, like, once you've created like a lot of it and your business is progressing, then just invest in a. Either like hire an agency to do it or just learn camera skills and just do it yourself. Like by buying a camera later on.
The lighting is good, like all of that. The technical stuff is good. But I struggle with what type of content to do.
Yeah. So what type of content?
Depending on what type of business you have, just create all the content that customers might have questions of. Like, that's just the easiest way to create content of and just have like topics and just dive into deeper topics within that. Within that big topic. So for example, are a lawyer again, or if you are a web developer, so how to do a certain thing. And then you can also dive within those details, like how to do coding for a website. Okay, which code did I use? Okay, which code did I get? Like, where did I learn this code from? You can have big topics and have a lot of subtopics within that big topic because a lot of people just scrape the surface and then just don't dive deep within it, and that's how they quickly run out of ideas. So you need to make sure that a, you're listening to what your audience wants, create a content towards that, and then also talk about the problem you are solving and then creating topics within those problems.
So I should. Should. So you're saying not all of my videos should be just sell, sell, sell?
No, that's, that's, that's just ads. Sell on ads and then give value on your feed. That's what, that's what I do. I mean, some people do it differently, but that's what I do.
