How to Make Great Videos for Social Media – DSP 251

Derek and Graham talk about video content, and how to use it effectively on social media. There’s a lot of wisdom in keeping videos short and to the point, but they also recommend keeping them low tech (unless you can go really high tech).

Derek also issues a challenge for every float center listening, by September, everyone should go out and film a testimonial video and post it on social media. If you do, let Derek know by sharing it with the Float Tank Solutions facebook page.

Now is the time to make all your preparations for this years Float Conference!

Listen to Just the Audio

Transcription of this episode… (in case you prefer reading)

Graham: All right. Welcome.

Derek: Hello, everybody.

Graham: And that is Derek Wyatt, rocking the other mic. And I am Graham. And we’re missing an Ashkahn again today. Again, he’s prepping for the upcoming Float Conference. In the meantime, we’re gonna be answering some marketing questions for you, which is kind of Derek’s area of expertise.

Derek: Or so they say.

Graham: And today’s question is, “I’ve heard somewhere that video content is doing really well on social media right now.” I wonder if it was from video content marketing advertisers on social media. Anyway. “What do you think makes great video content?”, is the actual question. And I guess secondarily is is video content doing good on social media right now? Is that a thing?

Derek: It’s preferred for social media platforms, simply because video content sometimes can take longer to consume. As we’re thumbing through Facebook, we can quickly read quick little short headlines and be on with our day, but if it’s a video and the first few seconds of that video intrigue us, then we’re down a rabbit hole of watching a five minute video about rescue dogs and you’re feeling really bad and you want to go to the pound and now rescue a dog. Not saying that’s actually something that’s ever happened to me, but yeah, so video content can actually keep people on a social media platform longer, which is in the benefit of that platform, because now they have the opportunity to show you more advertising.

They’re weighting their algorithms heavily towards Instagram TV, Facebook Watch. YouTube’s still a thing. Having these platforms where it’s capturing your time watching videos is kind of the thing right now as far as what’s best for advertisers.

Graham: Gotcha. Sure. That makes sense. And then because it’s being rewarded by Facebook, it means that yeah, it is good right now for social media. You kind of get to ride this wave of extra encouragement that they’re doling out in the form of attention or giving video longer spots on feeds and things like that, presumably. I know all this stuff is behind a wall of algorithms that we don’t understand. Theoretically, that’s what’s going on.

Derek: I would also say it’s beneficial to create video content, ’cause it’s just a different way people learn. I’m not the best reader. I’m very slow, but I do try to read at least two books a month, but it takes me time. But I can literally watch a video and almost recite back what it said in the first time, so it’s kind of one of those things, depending on your learning style, video just might reach a person. There’s more emotion through video. You can have visuals that you intend for people to see through video instead of like reading something, they’re using their imagination. So, you can have more intent with video.

Graham: I guess another one that’s getting really popular, so I assume it’s performing well with A/B tests and stuff like that is having sort of a background video load on your website, kind of when people first get there, with maybe a call to action. Like in this case, it would be like a float tank or something in the background, a little like pan into it so you can see it, and then right on the screen is a “Book Now” button. Something like that I’ve also seen, it’s not quite social media content, but for video content on modern websites, that seems to be getting way more pervasive.

Derek: I think they call it the parallax view or something like that where there’s motion going on behind the background of a website. Is that what you’re talking about?

Graham: So, the parallax is like when you scroll, kind of do a weird display of things where they seem to be floating above and below each other. This is more like on load video background.

Derek: Okay. I see what you’re saying. I was also thinking, too, having a landing page where a video was above the fold, so that’s another way a video can actually be useful and showing people what’s around your center. There’s some great videos out there that maybe people have done about your center, maybe resharing those on social media. It’s not going to be something you can control. They can delete their account, but as long as there’s good video content out there, use what people have already created. Now, creating your own video content, I think this person’s asking what makes good video content.

Graham: And specifically for social media sharing. It’s good on social media. So, let’s just ignore all the website stuff, like video above the fold, ignore the video loading in the background. So, just for let’s say Facebook. What makes a good video to be able to launch on Facebook?

Derek: One of the things Facebook likes is a video that’s gonna keep people watching it the whole time. So, if you post a video on Facebook, you might see two different stats. You might see like average time watched and you might see like three second views. Three second views is what they count as like you’re scrolling by a video, you happened to have seen it, it’s kind of like an impression, but you didn’t get past the first three seconds, whereas Facebook wants to reward videos that are keeping people on the platform longer, they’re watching all the way through, 50, 60, 80, 90% through the video, and so in order to do that, shorter videos are often better, ’cause of the attention span on social media in general. You’re there to escape, consume as much as you can, and then get off.

If it’s 90 second video or less, that’s probably the ideal length. That hearkens back to why television commercials are 15, 30, sometimes 60 seconds. It’s because you’re trying to keep people informed and entertained and keep the message short.

Graham: Let’s talk about those first, which is almost like an advertisement for your float center, and then I’ve seen another form, which could probably be kept short as well, but I see usually more long form, like three to ten minutes, which is testimonial interviews with clients post float, which I kind of think have their own place in kind of the video world of social media as well, is just getting like these really nice, personal stories about people’s experience in float tanks. But I’d put that in almost a different category than doing these shorter ads.

Derek: Right. And you could even have a longer piece and chop it up a little bit to make a nice, shorter piece that leads into a longer piece. So, you can have a 90 second or a 60 second trailer to your 10 minute interview video, so you’re showing the best snippets and then trying to say, “To watch the full video, click here”.

Graham: I like that. That’s pretty much what you would do, then, if you were doing it on Facebook, is kind of limit it to these 60, 90 minute spots? And then if you do even have a longer video, just use those shorter spots to link over to that?

Derek: Yeah, that’s the ideal plan. It’s not what I’ve done in the past. Sometimes if there’s a 30 minute conference video, I’m putting it on the conference site and people are just gonna have to sit there and watch it, because I don’t have the time to chop up all the videos and pull out the best stuff.

Graham: Sure. We’re not even talking about how to manage your time just ideal setup.

Derek: Right, right. I’m just talking like float, just float content out there in general. I would have something that, if you can capture people’s attention and they want to view more, let them view more. So again, playing with the algorithms, if your video is short enough that Facebook’s gonna say, “Hey, people are watching 90% of this video. They seem to really like it. Let’s show it to more people.” And then if you really had a 10 minute video behind that that people can watch, like the next thing they can watch, then that’s probably a strategy I would probably shoot for. I’m a fan of the testimonial videos. Those are great. As many variety of stories as you can get is always better, ’cause somebody out there is going to be able to relate.

Graham: Yeah, for sure. Again, to me, that’s almost something you can, without optimizing it, like slam up. If you have testimonial videos, just release them on your page. Those are just great content. Some people really don’t know what to expect going in, and seeing faces of people in their town, people who floated in, not just in general, but in your tanks, saying what an amazing experience they had, being able to actually see the inside of your center hopefully for the interview, that’s stuff that can just make your clients feel a lot more comfortable. So, regardless of advertising money or anything like that, even if you’re just doing it off your iPhone, not professional, put those up any time. I think you have a carte blanche to just do whatever you want with testimonial interviews and get them up there.

The other ones, I think Derek said, you’re trying to combat this giant Facebook stream of all of these, your friends saying interesting things and sharing links and stuff like that, so for this shorter form advertising video, assuming you’re doing that, figuring out how you’re going to catch their attention and get within that first three seconds, they need to decide to stop scrolling. So, whether that’s you’ve written out a fact like, “What floats in 1200 pounds of Epsom salt?”, and they’re like, “Wait, what is this video about?” Or something like that. Or just a cool image of someone floating, or a bowling ball floating in water. Or something to just catch their imagination and attention so they listen for the next three seconds, which means shocking thing number two has to happen in the next three seconds.

And then you can kind of fade into what you actually want to say and what you’re doing, but that first impression is gonna be, it’s hard to stop the Facebook scroll. So, spend a lot of time on your first three seconds.

Derek: One of the strategies to stop or slow down that Facebook scroll, or even Instagram scroll, is you’re noticing a lot of these videos are playing muted. So, the first three seconds is actually written word instead of scrolling across the video that are matching the words that are being said. So, if those three seconds are gold, count on the fact they’re probably on mute. Let them see the words scrolling across the video and then decide to actually hit the sound button to turn it on to listen to the rest.

Graham: In an ideal world, I think you’d have the entire thing subtitled, or at least the closed captions are done totally correctly so that if it’s muted the entire time, you can still read exactly what’s going on.

Derek: Right. And there’s people you can model after, like the Dodo. It’s a show or a channel on Discovery Channel. I haven’t even seen it on TV. I’ve seen it more on social media. It’s these short little stories about rescue animals and you just, the way they do it is that headline and text, and then there’s text all the way through it, but the sound, the audio kind of tells a different story, so you want to tune in to each one, ’cause you’re reading words and then there’s a narration over it, and they’re done really well in the way they’re actually telling a story that pulls at the heart strings, that gets people interested to even go find the next one and watch the next one.So, they have a really good format for storytelling.

Graham: Yeah. The unfortunate thing is doing really nice, professional videos like that is going to cost a little bit of money.

Derek: Absolutely.

Graham: Or pulling some favors and trading some floats. But it’s not easy. Making good video content is not easy, and it means a lot more work than if you haven’t worked in video, you might assume otherwise. It’s not just going in with a nice video camera. It’s spending all the time to light it. It’s actually kind of scripting out what you want ahead of time and all the shots that you need. It’s then editing those together, it’s color correction, sound. You can have the most beautiful video in the world and then if you didn’t take time to really make sure that you have good mics set up, maybe you’re even in a studio and dubbing over certain parts so that you make sure to get a really clean recording, all that stuff, although it shouldn’t reflect on the quality of your float tank center.

That’s why there’s almost, just like with everything, there’s kind of this uncanny valley of quality, which is why I love the testimonial video idea. If you don’t have money, if you don’t have time, and you want to get video out there, just offer to trade a free float or half off a float for customers who are willing to hop on the camera for five minutes and give a testimonial. ‘Cause then you can just release that and people will recognize you’re just basically filming with your phone and this is very true, just, it’s from the real world, unedited kind of stuff, and as soon as you start scripting and editing, you kind of have to kick things up like 10 notches. ‘Cause if you only kick them up five or six notches, it looks just kind of like unprofessional, attempted video editing. So, you really have to kind of go either really just single take lo fi or really extreme and you’re actually pulling on some professionals to work with, in my opinion.

Derek: Yeah. Don’t use that Windows Video Editor slide in home screen. That’s probably not the way to go. But having even just a little bit of thought in your video will matter, too. The testimonial videos are great, but that’s just only one method of actually sharing what a float’s about. So, I think there is some value, even if it’s done on an iPhone, to show them a transition, not a transition, but show them a walkthrough, a walkthrough video that people can actually look at the tanks, or just even silent videos of the tanks with text facts on it. Something that just, again, is more video content that they can actually sit and watch on a platform, and just find different ways to reach different people, showing them that this is for them.

Graham: Yeah. At that point, you’re kind of, Facebook Live in that case becomes a really good platform for doing things like this. You’re saying, “Hey, this isn’t pre scripted. I’m not doing a bunch of takes. I am actually just doing this live.” And again, the nice thing is some of the pressure’s off. They’re not expecting then this really polished result. But if you’re running Facebook ads and you want a really good video ad, that’s where hey, take our advice, really make sure that you’re bringing them in these first few seconds. Make sure it’s subtitled, maybe just all text at the beginning, and again, pay a few thousand dollars and bring in some professionals to really help make this thing.

And also I will say, don’t assume the professionals know what they’re doing. So, do your own research on what works for Facebook ads. Things like again, keeping it short, like the subtitles. They might not have that in their heads, even though they work in video all the time. They’re not marketing experts themselves. So, you might have to do some education and come in with your own plans. Don’t just trust professionals’ advice, like us. Don’t assume that because we’re talking we actually are fully experts in what we’re talking about.

Derek: I feel like the float industry could use more video content. I kind of want to go off script a little bit here and throw a challenge out to everybody.

Graham: Off script? We don’t have a script?

Derek: What are you talking about? It says right here, “I’m going to go off script.” No, but what I would like to see by September, have every float center out there that’s listening to this get a customer testimonial video and put it up on Facebook. And then we can all see it, like it, share it, share it around. The more testimonial stories, it’s not like one center has to bear the burden of 100 different testimonial videos. If 100 centers out there put out one video, we’ve got 100 pieces of content now floating around the Internet.

Graham: And fortunately, there are a lot of testimonial videos out there. Again, and definitely do this, take the Dare Bear challenge and record your own testimonial.

Derek: DJ Dare Bear Challenge.

Graham: But yeah, the nice thing again is I think there really is something about your prospective customers and your future floaters being able to take comfort from people who have been in your center specifically. So even if you do have, even if someone can do a Google search and find these testimonials of people floating, what the people who are nervous to come into your center are probably looking for is someone who’s been in to float specifically at that place. They want to know that the experience at your center is great.

Derek: Exactly.

Graham: Doing your own videos, regardless of what else is out there, I think is always a great idea.

Derek: If you can capture that video in your center, even better. If they want to create that video at home and send it in to you, that’s fine as well, too, but let’s say you put a sign up, I’m just, I’m freeballing here. Let’s just make up a little challenge for people. Let’s come up with an on the spot marketing campaign for the industry that produces more video. Let’s say one unannounced day, you have a pretty full schedule, so the odds are high somebody will say yes. You have a sign in your center, “Would like a free float? Tell us how this float was.” And they come out of their float and you capture them right then and there on your cell phone and they can just give that blissed out, “This is how my float was,” and then they get a free float for it. And you only have to do it for one day. It’s unannounced, so the word’s not gonna spread around the Internet. It might be a good incentive to get people to start talking about floating on video.

Graham: Yeah. I like it. Do it.

Derek: All right. There we go.

Graham: Go out and give some free floats.

Derek: Every center has until September to produce one video. This episode totally took a different turn than you expected, I can see it.

Graham: We’ve never put out video challenges, so yeah, if you liked it, complete the challenge and let us know.

Derek: And if you didn’t, we won’t know, because you won’t put out a video.

Graham: I guess that’s true, yeah. Put out a video about how much you didn’t like it if you didn’t like it. Huh? What do you think about that?

Derek: The Graham/Derek Challenge.

Graham: All right. If you have questions of your own, go on over to FloatTankSolutions.com/podcast.

Derek: Take care, everybody. And I’ll see your video soon.

Graham: All right. Bye.

Derek: Bye.

Latest Blog Posts