Video Strategy and Creation with Gideon Shalwick
Season 3 Episode 6
Crisis Series: Video content and video marketing is doing incredibly well in 2020. Despite the crisis and pandemic, video is booming… offering businesses and personal brands an affordable and versatile channel to reach their ideal audience.
In Episode 6, I chat with Gideon Shalwick, YouTube and Video Marketing Expert for over a decade, as well as an entrepreneur and founder of Splasheo.com, a video service optimising video for social media. Gideon knows video…
We discuss:
- Video strategy
- Video processes and swimming lanes
- Using video for content marketing
- and more…
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Transcript
Fiona:
For the 2020 Crisis Series of This Marketing Life, I am chatting with Gideon Shalwick, a YouTube and video marketing expert for over a decade. He is also an entrepreneur and founder of Splasheo.com.
Gideon currently has nearly 40,000 subscribers on his latest YouTube channel and he loves helping entrepreneurs get their message out to large, global audiences using the power of video. His company, Splasheo.com, is a fantastic tool that makes it easy to create super engaging videos, ready for social media domination.
Welcome to the show Gideon.
Gideon:
Hey Fiona, great to be here. This sounds really exciting.
Fiona:
I’m so glad you could have a chat to be at this time. How are you doing? How is everything going? How are you surviving the lock down?
Gideon:
Yeah, we’re doing great Fiona. We’ve been very blessed, we’re all healthy. Business has been going steady and so far so good. We’re only a few weeks into it, but I think it’s treated as well so far.
Fiona:
That’s very, very good to hear because no one was prepared for this, no one knew what we were supposed to be doing during this. We’ve never isolated like this before. So I feel like we’re all part of some mass experiment at the moment.
Gideon:
Yeah, for sure, there’s definitely been some changes, like working from home and we’ve got three little kids. So that comes with its own little challenges but it comes with its own benefits, too. I’ve actually been able to see a lot more of my children, and spend a lot of time of my wife.
I’m working… it actually feels like I’m working more now too, so it’s kind of an interesting balance. But trying to do that all from home, and trying to keep a professional sort of look and feel to my videos, It’s a challenge.
Fiona:
Yeah, it’s a juggling act, right?
Gideon:
Yeah, for sure, but it’s… It’s like anything I know you, it’s an easy to, focus on the negative things in life, and there are so many good things happening, and I prefer to focus on those things.
The things that are going well and focusing on the things that we can change. I think that makes a big difference when you do that.
Fiona:
No I love that, I love that whole attitude thing. I think it’s that positive attitude that’s gonna help us actually get a lot of positive things from what is happening now.
Gideon:
Yeah, absolutely the way I argue about it, is that you’re gonna get sick or if something’s gonna happen, then so be it, then you deal with it when it happens. And in the meantime, you are wise about how you go about your way, you wash your hands, and do all those sort of things, but… And then get too carried away with what’s happening in the news. They always blow things out of proportion.
As an entrepreneur, I always look at how I can make a positive difference with my gift and talents and that’s the best way that I can make an impact on the world, and make the world a better place.
If I focus on the news articles every day, and all the negativity that’s certainly not gonna help me make the world a better place, so… I think it’s important to stay informed. There’s a balance. Also I think you can’t lose focus on what it is that you’re supposed to do here with your life and using your gift and talents to provide value for others.
Fiona:
You’re absolutely correct and getting right in to your expert area of knowledge, which is video and video marketing, it just seems like this is the absolute best time for video.
So, I’d just like to back track a little bit and ask you, what made you jump into video ’cause you’ve been in video content and video marketing for a while, compared to most people. What drew you to video?
Gideon:
Yeah, it’s interesting you say that, when you think about video marketing, and I’ve been at it for so long.
It’s kind of similar to planting trees in… when is the best time to plant a tree? And same as the video when’s the best time to create a video or get into video marketing? I reckon the best time is probably 10 years ago.
Fiona:
So when you got in?
Gideon:
Yeah… And the second best time is right now, so… That’s one of the things I’ve learned. It’s never ever to late to get into something.
There’s always gonna be an opportunity for you to shine, and create something wonderful. And this has happened time and time again. I’ve been at it for 14 years, and I’ve seen people come and go, and I’ve been in industries where people would say, “Oh this is so saturated, there’s no room for anybody. And then all of a sudden it’s like the industry becomes 10 times bigger or 100 times bigger and it creates all these new opportunities said no one saw before.
So, that happens all the time. So, I don’t think if that if ever… I got to feel like you’re being left behind, wherever there’s attention, wherever there’s a lot of eyeballs in a place… Yes, there may be more competition, but hey, there’s also more opportunity. So it’s just a matter of finding the right way. Yeah, totally.
Fiona:
What is it that you like about video, specifically as a channel?
Gideon:
You know, I’ve asked that question to myself many times. I’ve… but I think I found the answer, the core answer, it’s quite a deep answer, if you’re interested in hearing that, but I mean…
Fiona:
Sure, why not?
Gideon:
I’ll give you the surface level answer first. On a surface level for business, it’s the best medium for connecting with others. It’s just nothing better for making that connection.
I would often travel to the United States, I live here on the East Coast of Australia, but I go to America and because my audience is there, there’s more people there that would recognise me than here in my home country in Australia.
Fiona:
And I think that’s actually that’s where we met. I think we actually met in US, not in Australia.
Gideon:
Right, well there you go. And it’s so interesting when people meet you for the first time and they’ve seen you on video for a number of years, they feel like they know you, like a friend, like…
And you might have never spoken to them before, but when they speak to you, the first time, it’s not for them, it’s not their first time, for them, it’s like they’ve seen you and listen to you for years perhaps. So it’s really, really powerful… That’s the surface lever reason I like video.
A deeper reason. I’ve discovered more recently about myself.
I remember when I was about five years old, I was watching this news anchor on TV, and I thought that looks like the best job in the world. I want to do that one day.
And I don’t know why I had that desire, I was only like five years old, or maybe even younger. And I’ve been trying to figure out why that appealed to me at such a young age. And, like I said, it’s only recently that I discovered what my unconscious drive has been throughout my whole life and it’s a wonderful thing when you do discover it, because then you can decide if you wanna keep it at that, but it becomes conscious or whether you want to change it.
And so for me, my unconscious drive, was the drive for significance, or the drive to feel significant or the drive for worthiness. All those sort of things are the same thing. And…
Fiona:
You’ve really had time to think about this.
Gideon:
I’ve had a lot of time Fiona.
I had basically a two-year break after my previous company, and that I excited. And I was just thinking and reflecting on my previous ten or so years of being entrepreneur and going “What the heck just happened?”
And so that’s one thing that came through really clear and I think as entrepreneurs, that’s often a big driver for entrepreneurs. It’s not the only driver in humanity of course, but I think for entrepreneurs, often times, we create so much, and we create so much value, because we always have this inner unconscious drive…
Fiona:
This craving…
Gideon:
The craving to feel significant and the way you trick yourself into feeling significant is by creating valuable things, by creating companies, by creating products, by creating services. Every time you create something valuable…
Fiona:
I love it.
Gideon:
…people say, “Hey…”, or you can say, “Hey, look how valuable I am and then feel validated.”
So what’s been interesting about that is that video is really coming to play with that, and being able to naturally, help me solve those needs, or that need of significance.
But the catch for me…this was the big thing, was that I realised that it’s a two sided coin, and as long as that search for significance is for the self, you will never ever find it, you will never ever get it. You’ll never completely be fulfilled. And…
Fiona:
It’s in the service of others.
Gideon:
Correct. You got it. So when you flip the coin to searching or desiring the significance for others, then I think that’s where the game really starts changing and that’s when you find it.
It’s kind of like that… I’m not sure if anybody else has said this, but that very thing you’ve been searching for all your life, you can only get it once you start giving it away it. And so it’s exactly the same with this.
Fiona:
No… right. I completely agree.
Gideon:
We got quite deep all of a sudden.
Fiona:
I know. Right off the bat.
Gideon:
Yeah, why not?
Fiona:
No, I completely relate. It is actually why I wanted to do this podcast, because people were saying to me… Oh, but there’s so much going on at this time.
This is a monumental time in our lives. How we are all coping? What are we doing? How are we dealing with this? How are we planning for the future? And I just thought, “Wow my friends are asking me all these questions, maybe I should do a series of my podcast just answering these questions.”
Gideon:
Yes. No, very good. Very relevant.
It’s even more relevant now, but it’s always relevant, to know what to say. What are the right things to say at any given time? And so, yeah, great topic.
Fiona:
Yeah, we digress, but yeah… getting back into video, obviously, because video itself has huge scope, because there are so many different kinds of videos and styles and everything.
I mean, has there been any difference in video and video content, video marketing since this Coronavirus started?
Gideon:
Yes, well, certainly in our Splasheo business, we’ve seen a massive increase in people talking about Coronavirus and videos related to Coronavirus. How to deal with it. How to talk about it. How to run your business during Coronavirus.
So not only that, we also had quite a significant increase in actual video orders placed, for our team to work on, which has been interesting. So, people certainly had a greater desire to communicate via video.
I guess because people can’t get on stage at the moment or be in person, with someone else. So videos is even more relevant now, even more important and even more powerful.
Fiona:
For that connection.
Gideon:
Correct. And it’s interesting you say “connection” Fiona because, if you’re gonna ask me what is the most important thing when it comes to video, I would say, given that we’ve had all these different platforms, all the technology is changing, all the tactics changing… what’s the one thing that stayed the same?
And the one thing that you’ve always wanted to do with video and that is to build connection, that’s it, that’s it.
If you can build connection with your target audience and they feel like they can connect with you either you or someone within your business, or your brand, then you’re gonna win.
You’re gonna be much closer to winning, than if you don’t connect.
Fiona:
That’s fantastic. When it comes to video, obviously, you wanna create that connection…
When you’re planning for video, when you’re doing your video strategy, what kind of time frame… is there a time frame that is ideal, if you’re looking to utilise video and build that connection?
Gideon:
What do you mean with time frame, Fiona, in relation to what?
Fiona:
Obviously just creating one video and uploading it probably won’t do it for a business. You obviously have to think about longer term. And how, how many, how often, what topics… from a strategic point of view, is there an ideal time frame when you’re planning for videos?
Gideon:
Yeah, there’s basically many ways to skin the cat. That’s the saying goes. So it depends a bit on a number of things.
First of all, what are you trying to achieve? That’s the first question, what is your purpose for doing this?
Is it to just connect with people, is it make yourself feel good and significant? Like I used to…
Is it to build an audience, or build leads, or sen people to a sales page… make sales… whatever. What is the real purpose there?
Fiona:
Do product demos?
Gideon:
Yeah, promos and whatever else. I think from there, it helps you decide what the next thing is.
So for example, you could arguably, you just create one really, really good video and you could spend quite a bit of time on just that one video, and it becomes an ad for your business and all you do is hone in on that video, and the messaging, and keep on changing a keep on split-testing it, keep on modifying it, until it’s just the best video for your business, right?
And then use that as an ad. You send ads, paid traffic to it. And over time that video just become better and better and better, and that’s only one video. You just have one video for your whole business. Now that’s sort of an extreme. I wouldn’t recommend that but…
Fiona:
It’s a lot of risk, it’s a lot of dependence on one video.
Gideon:
Well, not necessarily… if you’re going with a view point of improving it, over time. So it’s the same sort of video, but you actually improve it over time, but it’s only one video with one purpose.
Fiona:
Oh okay, I get you, I get you.
Gideon:
Yeah, so maybe I say it’s like a sales video that you use on your home page and then you drive traffic to your home… paid traffic, and then you just constantly iterate to make that video, better and better until you get the conversion right that you’re happy with.
And some businesses that might be fine for them. But there’s other ways of doing it as well.
If you wanna do the content marketing game, that’s… the beautiful thing about content marketing is the whole relationship building thing where, before people even get to your offer, they’ve already been introduced to you or your brand or your ideas or your personality.
And so they’re gonna be much more likely to do business with you so, but it’s an interesting one and I don’t have a definitive answer on it, and which one is more cost-effective from the long run.
If you were to do the one extreme, which is just one video and you spend a ton of money with paid ads, to optimise it and help you get sales ultimately for your business. Or if you spent all that time which is really money as well, on a video content strategy to build an audience and warm people up and then send them to your landing page or your sales page or whatever it is for getting the sale in the end.
But again, it comes…
Fiona:
So, educational videos then, if I guess if you’re looking at content?
Gideon:
Yeah, correct. If it’s content, educational, connection, entertaining, how to… There’s a whole range of content type videos that you can create for building an audience, and education is just one.
It’s just one of many potential genres or different types of video content that you can create.
Fiona:
But do you think most businesses do plan it out like, or should plan it out for 12 months or so, if they’re thinking of getting into video?
Gideon:
Oh gosh, I don’t even think more than a month ahead, to be honest, but…
Fiona:
Oh wow. Well, I suppose, especially with this crisis going on, right…
Gideon:
Yeah, correct. The thing is you don’t know what the future holds. You never know what the future holds. And if you’re publishing content that is not relevant or recent to what’s happening, you have less chance of connecting with people. So the more recent and relevant your content is to now and to what people are experiencing now, the more it’s going to appeal to them right now.
I mean, there is a case for evergreen type of topics and content, but even then, if you’re publishing, if you’re creating something now, and you only publish it in 12 month’s time, it might look a bit old and dreary and look… whatever.
So, I think you do have to plan ahead for it, if you’re gonna do a content game, but maybe not too far ahead, maybe you have the plan in place, but you don’t necessarily have all the topics in place yet, and you listen to your audience, you listen to what they want, and you create accordingly.
Fiona:
Yes, as a Marketing Manager, I normally do… like a 12-month plan, but then I do it in three months chunks, and I review every month, and a small review every month, a bigger review every three months to create that content and pivot, but with a 12 month kind of framework of what I can kind of expect to be creating…
So I guess in that 12 month framework I would say, “Okay I’m gonna publish… aim to produce for a content purposes, a video every two weeks or a video every week but as the time… as the year moves on, I might change the topic of what that might be, might need to be created… as I can imagine many did, when this virus hit and we went into lock-down and I can imagine many content marketers throwing their plans in the bin. And drafting a new one.
Gideon:
And I think what might be even more important than a content plan, and I haven’t really heard any but talk about this, but that is a content process, a content process.
In our business, we really have two Ps to this… only two Ps… for productivity. One is projects and one is processes.
And I learned this from Roger Hamilton…. amazing entrepreneur, futurist, really clever guy, but… With projects, it’s very much defined in the outcome and also in terms of the date, you know when it’s gonna end, you know what the outcome that you want me to… by a certain date. and that’s a project.
So we run projects from our business, but then the other thing we have, are processes, and setting up the process. You might actually have a project to set up the process.
The difference with the process, is it does have a sort of a clear outcome that you want to create from the process, but the process is ongoing. It’s the same thing that happens every day or every week or every month.
It’s like a regular rhythm that you create for making something happen.
So in the case of a process, the outcomes might be things like, an increase in audience size, right? An increase in views, or an increase in traffic, that might be an outcome that you’re working towards, but no single video that you publish will completely give that to you.
It’s the process overall, that will eventually give that to you.
Like habits, right? It’s like building a good habit… once you… the habit of eating well. If you wanna be healthy, you just gotta create the habit of eating well and exercising right? So among other things, but…
Fiona:
Yes, among other things.
Gideon:
But the idea is that you create the habit and you’re not gonna get that end result, just from doing it in one day, or two weeks or whatever.
You got a create the rhythm, so that’s why I think you might have the plan of publishing a certain number of videos for the year or whatever, but it’s not gonna happen unless you’ve got the process in place.
And the process is interesting because it’s not just about saying, “Okay yeah, I’m gonna publish every Tuesday, and that’s it, that’s not enough.
Fiona:
Simple.
Gideon:
Well, it’s not enough, because with content marketing now is there’s a lot… Actually, that goes into it, it is this like…
Fiona:
Oh my goodness, yes there is.
Gideon:
You’ve gotta come up with an idea, so you need a process in place or a mechanism in place for collecting all the ideas first of all, right?
Then you need a process in place for analysing those ideas and prioritising them and then slotting them in, and then there’s another process for creating the actual content.
Maybe there’s a certain process for your studio. Every time you create new video, what are the steps or processes you go through for creating that video?
So there’s like all these things, and then there’s publishing, not even talk about publishing. That’s a whole other process as well, right?
So you’ve got to have the processes in place and one good reason, so that you can actually just know what all the steps are for helping achieve the ultimate outcome. But the other one that a lot of people don’t necessarily realise especially one-man-band kind of shows or one-girl-band shows, is that, once you have a process in place, you can create what’s called swimming lanes. I’m not sure what the proper name is, but basically different tracks that you can outsource to different people.
So for example, let’s say you want to… your dream outcome is to have a very successful YouTube channel.
Alright, so one swimming lane might be “idea generation”, so someone needs to come up with ideas.
Maybe that’s you, as the YouTube owner or YouTube star… you come up with the ideas. Oh, maybe that’s someone else’s job.
The point is you can, once you know the different tracks, you can outsource it. So another track might be, okay… recording of the video, right? So, that’s one track.
That certain person that needs to be there. Maybe someone who operates the camera, or while you’re lifting the talent. So that’s a track. Then there’s another track, it’s like, okay, the video is done now, now need to get processed or edited.
And then there’s another track that says, “Okay it’s all edited, now needs to get published, and now there’s maybe another track. Okay, now that is published now there’s social media management, like, or community management, like, if there’s comments then what happens, who’s gonna deal with that?
So each one of those things is like a different swimming lane. You could call it and…
Fiona:
Yeah, you’re like a project manager.
Gideon:
Okay, well, I’m gonna operate in my zone of genius, as the phrase goes, which might be, being in front of the camera, and that’s all I wanna do. And then everything else you outsource, you outsource the idea generation. You outsource the video production, the social media management, all that sort of stuff, so that all you have to do is turn up and speak in front of the camera… And that frees you up.
So that’s a really, really great benefit of setting up these processes, as well and…
Fiona:
Absolutely.
Gideon:
Part of the process, just to finish it off, is like, once you’ve got the process in place, or part of the process as well as a rhythm, like how often are you gonna repeat this process?
How often do you go through this cycle, the full cycle of each process? Is it daily? Is it weekly? Is it monthly?
Maybe you do some things daily, but other things only weekly and other things only monthly. So you’ve got a build the rhythms into it as well.
Fiona:
Hey what tools do you think are good for managing this process? Is it a piece of software like Trello or Asana or is it an Excel spreadsheet or is it the… What tools do you think are good for managing the process?
Gideon:
Anything that can consistently get you the job done. Get the job done for you. Sorry, that’s bad English.
So, I think the tool is kind of irrelevant because, different people have different needs, and different desires and wants, and different gifts and talents…
We’ve settled on Asana, at the moment for managing these different sort of swimming lanes for us, and that works incredibly well because there’s all sorts of other cool things we can do with it too, but it works really well with a team environment for us.
Fiona:
Yeah, no, I’ve used Asana, I like Asana… It’s very good for divvying out tasks.
Gideon:
And Trello is very similar I guess. I haven’t used Trello for a few years now.
It’s like the kanban approach… that’s, anything where you can have these columns. I mean, you can use a spreadsheet as well, if you want to, as long as you can get the job done.
Ultimately, your viewers, they don’t give a hoot about your process, and what cool tools you use. All they care about is what they can get from you, from your video content, how can you make their lives better.
Fiona:
True, true, with that video content… I mean, are some types of videos more effective or better than others? Is it the talk to camera, like, seen as the most effective or can you use a PowerPoint slide or… Yeah, what do you think about that?
Gideon:
I think it depends on the purpose again. And the type of video that you’re trying to create.
For example, would you create a Hollywood, level movie with Hollywood level budget for a weekly content video? No… Right?
Fiona:
That would be very expensive.
Gideon:
Not even Hollywood does that right?
Maybe they do, I don’t know. But it’s not feasible, right? So…
Fiona:
Netflix does.
Gideon:
Do they produce new movie every week? Are they on that level? I guess then maybe they are?
Fiona:
It’s starting to feel like they are or maybe a TV show.
Gideon:
Maybe if you’re at that multi-billion dollar level, then you can… But for normal folks…
Fiona:
Normal businesses, yeah, true.
Gideon:
You gotta ask the question, “What is video gonna be used for, is it for relationship building is for sending people to a certain web asset that you have, like a landing page for a free resource.
Is it to sell a product or a service? Is it to set up a meeting? Is it just informational and you wanna show people how to do something?
So for example, a talking head video, would be terrible for showing someone how a certain website works or how your user interface works.
You can’t just talk them through it. You’ve gotta show them.
So maybe you could have a combination of the two, and vice versa. A PowerPoint presentation that’s just bullet points of text might be very inappropriate compared to just having a talking head video where it’s important to see the person’s facial expressions and how they move their body, the body language becomes a lot more important when there’s more of a personality-related message to be carried across.
Fiona:
No, fair enough. So it all comes back to the goal of the video and exactly what you’re trying to achieve.
Gideon:
Correct, and it’s always the case. If you’ve always gotta ask the question, before you do anything, what is the purpose, why am I doing this?
Why was… what Simon Sinek talks about… Start with Why.
And I think at the small level as well, you know, Start With Why again, I was like, “Why am I doing this? Why am I creating this content video?
And I’ve been challenged by my growth advisor. He said, I wanted to do this massive big content thing, and by the way, I’m not telling anyone that it’s not a good idea, I still think it’s a great idea, but he just it for this time, right now, is it the best time?
Because it’s gonna require at least 5-10 hours of my time every week to implement this new strategy that I wanted to do. It was gonna be awesome, but he said, “Well is it the right thing to do right now?
And the answer was no. So you could ask… what is the purpose of this thing? And is it time for it right, right now.
Fiona:
Of course… weighing up your resources.
Gideon:
Totally yeah. And content marketing is not always the answer. It depends again on the… Well, it depends on the stage of our business very much. If you’re just starting out and you’ve got cash… you might be better off just going down the paid ads path, focusing on that.
If you’re more established and you also have the cash, you can just build your team to create the content for you to do the content game.
Fiona:
You know… so if you’re looking at producing videos for your business, what is required, what resources are required, what tools do you need, can you do it yourself? Can you still get a good result if you do it yourself, or do you bring in somebody?
I mean, what do you think?
Gideon:
With all that being said, I think a fantastic strategy is, if you’re the business owner, or you’re the face of the brand, is to have those personal video content pieces out there… Where people can connect with you.
And now there’s many different levels of production that you could go, to make it happen. But you can get this done, if you’ve got limited resources, very easily, very cost effectively, and very, very quickly.
At the base level, all you need is a good mobile phone, with a good camera on it.
Optionally, a good microphone, unless you can be close to your phone… if you’re far away from your phone or it’s a noisy environment, it’s good to get an external mic, so you can record the sound properly.
Fiona:
Is that what you are using?
Gideon:
You said what I was using or using now?
Fiona:
Using now.
Gideon:
I’ve got a bit of a fancy set up. I’ve got… I normal use a DSLR camera for recording and I record straight into my computer.
And I’ve got a nice USB mic that I plug into my computer, so everything gets recorded straight onto the computer… it looks good, it sounds good, and it’s quick and easy. Like I just literally turn the light on, turn the camera on, hit record, do my thing, press stop, and I’m done.
And then I push the rest through Splasheo and is like…
Fiona:
Wow.
Gideon:
Yeah, my whole purpose for the last 14 years almost, has been to get rid of video post-production, and that’s why Splasheo exists.
I can now pump out content real quick. I just do my little thing, the record it. And once it’s recorded I just send that file off to Splasheo, and then Splasheo goes and does the description for it… it adds subtitles, adds the headline, puts it into a social media friendly format and sends me back the video within a day and I publish to social media. It’s ready to rock.
Fiona:
So it is primarily just for social media, right? For social media that you can use for campaigns or for content?
Gideon:
Yeah, what other options do we have, other than social media at the moment online?
Fiona:
Well, I couldn’t… I mean, I guess, I don’t know, embedding it on your website.
Gideon:
Yeah, I mean, yes, you can absolutely. I think anywhere where people are gonna be consuming video content.
It’s without a doubt, you’ve gotta have captions on it nowadays. On Facebook alone, 85% of people watch their videos on silent play, and so same would go for Instagram, LinkedIn. I would imagine the numbers are similar, I think anywhere where there’s a feed experience like on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, where your video auto-plays, and people are scrolling, you’ve gotta have captions.
If you don’t have captions what happens is, your video starts auto-playing and the sound is off, and people don’t know what you videos about… And they just keep on scrolling. You miss out on 85% of your audience, so if you put captions there…
Fiona:
So it’s just to get those eyeballs and get that engagement right?
Gideon:
Well there’s two things, actually. There’s all these at least two things, maybe three. It’s the three kings of a video, a social media video.
The first one is grabbing attention. So, you gotta stop people from scrolling. That’s a first thing got to do. The best way we found of doing that is with either movement or having an engaging text-based prompt like a headline.
So all our videos that go out always have a headline, and the headline is compelling. It appeals to people’s deeper needs or struggles or pains of frustrations or desires. And the thing that when they read it, they go… this looks interesting. I should stop and watch this. That’s a very first thing.
The next thing is engagement.
So once you’ve got their attention, you’ve got to engage them. And so the best way we found, well, in the past, the best way we found to engage people was with great content that goes without saying, but then fancy video editing techniques… where you create jump cuts and add B-rolls and all sorts of jazz.
Now that we’ve got captions… now that you can use captions it gets rid of the need for all of that stuff, because by simply adding captions to your videos, people read your videos, when starts auto-playing.
So now, all of a sudden, without you trying to even be engaging with your editing and stuff, your video is just natural engaging.
Because they’re reading, they’re reading the content, they’re reading the video, through the captions, so that engages them. So you first grab them with attention, with a good headline, and then the captions, when they start reading it engages them, and then the final thing is action.
That’s a third king. Once you’ve got them engaged, you get them to take some sort of an action and that depends again on your, on your purpose here. If it’s, you know, for example, one strategy where you can create video content, and the only purpose of that video content is to help you build re-marketing lists.
So, for those, there’s no real call-to-action other than telling people, hey, to “like” this and “share” it with anybody who wants to see it.
And then once you’ve got the re-marketing lists from that, you can run ads to that list, that are more direct response in nature, if you want to.
Or have another one, and even more powerful re-marketing list based off that, so you can, filter people the further they go through your video funnel, so to speak.
So yeah, and you… Yeah, so that’s the action part, right? You gotta ask yourself again, what’s the purpose? And then create the appropriate call to action as part of a video.
Fiona:
Yeah, I guess when you’re making videos, what are the normal Return on Investment metrics or measurements that most people have? ‘Cause obviously you’ve got that… from a social media point of view, you’ve got the “how many shares”, “what engagement”, what do you think are the key metrics that people should be tracking on their videos?
Gideon:
I think it’s a tough one because, if you’re doing pure paid ads with video, it’s much easier, right?
You can go… you can have your goal as a sale, so you’re creating this video ultimately to get a sale. And so, you can work out your cost per acquisition for example, and then you can work at okay, from that, how much can I… how much am I willing to pay per acquisition?
And then from there, you can work out, how much am I willing to pay per click and also how much am I willing to pay per view?
And so in that way you can build out your video paid… your paid video… sort of strategy. And so those are very clear numbers.
Where it becomes less clear is like, if you only do content… organic content, and there is no paid strategy, how do you properly track the return on investment?
Because there’s gonna be a cost for producing the video. Are you measuring that? You’re recording that for a video?
Fiona:
Yes
Gideon:
There’s gonna be… maybe it the cost of hosting or if it’s YouTube, whatever, it’s free. But there might be other costs involved. But then you’ve gotta, you know…
Fiona:
Oh, sorry… you just mentioned YouTube. Is that still the only platform for specifically publishing videos? There’s no other competitors yet are there?
Gideon:
Oh no. There’s heaps…
It depends. Like my friend Nathan Chan from Foundr. He got one of his biggest successes on Instagram, and he’s only recently started on YouTube. He’s got like too over 2 million followers on Instagram and YouTube has being slow for him…
Fiona:
No… But I was just thinking, so you YouTube, is just video whereas Instagram is still photos and videos so that’s why I just wasn’t sure I, fair enough, Instagram is a competing platform for social sharing and engagement and stuff, but I just wasn’t sure if there was another video platform?
Gideon:
There’s always new ones popping up.
The latest one, of course, is TikTok and it’s making big waves.
So, I mean YouTube still the big… 800 pound gorilla. If you’re gonna pick one, YouTube probably gonna be your best. But again also depends a bit on, again your purpose and where your target audience is…
Like if your audience is not actually watching YouTube videos, then maybe it’s not the best place for you to be publishing. But even that can be sort of more complex as well ’cause you might… your audience… they might be on YouTube, but there might not be interested in watching your type of content on YouTube, so you might be able to create content that you know they’re gonna be watching, but it’s not necessarily directly related to your business, but then that’s the way you can funnel them into your business.
But, I mean, ideally yeah…
Fiona:
You just have to test, right?
Gideon:
You just have to test.
And when you combine with paid ads, you can actually get answers really, really quickly. So you don’t always just have to go organic and sit there and wait.
On YouTube, you can publish a video and then run ads on it and see what happens.
You can speed up… you can speed things up a bit, you know… speed up your results so you can learn faster.
Fiona:
I like the sound of that. Rather than waiting around for those organic results…
Gideon:
Correct. It can take a long time to build up a good organic following… purely organic… in 6 months to 12 months… 2 years sometimes.
Another good friend of mine here, Justin Brown from Primal Video. He started way after me. He’s one of those cases, actually, where people said, “Oh this is way too crowded now”. He’s only really been publishing consistently for the last 2 years or so. He’s just gone over 400,000 subscribers on his channel and so he got into a relatively busy space and now is crushing it. So…
Fiona:
How did he do that? Was it just consistency or was it just he was getting… listening to feedback and making changes? How do you think he was so successful so far?
Gideon:
Consistency is definitely one of them. So he published twice a week to start off with.
I think now he is only doing it once a week, but after week there’s a content piece. The other thing is, the key idea with JB, I think, and that’s set him apart for a lot of other people, is publishing content that people are already searching for. Publishing content that people are already searching for…
So him and his brother Mike are big on SEO with video. So what they do is they… and JB’s talked about this publicly… it’s not like it’s a secret… What they do is they don’t publish a video, unless they know there’s a demand for it, beforehand.
So they do their keyword research, and look at the search volume.
Fiona:
The number of searches.
Gideon:
Yeah, for that keyword phrase on YouTube. And if there’s enough, they go, “Okay, boom, there’s our topic. Let’s create a video around it”, and they optimise it for that keyword phrase, and then magically… surprise, surprise…
There’s start getting all this search traffic coming out.
A lot of JB’s traffic’s coming from search and suggested content… because they are doing this strategy.
Fiona:
Do you know what his channel is called? I might put a link to it…
Gideon:
Just search “Justin Brown, Primal Video”.
Oh yeah, it’s a brilliant channel. He’s got a lot of great tips about video marketing, video production, all the tools you need. Yeah, it’s brilliant. He’s a great guy, funny, fellow Aussie. So yeah, good, good.
Fiona:
Great. Cool, thanks for the tip.
So, yeah, so I know we’ve gone off track a little bit, but just in terms of the metrics, so obviously you’re measuring number of views on a video, you’re measuring how long somebody watches the video for, and then you’re looking at the goals in terms of… does that video convert your overall goal… does it… are you able to use it for re-marketing or does it convert into a list, or does it convert into a sale? I guess those are the main metrics right?
Gideon:
Yes. You measure what’s important for you, for your business. If it’s sales, that’s what you’re measuring. If it’s more vanity related, if your search for significance is a bit greater, you might be more interested in views or subscribers than actual cash.
You can get a lot of very famous people that are completely broke and they’re okay with it.
I’m not sure if the okay with it, but that’s a pretty… very… I would dare-to-say… common scenario. We get people that are… they seem successful and certainly famous, but they’re not necessarily…
Fiona:
But they haven’t known how to monetise it…?
Gideon:
They don’t know how to monetise it, or they don’t know how to deal with money, or they don’t know how to create a business system around their… around their audience. Lots of different reasons.
Fiona:
Yes. Oh, I know you just can’t have those vanity metrics, but I think especially if you’re B2B, and you need those vanity metrics just to tell if your content is relevant, and if the right people are responding to it?
Gideon:
Well, here’s how I look at content marketing… I was a business presentation once, in the audience and the speaker asked the audience, “Okay, everybody, please raise your hand if you’ve heard of Tesla.”
And of course, everybody’s hand went up.
And then he said, “Okay, next question: Which one… how many of you are actually own a Telsa?”
And then, only one or two hands went up. There was about a room of 100 people and they’re all sort of, wealthy, entrepreneurial folks.
Yeah, and so, the point that he made was saying, “Okay, so you all know about Tesla, but you’re not all necessarily customers… while not yet anyway”, so why is that? And so, what have they done to be able to achieve that?
I think with content marketing, you can achieve something similar where you can create this, what shall we call it… this wave of attention around your brand or business or product or service, and not everybody’s gonna necessarily be your clients but they will talk, they’ll chatter.
Look at Tesla. They just had a bit of a price drop because Elon made a funny Twitter remark, or something and… But it’s still an incredibly valuable company and that’s part of it, it’s like… ’cause they’ve done such a good job. Well, not necessarily with content, but the… Yeah, let’s call it the Tesla-affect…
Fiona:
The brand.
Gideon:
You know, where everybody knows about it, but you don’t necessarily go and buy one, not everybody does anyway, so yeah.
Fiona:
True. But no, I think it’s the long-term vision of Tesla that it doesn’t… the company doesn’t seem to be short on focused on just short-term outcomes.
Gideon:
I think that’s a good point, yes.
Fiona:
I think that.
Gideon:
Definitely… Yeah, and the same goes for content. It’s not a short-term game. You’ve gotta be in it for the long haul. And yeah, so…
Fiona:
It takes a while to build up that trust. I know video can circumvent that a little bit, because you’re more real and people can see you and see what you have to say and see what you have to sell. It can shorten… video seems to shorten that a little bit, but it still takes that time…
Gideon:
It takes time, but once you have it, once you have a big audience built from social media and you’ve got that relationship with them, that is worth gold.
Not only is it worth gold but you also become kind of like a king maker. I’ve been in this situation before, on both sides where I’ve been, the one… desiring to become the king… to become relevant and have my own audience. So I’ve been on that side.
But I’ve also been on the side where I have been the king in a certain industry, and I could just, with one email change someone’s life completely and, or put them on a path, or give them a kick start, change them into some sort of a little king, you know?
So, you become a kingmaker, which with any sort of level of power, becomes this responsibility as well, right? He could have be really wise as you build this audience.
Yeah, absolutely.
Fiona:
That is power.
Gideon:
I think, yeah, you’ve got to keep that mind as well, as you grow, that you’re gonna have to become responsible.
You can make a funny remark that you don’t think much of, and all of a sudden the value of your business halves overnight. Yeah, so… at the same time. Yeah, you could use it for good, you could make a comment about someone’s business and double their business overnight too.
Fiona:
Yeah, things move very quickly now. So… I mean, this has been such an amazing chat… I’ve really gotten into video and the ideas of video and…
Where do you think video is heading? We’re in 2020 now, where hopefully, at least in Australia, on the other side of the curve of the pandemic, we’re looking at opening up.
What do you think could happen with video into the future? Is AR coming?
Gideon:
What do you mean, is virtual reality? Artificial….?
Yeah, intelligence. I get what you’re saying… I mean, that’s exactly what I’m also thinking. I would like to imagine that one day, me and you, could be talking to each other, that looks and maybe even feels like face to face but we’re in different parts of the world.
And being able to be in an environment that maybe looks like reality but it’s not… And being able to interact with people, well, with the avatars of other people, at least. But as if it’s real…
Fiona:
Yeah.
Gideon:
And I think if you track things like Moore’s Law, and how technology is improving how, I mean… If you compare video games today, compared to even 5 or 10 years ago. I mean, I compared to… not sure if you wanna share how old you are, but I’m 42 right, so when I was a kid, when I was like, I remember, I was like… I would have been 10.
Fiona:
Were you playing Duke Nukem?
Gideon:
I’m not sure about that one, but we played Double Dragon. We played Double Dragon like crazy.
Fiona:
Wolfenstein?
Gideon:
It was the green version of Double Dragon, they didn’t even have colour back then. South Africa was a bit behind where I grew up.
So we were behind the rest of the world, but we had Double Dragon in green, so the only reason I would visit my friend, hopefully he’s not listening to this, but the only reason I went to visit him because they had a computer and we didn’t, and they had games on the computer…
And it was Double Dragon, that we would play and we played that game… for ever. That’s… relatively speaking, in the big scope of things, in the history of human kind… that’s like a few years ago or so. Then, gosh, and then other 30, years, where are we going to be?
If we went from little green, little pixelated men, punching each other, to now where, some of these racing car games are… sometimes you mistake yourself… that’s like real footage. And it’s actually just some CGI that’s been generated. It’s amazing.
So I think it’s probably gonna, go more and more in that direction I am guessing.
Fiona:
Exciting.
Gideon:
I think we’ll probably always have the need for actual video, like we have now, but who can tell the future for sure?
Fiona:
Yeah, no, I was talking the other day with Hayley from News Corp, she’s the Event Manager, and she was talking about how she’s been setting up online events and how… now there’s this… when you turn up at an online event you go through the front door of the building, and you sit in an auditorium, and you can see avatars of other people…
And I think the future of online events, I think definitely ties in to… It’s gonna cross over with video marketing, and video content… as the technology… as we ride this innovation wave I think that is even happening now.
Gideon:
A thought just popped into my mind, that I think is important, and it is relevant for both now with your video marketing, but also the future for virtual… let’s call it “virtual marketing” and that is…
Yeah, I coined it! If anybody uses it… I coined it.
I’m sure someone else has said that already… the virtual marketing side. And that is the importance of creating experiences for your audience, as opposed to just content.
So think in terms of experience, more than just content.
So when you create a video, think about how can you create… what can I do so that your viewer actually feels something? So that they don’t just get something into their brain, but they get something into their heart as well?
How do you… structure your content in that way? So I think that’s something too… pretty cool to think about.
Fiona:
Yeah, I love it. And with that, I have kept you for way too long. I am so grateful that you’ve come on the podcast today, to talk about video marketing. Maybe the next time we’ll have to do it, on actual video…
Gideon:
I thought you were gonna say…. next time we talk about virtual marketing.
Fiona:
I think… You don’t know, actually we could talking about virtual marketing, you don’t know… Your phone might ring hot after this gets out, so you don’t know…
But thank you so much Gideon. I mean, if someone does wanna reach out to you or get in touch with you, where can they find you?
Gideon:
Well there’s a couple of places, if you are interested in getting a video caption and increasing your engagement on social media, certainly head on over to Splasheo.com. And there’s currently a 7-day trial, we you can get your first 4 videos done completely free.
And this all human-based, we don’t use AI or any virtual sort of stuff, or AR… For creating the captions…
Fiona:
Real people.
Gideon:
We have real people doing the work.
So those first 4 videos, you get to experience a service as you’re a full paying client. So you can go and grab it there.
But if you wanna connect with me personally, just head on over to LinkedIn, search me on there… Gideon Shalwick, and connect with me and say you’ve had a listen to our chat here, and more than happy to connect with you to have a chat.
Fiona:
Awesome, awesome, well, thank you again. I’m glad you’re doing so well during this crisis and you’re gonna be a bright shining star out the other side, I’m sure of it, and… No, I look forward to chatting with you again.
Gideon:
That was great fun Fiona, I really enjoyed it. Thanks so much. Bye.
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