I mean, imagine if you had a 15-second video, at the end of it you said, see the full story on our website, right? Well, now I want to see the rest of that.
AI is another tool and it's not perfect and it's not going to be perfect, at least not in my lifetime.
Yes, you can tell the AI, hey, create this video. And if you're willing to just throw up whatever it creates, go for it. I don't recommend that.
Hello everybody. Welcome to this episode of the Marketing Guides for Small Businesses podcast. I'm your host, Ken Tucker, and today I'm joined as usual by my fellow guests, Ian Jeff and Paul. Today we are going to be talking about short-form video and visual storytelling. This is an interesting topic, and honestly, whether you like TikTok or not and whether you use TikTok or not, you have to thank TikTok for changing the way other key platforms have changed their algorithms to make things much more discoverable. And so including even— Well, this isn't related to the podcast. This is brand new news. LinkedIn has now modified their algorithm to be able to focus on content that people might be interested in versus being tied to whether or not they have that connection with you. So LinkedIn is even opening up and recognizing that it needs to change the way it's getting content in front of people. Having said that, I want to start out with 3 different types of video, short video that are pretty common, and just ask you guys to kind of explain each one. So Ian, I'm gonna start with you. I'm gonna talk about faceless video, AI spokespeople, using them for your video, and then using AI video clones. So Ian, let's talk about faceless video. What exactly is a faceless video and why are they suddenly everywhere online?
Yeah, I, first of all, I still think faces are important before we go down this topic. I think authentic, you know, connecting authentically with people is still where it's at if you can do it. But the reason why faceless video, and I'll explain a little bit more about what that means. Maybe I'll do that and then explain why it's so valuable. So faceless video is really about, you know, what you would traditionally see in, you know, higher end video production, meaning, you know, you might see a video about a BMW driving down the road and it's gonna have, you know, text overlays that says, you know, capture the energy or the feeling of driving a BMW or whatever it is, right? But it's invoking a message, feelings, and there may be people in it. So it's not that these videos have no people, it's just that you as the business owner don't have to be the talking head. Right. And so why these, why these are so helpful and, and so popular right now is, first of all, the AI production tools to create these have, have just proliferated like crazy in the last year. So it's easier than ever to create these types of videos. So you can create short-form video without you being the talking head, and then you can post them on Instagram, as Reels on TikTok, YouTube Shorts, you know, even, even Google values these, which is saying something as well. And you were just talking about LinkedIn. And so for people that are especially adverse to being on video, some people are like that. They don't, they don't like, you know, having their picture taken. I've run into some of these people recently where I'm like, we need your picture on the website. And they're like, no, I don't want my picture. And, you know, I'm telling the client, no, you have to get your staff on camera. Like, it doesn't matter what they feel because these are the people that interact with your clients, right? But on a video side, there's even more pressure for people because yes, they can be edited, trimmed, you know, you can, you can do some massaging of the video, of course, transitions, that kind of stuff. But if they're not comfortable on video, the feelings are maximized even more than on photos, right? So I think it's huge that way. But it also levels the playing field because traditionally you would have to go to a video production company to either film these videos, source the stock video material, the B-roll material it's called, you know, and then spend the onerous amount of time it takes and labor to then take the video, probably Probably create a storyboard first because that's the traditional way of mapping out like, hey, here's, here's what we're going to do for the video, which is still not a bad idea, guys. Like even if you're, you know, sketch it out. Like this is what I'm trying to accomplish on this video because even if you're using AI tools to help you, it still helps because then you can guide the AI. But then you, you would take that storyboard, the person would gather all the different elements of the video and they would start to splice it together and transition it, overlay it with music, overlay it with speech.
Yeah.
Do text overlays on the video, whatever's required, right? And then probably a strong call to action. But it takes a lot of work. Like that kind of stuff traditionally took a lot of labor, took a lot of expertise. And now the tools are allowing us to create this stuff far quicker, far cheaper. It's almost like the democratization of video production has come. There's still, there's still a heavy cost as far as time. Like these, yes, you can tell the AI, hey, create this video. And if you're willing to just throw up whatever it creates, go for it. I don't recommend that because, you know, usually it gets you kind of 90% of the way and you still need to do a little bit of massaging. But yeah, it's— the reason it's so powerful is because the platforms love it, because people are digesting it. That's why the platforms love it. So it's part of the algorithms. And what you talked about, Ken, is, you know, TikTok started to make that really popular. All of the other platforms, social platforms, started to jump on board because they saw TikTok was stealing market share. Interestingly enough, I just saw a stat a couple weeks ago. Very latest study was actually saying that TikTok has started to lose young people. So it wasn't like this massive drop, but it was the first drop that they've seen since, you know, their rise to popularity. So I thought that was super interesting. And, you know, again, if you can put your, your, your face on camera, Fantastic, because your face actually builds credibility. That's why so many videos have spokespeople on them. There are— I think we'll get into this more later on, but there's ways to do that now with AI avatars and that kind of stuff. But it also helps you show up in search, in visibility, and of course on social platforms.
So see, that's why I just have my name up there. It's faceless video. See, I've been ahead of the curve the whole time.
You started the whole trend, man.
Yeah, yeah. Ian, real quick, you know, you have an idea of what kind of businesses can benefit most from faceless video?
Yeah, I think I can't, I'll come at it the other direction. I don't think there's a business I know of that can't benefit from a faceless video. Like if you're in B2C, so business to consumer, absolutely, you can create a faceless video. Anytime you're trying to communicate a message explain something to people, make a connection, you know, talk about a pain point and a solution. Like video just makes so much sense and these types of videos can work. And then of course, you know, a lot of B2B companies don't think about this kind of stuff. But again, you know, I worked for a long time in B2B and I still support B2B companies. And the one thing I want every B2B company to think about is it doesn't really matter. Like, yes, your audience is slightly different. Yes, their buying behaviors are slightly different. Yes, you may have to, you know, have multiple people on board in order to make a purchase decision, but they're still people trying to make the right decision. And so you as the business are trying to communicate value to them, and short-form video can be very good at that.
Yeah, I think one thing too is, you know, the role that faceless videos can play in doing frequently asked question type Oh yeah. Videos, because those don't, you really don't need a video spokesperson. They're information heavy. And right now, you know, question and answer information across the web in an omnichannel way is just really what, you know, everything is craving right now to make decisions about who, you know, who it's gonna show and where they're gonna rank and stuff like that.
So.
If I can just add one thing to that, Ken, my gold standard when talking to clients is still like, even for FAQs, I would say like AI-created content is kind of ground level now. Like there's no reason why you shouldn't be creating this content. But if you actually want to get the most value out of it and give the most value, having the faces, the personalities of the people in your business is still paramount to me. Because if I— because I do have dentists who they create FAQ videos and it's the dentist is getting face time with a prospect right there, right? You're reducing Reducing barriers. And I would say in any type of business, anytime you have personal connection reduces barriers and helps with the flow. So that's just, you know, kind of an added point for people to consider. Because if, if you have the skills, if you have the ability to be on camera, do it. Like, this isn't to replace that.
Yeah.
And I think that's an important point is that, you know, we're not talking about either or, just like when we talk about omnichannel, we're not talking about social media or email or social media or your website. It's the combination of things working together. And I think when look at your audience and how they consume information. And then like Ken pointed out, and you pointed out, the different types of information lend themselves to different styles better. You really want to build up that body of work that's, that's got some faceless video, some spokesperson video, maybe some AI-generated. We're going to talk about in a minute, but it's, it's the complete package meeting different needs for different people. And that's, I think, one of the key things to organize around. But Like you said, faceless is a great way to get started because you don't, you know, if you have a fear of being on camera or you don't like the way you look on camera, it cuts through that. There's easy to get started now. I mean, if you think of the evolution, it started with whiteboard videos, the explainer videos, and it moved into animated videos. And now we're into, you know, faceless videos in the broader sense of, you know, stock video footage, video you can take with your smartphone, video you can take with a drone. As a drone pilot, you know, make sure you have a Part 107 license if if you don't want to violate the law. But that aside, you can put a lot of different content and sources together into a faceless video very, very easily and cost-effectively now.
Yeah.
One, one, one additional tip for people if they're using tools or even AI to do this is again, review it because AI and the tools are super literal. And so oftentimes it'll take your script and it'll show, you know, if, if you're using a metaphor or euphemism of some type, it will actually show that. Like if you say, don't throw the baby out with the bathwater when you're talking. So it will show a baby, maybe in bathwater. I don't know, but it's quite funny.
Yeah, yeah, you still, I mean, AI is great, but it still requires human review and vetting.
For now.
And guiding it, you know, to get it started. Jeff, let's talk about AI video spokespersons. What is that style video? How does it work? Why is it beneficial? And, and, you know, what kind of practical tips can you give to everybody?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So again, if you think of the spectrum of videos that you can put into play for your business, faceless videos, nobody's on camera. It's just images, maybe even still images moving, animations, videos. I mean, but when we go, yeah, when we go to AI video spoke, Sorry.
Yeah, people can still be in a faceless video. They're just not the spokespeople.
Right, right. Yeah, you can have, you know, stock images, models, video of people, but it's not the talking head, right?
Yeah.
Uh, so maybe it should be talking headless video. Well, that kind of sounds weird. It's like a Rod Crane kind of thing going on here.
Bridging the terms. Yeah, bridging the terms.
Bridging the gap to, you know, being— going from not having, you know, the spokesperson, the business owner, the salesperson, whatever, on camera and, and faceless videos, you got 2 points in between. I think Paul's going to talk about, you know, uh, digital twins, but an AI video spokesperson is probably the next stage of evolution because you're taking a predefined model, if you will, And there are— we're talking about software packages that let you go in and just upload your script to it, and then using a predefined model with predefined voice options that have been trained in the AI. And the AI will use your script in these predefined models and these predefined voice options, and they will build, you know, a video for you. So it's more of the spokesperson style of video, maybe not as much the explainer, maybe not as much as the general feature overview, but the more personal connection. You know, people like human connection, they like faces. So I mean, it's not human in the sense that it's AI, but it's still closer to human than just a, a stream of images. Um, so again, digitally, uh, generated presenter that's not necessarily you or your business. And in fact, if you use some of these tools and use standard models, you, you could have the same model as another business across town in a completely different genre. But you hear that anyway with voices on the radio and things. So people are, are used to that. I don't think they're turned off by that, but it gives you another avenue to get your message out there in a more, you know, through the, through the camera, so to speak, video connection, eye to eye, face to face. And it's again very economical to produce. All you've got to be able to do is write a script. And by the way, you can use AI to get the first draft and then you can tune it up a little bit, upload that into a platform and have it generate it for you. And they look good and they get the point across. And again, if it's a choice between not having that type of video on a landing page of your site, on a thank you page, um, because you don't want to do it, then it's better to have, you know, a video spokesperson.
Yeah. So what kinds of videos Do you typically think work well for an AI spokesperson? You know, you talked a little bit about like a landing page video, you know, which would be like, you know, somebody getting on there explaining, you know, in a real quick hit why it's worthwhile to attend a webinar or download the ebook or something like that.
Yeah.
So a sales page could work. Again, my preference would be to be on it personally. But if you're trying to create pages at scale, or if you don't want to be on camera, then a video spokesperson, uh, AI-generated, could be a good way to do that. So, you know, any place where you want to deliver a thank you message, if you want to deliver an explanation of something, you could do FAQs. I think really mixing in— I think one of you used the term B-roll a few minutes ago— mixing in the other images as well, kind of cutting back and forth, and that the platforms that generate these will let you do that as well. Um, but, but having that, that talking face to make that connection, to explain something, to answer an FAQ, to do an onboarding— hey, thanks, welcome to our program, here's what you can expect. You know, again, having it on the landing page, you know, you got some interest in this product, let me tell you a little bit about it, let me show it to you, let's talk about next steps— or just educational content. I think Especially if you're a content creator that you're setting up online courses and educational systems. Yeah, you could go into a video studio and do, you know, 10 takes of video of, you know, 10 different videos and just wear yourself out. Or you can upload the scripts of your course into an AI generator and have it do it for you. So I think, again, doing it at scale, having an element of, you know, person-to-person connection. And by the way, I would always, you know, acknowledge— I think Paul talked about this too— acknowledge it's AI. Say, hey, we've got our AI spokesperson or our AI twin. But just again, use it at scale to still bring in that element of personalized, let's say not personal, but personalized connection.
Yeah. And Paul, let's come to you. What about AI video clones, or is Jeff, what'd you call it, digital?
Digital twin.
Digital twin. So how is that different than an AI spokesperson, and where do you use these things?
Well, yeah, an AI spokesperson is what Jeff just talked about, whereas an AI clone— and this is really interesting— is that you basically create a digital version of yourself. You record a video, maybe 2 or 3, of, of you talking about something, whatever, and the AI actually, it learns your voice, your voice and your mannerisms and your facial expressions and it mimics them when it creates a video. And it's great for helping you generate videos at scale because once you have your video clone, you just give it a script and obviously you want to review it, but basically you give it a script which you can also use AI to generate and it, it just, and it creates these videos. So it actually looks like you speaking. I mean, it's obvious that it's not you, not really you, but it looks like you. And that way you don't have to be in front of a camera all the time. Yeah, it's easy with smartphones to make a video, but you still have to actually make that video. So this way you kind of have a digital version of yourself.
So are they powerful for personal brands or even business owners to use? And why, why is it important?
Yeah, because it, it's like I said, they scale. And going back to what Ian said, some people are simply not comfortable on camera and, and some people like me have other reasons for just not wanting to do it. But, but yeah, it can, it can give you that digital version of yourself where— and because one of the biggest challenges for business owners, even if they don't have a problem being on camera, it takes time. And that way they can, they can make these videos that solve that problem. And like I said, you write a script and it generates the video using your digital clone. And it's great for educational videos, daily social posts, you know, sales videos, training videos, onboarding content, things like that. And it's kind of like video content automation for your personal brand. Now, It's good for things that are repeatable, things that are dry, if you will, but need to be done anyway. But it needs to be a complement to you actually being on camera making, making those videos. So you want a hybrid approach because when authenticity matters, when you're trying to get emotions across, like behind-the-scenes content storytelling, you're the backstory of your company, if you're the owner talking about the business, then that should be you. But most other things— educational facts, training— yeah, those can absolutely be the AI twin, as Jeff called it.
Yeah, I think you used a keyword a second ago, you know, when you want to get the emotion across, you know, the level of excitement. I've seen some digital twin AI Avatars, another word you hear, AI avatar videos that just fall flat. You know, you have the person, they didn't do a great job of uploading their training material to the AI. Remember, this is AI, so how you train it determines what you get out of it. So if you give it training material that is very static and it's me talking like this and I'm not really gesturing or using emotions, You're going to get out something that sounds like that. And then if you put a script in that's like, this exciting new product is going to revolutionize the growth of your company, you're going to get something out that sounds like, this exciting new product is going to revolutionize the growth of your company. It's going to fall flat, right? So there is an element of training involved in how to use it and how to use it effectively. Like you said, there are places where, as you know, the person is always going to come across better. It's always going to be the better choice.
And I thought that was a really good example, Jeff, because I thought you were an AI avatar there for a second. But a lot of them do not get the emotion, voice intonations, and body language at all, although they're getting better, right? I've seen some where—
They're getting better, yeah.
The eyebrows and gives you a little crinkle on the forehead or, you know, crow's feet on the eyes and stuff. But like, it really, you know, if you're looking carefully, if they don't know you, they probably just think that's how you talk. But if somebody knows you, they still look a little, a little, you know, mannequin-ish.
Yeah. And, you know, keep in mind, and we— I feel the need to keep pointing this out because people think AI can do anything and everything. And AI is another tool and it's not perfect and it's not going to be perfect, at least not in my lifetime. It will continue to get better. And something Ian said earlier about the baby with the bathwater, It— AI is very literal. And I was not going to go too deep down the rabbit hole, but I was trying to get something work— to work in an AI voice. And it was kind of trying to make it be more of an authentic back and forth because AI does not remember intent the way people do. And that's, that's important to remember, especially, you know, when you're interacting with AI. And sometimes we could— it's—
Yeah.
AI starts hallucinating. Yes, that's the real term, but it just doesn't remember intent the way people do because AI is very literal.
Yeah.
The other thing I've noticed is it will, in general, focus in narrowly on the task at hand. And if you've talked about a broad set of things and you've narrowed it down, all of a sudden those other set of things are gone, right? And maybe it's like, oh, let's go back to that and bring that in again. And then that really throws it for a loop. So yeah, you, you absolutely got to use it appropriately and know what it's doing and not, uh, not let it, uh, overly constrain you. You need to be constraining it.
Yeah, less of an issue for short videos, which is—
Yes, absolutely. Hey, there's one more thing that I want to, I want to give a, a shameless plug out because hopefully we can get her on as a guest. Uh, Julia McCoy, uh, if you want to look up somebody who's done an amazing job with AI avatars, digital twins. Julia McCoy is phenomenal. You can find her on YouTube, Julia McCoy. And with the last name of McCoy, she kind of plays around a little bit. She has her AI avatar that is Dr. McCoy, and she's even got the blue Star Trek jersey on. But she has pumped out an amazing amount of content. She, she talks about this publicly, so I'm not spilling any tea, but she's pumped out an amazing amount of content after getting long COVID and only being able to work for literally 4 hours a week. She has grown a business by leaps and bounds. It's a, you know, 7-figure business now in I think less than 2 years. She's got something like 600 or close to 600 largely AI avatar videos out there. And I'm looking at her YouTube channel right now, 268,000 subscribers. So that's some pretty strong testimonial to this notion of using, you know, an AI avatar, AI digital twin, AI spokesperson of yourself to get your content out and reach your audience?
Yeah, you know, the key is, you know, we— what we're talking about here helps you to get speed to content creation. You can use AI to write the script, needs to be reviewed by a human. You can use AI to produce the scenes of the video and put the video together, generate the hashtags or the tags, you know, for when you're going to post it, auto-post it. But before you do that, you have to review and approve everything. You know, faceless video eliminates the need for, for you or somebody on your team to be on a camera. AI spokespeople do that as well, but it also helps to reduce the production time. And AI clones can maybe even accelerate that more, but still try to keep that human touch and that human connection. You know, I've done a lot of these. I do a podcast that's, you know, me with my AI clone voice and my AI video avatar. And I've shown them—
Do you get into arguments?
Huh?
Do you get into arguments?
No, I try to avoid that. But But a lot of people don't recognize that it is not me. But the key is, Jeff, as you talked about with Julia McCoy, you know, or what I've done when I've not done near the extent that she has, but you have to train, you know, the voice by providing a lot of video content, you know, changing up your look, getting at different voices so that it really can integrate and synthesize all that to become the best facsimile of yourself. So, all right.
Yeah, Julie, if you're listening, we want to have you on as a guest sometime.
All right, call us.
Call me.
Call me.
And, and remember that this is the worst the AI video platforms are going to be, right? They keep getting better and better and better.
Yeah, absolutely. So, Ian, why, why is Short-form video essential now for business visibility and lead generation regardless of the type of business, as you said earlier.
Yeah, I, I, it's, it's mostly because the algorithms are, are, you know, giving you credit for short-form video, right? And it, remember the algorithms, the platforms are looking for people to spend more time on them and ultimately spend money if they, if they can. And so that's why short-form video is winning right now. TikTok stole a lot of market share from Instagram for a while. Instagram's stolen some of that back by having short-form video on Instagram. Facebook's got it, LinkedIn's got it, YouTube's got it. Pretty much every platform now has a form of short-form video because that's how people enjoy consuming content right now. So you, you, if you as a business or an authority figure you know, create short-form video, your chances of showing up in social media, in search, they rise tremendously because you're playing to the strengths of the algorithm right now.
What makes a short video scroll-stopping? What do people need to know about that?
Yeah, I think the first second, you know, nanosecond is so vital because if you can capture people's attention, so that's why you'll see A lot of, you know, even the stills that are at the very front of the video before somebody actually plays it, those can be really, really valuable because first of all, it gets somebody to stop on the video from scrolling. But then you have to hit them with something that's going to capture their attention and keep them engaged for, you know, however long your video is. If it's 30 seconds, then, you know, you better hit them right between the eyes. I was hoping Ken would do an action, but, you know, right between the eyes. But you need to really connect with them fast, right? And show them, either connect with a pain point, talk about a belief, or challenge their belief on something. You know, contrast is also a good way to do that, right? Before and after, or fast cuts, visual surprise. You know, I certainly You know, I'm an eternally curious kind of person. So when I see something that's really visually impactful, which a lot of like really high-end influencers are using now where they'll do something that's just super visually impactful just to get you to actually stay on that video for the first second. And then the video has nothing to do with whatever the visual effect they were doing, you know, was. But, you know, There's one, there's one that really hit me. And it's actually by, it's by a tech company. And it's very funny because it's, it's 2 guys standing there. And the one guy says, trust fall, who's behind him. And you can only see from like their waist up. But then as the guy's falling, the other guy walks away and starts talking to the camera. And like, it's so fast at the beginning of the video, it just captures your attention.
Yeah.
And so this one's come up several times and I just love watching it because it's so funny. But that kind of stuff can keep people on, you know, first of all, connect, engage, and then keep them on your message.
Yeah, pattern interrupt.
Exactly. That's a more technical term.
Yeah. So how do small businesses balance storytelling with selling in short-form video? Because You know, Instagram, the top performing videos are typically 15 seconds. In general, you're limited to 30 to 60 to 90 seconds max. So how do you balance that? How do you work with that?
Yeah, I think, you know, anytime we've— we as consumers have all watched a lot of video, especially now with streaming platforms, right? There's a lot of interruptive advertising now. And I think We all understand kind of the form of a teaser. You know, movies do have done teasers forever. They're usually a bit longer because they're trying to like make you feel like you're watching a mini version of the video and that you're going to go out and you're going to go to the theater and watch it. But that's essentially what you're trying to do in these. You're trying, you're trying to capture people's attention. You're trying to give them a little bit of taste because you're probably going to either send them— you want them to do something bigger than that, especially as a business, right? Your hope is that they'll either dig further into your channel, they'll watch more videos, maybe watch long-form videos or watch more short-form videos from you because you might split up longer-form videos into short-form videos, right? Because that's often done when you want to get a longer, more detailed message across or you want to, you know, get them to your website and start to investigate you. And so, you know, a lot of it is just what you said, Ken, pattern interrupt, emotional connection, right? Education over persuasion, you know, relatability over authority. It's, it's really just how do you make that connection as fast as possible in order to get them to do something? And then I think storytelling is always part of any kind of video format, whether it's short or long. You need to do some form of storytelling because storytelling is what actually captures people's attention. We're all attracted to stories. So if you can, there's a recent quote I shared with someone where I came across it from, it was Albert Einstein, and it's always great to do Albert Einstein quotes. But it was, if you can't explain it simply, you don't know it well enough. And so that's my paraphrase of it. But, you know, short-form video is, is, you know, kind of the epitome of that because you're trying to crunch it down to such a short timeframe that you really do need to laser focus your message and not, you know, not get too broad. Specific is terrific.
Yeah, I think you kind of hit a little bit that, you know, the— you can't expect to do too much in short form, but what you can do is get people to take that next little step, whether it's visit your website, whether it's just even be on the lookout for the next video. But I mean, imagine if you had a 15-second video at the end of it you said, see the full story on our website, right? Well, now I want to see the rest of that. Or also think in terms of you can put a lot of little Shorts together over time to tell a longer story. Um, it's— you gotta be a little more patient, you gotta be a little more planned out about it, but you can devise all kinds of clever ways to get people to take the next step or to be paying attention to your messaging as it's coming out.
Jeff, let's talk about authenticity. How can business owners show confidently that they're, you know, that they're good at what they do without feeling awkward on camera. Because, you know, I mean, a lot of people who start a business, you know, they're not comfortable being on camera. You know, I mean, I've had clients, we've spent hours trying to get even one usable take. And at the end of the day, it's just a horrible experience for them. So, let's talk about authenticity a little bit.
Yeah. So, I think especially when we're talking about AI spokespeople or even AI digital twins, AI clones, AI avatars, authenticity is still huge. You can't just use these technologies and these capabilities just to spam garbage out there. It's still going to be authentic. It's got to be rooted in you. Your brand, your personality, your business, your messaging, and you need to connect with your audience, which means you need to know who your audience is. And then you're tailoring, you know, different pieces of content to that audience. So you're really personalizing the messaging, even if you're not personalizing the, the video of yourself. Um, so you're not winging it. You're, you're have a very methodical approach of what you want to say, how you want to say it, and who you want to say it to. And, you know, in some cases these videos actually can work better than, you know, a polished actors in a studio video because everyone says, yeah, it's just a bunch of actors in a studio. Sometimes that, you know, showing the human side of you are— if you're not comfortable on camera, you know, play with that a little bit. Make fun of it. Say, hey, you know, I'm not great on camera, but I'm who you get. You know, when you deal with this business, you deal with me. Right. That can, that can be huge. That's, that's the authenticity coming across right there. And then just being consistent with how you present things and how you show up. Don't try something different all over the place and be really scattered. Use your brand, use your voice, and bring it together as a coherent, consistent part of your marketing.
Yeah. One of the things I like about doing the AI video clone, and you have to be comfortable that you're AI presence, you're, you're very similar to you is out there to the world. Because while, while tools have security in place, nothing is foolproof, right? So, but what I like about it is, you know, you read a couple of minute scripts, or you don't even have to read scripts. Reading scripts is hard for people. You literally can just talk for 2 minutes. So just pick a topic. I mean, walk around a room. Describe something that you're interested in and just talk. It doesn't make any difference what it's about. It's literally just getting the words, the phrases, using the expressions, talking naturally the way you would talk to people, you know, and that way now you've got— if you're using it for short video and you're not comfortable in getting on camera, this is a great alternative strategy to do that. And also keep in mind, if you are getting on video, these are short clips. So it's not like you have to be prepared to talk for 5 minutes at a time. You're getting one key point across. And so that leads me to the next thing I want to ask you about, Jeff.
Actually, Ham, before you do, there's one point that I thought of that I want to bring up, and that may lead me to another one. When we talk about, especially in the AI avatar, the digital twin realm, you can have multiple avatars of yourself.
Right.
In other words, if I'm doing an educational section, I'm not going to be as animated, I'm not going to use as much inflection. I don't want to make it boring and put people to sleep, but I'm not going to be as animated as I am like in this format right here. You could have multiple, I could train one that's a little more education-oriented, it's a little calmer, maybe slower-paced tone and And then I can train another that's really excited and rah, rah, rah. And you can pick which one you want to use when you generate your video. So that's, again, part of the authenticity question. And then the other thing, it's not really— it's the offshoot— is another benefit of using the AI spokesperson or the AI avatars is multi-language. So like, I know a few Spanish words. I know enough to converse with contractors, but I'm not fluent in Spanish. But I could put out a Spanish-speaking video if I wanted to. Now, again, I would acknowledge upfront probably that I don't speak Spanish, so I'm using this AI avatar, but it opens up another realm of possibilities to you again to reach your target audience.
Yeah. Yeah. So what is a simple framework that people should consider using to create short videos? Because I think, you know, it's— once you understand how simple this framework is, You know, it's also going to eliminate some of the intimidation factor of creating these.
Yeah, yeah. I think the key is to remember they are short-form videos, right? You can't pack a lot into— maybe visually, maybe to get that attention, you want a lot of, a lot of big, a lot of fast action, a lot of wow factor. But if in the content you're trying to deliver, the message you're trying to deliver, you try and deliver too much content too many messages, then you're going to fail. You can't do everything in 15 seconds or even 30 seconds. So, you know, limit it to what's the one main idea that you want to focus on, what's one problem that, that people might have within that idea, and then what's one takeaway you want to give them, one action to take, one thing they can put into play, actionably implement, um, in, in, you know, as you're, uh, customer or client of yours. Um, and then if you have a lot of things you want to talk about, do a lot of videos, right? And you can pump out a lot of content, but, but make them focused on the, uh, you know, the task at hand, the, the one thing that you want to address and solve. Um, and then, you know, just be consistent. Just, just do it and just get it out there.
So a key strategy to create a lot of these short-form videos, these short clips is to repurpose longer form content into these bite-sized chunks, you know, and when we talk about short video, we're talking about portrait style as opposed to landscape. So portrait meaning the way you hold your phone as opposed to the way you watch TV, right? So these are portrait style. And so what are some of the common mistakes businesses might make if they're repurposing the longer form content into Shorts?
Yeah, so one is if their source material is landscape style and they repurpose it into a portrait style, you're gonna have, you know, black bars across the top and bottom. So think about when you're creating the, the original source content, uh, which format it's in, and, and maybe do both. Maybe have 2 cameras, have one recording in landscape, one recording in portrait. That gives you more flexibility to take that content and then repurpose it. But I think the biggest mistake is when you cut longer-form video up and you don't have the context that goes around it, it just becomes a random highlight. You know, you want to have enough in the segment that you're excerpting taken from the right window, the right 30 seconds within that longer-form content to really set up what you want to say, say it, and then move on. And if you can't do that when you're identifying short-form clips, and you probably shouldn't publish those short-form clips. There are tools, again AI-based, that will help you create those short-form clips, and, and most of them will show you the transcript of the long-form content, and they'll show you what they're excerpting, and they'll let you slide it around. They'll let you adjust it to make sure it's the right context for the quote that you're trying to, to repurpose. Um, you know, other things you want to avoid, you don't want to, you know, jump in the middle of a sentence and have people spending the time they should be focusing on your video trying to figure out what's he talking about. And then you want to, you know, have any visual cues, any graphics that support what you're saying, and then probably put captions on them as well. A lot of videos, especially the short form, will be playing without sound, and until you get people's attention, they're not going to turn the sound on. So sometimes even just the captions is, is enough. People may get the whole message without turning the sound on. And then while you want to make them standalone, they still need to plug into that broader context and the overall backstory. So you need to have a larger body of work and other resources that people can go to to get that if you can't do that in that one short form or small number of short-form videos. You know, it's, it's got to make sense to people. It's got to tell the story and position you well with the message of difference that you want to get out and the message you want to convey to people. people to draw them in. If it doesn't do that, then whether it's short form or long form, it's failed.
Paul, I want to circle back to storytelling because again, I think this is an interesting challenge for a short piece of content that's 15 to 60 seconds. What are your thoughts about how do you interject story into these short-form videos?
Yeah, it's— 15 seconds can be tough. And if you really need 25, 30 seconds, the first few seconds, like we talked about earlier, should really get their attention, but it's not impossible. I mean, just keep in mind, story matters. It just gets compressed, obviously. But you can say something like, hey, are you stressing out over insert problem? Try this and go watch this video to learn more. You can easily do that in 15 seconds. But I think one of the things that we have to keep repeating is that the customer is the hero, not the business. And no matter how short the video is, if you position your product, your solution, whatever it is, so that you're helping the customer overcome whatever their internal problem is, or maybe even their external problem, that's going to get their attention. Because it's— when you only have a few seconds to work with, it's not about It's about clarity. You know, it's like we used to say, if someone goes to your website, can they tell in 5 seconds what you do? And that's kind of what short-form video is.
So a couple things there. One is, you know, there's the phrase that everybody's heard, I'm sure, a picture's worth a thousand words. Well, a video is probably worth even more words, right? So you can actually show a before state and after state in a video And people can very easily infer, like if you're talking about, you know, a headache remedy, for example, you know, you show somebody with a pounding headache and then all of a sudden, you know, as you're talking in 15 seconds, boom, you transition to them, you know, in a state of bliss or feeling well or whatever. You can do that very easily and represent that very easily with video. As a matter of fact, people probably wouldn't even need to hear the audio to get what you're trying to say there if you have a caption with a call to action at the end. The other thing is, you know, I absolutely agree that the business is not the hero, the customer is, but there is a place where playfully I think you can do that. You know, we've done a couple of videos for ourselves but also for a couple of our clients where, you know, we kind of make them the superhero. And again, it's just a fun video, you know, and it's a, it's a very sci-fi or fantasy kind of a video to just kind of, you know, to kind of— again, it's that pattern interrupt. It's not like the standard video content that they're seeing. It's not the dry, yeah, I can come out and clean your carpet and I'll be done in 15 minutes. And when I'm done, I'll make sure I pick up and, you know, everything will be better than it was before I leave.
Yeah.
And that's the video.
Yeah.
You know, this is, you know, where they come in with capes and, you know, their buckets are cool looking, you know, like they're used for nefarious purposes or whatnot, or good purposes. And you can have a lot of fun with that. So I encourage people, you know, this is a great way to experiment and play around a little bit. You know, it's— you don't do anything really stupid crazy, but push the envelope, have fun with it. You know, you might find that something you do really resonates with people as long as it's consistent with your brand, right? So, so having said that, what metrics— I know you love to talk about metrics, Paul, maybe, maybe not quite as much as Ian. So Ian probably will jump in and answer some of these. But what, what, what metrics should people be considering with short video?
Well, it's not views alone. Views without intent don't matter. Um, watch time has always been a metric, but on a 15-second video, how important is it? Um, but watch time is still important. Are people watching, especially on a 15-second video, are people watching the complete video? Um, are they saving it? Are they sharing it? Are they leaving content or comments? that show intent, and I would say commercial intent, like they're interested in your product or service. Are they sending you messages about the video? So short-term video is not about selling. It's really, it's about creating a conversation that leads to a sale. But those, I think those are the metrics that really matter. Ian?
Yeah, no, I agree. I think it's all about I think, I think there's buzz about, you know, hey, these metrics don't matter, those metrics. And I'm not suggesting we're saying that.
I'm—
I just know there's a lot of noise out there about, you know, hey, you know, for SEO, traffic, traffic doesn't matter. Or, you know, for, for Instagram, views don't matter. But they do because they are part of the puzzle, right? You're, you're trying to you know, understand the buyer's journey. So, you know, in, in a macrocosm, like what, what is the journey that those people are on? And so of course views are important because they're, they're actually viewing your content and then dwell time, like how, how long are they watching the video for? Have they watched what percentage of it? And then, you know, are they engaging with it? Right. So yes, engagement is always kind of the gold standard. For any kind of social shares, especially with video. But, you know, views, views is where it all starts. If you don't get in front of people, you don't get exposure. So you got to get the views first.
Yeah, you've got to get the views and then you've got to get the engagement to have a chance to increase the number of views.
Yeah, yeah. But it's, it's kind of like the traditional, you know, in traditional marketing before digital marketing became big. You know, it took 7 impressions for somebody to take an action, right? And those impressions could be across, at the time, newspaper, direct mail, TV, a calendar in your home, whatever it was, right? And, and then now with digital marketing, the number of impressions required for people to take action has, you know, there's not even a good stat anymore because it's just ballooned. Like, you know, 3 years ago it was something like 15, and then within a matter of months, You know, other studies were saying it's 35, and now nobody knows anymore. It just takes a lot of impressions. And so the more impressions you as a business can get, the better, right? That's, you know, I don't think we need to overanalyze it all the time. Just get in front of people because that's the first step.
You need exposure. So go expose yourself.
In an omnichannel way.
I think we just changed the rating of our podcast there.
Yeah, definitely. So, you know, Paul, one last thing for you real quick. You know, we like systems, all 4 of us do, from a marketing perspective. So can you give people just a real quick idea about how to build a sustainable short-form marketing system instead of just popping a video off here or there? You know, 4 months later they think, oh, I need to create a video, I haven't done that for a while.
What—
how can, how can we help people build a better program?
Yeah, systems help you create sustainability. Like you just said, oh, I haven't done a video for 3 months, maybe I should do one, you know. Um, so define 3 to 5 content pillars, and that's going to depend on your business and how many services you offer, things like that. But I would say define your most important content pillars. And create some, some simple templates for, you know, hooks as they call it, and, and style and formats, and then put together a content plan to post consistently. And if that's, if that's using your AI avatar, you know, if whatever that takes, that's why we're talking about these AI tools. But you have to be consistent. And we say that, and it doesn't matter if it's video or blog posts, Or, you know, press releases, whatever, whatever you're doing. I know we're talking about video here, but you have to be consistent. Don't get shiny object syndrome and just start chasing the latest trends because that's what's trendy today. Next week probably won't be. But treat short-form video as a visibility tool. Get, get exposed.
But you mentioned—
You're enjoying this too much, Bob.
Yeah, really.
Well, you're the one that mentioned exposure.
Yeah.
You mentioned a phrase that I think is really important to go back and talk about a little bit, and that is the hook. The hook is the scroll stopper. It's what gets people's attention. It's the pattern interrupt. The visual plus the, you know, the spoken words are that hook. You've got 3 seconds max to get people to stop and watch your video before they move on. So, you know, it's super, super, super important to think those things through. You know, one of the— to kind of wrap this up, you know, one of the things that I think why short-form video is so important now because of the changes in the algorithms on all of the platforms, again, giving credit to TikTok, even if you're not using TikTok for your business, which we we've talked about in other episodes, whether that's a good idea or not. You've got the traditional Google search where people put in a keyword phrase and they're looking for content. You've got the classic old-style social media algorithm stuff where there's still some of that where they deliver content based on who is connected with that, entity that's posting, a person or a business. And now with these short-form videos, it's really more about discovery of content that the platforms themselves think you're most likely to be interested in, not who you're tied to, not what pages you like, not who you follow. So there's a new opportunity here for increased visibility Some of it spills over into both the traditional search and also the traditional, you know, follower-based elements that are, that are still out there. But I think this is why, you know, income, you know, video has been the top performing piece of content on social media platforms for a very long time. And so a lot of, a lot of businesses fall seriously short with all kinds of videos, not just short videos, but all kinds of videos. And well, maybe we'll talk about that coming up in a future episode. But guys, anything else you have to add?
Yeah, the only thing I'd say is, look, in this compressed, always-on world we live in, you know, people are busy, they're stressed, they have shorter and shorter attention spans, probably because they're busy and stressed. And that's why I think consistency and producing a lot of short-form videos is extremely important because the more of those you have out there, the more likely people are to, to come across them.
Yeah, I'll, I'll say if anyone isn't convinced that this is a format that catches people's attention and it could work for them, go to Facebook, um, get into the Facebook Reels, go to YouTube, get into the Shorts section, and And start looking through and see if you don't get drawn in and then come back a day or two later and see if you don't start seeing stuff that maybe was resonating with you before and you're seeing more of it now. It's a great way to get people's attention.
Yeah. The last thing I would say is don't think this is your silver bullet. Again, remember this fits within a larger strategic marketing plan.
Yes. Thank you, Ian.
Hey, you're welcome, Paul. Well, I just find that, you know, people get so myopic, right? That they forget that this can be the way we're presenting this. And this is the way to present it. But some people might get fixated and say, oh, this is the shiny object. This is what I've been looking for. And maybe it is. Maybe this is the piece of the puzzle, your strategic plan that you don't have in place. But remember, it's a piece of the puzzle.
Yeah.
Get your plan in place. What you talked about earlier about analytics, Paul, like measure, because if you're not measuring, you might just be, you know, putting a lot of effort into something even with the systems and processes and AI that we've talked about today. If this isn't going to drive your business forward, then move on to something else. It probably is part of the puzzle though.
Yeah. Yeah, but to that point, you have to give things time. It's like I say with SEO, it's a marathon, not a sprint. You can't, you can't try it for 3 weeks and say, oh, well, hell, that didn't work.
But I tried Google Ads for 30 seconds and it didn't work, Paul.
Right, I know.
So, you know, to put it in the context of the duct tape marketing hourglass, which we all love as well, you know, short-form videos are really great at the know, like, and trust. And the reason I say trust is because one of the great videos that we do for our clients is we'll dump their Google reviews into ChatGPT, have it summarize and identify sentiments, common things that people are saying, and then we'll turn that into a video script or 2 or 3 or 5 or however many based on however many reviews they have. And now there are testimonial-type videos that, you know, that kind of reinforce that trust factor. So it's great for top of the funnel, you know, the know, like, trust before people are making a buying decision. Certainly has aspects in the other elements. But, you know, if you're really trying to be found first to where people are really willing to give your business a shot, I think short-form video is one of— it's almost a foundational thing that you have to do these days. With that, Ian, I am going to turn it over to you and let us— let you take us out.
All right. Thank you to our listeners today and viewers. And thank you to Ken for guiding us through this and for Jeff and Paul and Ian, who was great today. Um, thank you for sharing your case studies. Um, we just ask, like, if you're getting value out of this podcast, please drop, drop us a line. Um, send Uh, do a review, give us a thumbs up on the videos, um, send them around to your friends, your family, and your dogs. And be sure to, uh, what am I forgetting? Smash that subscribe button! Everybody's getting into it, even Paul is.
I am.
And until next week, folks, keep calm and market on in a short-form video kind of way.
Yep.