Podcast Video Marketing with Whitney Lauritsen: Grow Your Show

Want your podcast and videocast to be seen, heard, found, and rewarded in this noisy digital world? You are not alone. Join the nonprofit community at Podcasters United and podcast industry experts Tom Hazzard and Tracy Hazzard as they debunk all that outdated and bad advice you've been getting from the podcast gurus and find out what actually works today. Get ready to Feed Your Brand with smart cut tactics proven to cast your original voice to the world.

Welcome to Feed Your Brand. I'm Tracy Hazzard and I'm going solo today because I have a special guest who's going to come on and talk about social media. We have been undergoing a social media week, so we've been, uh, social media month actually. So we're on the week of Instagram TV and we're talking about video and other things. So we're talking about how you might share your show on Instagram TV so you can grow new listeners. But it might also include how you wanna share your show on TikTok because video strategies go in other places. There's video strategies for LinkedIn, there's video strategies for YouTube Shorts. Like there's a whole bunch of places where you might wanna use videos. So lots of the things that we're gonna talk about today are applicable in the other places. You just might have to know some of the rules of the different social media channels as you go. But these are things that you might wanna think about before you start recording, right? So there are things you might wanna know before you're setting up your show that I'm gonna use it on Instagram TV or I'm gonna use this on TikTok so that there might be some things that you just record differently, some features that you put in, some special segments that you drop in because you know they're going to be highly applicable to that social media push out afterwards, which is going to help grow your audience for the show. So I've invited on today Whitney Lordson, and Whitney is working with us in a capacity of being our social media advisor. And she has done some great things with our team to sort of set up a different process flow to get into the details and the weeds of how we post, when we post, what we post. But she is an absolute strategist and expert on all things social media. She's also a podcast host, which is why I chose her to advise us and why I chose her to come on and talk to you. She's a wellbeing coach who shares lifestyle practices and product recommendations that improve the quality of body, mind, and planet. She's the podcast host of This Might Get Uncomfortable, which is a great show, and it is doing extremely well. And so you should go check that out. You can check that out, and I will make sure that you can connect to Whitney, go to her website and find all the places where you can connect up her on social media, because you're going to want to do it. Another place you're going to want to check out with her and get on is Clubhouse. She's doing amazing things on Clubhouse as well. But she advises creative entrepreneurs and digital marketing that amplifies your passion, right? And we are passionate about podcasting here. So we are so grateful to have Whitney as a part of our team. Whitney, thanks so much for coming on. And I'm so excited to talk Instagram TV and all things video today.

I'm really excited about this too. I'm so passionate about this and I love seeing podcasters who are using social in unique ways and new ways and really understanding what, what's going on on social. So that's what I'm going to cover today. I'm going to cover basically all the different ways that you can use video, starting with Instagram and how to distribute it across the other platforms so you can reach more people and find exactly where your audience is.

Well, I'm going to step back and let you go to it, and I'll jump back in when we're ready to ask some questions.

Awesome. Sounds great. I'm going to pull up my presentation, and Tracy, you can let me know if it looks okay once I do, because it's going to fill up the whole screen. So I'm going to click present. And how's that looking? Good.

Great.

Absolutely excellent. I made this in Canva, by the way. I'm a big fan of tools. And what I didn't include in this presentation is something relatively new. Canva just released video editing. I'm going to touch on that lately, later on, but I didn't include that update in this presentation, so I'll share that now before I forget. Canva is one of my favorite tools. We use it at Poditize Graphics and a lot of the different platforms here, and it's just extraordinary. And now they're actually starting to support video, which shows how many platforms are focused on video since that is one of the best places to get organic engagement right now. So let's start off by talking briefly about how videos make an impact. Your videos can entertain people by making them smile, laugh, or cry. You can educate your audience by helping them learn something new or solving a problem. And you can inspire by motivating your viewers to take actions and make decisions, just like you would with your podcast. We're gonna go over some basics because I never wanna make an assumption about what you know and what you don't. And this is gonna include some details on each different style of video because one thing that I've noticed is a lot of people get overwhelmed. So my aim today is to help you feel less overwhelmed and more informed. So number 1 is display size. And this is important because it starts with how you're recording your video. So I think this is actually one of the most important things to keep in mind when you're recording, especially if you're using something like a webcam, like we're going to talk about, or you're using your phone. So there's a number of ways that you can set up a camera to record yourself. You can, of course, use a program if your podcast recording program has video built in, like Zoom, for example. That's typically going to be what they call full landscape. Then there's the square size, the vertical size, and the full portrait size. And each platform kind of prioritizes these in different ways, so we'll talk about that as well. But typically, I recommend doing full landscape because that gives you a little bit more variety, but making sure that you're in the middle of the frame will help you if you decide to crop it down to square vertical or full portrait. So keep the display size in mind. Let's start with stories. Many of you are familiar with this. These have been around for a while. These Tend to be 10 to 20 seconds depending on the platform. They tend to disappear. They're typically around for 24 hours or so, and they also tend to be vertical. Snapchat was kind of the original platform for stories. Those are 10 seconds, but they can go up to 60 seconds in different segments. And you may know this if you've been using Instagram stories, you can record like a bunch of back-to-back stories at 15 seconds each and load them all up, or you can even upload an existing video and they'll let you do, I think, 4 different segments at once, and then you can upload more after that. YouTube has stories. Facebook has stories. You can do up to 120 seconds continuously, and LinkedIn has stories. So one thing we're going to talk about today is really picking the right platform for you. I know we've got a big focus of Instagram, but I want you to consider these other platforms and how you can distribute to them. Next, we have Shorts. This is like the rage right now. Like everyone is focused on the Shorts because engagement is really high. These tend to be about 30 seconds long. They can go up to 3 minutes depending on the platform, and they tend to be vertical in their size. You may know about TikTok. Those can be up to 3 minutes now, which is something that not everybody knows, but they expanded the length because people are spending so much time on TikTok. Instagram, as you may know, came out with Reels, and they actually started them at 15 to 30 seconds and recently increased them up to 60 seconds, which is great because it gives you more time. YouTube Shorts also exists that can go up to 60 seconds, and Pinterest Idea Pins are 60 seconds. I love all of these platforms. I encourage you to try all of them or pick one to start with. And as we'll talk about later on, you can distribute down. So focusing at the beginning on a platform like Instagram, and then putting it on all different platforms can be really wonderful. Next, we have in-feed videos, and these have been around for quite some time. These tend to be around 2 minutes or more, and they go in a variety of different display sizes. So like I said at the beginning, you can pick the size that maybe you recorded in natively. You can edit it down to a different size if you'd like. On Instagram, these tend to be around, I think maybe there's a maximum of 2 minutes of an in-feed Instagram post, Twitter would be about 140 seconds, LinkedIn is up to 10 minutes, and Pinterest is up to 15 minutes. Now, these numbers can change, so it's important for you to keep up to date, and you can actually go on the platform and each of them will tell you like what their maximum amount is. And that's helpful to keep in mind, especially if you're editing your videos. Knowing how much you can put on a platform gives you an idea of how you're going to create it, as we'll talk about later. Then we have long-form content, which tends to be about 15 minutes or more, and also landscape. So that kind of original 16:9 recording size. Tracy mentioned IGTV, which is a wonderful platform right now. You can gain a lot of traction. It's very similar to YouTube, which you can go up to 12 hours with the video in length. Now, if you have a really long podcast, that's great. There's some podcasters that record for hours. On IGTV, you're limited to an hour if you upload directly from their website. If you upload on the mobile app, as most people use Instagram, you can only do 15 minutes. So another important thing to keep in mind, if you want to do a longer video, you'll upload that on their website. And you can also do this on YouTube, which is up to 240 minutes maximum. Then we have live, of course, so similar to what we're doing right now. You can create live videos and you can archive them for people to watch later. These can be vertical or landscape, and you can do this on most platforms these days, including Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitch. Twitch is actually a platform that I have the least amount of experience in, but I'm seeing grow a lot. So if you haven't started experimenting with Twitch, I highly recommend it. It's a platform that I may be spending more time and advising Poditizers to spend more time on, and that actually could be a really great fit for podcasters. I also I also see that the industry will be moving more and more towards live, and I'm starting to see more people recommend live videos for podcasters, which is perhaps something Tracy can speak on in her experience. But in the meantime, it's worth just paying attention to creating your accounts on these platforms and maybe experimenting to see if they work for you and your audience. Speaking of your audience, number one, one of the most important things you may already know with your podcast, but definitely important with a video, is determine who your audience is. That's going to help you determine what platform or platforms you're going to be on and your style. One thing that we do at Poditize is we experiment on all the platforms, and then we measure the results, which I'll talk about later. I really encourage that because you may discover that certain platforms won't work for you as well as others. So you can take notes, you can create an avatar, you can look at the feedback that you're getting. All the data that you've been collecting on your podcast may apply to social as well. However, you could also find a completely different audience on social. So that's why experimenting is very important. And ideally, you will find a different audience to draw them into your podcast. Let's talk about some video myths here. Some top 5 things that I hear from people about what they think about video and what might be getting in the way. Number 1 is that you have to have fancy equipment. Number 2 is that you have to be camera ready. Number 3, especially with short videos like TikTok, people associate that with dance moves. Number 4 is that it's really time-consuming. And number 5 is that it has to be professionally edited. Well, the truth is that A, you can use what you have, whether that's your phone, your webcam, natural lighting, or if you happen to have access to a professional team, great. Whatever you have, you can start there with video. B, authenticity is really key. And that goes for your appearance and your style. I am actually right now at this stage of my career, I rarely ever wear makeup or do my hair. I, it's not important to me or my audience. And I know that about my audience. Now, certain audiences may want you to look more polished. You have to determine that for yourself, which is why I started with the audience size. But ultimately, the industry says that as long as you're authentic, it doesn't matter how you look and how you're presenting yourself. C is to create what you love and what represents your personality, right? So that also ties into the authenticity side. D, time and effort is not required. Actually, you can post as quickly as 15 seconds. Now, if you're going to be recording your podcast, that's likely more than 50 seconds. But depending on the type of videos that you're making, that might be in addition to your podcast. And you can make quick 15-second videos And once you get in the rhythm of them, it can literally take that amount and then you're done. And let's see, ABCDE is the last one. No editing is required. I'm going to talk about some editing tools and tips for you if you want to use them. But simplicity works really well, very similar to your podcast too. When you're making that decision about how you edit or whether you edit at all a podcast, those same mindsets can go into video. Let's talk about some basic equipment in case you want to look at what you already have or invest in some more things. I do recommend a phone stand if you're going to be recording on your phone, and the phone is nice. It will be involved at some point because some of these platforms require you to upload from an app. So if you want to make a video on your phone, you can get a phone stand. You can, of course, just hold it with your hand. You can get a tripod. There's lots of options there. Certainly not required though. You can prop up your phone on lots of different platforms and a webcam works well too. Natural light. Right now I'm sitting in front of a big window when I'm recording my podcast, which is in a different space than I am right now. It's in front of a big window. Now, that's not always ideal for your audio, but I actually haven't found it to be an issue for my audio quality because the window just brings in all this natural lighting for my podcast recordings. And if you're not— if you're recording separately from your podcast, just standing in front of a window, being outside without too much direct sun or shadows is great. You can also get a ring light. That's very popular. They now make these clip lights and phone cases, lots of options if you want to spend a little bit of money. And luckily, ring lights now are fairly affordable. I don't know what they start at, but last I looked, it was worth it. And they're popular for that reason. Of course, having a good microphone, which you likely already have as a podcaster, you can attach that into some of your equipment. And if not, you can get adapters, or you can use what's part of other equipment. Right now I'm talking to you through my Apple AirPods. And these are great for a lot of video. So whatever you have built into your camera, headphones, your microphone, you can use that. And lastly, one quick tip for you is to always wipe off your lens. Right now I don't have it, but almost everywhere I go, I have some sort of like cloth to wipe off my webcam or my phone before I record. And if I don't have a cloth, I just use my shirt like I'm going to right now. So I take my shirt and I wipe off the front and back-facing camera. This tip alone will make your videos look So much better. I ask all of my podcast guests to do this before we record video, and they will wipe off the lens of their webcam and just say, wow, I look so much better. And it's, it's like one of those quick little things you can do to have higher quality footage, because we get a lot of smudges from our fingertips or holding up to our ear or moving around our webcam or computer. So with that basic equipment, you can have really nice looking videos. If you want to jazz it up, just 2 simple tips for you. Number 1, sound and music are very popular and huge components of video right now in social. Most of the platforms have music built right into them. They also can have sound libraries, like YouTube has a phenomenal royalty-free sound library that you can use. And sometimes you can even use that music outside of YouTube depending on the details, which you can read right there on the platform. And then there are a number of platforms that offer royalty-free music. So if you want to just add some ambience to your videos or make them feel like they're moving faster, or you want to go with like the style that's really big right now on platforms like TikTok, I encourage you to add some element of sound into it. And secondly, you can edit your videos as we're going to talk about and apply effects to them. This is also very popular on social. You can experiment with filters and effects and all sorts of simple editing techniques. But again, that is optional. It's not necessary. I have been studying video for most of my life, actually, but social media video for over 10 years. And overall, I've found that simplicity can be just as successful as a very polished video. So don't let that get in your way. That's why the value that you offer beats the production quality. And this, I would say, is true on as a podcaster with your audio, but I would love to hear Tracy's opinion on this too. She would agree, but this is definitely true with the video. As we're going to talk more, thinking about what are you doing with this video? What service is it providing? How is it— what is the point of this video, basically? Consistency is equally important as the value that you're giving. If you can post videos as often as possible and also keep your style and your branding consistent, so repeat that same style and branding, which you can shift over time, but keep it consistent for a certain period of time, experiment it, see how you feel, see how people are reacting to it. That's really where you're going to build your audience up. They're going to know you, they're going to like you, and they're going to trust you. They'll keep coming back. And on the other side though, right now I will say that what works in your benefit is that the algorithm doesn't necessarily need you to be posting all of the time. On platforms like Instagram, I haven't been super active lately, but anytime I post an Instagram Reels, suddenly I get all of these views and visitors and it was like I never took a break from Instagram. And that's because right now the Instagram Reels algorithm, and this is kind of true with IGTV too and stories, They just want to see content. And this is why video is working so well. So you don't have to be quite as consistent depending on what type of video you're doing and what platform. However, the algorithms are always changing. So if you keep consistency in mind, that's going to be your best bet. If you can be consistent, be consistent. If you want to increase your discoverability, and who doesn't, here are some basic concepts that you may already know, but these definitely apply to video. So number 1 is hashtags. If you can use 2 to 15 relevant hashtags plus a few trending hashtags, that will work in your benefit. Now, in the past, Instagram used to recommend up to 30 hashtags, but a few weeks ago, a month ago or so, they actually said that it works better when it's 2 to 15. So this is why it's helpful to understand the platform that you're posting on and keep up with the news. But hashtags, I would say, are not a make or break thing. They are very popular on TikTok. On TikTok, you want to do less. You probably want to do 2 to 4 maximum hashtags. Sometimes those help your videos, sometimes they don't. So, you know, experiment with the hashtags, see if they're helping increase your audience, but you don't have to depend on them. Number 2 is to share, of course. Spread the word about your videos across your platforms, just like you're doing with your podcast. You're going to link to that video wherever else you promote. So different social media platforms that you're on, newsletters, talk about your videos on your podcast to let people know that you're posting regularly on a platform like TikTok or YouTube or wherever you're putting this content out. The other thing that you may know is that each platform prioritizes content that's native to it. So if you want to share a video you probably won't get a lot of traction if you post on LinkedIn a link to YouTube. LinkedIn's going to say, no, I don't want people to leave to go to a different platform. They want you to stay there. So typically, if you distribute your videos, which again, we're going to come back to a little bit later within each platform, that'll work well. But you can also experiment with putting links up in addition to that. So you just kind of have to find the flow there. There's no make-or-break answer, one-size-fits-all type of thing. Experimenting is the biggest key. And third, just like you would with a podcast, you want to collaborate. So incorporate your podcast guests into your content. You'll see us doing this with platforms like The Binge Factor. Tracy Hazzard is now having these short clips with her guests, and then we tag the guests, we're telling the guests that the videos are there, they're sharing it to their stories, they're getting more engagement as a result. Everybody's winning. So the collaboration is really key. And if you're already doing that with your podcast, great. You could also collaborate on a live video together. You could collaborate with a fun TikTok video if you want. If you're both on the platform, you can get really creative, and that will help both of your audiences find your content. How do you capture attention? Keep in mind all of the basics that you know about a podcast and then add a few of those into your video. And most of this is going to apply if you're doing a video separate from your podcast, meaning if you're recording your podcast through Zoom or another recording platform and posting that video, it's going to be a little bit different. But if you're creating a video specifically for social, here are 3 things to keep in mind. Number 1, get to the point fast in the first 2 seconds. Draw your audience in with your first few words so that they know what you're speaking about and why it's beneficial or interesting to them. I can't stress this enough. People will leave your video so quickly, especially on platforms like TikTok. And I know that feels like pressure, but if you practice it, you'll get really good at drawing people in. Another tactic is adding some sort of flair, and that could be some movement. So this is why dancing is popular. When people see your arms and your legs moving, they're going to pay more attention because they're curious versus if you're standing straight, like not moving around a lot. They might not feel as drawn into it. You can use quick editing cuts. If you use some editing, you can have bright color. So my headphones, for example, are a big talking point. It draws people in. You can wear different color outfits, a nice background, of course, if that's bright. Putting text on screen, actually, this is one of the best ways to keep people's attention because they have to stay to read what's on the screen. It works so well. So you'll see people doing this a lot on Instagram Reels and TikTok. You can edit in that text very easily, as we'll talk about later. I mentioned music, facial expressions, so being expressive versus a little too straight, you know, it'll make people feel like you're a real person. And lastly, as I mentioned, hashtags are great, plus your captions. If you can convey what the video is about in the first few words and sentence, and as well as the hashtags, people will stay to read to learn more about and then decide whether or not they want to watch the rest of your video. And that first few words of your caption is the most important, because each platform displays your caption in a little bit of a different way. So try a mix of these things. Again, no pressure. It's all an experiment, but keep these in mind when you're creating your content. Making your content searchable, right? So number one is for you to search and understand how search works on the platform. Go search keywords within each platform or whatever platform period that you're going to utilize. Go search for things that you intend to post on. So number 1, you can search for podcasts and see what type of videos other podcasters are making. Use different hashtags, use the hashtags that you intend to use and see what other people are posting. You can save videos on, I think, all of the platforms And you can make collections or playlists, bookmarks for you to have a whole category folder basically of inspiration. And I do this every single day. Whenever I see a video that I thought was really well done, when it was a great idea in terms of the style or the content, I save it. And now I have a library of inspiration whenever I'm feeling a little creatively stuck, or if I'm working on a video and I'm like, oh, what should I do, this or that? I can go back to the library and see what inspired me. You can also take screenshots. I do this too, especially if somebody puts something on the screen that I thought was really smart. And then I really encourage you to comment on other people's videos to increase engagement. This is a tactic that Tracy uses really well, especially on LinkedIn. She engages with people not only on her content, but on other people's content, and that can draw them back to you. It works incredibly well, just like you would leave a review on someone's podcast. It's a way to give back to to them, but it also might pique their interest and it works very, very well on social. So when you do this, you're understanding how the whole platform is working, which makes you more confident about doing it yourself. So if you haven't started creating video, this is a great place to start. Let's make a plan. So a simple plan, and then I'm going to break it down into some more steps. So number 1 is to make a content calendar, plan out your video concepts, when you're going to post them, make time in your schedule to record them, to do some tests, especially if you're recording your podcast. It might feel a little awkward in the beginning. And the technology can be frustrating. So the more you can practice something before you do it, the better, especially if it's being recorded live. And figure out when you're going to publish it. Then of course, you're going to record and upload. So once it's on your schedule, you're going to show up and do that recording, you're going to delegate, we'll talk about that a little later if you need to. and upload your content to the platform, and then distribute your content. So spreading out your videos across your platforms and adjusting your format as needed. So here's your roadmap. We've got 5 steps. Number 1 is to set the aim. Number 2 is to pick the platform or platforms, plural. Number 3 is to record. Number 4 is to edit. And number 5, upload and analyze. So let's go through each one. Number 1, set your aim. Ask yourself and be very clear. What is the goal of the video? Are you trying to get someone to come subscribe to your podcast, to leave a review for your podcast, to listen to a specific episode, to have you on their podcast, to follow you on social media? Those are 5 different goals. Pick one of them and be very clear. You'll have a call to action in your video ideally, or you're going to have an aim in mind that other people might kind of pick up on through your content. What do you want your viewer to do after they finished watching you? A lot of people just want to be followed, but our aim is to grow your downloads, your listenership. So you want to kind of create a funnel just like you would with any business. Where are you beginning and where are they ending? What steps is it going to take for them to get there? This is going to depend on a lot of factors for you. Number 2 is to pick your platform. So we went over all the different platforms. You can go back to the earlier part of this video and check out all the options. Don't get overwhelmed by them. Maybe just start with one. And once you pick the platform, pick the type. Are you going to try Instagram Reels or perhaps IGTV? Do you want to do the in-feed on Instagram? Do you want to do the stories? Do you want to do live? Try picking one platform and one type of content to begin with so that you don't get overwhelmed. Then you can grow from there. Number 3, click record or find footage, or in your case, if you're going to be recording a podcast, you might as well record video. This is something that you see Tracy Hazzard doing all the time with her work. I do this on my podcast. I've been doing it for a while now, so I've kind of worked through all of the challenges of it, and now it's just part of my process as a podcaster. Number 4, if you're going to edit, this will be an optional thing. You— most videos are going to require some type of editing, and that could simply just be picking a clip. This is also something that we do with Pod and Ties and the shows on the platform. We choose short clips from the episode, and that's technically editing, but it doesn't require very much work. So I want to share with you a few apps. You can do a lot of editing right within the platform, especially with Instagram Reels and TikTok. So pick the you want to use and use their editor and maybe try both of them. You can also use iMovie if you are on iOS with an iPhone or Apple device. There's a great app called InShot, one called Quik, another called Adobe Premiere Rush, and lastly Splice, which is iOS Apple only. I encourage you to actually download all of these apps, and I think they're all free or freemium. iMovie you'll already have on your phone if you have an iPhone. Download them all, use them all, and that will help you determine which one you like best, which feels easiest, you're most comfortable with, and helps you achieve the type of editing that you want to do. And/or go into Instagram Reels or TikTok and check out their editor. And as I mentioned at the very beginning, you can now edit in Canva. So if you're already familiar with a platform like Canva that offers video editing, use that. Canva's editor, I only done a little bit on thus far, but it seemed really easy for me, especially given my experience with that platform. A few things that you can add into your video. Number 1 is audio, like we talked about. On TikTok, they have this thing called trending sounds. That's also becoming a thing on Instagram Reels. So you can take a look at what's trending and use that sound or that music in your editing as well. And if you're going to do that, I recommend you editing your video in Instagram or TikTok, or taking a previously edited video if you want to get a little bit more advanced with it, and then uploading that into Reels or TikTok to add in that audio. It'll make more sense to you as you do it. If you've never done it before, it might feel, again, overwhelming, but it's very simple on both Instagram and TikTok. You just need to try it out. And as I mentioned, you can download royalty-free music too if you'd like, but it's not really Adding on text, titles, captions, animated text, your outros, all of that can be done either in an editor or TikTok and Instagram. And transitions and effects, same thing. You can make a transition between two clips, you can zoom in and out, you can flip things around. You'd be amazed at how simple it is using those editing platforms that I mentioned. Again, none of this is necessary, but I encourage you to try it out because it's fun. And a skill that's worth having. Now, there are a few things to subtract. So just like you would with your podcast, number 1, subtract the unnecessary. If you have awkward pauses, edit them out. If you're saying, um, a lot, repeating a lot of words or certain moments, anything redundant, take that out if you can. Just like you would with your podcast, you want to keep people engaged, you want to move fast. Video right now, people have short attention spans, So if you can remove anything that slows down the pace, that's ideal. Anything boring too. If it's, if you're moving slow, if you're doing something, you could actually speed it up. You don't have to cut it out. Like some of these platforms allow you to like do double time and move really quickly. And any mistakes, bad lighting, anything that you just don't feel like represents you and what you're trying to accomplish, well, edit it out, redo it, or see if you can replace it with something else. And again, you'll find your, your flow with all of this. And ultimately, it's really important for you to just start with video. So you don't have to worry about this so much at the very beginning of your process. You will learn through feedback, you will learn through watching others, and you will learn the more that you try this all out. Lastly, post and analyze your content. So basically, you're just uploading it into whatever platform you choose, and then you're analyzing to see how well it's working. How many likes did it get? How many comments? How many shares? You can see all of these details right within each platform. Now, just like your podcast, you don't want to obsess over this too much. You want to use it as indication about what might work. I will say certain platforms, TikTok especially, are a big guessing game. You never know what's going to do well on there. Truly, it's— everybody says this, like, you can try really hard to make a video do well, and it will feel like a flop, as they call it. Other times you put barely any effort into your content and it'll do extremely well. So that's why consistency is important. And you may find the same thing with your podcast. The big key is to keep going and to analyze it based on what other, whatever metrics are important for you. And as I've emphasized many times, distribute, distribute, distribute. Once you create one piece of content, put it on as many platforms as you're prepared to put it on at that time. At Poditize, one of our strategies is to post on each platform, but at different days. So we don't put a video on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, et cetera, all on the same day at the same time. We spread it out at different times. That way, if we have the same followers on multiple platforms, they're not bombarded with the same content and it feeling super redundant. It actually might help them because they may not have seen it on the other platform because of the algorithm or something, or the timing. It also allows you to experiment with what times work really well, what days of the week, and it gives you a break too. So you don't feel like you have to do everything all at once. You can use some scheduling apps. A number of them support video, but they don't support all video. That's a little bit of a challenge. Manual video posting is pretty much ideal. So if you can set aside time and a plan, of when you're going to post and where you're going to distribute it, it shouldn't take you very long because you'll get in the rhythm of it. As I mentioned, analyzing it, really just experimenting and figuring out what's working. And over the course of several months is a big key here. It's hard, just like your podcast, to see the results really quickly when you first start doing something. So if something doesn't seem like it's performing well right away, Give it time. In fact, TikTok is known, and YouTube too, but TikTok right now, a lot of people have noticed that your videos may take days, weeks, months for anyone to even see them in the first place. And I've done videos. A great example, I had a video go viral on TikTok. I think it was January or February. In August 2021, it is still getting views and I have not promoted it at all. That's how TikTok works. So that's why you need to pay attention over the long run. It's very evergreen, very similar to a podcast. So take your podcast mentality in terms of analytics into your video creation. If you're feeling overwhelmed right now, the two things to do: A, go back to the content calendar. Planning will help with your overwhelm. Reschedule things if you need to. Figure out when is best for you to record and publish. And lastly, delegate. Delegation is key. Tracy can speak to this. That's why she has a team, right? I work with people on her teams. There are things that Tracy will delegate, I'll delegate. It is amazing to have a team on board. And a team could just be you and one other person. Virtual assistants can be very affordable, very helpful, and make a world of a difference for you. If you have family members, they may be willing to help you with things too. I know a number of people that have their children support them with these things. So find someone you're in your life that you can delegate to. And here's some things that you can easily delegate. Number 1, they can help you brainstorm content, do some research, and compile those concepts into a document for you. They can do some great keyword research. They can see what's trending. They can give you lots of ideas so you don't have to worry about it. They can help prepare and upload your content. They can edit it for you. They can write captions. They can schedule it across the platforms for release. Amazing. And lastly, they can help you engage with comments. They can monitor your performance and they can help give you suggestions for improving. So it's amazing how much the support of just one other person can be. So that's it for now. Speaking of support, I'm here if anyone's watching live that has questions, or Tracy and Tom, if there's anything you'd like to see me touch upon that I haven't yet, let's hear it.

All right, that sounds so great.

That was great, Whitney. Thank you.

Here's what I discovered. I, I like learned some great things.

How about you?

I talk with my hands, which is now awesome because it's like dancing, right?

Yeah, of course you would try to turn that into it.

So now I just have to get a camera that stops going out of focus, right? Anyway, so thank you for that, Whitney. You gave me free rein to do what I like to do. But I also want to highlight and just mention something that you said to people. So if you notice how my space is set up here, my space is set up so that I'm in the middle third. Now I do have some clients, 'cause when we're editing your video for you, if we're creating clips, we can cut wherever. But if you take up about a third of the screen, whether you're on the right, the left, or in the middle, that's okay. And they'll be able to create that vertical size version without a problem. Okay? And so just be thinking about that as you set your space or you set where you wanna sit. We do have some clients who are over on the right, and then they have like the display of their book and some other things to the left, which gets cut off in the vertical. So keep that in mind too. You may wanna have it like right behind your head. You may wanna have it closer to you so it doesn't get cut off. So be thinking about that. How you set your space matters when you're recording. And Whitney brought that up really well. The other thing that I wanna mention is that if you're doing speaker view, which is actually how I record it here. So however, if you're in Zoom, you're looking at it your way, but we should be looking at it and it should be recording and viewing. And I'm just gonna double-check that this is actually how it looks on Facebook 'cause I didn't look at that, but it should be how it looks in Facebook.

Well, when she's sharing her screen—

There's two of you, yeah.

No, no, no, when she's sharing her screen, it's just Whitney's screen is the dominant part. And 'cause you and I were muted and she was speaking, tiny little window of Whitney in the corner. When— because I'm the one that has started the webinar and shared this to Facebook, it's how I'm viewing it that's driving what is seen as we are here now. And I have us in gallery view. Had I had it in speaker view, it'd be switching between the three of us, right?

And if you want to use Shorts or you want to use it in clips, I highly recommend you record in speaker view, not the gallery view. Because it makes it even tinier if I have to turn that into vertical. So, you know, it doesn't— I, you know, you'd have to like really have a really good editor who'd make like 3 videos stacked on top of each other to make it work out right. So it doesn't work out in gallery view. Everything gets so much smaller if you need to use a vertical format. Use the speaker view format when you're going to record for a vertical format. Like, just think about that. So that's your output.

Just to offer a different perspective, my purpose in having this in GAL Review is because this is being broadcast in our Brandcasters group, which is for clients only. And the clients are used to seeing you and me every week beyond this background, usually side by side. And that's the whole thing. And then oftentimes I think it's hard to tell what are they talking about today? Which one is this? You got to really read the title. Whitney being here is unique and different. And I thought using the gallery view, people would say, whoa, there's a third person there. There's Whitney, and Tom and Tracy aren't even in the same frame anymore. That might pique curiosity and get people to turn on their sound and hear what we're talking about if they see that.

Absolutely. Different purpose. My point is, if you're recording and you know you're going to want a vertical view, then you need to record in the speaker view to get a better result. But live video is something totally different, right? And so it's not the end purpose. But what Whitney had, you know, for the portions— I would never take a clip of this Q&A or this aftertalk kind of thing. It probably wouldn't happen. If we were taking a clip, we'd probably take it from something Whitney said in the middle, and that technically was recorded in Speaker View because you and I made our video closed so that we didn't appear at all during that process. So because we have it set for our recording to is that when there's a non-video participant, they actually aren't being recorded. And so we have that their voice is being recorded, but their, their video is not. They're not being shown, right? And so we have to set that way.

There's a workaround that we've actually been playing around with on the Poditize team, but I see a lot of people do, is if they have to record in a view that isn't quite as conducive for cropping, People will put color above or below it, and then they can have the full-size video in the middle of the screen. Now, it doesn't look quite as good as if you fill up the entire vertical video with your content, but it works if you have to edit that way.

Yeah, and another consideration is that if you plan to have two people like you do here and you want to use that in the vertical format, maybe Tom and I shouldn't be sitting side by side. We shouldn't be recording in that kind of thing. Maybe we should have, you know, you might have extra cameras that are picking up the other angles that you're gonna use. You know, you can always record straight vertical from your phone. So you might wanna have one of those that you're capturing that you're gonna use for your clips. So just be thinking about that end use when you're prerecording and save all those views and/or do that from the get-go. And that, that's what I wanted to bring up here, cuz it's a great point that, you know, if you set that up right to begin with, you're gonna have more impactful video later cuz you're gonna be able to see the screen, see more of what's going on there. The other thing that I wanted to mention is that editing, you know, picking the clip is so difficult, right? It's really hard for our teams to do that for you when we don't know what your social media messaging is. So if you are doing it, what I do is I just look at the timestamp and I kind of go, oh, it was about 50 minutes in, or it was about 40 minutes in, whatever it is. And I kind of make a note to myself. Then I quickly go to the video afterwards, confirm the time spot, and say, that was the clip. I want it to start somewhere around here. I'm not that specific about it, but I was just like, like, pick a clip from this section, or I'm saying pick a clip from when we talk about this. That's okay too. Easy direction to just give the team so that they can edit that clip out for you. So you get your, what we call video memes, which are like these clips that you're gonna use on social media. We get that section just right for you. And you should have and should set with us your length, that your, your format and your length. So am I doing vertical? Am I doing, you know, full landscape, what am I, what is my choice here? What do I want? Do I want more than one? Which is totally fine. And then you're saying from that point, I also want to have it with this type of clip and I'm gonna specify what that is. So you're being clear about what it is. Or you can give a general directions like I want it whenever I talk about Instagram, like I want clips whenever I talk about Instagram, I want you to take a clip for me because I'm doing Instagram tips. You know, like whatever that might be, you can also be, you can also set a standard operating procedure with our team for what to look for.

Yeah, it's a really good time to mention that something I think will be helpful to most clients who are watching this, whether you're watching it live now or you're watching this recorded later, you work with Poditiz to have us do as much of this for you as possible. And that is true. So I'm sure some of you are thinking, well, I don't know how to decide what the best clip is. You guys are the experts. You should figure out what the best clip is. I understand that perspective. And certainly, like Tracy mentioned, if you provide some guidelines of, I want clips of this type of content, or like you said, whenever I talk about this or that, that's a good thing to make a clip of. Certainly we can follow those guidelines. But here's where your clips that you get are only going to be as good as you're willing to participate a little bit, because we can't read your mind as much as we try to understand you. And understand, you know, what's important to you. It's— you've got to participate a little bit because we're— no matter how good we get to know you, we would never make the exact same decision you would make. I can pretty much guarantee that.

Right. And remember, if you're not using your— you're not doing this live, right? And you're going to record it and you're going to save it and you're going to have it edited. You can also give us verbal cues, right? So you say something and, you know, you can pause at the end of it because you need a point to cut it off anyway. You can pause and you could say, editors, that piece was a perfect clip. I would like that for my video meme. Like, you could say that in it and then go on.

Yeah, you could.

Your video will have a cut, a jump cut in there, a transition cut, but that's okay. You know, it's okay to have breaks like that as long as you paused after what you said before you give the edit.

I would also recommend making a note in the edit notes when you submit your episode and empathize, hey, I made a verbal reference to the clip I want and paused in my recording to let you editors know that. Make sure you note that and remove where I told you I wanted you to take the clip out. I mean, it's always good to mention that. Tracy, we got a question from Anne.

Yeah, I wanna address one more thing before we go onto that, but we will. So I just wanna say that you can, you know, we wanna be really efficient as we type notes in our edit notes, right? So being clear about what you're looking for in those edit notes is important. So if you've talked about a certain type of thing, like we've now talked about video sizing multiple times— Whitney talked about it at the beginning, and then we talked about it in post-discussion here— we need to be clear of, we want it when it was the first occurrence of that. So being clear in your edit notes cannot hurt at all. So I just want to reinforce what Tom was saying there. It cannot hurt to reinforce that. You shouldn't have to tell our team to take out the reference unless you flow into it in such a way that it might not be very clear that you were talking to the editor. And that's why pausing before and after you make an editorial direction is always really good.

I've had people in the past just keep talking in stride, never stopping, and it seemed like they were still talking with their guests, where they said, "Oh, and I'll have my editors take this part out 'cause it really shouldn't be on the air." and it was missed. As much as I would wish we would get that, you can understand in the context and the flow of the conversation how something like that could get missed. So, okay, so I have a couple things I wanted to mention or offer as some comments or discussion, but I also want to—

Let's just address the couple of questions in the chat.

Right, right, right.

And then I actually have a question for you that Whitney kind of posed in there that we'll want to talk about audio quality. So we'll talk about that afterwards.

That's one of mine too.

Okay, good. Yeah, so let's talk video and audio quality. I might, you know, Whitney proposed that, you know, that you could go ahead with less highly produced video, but asked us and kind of said, what about the audio side of that? And, you know, really quickly is I find the same thing as Whitney. I wanna reinforce that, that on video I see some of the simplest videos, you know, like just, you know, my daughter does them out in the backyard and, you know, sometimes they're like amazing. And I think to myself, wow, what'd she do there with just a little effect graphic and, you know, and a little lighting change, you know, it's amazing. So there is not a lot of overediting that needs to happen at the front end of the video if you don't want to. Now, what do you think about the audio, Tom?

Well, audio quality, I agree with what Whitney said, that the content being conveyed is more important than the quality of the audio. However, there definitely can get to be a point where the audio quality is a distraction and is not helping deliver the message. So while I wouldn't obsess about it on the one hand, on the other hand, I think you should be keenly aware of your audio quality. Listen to your own audio, watch your own videos. I can't tell you how many people we work with never listen to their own podcasts ever, and they don't realize how they sound. They don't realize, you know, if there is something that is— that they're being presented in a way that they'd rather not be presented. You know, it helps to listen to your own stuff, uh, at least periodically, and make sure you're happy with it, right?

Remember, if someone's listening to the video, you're in their ear. So if the sound is annoying, they're gonna like tune out fast, right? But the other part of it is, if you're not— if the words you're saying are not intelligible enough because of the garbledness that's coming through the sound, or clicking, or other things, auto-captioning that we usually put on that most people utilize. You know, you can have us put the custom captioning on, but for the most part, the auto-captioning that comes with the programs when you post up the video is useful. And if you do that, it will miss words. It will not detect it properly. So then the message that you're saying, if they're not listening to you and they're watching the captions, they won't get the message. So your sound can affect that as well.

So here's what I would say. There's always a situation where especially if you are on the road, not in your normal recording environment, you want to capture something, it's different, it might be visually really engaging, you don't have a good microphone with you, you just have the microphone built into your phone, there might be some background noise if you're outside. I definitely think you still want to record that video content even if the audio is going to be used in a podcast later and it's not that pure audio in a prepared environment. If that audio quality is borderline and if people just listen to an entire episode with that, you know, it might be not so easy on the ears. They might not want to really listen to the whole thing. It might be worth you taking 2 minutes when you're back in your environment that's controlled, record a 2-minute little intro to your own You know, if this is in the context of a podcast and audio now is really what I'm saying, record a little 2-minute intro to it and put all the context on. Say, hey everybody, I was at this conference at this event and I recorded, you know, this there live. And I just wanna let you know the audio quality is not up to my normal standard. If you just address the elephant in the room, acknowledge to your podcast audience that, hey, you know, this isn't the normal quality you wanna deliver them, but you let them know, "Hey guys, but you know what? The content's really good and I thought you'd all appreciate hearing it regardless." They're gonna be totally in to listen, listen to the whole thing and will set aside that audio quality. One last thing that I wanna mention and then I'll throw it back to Whitney for any questions.

[Speaker] Just one sec, Tom. I wanna say though, if we're taking a clip from what you did live that is in that sort of language and it's not gonna include the part where you said, "Hey, this audio is not up to my standard quality," 'You can drop that in the comments,' because if someone's gonna comment in there, they'll see that you said that. So you can sort of, you know, just wipe that away immediately by putting in this comment that says, 'Hey, I wish the sound quality was good, but I didn't want you to miss the message,' and just keep it simple like that.

Sure. Last thing, so last thing I wanted to say is I really, Whitney, appreciated your advice about the first 2 seconds of a video clip being so critical to capture people's attention and get your, at least, point across, or at least enough that's gonna hook them and get them to stay and watch the rest and not just move on. And it occurs to me that many of the videos a lot of us record on Zoom for our podcast where we are a talking head look very much the same. So you got me thinking, I'm gonna start getting creative about what we do in the very beginning of a video. There's gotta be lots of things we can do that are visual. I've already got some gears turning. And, you know, sort of challenge accepted is sort of what I'm thinking right now. I, I think there's a way we can do that and that I think any of you can do. So I think I'm going to think more about that, and that may be a future subject we come back with, guys, and make some suggestions specifically on that type of topic.

Next month is video month. We'll add that one in.

Let's do that.

Let's do that one in.

I've got some ideas, and I think it's something I want to demonstrate and not just to talk about right now.

Sounds really good.

Let's do that. Absolutely.

Whitney, thank you so much for coming on and like, and sharing all of this. Last piece of advice, last thoughts that you want to share with everyone?

I would say don't let all these questions get in the way. You will learn just like you did with your podcast. It's— video creation is so much like podcasting, really. You know, it's the progress I've made as a podcaster from the day I did my first recording till now, almost 300 episodes later, is vast. And I can say the same thing about— I've made probably 2,000+ videos in my career, and I'm always learning every time. And the times where I have regrets are when I don't create because I'm too busy second-guessing everything. So easier said than done. I do it too. It's not like I am perfectly consistent. But my encouragement to all of you is, is if you can right now, like right after watching this video, just try making a video on one of those mediums. Pick up your phone, turn on your webcam, Open up Zoom, schedule something as a test for someone. Take an action step now to hold yourself accountable and see it as a learning process. Because most people are afraid to do video because they're fearful of like what others will think. But the truth is, most people will be fine with whatever you do. And if they're not fine with it, they're not your audience. And then the other— there's going to be so many people that are grateful for it because now you're showing up more in their algorithm because you're doing video and it's going to grow your podcast. And that's ultimately why you're doing it. So try not to overthink it, I guess, is my last piece of advice.

Such good advice.

That's what I tell people all the time with podcasting too. And it applies to video. Just get started. Don't worry about being perfect. You're going to get better at it. Everybody does, but get started. Even if you start a little ugly, as they say, you know, and I'm sure it won't even be that bad. Just get started. Because the worst thing is if you end up with this inertia of trying to make it perfect and you never put any content out there, that's not going to help anybody.

The same thing is true with equipment too. I mean, that's what I'm thinking as you're sharing that, Tom. Like, I started off with my Yeti mic that I just had sitting around as a podcaster, and I happened to already have the microphone, so I just used that to start recording. Then I joined Poditize and got my Audio-Technica mic, and then I bought my stand for it and the pop filter and the headphones, like all of that built over time. But I started with what I had and the equipment on my computer, and I learned and elevated it as I went along.

Yeah, such good advice. Thank you so much. And I want to remind everybody that you can find Whitney and connect with her right through the blog post for this episode, which is at podoties.com under the Feed Your Brand podcast section. It's also going to be in the resources area, which is in our knowledge base section. So you'll be able to find her, you'll be able to find this video so you can reference it again, especially if you watched it the first time and you're watching it on your phone, you're like, I need a capture of that video of that particular scene. You'll be able to do that right in the blog post for this episode. So make sure you don't— you check that out and then stay tuned because next week we're going to address something that Whitney mentioned, which is we're going to talk about hashtags and captioning next week. So that's an important subject, especially if you want post up these videos, what are you going to choose to write about? What are you going to choose to hashtag to get the attention so that these videos get found? Because you make great videos, but then no one finds them. That's not any good. So we need to make sure that that happens. So we'll talk about that next week. I am so grateful that Whitney is on our team. Want to make sure you all know how to reach out to her. So I, I put her, for those of you in our Facebook group and other things, I put direct connection to her website and you'll be able to go there as well. So Whitney, thank you so much for being on our team. Thank you for all the strategies you give us. We appreciate you tremendously. And everyone else here, thank you for joining Feed Your Brand and the Brandcasters community. We really appreciate you as well. We'll be back with some more social media next week.

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