If you’re increasingly realising the importance of video marketing, you’re on the right page. In this post, we’ll break down how you can use one piece of video to repurpose it into different pieces of content for all your social platforms and in different formats.
Still unsure if you should hop on video marketing? Check out this post on Video Marketing – Should You Incorporate Video Into Your Content Strategy? to get a clearer idea.
Let’s talk you through the process of creating a video marketing strategy.
4 Steps To Creating A Solid Video Marketing Strategy
Step 1: Brainstorm
We always start with brainstorming. You can have a whole list of questions, but these are the 4 key questions to ask before creating content for your subject.
- What are the questions people ask when they’re thinking about working with you?
2. What are questions people aren’t asking, but should?
3. What’s going on that is wrong, bad or the old way, but people think is normal?
4. And what is causing your audience to struggle because they think that’s the way it’s supposed to be?
So these are the 4 questions that are really important to sit down and answer. And they’re going to give you a whole list of content topics that you talk about.
For example, a scrap metal recycling yard company would have these questions that people ask them: “What are the prices doing next month? Should I sort or separate? What should I look for in a scrap yard?”
Questions that people aren’t asking but should are: “How does a scrap yard work? How are materials classified? How do I read the scale?
They talk a lot about a lack of pricing transparency in the scrapping industry, and that’s not necessarily wrong, but it’s the old way of doing things and should be improved.
What’s causing the company’s audience to struggle? They struggle with knowing what’s the right treatment from the scrapyard, what objects to take apart and what objects to leave together.
I like to brainstorm with a buddy, somebody who can take notes while you just talk off the top of your head. Personally, I find that a lot easier than trying to write everything down myself because I miss stuff. So it’s great to go through it with a buddy if you’ve got that option.
So you’re going to take all the answers you have to those questions and come up with some topics to write about or talk about.
In the case of the scrap metal recycling company, it could be:
How often does price change at a scrapyard? What should I avoid in a scrapyard? What are the best resources for new scrappers? And should I take whatever item they decide to talk about that time apart? What should I take apart from a car battery? What should I take apart from a refrigerator?
They’re going to make this into whole theories.
So you’re ready to sit down. You’re going to be recording a video. Create a simple outline. Each video should include a story. So start each video by telling a story that’s not about you. You can be the guide, but never the hero.
If you’ve read StoryBrand ever, you’ll recognize that you can be the guide. Don’t be the hero. You want the video to tell a story that somebody can relate to. If you don’t want to use clients’ names, just change them. It should be a story that’s either about you but you’ve given it a different name, or about a client, something that’s going to illustrate what you’re talking about.
By the way, If you haven’t read StoryBrand, I highly recommend it.
Telling a story is how you connect with your target audience. However, if you’re new to the business and don’t have testimonials from students or with clients that you’ve worked with before, you may struggle on finding stories to tell besides your own personal transformation.
Here’s how you expand on the storytelling then.
It’s perfectly fine to talk about yourself. Just don’t make it obvious that you’re talking about yourself. Usually, if you’re making a video, you’ve probably had different experiences with it personally, or maybe with a friend, not somebody who’s necessarily paid you. You can just make up a different name and tell it as a story that’s not you.
You can use hypotheticals if you can’t think of a story about yourself. You can say, “so what could happen is…”, and then use a hypothetical story to illustrate your point.
Let’s say if you want to be a life coach. Your life gets transformed probably only once in your life and there’s only one big turning point in your life. And of course, you use this turning point as a story to tell that transformation.
You might be wondering, wouldn’t your audience get bored if you keep reiterating this same life transformation?
Tell your full story one time, that’s one thing.
In the next video, talk about something that’s related, but not the same. Maybe you take a little bit of your full story and break it down. And so now, instead of talking about your full transformation, you’re talking about something that happened right before the transformation. You’re talking about how things used to be.
And then the next video, maybe you’re talking about how things were after the transformation. Maybe you’re talking about how that made things easier for you.
Maybe you’re talking about a tool that you use, or maybe you’re talking about a specific day during that transformation period.
So it’s not like you’re trying to tell the same story over and over again. You’re pulling out bits and pieces of your story, talking about before and after the transformation.
In essence, break it down, make smaller chunks, think about ways you could maybe use that story, take a piece out and make it about somebody else.
The beauty of the content strategy is that you really do kind of get very specific questions that you can answer. How do you do this? Why is this important? And it gives you a way to really focus on parts of your story instead of the whole overwhelming story.
Next, you want to have 1 or 3 points. 2 points feel unfinished and more than 3 points, people aren’t going to remember. So you want to have either 1 main point or 3 main points.
Each video should end with a clear call to action. It could be “download your freebie”, “join your Facebook group”, “book a call”. It doesn’t matter what it is, but you want to tell them what the next step is after they’ve finished the video.
Another point to note is, don’t write a script. I know it’s tempting, but really if you’re trying to read a script, you’re going to come off as robotic and disconnected.
The only time we’ve ever seen scripting work is somebody who’s an actor or a speaker who’s used to using a teleprompter. Anybody else, it just looks like you’re reading. And when you’re doing that, you’re also are not making eye contact. One of the most important things is making sure you’re looking through the camera and making eye contact.
Step 2: Record
Step 2 is recording. Here are some tips for video recording.
You want to make sure your phone is horizontal because it’s harder to edit it to be a YouTube video if you’ve recorded it vertically.
You want to make sure your entire head is in the frame. So you want some space above your head and then you want to make sure some of your shoulders and torso is showing as well. You want to make sure you’ve got plenty of room.
Try both sitting and standing to see which is more comfortable. When Emma first started making videos, she stood as it just felt easier for her. She talks with her hands a lot so It was easier to talk with her hands when she was standing. Try both standing and sitting and see which works best for you
When you’re recording, make sure you’re thinking about somebody that you’re talking to. It could be a client, it could be your best friend. Just picture that person in your head and pretend you’re talking directly to them.
Make eye contact. It’s a really big thing. If you’re kind of looking over here and talking, your video is not nearly as engaging as it is if they feel like you’re looking through the camera at them.
Make it real, it doesn’t have to be perfect. Do your best. You can edit out your worst mistakes. You can edit out if you have to pause and clear your throat or get some water. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Don’t feel like you have to be this cookie cutter image. Really just be yourself.
Each video should be at least 5 minutes long if you want to turn that into a blog post. Anything shorter than that, you’re really not going to have enough material.
Try not to make it more than 10 minutes. You want it to be engaging enough. People will stick around but if it’s any longer than 10 minutes, you’re probably going to lose people.
Step 3: Edit
Step three is to edit. You’re going to neaten up the beginning and the end of video. edit pauses, do overs. If your child interrupts, you can edit that part out, but you don’t have to make it perfect. You don’t have to remove every ‘um’ and ‘ah’s.
You’re going to add an intro and an outro. Again, we use Keynote to create these, but you can do it in a ton of different programs. She keeps the intros really simple; it’s got their company logo, the title of the video, and then it transitions into the video.
And then the end screen has their website listed on it. It doesn’t have to be super complicated. Emma likes to add music to the intro. You can also use it at the end.
There are certain people who like the music level dropped, but not completely removed. They like the music behind all of the talking on the video, so that’s also an option.
Then, you’re going to export your video and you’re going to upload it to wherever you’re getting your transcription from. Make sure the words are the right words. Put in punctuation, if you need to. Again, it doesn’t need to be perfect. Do your best.
Once that’s done, you’re going to export the SRT file and hard burn the subtitles onto your video. While you can upload separate SRT files on YouTube or Vimeo, you can also hard burn the subtitles.
80% of people watch videos on mute because they’re on the train going to work, they’re in the room with other family members where they can’t listen to it out loud. Therefore, subtitles are really important.
Now, you’re going to create your 16:9 version, which is horizontal for YouTube, Facebook and LinkedIn.
And you’re going to create a tall version, that can be for places like IGTV, TikTok, Facebook stories… any place that takes tall version.
And then you’re going to cut snippets of the video to share on social media. Some platforms will take 60 seconds, others will take up to 30 seconds, and the lowest is 15 seconds that you want to go.
So go through the video and figure out where you have had a really good quote or where you’ve made a point about something that can stand alone. You want these videos to be able to stand alone on social media and make sense. You can also combine 2 short pieces together to make it make sense if you’re up for it.
In summary,
60-second square for Instagram and Twitter
60-second 9:16 for TikTok
30-second square for Twitter
30-second 9:16 for TikTok and Instagram Reels
15-second square for Twitter
15-second 9:16 for TikTok and Instagram Reels
As you can see, 2 different sizes is really all you need. So each snippet of video you can export into different sizes.
Step 4: Transcribe & Write
So the next step is the transcribe and write.
Start with the transcription you’re going to edit to create your blog post. So you’re going to add your headers.
If there’s a section you can turn into bullet points, do that. You don’t have to stay directly with the transcript. If you’re like, oh, I want to add more to the story. Or there’s a section that I think would be really important to add. Great, expand it.
You want at least 1000 words. But really you just want to make sure you’ve given it good SEO treatment. Make sure you have your keywords and all of that stuff.
So here’s all the things: subheadings, bullet points, clarification, backstory. We always do an external link and an internal link.
And then you got to pull your quotes for social media. So we use them both for posting on social media and for graphics.
We do long-form for Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram. So, you know, that might be three paragraphs. And then short form for Twitter and Instagram.
And then you’re going to create your graphics. So we create three graphics for each post at this point, we do a 16:9 horizontal, a 9:16 vertical and a square.
This just tells you where you can use these different ones. If you want to create something different, this is going to be your content, so create what you want. I know some people want 3 to 5 Pinterest pins for each post, so do that. And then you can create quote graphics for Instagram using the social media copy you pulled earlier.
The 6 Month Posting Schedule
First, you’re going to upload your full-length video on Youtube.
Create and format your posts for WordPress or wherever your blog is hosted and embed your YouTube video in the blog post. This is really important since this has your video accessible from multiple points. It helps people stay on your blog posts longer so that your dwell time is better.
Some people prefer to read and some people prefer to watch, so you’re appealing to more people.
We love Missinglettr for scheduling to Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. Whatever tool you choose, you’re going to schedule your posts by mixing and matching your videos, your graphics, and the social copy that you pulled.
Ever since knowing about Missinglettr, I’ve been using it to schedule my blog posts out on social too! For a full overview of Missinglettr + other tools I use as a blogger, check out this post on the Best Blogging Tools I Use.
So this is Emma’s 6-month posting schedule. It’s just a suggestion, but it works really well for her.
Week 1
Number indicates weekly value.
- Blog post
- YouTube video
- IGTV video
- TikTok video
- Promote YouTube video to Twitter
- Promote YouTube video to LinkedIn
- Schedule a Facebook premiere. Sometimes it goes out the first day, sometimes it’s a day or two later.
- Publish short form social media copy and graphic to Facebook x3;
- Twitter x4;
- LinkedIn x2;
- Instagram x1
- Publish long form social copy with graphics to Facebook x1;
- LinkedIn x1
Weeks 2-4
You’re going to do your short form and your long form again with graphics and or videos.
Number indicates weekly value.
Weeks 5-8
You’re going to have your short form, your long form. And then we do our one minute video to the Instagram feed during this week.
Number indicates weekly value.
Months 3-6
And then for the last 3 months, you’re going to just schedule out your short form and your long form mixed and matched with graphics and video.
Number indicates monthly value.
So here’s what you learned, why content marketing is so important – because it’ll cost you less and bring in more clients than traditional marketing methods.
How video-first content is going to save you time because you record once and then you can use that video to create every other piece of content.
What it means to repurpose content. You’re gonna use your content in different ways across multiple platforms.
How do you use your content effectively? As you can see, you can mix and match each piece to create content for up to 6 months for each video!
It’s important to remember that not everyone likes to consume text or not everyone likes to consume audio, so it’s really important to repurpose content into different multimedia formats. Having a way to have what you’re trying to say be absorbed by as many people as possible is so important.
