How Video Short Clips Can Transform Your Business with Alex Minor

NOTE: This podcast was transcribed by an AI tool. Please forgive any typos or errors. SPEAKERS Alex Minor, Erin Ollila Erin Ollila 00:04 Hey friends, welcome to the Talk Copy to Me podcast. Here we empower small business owners to step into the spotlight with their marketing and messaging. I’m your host, Erin Ollila. Let’s get started and talk coffee. Hello friends today I am here with Alex minor. And you may know him as the guy who knows everything about video. But one thing you might not know about Alex is that he actually used to be a professional, freestyle rapper. So Alex, Have you shared this as a fun fact anywhere else? Alex Minor 00:46 Yeah, I use it as like my fun factor thing people don’t know about me, because a lot of people are surprised. Erin Ollila 00:51 Does everyone put you on the spot and ask you to just do some freestyling because like, that’s what I want to do right now. People do do that. Now I’m joking, I won’t put you on the spot for that. But when I did read that I was like, let’s just change everything we talk about and just freestyle rap together for a good solid 45 minutes and make people listen to that for this episode. If you heard what I said before, we are here to talk about video shorts, and how they can be used in your business. I know we’ve talked about video a little on the podcast, especially during our social media series. And we’re going to be talking a little bit more about YouTube specifically. But I’m excited to have you here today to kind of talk about the idea of short form video, right? Like, we can create bits and pieces. And we don’t have to think of it only as reels. But there’s so many options kind of for creating video. So can you kind of give us a little bit of a definition of sorts on what a video short would be? Alex Minor 01:53 Sure, on most platforms, what’s going to be considered short form video content is going to be video that is in a vertical orientation, meaning cell phone style tall video, and then it’s going to be under a minute. And anything that you want to keep it under a minute is not only for our squirrel, like attention spans, but just because some of these actual platforms, the way that they’re building, the feature is it doesn’t recognize it as short form video, if it’s not under a minute. Now, most of the platforms have gotten away from this that they’re a little less strict on it now, like tick tock LinkedIn had a 10 minute time limit. I think that that may have been extended Instagram reels, pretty much they made all video reels except for stories. So now it’s anything goes as far as the length of a video and you can call it a reel. But if you want to keep it into that short form context, you really want to aim for under a minute. And then on YouTube, YouTube will actually not let something be labeled a YouTube short if it’s even one second passed a minute, because if you go to somebody’s YouTube page, it puts the shorts in a different category. So when you’re trying to develop the short form content, and and make sure that it’s as digestible as possible, easy to consume, you really want to aim for under a minute if you can keep it under 30 seconds, even better. Erin Ollila 03:19 Oh, thanks for sharing that. It’s so funny, because like you first said it and like I felt like a second of panic, because I was like, oh, gosh, I talk so much. How am I going to keep this under a minute. But then it reminded me I have an online literary journal that I’ve had for about 10 years now. And we actually only read short fiction, nonfiction poetry. So our longest things that we read are under to 2500 words, and our flash category is under 750 words. And I don’t see anything wrong with that, right? Because sometimes constraints can kind of actually build creativity. So it’s like if you, I think if you go into video knowing that like, Alright, I’m going to use this timeline as a creative push, not as like a constraint, you know, you’re probably have a lot better output that way as well. Alex Minor 04:08 You have to use the limitations to inspire you, is how I like to look at it. And you will often find that limitations do inspire you. Because what it’s doing is taking away possibilities. It’s taking away decisions that you have to make. And we all know analysis paralysis is a thing. So the fewer choices that you have to make, when it comes to doing something usually the easier it is for you to have to do it. Erin Ollila 04:38 Oh my gosh, yes. But and I as someone who has ADHD, I can absolutely say that, like making decisions is sometimes the hardest part in doing anything. So it’s like once you kind of have the systems built and you know how you want to approach things. It’s just so easy to jump in and do the work at that point. Alex Minor 04:57 Right frameworks are very important, especially if you’re going to be Developing a lot of content over time, you kind of have to develop your methods or your style in or buckets, however you want to put it. But just having kind of a set way that you do things can be really helpful for creating a large volume of content. Now, that doesn’t mean you can never go outside the box that you can be creative and do new things and go different places with it. But having kind of your unwritten rules in place are by all means write them down if you need to. But having those in place, having that structure will make it easier to create content quickly, Erin Ollila 05:36 before we jump in and kind of talk about like the creation process where to use them. Let’s talk about the benefits to small business owners. You know, because I love the way that we’re coming at video as it being something that’s not just social media related like that it is like a form of content. Because I think if you look at it that way, like we were just talking about creativity wise, you know, it’s easier to ideate strategize and implement if you’re thinking of content versus how you show up on social. So what are the benefits of video shorts for small businesses who are looking at going into video as their main content source this year, Alex Minor 06:17 expanded reach. And, and I’ll explain that. So what’s happening is tick tock, Instagram, YouTube, to a lesser extent, other platforms like Twitter, like Pinterest, even LinkedIn, they’re all in a war for attention, right. And those big three especially in that, and Facebook kind of goes hand in hand with Instagram, because same company, they’re they’re duking it out, tic tock came in and made such a big splash, that it scared these other platforms, they were they’re afraid of losing market share, they’re afraid of losing revenue, because people are spending their time elsewhere. And so what happens when the big boys get scared, they start copying, they’re trying to eat the lunch of the other person that’s coming in and trying to take everybody’s attention away. So you got the Instagram reels, and then you got the Facebook reels, and then you got the YouTube shorts. They’re really just trying to copy what tic TOCs doing and get their audience back. Even though the audience is on each of those platforms, even for the short form content has developed very differently. People go to those platforms for the short form content for content for different purposes. And because of there’s this war going on, what’s happening is a thing called over indexing is basically they’re tweaking the algorithms on all of these platforms, to give more relevance to give more reach to the short form video content. Erin Ollila 07:59 Yeah, so with all of this, like platform copying, though, do you think that they’re the platforms that are doing the copying, even kind of know they’re left from right at this point, or, like, I know, you say that they’re doing the over indexing and giving more attention to video. But when it comes down to being a creator, should we be a little more anxious about using non Tiktok places for our video? Or should we look at that as more of an opportunity, Alex Minor 08:25 you should try them all, as many as you can handle. And the reason I say that is because like I said a moment ago, the audiences are different on each platform. But because the vertical video fits on each platform, you can use it on all of them, you can use the video on tick tock, you can use a video on reels you can use it on YouTube shorts, you can use it on LinkedIn, even because the LinkedIn mobile app favors tall video, the content will perform very differently in those different places. Yeah, Erin Ollila 08:53 so I mean, if you’re a small business owner, that’s really been, you know, showing up on Instagram for some time, and you’re doing well on Instagram, maybe that will be like the, you know, an easy to perform platform. But the idea of putting your content everywhere is because we don’t actually know unless you have the data because you’ve done this before with non video content, which I would still suggest because it’s a completely different form of content you try again, but unless you have the data, you don’t know how you’re going to perform on the different platforms. So, you know, it’s the best part of marketing, I think, is testing to get data to understand what’s working. And I know it’s also the part especially the smaller size businesses feel the most stress about because it takes time to see what works well. But it’s also where you can really then shape an entire marketing strategy. Once you see what’s performing what works well. You know, where to show up, you know what kind of content they want, and you can kind of just run with it at that point. Alex Minor 09:50 Yeah, and we have to have some empathy for small business owners because unless you started a marketing ad marketing agency, you did not get into business to do marketing. You got into business to perform a service you got into business to sell a product or multiple services or multiple products. And you’re trying to do what you’re good at, or, you know, fill a gap that you see in the market, you did not want to become a marketer, and for small business owners who are wearing all the hats, taking the time to sit down and actually map out a real marketing strategies difficult. I mean, it’s difficult for me, and I run a video marketing agency. But because I believe in practicing what I preach, and showing that the power of video works, you know, I don’t want to be a snake oil salesman or the Bible. But I figure if I’m going to sell this, I have to use it. And I have to show people that I believe in it enough to do it. And, and that’s something that I see not just a lot of video videographers or video agency owners or marketers in general. Most of them don’t practice what they preach, they go around selling stuff, they don’t use it, they don’t market their agencies, they don’t use video content, if they’re selling video like, and to me, that’s just weird. Erin Ollila 11:09 Ya know, and I mean, it goes to show too, it’s like, you know, sometimes, like I said, we talked about testing. And that’s why I had so many different episodes when I did the social series, because you know, if you are in a LinkedIn coach, let’s say, you’re going to tell everyone to come to LinkedIn, because you use it, it’s where you’re strongest, it’s what’s you what you know best. But that doesn’t mean that someone doesn’t do well on Tik Tok or Twitter, right? So it’s kind of like the business owner needs to one test, like I suggest, but to also, like, determine on their own, where the best place to show up is and then find the resources that they need to learn how to show up the best way on that platform. But let’s stay here with the small business for one more second, because you know, you talk about, like wearing all the hats and stuff like that. And I think that where people have the most fear on video is not necessarily ideation. It’s the sitting down and filming themselves, because not only do they not plan on being a marketer, they did not plan on being an actor or a performer. And that really puts some people out of their comfort zone. So do you have any advice on on that? Which is a weird question, right? Well, Alex Minor 12:16 actually, actually, it’s not a weird question. It’s something that I get asked about all the time. And I will fall back to Gary Vee has a tendency to say document don’t create. And when he’s saying that what he means is, don’t try to create content, just be the content. You’re having a business meeting, great. Set up a camera filming, you’re having a discussion with employees giving the trainings, great set up a camera filming, you’re on a podcast, great, get a copy of the file, you know, all these things. They’re all these opportunities that we have to collect content instead of creating content that we are just missing. So many small business owners I run into, we’re like, Yeah, I’ve been on this podcast. I’ve been on that podcast, or they’re trying to be on more podcasts. And Michael, first question is, okay, great. Did you get a copy of the video? No. Why not? Erin Ollila 13:09 Yeah, I mean, I could go down so many different roads here of lecturing, especially when it comes to like SEO, because it’s like, when we are working so hard for visibility efforts. The one thing that falls through all the time is following up with our own audiences on the visibility efforts, right? It’s not as easy to just be on someone’s podcast, and share it on social once and expect that’s going to do wonders for your business. You know, your idea of, of being on a podcast, if it’s recorded, visually, like taking that video recording and splitting it up. That gives someone especially when we talk about video shorts being under one minute. I mean, at this point in our recording, we’ve talked for over 16 minutes, and obviously you won’t be able to use all 16 But maybe you can get two or three really good quick talking points from that, that you can share with your you know, your social media platforms with your with YouTube with your email us. And doesn’t that sound more enticing, right? Like to already have pre built content because you’re showing up in the way that you plan to anyway, Alex Minor 14:14 isn’t that’s a strategy that I try to teach to lots of people I talk about it in the content that I post on my various channels. There’s a video I shared where it was how to get 20 pieces of content from one podcast. Erin Ollila 14:27 Yeah, I love repurposing. I think that repurposing is the smartest thing that any business can do, regardless of the size, not just simply for the idea that it is less work, but for the idea that people synthesize things differently, right. So there are going to be people who listen to this podcast episode there are going to be people who will not but they will spend the time reading my shownotes there will be people who are just going to chat about it quickly on social media. Maybe listen to a few seconds like now that we’re talking about video maybe they’ll see a video SURE OF US chatting either for from me or from you posting it, and that’s okay, right. Like, that’s actually what you want. You want to meet people where they’re at and what they’re interested in consuming at that moment in time, not write the world’s best show notes and like, keep your fingers crossed that your SEO efforts do everything for you. Because even if the perfect people when they’re, they’re likely not going to read your like 3000 word article on whatever it is that you talked about on the podcast, right? I love to read, I don’t want to sit there and read 3000 words about a podcast. So I think when we’re showing up in the places where I our ideal clients are giving them content with different options on how to consume it, we’re kind of doing them a service and inviting them into our world. And one quick thing before we leave the like awkwardness on video, part of our conversation, I talked about this in the episode where I don’t remember the number but I celebrated one year of doing this podcast, when I started this podcast, I legit No joke, chose podcasting over video, because I look like a tired mom all the time. And I just kept thinking to myself like, Okay, do I really want to go on video like, I am not someone who’s very vain. I don’t really like I’m cool with showing up not looking like the best dress or the perfect makeup. But when you commit to completely video only for your content creation, there is a certain anxiety that goes into it. But what I talked about on that podcast episode was after doing an entire year of podcasting, what I realized while editing certain pieces, or going back to look at old recordings was I didn’t care what I looked like on any of them. And what if anything, I was like, Oh my gosh, this is such great content. I gotta I gotta cut this piece up. I’m going to use this here. Alex Minor 16:47 Oh, glad to hear you say that. Because a lot of women especially that stops them from creating content. Here’s something else that I want to put out there. You said that you were afraid to get on camera or you’re apprehensive because you thought I look like a tired mom. How many tired moms would relate to you? Because you look like? Yes, exactly. Erin Ollila 17:07 Exactly. And it’s funny though, because like, you know, like, how I like disclaimed before I started talking about that. I really am okay, like I went to the zoo. Like I don’t know, you know, you can’t see me right now. But like, I look like a tired mom right now my hair is sticking out of my head in all different directions. went to the zoo did not think twice about how I looked like I wasn’t worried about how people saw me then. So it’s like, why would I then worry, especially when you’re sharing great content, you’re really showing up for your audience? Why would you then worry about how they’re viewing you. Because the one thing I talk about all the time here too, is like repel the people who are bothered by these kinds of things. If they don’t like you, because your hair sticking out of place will screw them. I mean, go find someone else with perfect hair not sticking out of place. But I really do. I wanted to bring that up because it’s it was so interesting to me how, you know, an anxiety that I think is light on me personally, and I can see it being heavier on a different person held me back from doing video and then a year into it. I was like, This is all so good that it doesn’t make any difference to me what I look like we look great, the people I’m talking to, like we’re animated, were chatting with each other. It’s perfect video content. If it’s holding you back to go on video. One thing about the idea that a video short is like extra limited time, right? Like you don’t have, you’re not going to be on camera for 45 minutes talking. And to Like honestly, like don’t let that hold you back. Because the people who are consuming the content they want what’s in your brain. They want the conversations that you’re having, they don’t really care what you’re wearing, or how you’ve shown up to an interview. Alex Minor 18:44 You know, just one more comment on the whole insecurity conversation or being apprehensive about getting on video. It’s a skill. It’s like any other skill you can improve through practice. And one thing that I want people to understand is in a place that you can feel powerful is that when you’re first starting out, nobody’s watching. Nobody cares. And the thing is, in that period of time where nobody’s watching and nobody cares. You need to be creating as much content as you can as quickly as you can, so that you can get better. You got to crawl before you walk. You got to walk before you run. Like it looks like I’m great on camera. No, I’ve just done it a lot. Average video guy, like football players, football players, basketball players, hockey players, they all watch game film. The reason we watch game film is because it helps them improve. So do the content, do the podcast watching back listen to them. Hear how you talk get annoyed by how you talk and get better. Erin Ollila 19:48 Yeah. 100% One of the tips that I found is after someone’s done talking and I am agreeing what they say I always say oh my gosh, I love that and I’m like, Dude, stop saying the things but I wouldn’t have recognized that had I not been the person listening back, right? So the same goes with video, you know, if you watch it, you can, there’s a lot that you can learn about yourself and how to adjust how you’re showing up as well. Let’s talk a little bit about the creation before, you know, we kind of end up talking for the rest of the day. Because I can do that Alex, I can talk for way too long sometimes. I love the idea of video shorts, process two ways, one, creating the shore knowing it is ashore. And two, like we talked about a little earlier repurposing content into short videos. I’m not a video person, but I’d imagine there’s really like a different way to approach those two. So tell us everything because I mean, I could ask you a question, but it’ll probably be the wrong question here. So tell us stuff. Alex Minor 20:49 When it comes to just creating short form for short form sake, there are a few different approaches. And some of the popular ones are going to be the shotgun approach, which is pretty much aimed phone fire. You know, you pull out your cell phone, you pointed at yourself, you hit record, you say what’s on your mind you post. So that’s, that’s one method. And there are lots of people who are successful with that method. They are great at speaking off the cuff. They know whatever their area of expertise is cold. They’re just good that way. I have a client named Simon T. Bailey, who is a world renowned speaker, trainer coach, and I shot a TV series with him for a year. This man never use, the teleprompter rarely looked at notes. He could talk for an hour straight if he needed to it, it humbled me. Like I could not understand how this man could do this. But there are some. But he’s been he’s been doing what he’s been doing for over 20 years. And then there’s the scripted approach where you either use bullet points or you use an actual script in a teleprompter or you don’t necessarily have to use a teleprompter depending on your filming technique. I prefer not to use a teleprompter like I’m actually good with the teleprompter, but a lot of people are not. And I actually encourage most folks to stay away from teleprompters because most people suck at using teleprompters unless they’ve had lots of practice, you know, newscasters, actors, etc, etc. So if you don’t have practice, if you don’t have a teleprompter, you’re not used to a teleprompter. And you don’t want to put into practice with a teleprompter. Don’t use a teleprompter, we can tell. Erin Ollila 22:35 And there’s a lot of pressure to write to have to like learn this entire new skill just to film many videos that are less than a minute, Alex Minor 22:43 right. And so when we teach clients how to script their content, we tell them, don’t try to do the whole script at once, do a line or two at a time, piece by piece, because it’s super easy to edit. It’s super easy for you to get through. And once you get into rhythm, if you’re doing like a 32nd video, or videos under a minute, you can probably record each video in between two and four minutes. Erin Ollila 23:10 Yeah, exactly. And there’s the practice part, right. So if you do a sentence at a time, you’re building that like confidence, and you’re doing all the practice that you talked about earlier, to make it so much easier for them to sit down and actually just save the whole 30 seconds in one time or, you know, split in half, or however they do it. Alex Minor 23:28 Yeah, I don’t encourage anybody to try to get through a script without like all the way through, break it up, make it easy. That’s what post production is for, especially if you’ve hired somebody like me to do your editing. But even if you don’t hire somebody, there are tools out there that can make editing when you record in that fashion easier. Erin Ollila 23:47 So let’s talk a little bit about then repurposing content, because obviously, again, that’s coming from a different place. purposing Alex Minor 23:53 is going to be the easiest on you if you have a team or some kind of help in place. And I would say repurposing content is going to be the best option for the busy professional. And why I say that is because it takes all that pressure of creation off of you and puts it on somebody else, your experience will vary depending on who it is that you hire, and what processes you’ve developed for them to repurpose the content for you or what processes they come to the table with. Which is why it’s good to work with an agency like ours. It just means that you go do your thing. You hand off the files, you get back more files, you post and go on with life. It’s a lot different than trying to be a one man band. Erin Ollila 24:44 Well and I think even from coming from my like content strategy background, if you think about we talked earlier about templating and that’s just a word that I love but but the idea of it works in so many ways. So if you think about let’s use a podcast as an example, you If you’re a podcast host, and you know, you’re going to record a 35 minute podcast, if you go into that interview or solo episode with a few key points that you want to make, then you know, then that those are things that you can repurpose later. So your job is to actually make those points and not do it with five paragraphs of conversation, to do it quickly and succinctly. But if you have someone like Alex, Alex, his team, or, you know, even like someone on your staff that’s doing this repurposing for you, well, you can just say to them, hey, here are the three points, you know, they can search a transcript for it, you could know a timestamp of when you said that, and it’s everyone’s jobs easier at that point. So you can I think, a go into creating content, knowing what type of short form you want to have. For videos after you create whatever content it is. Alex Minor 25:57 Right. And just to add on to that. So if you’re going to do podcasts, you can definitely do it strategically, right? Because whatever your business is, whatever your personal brand is, whatever your area of expertise, there are usually certain things that you that you were known for, or that depending on whatever you’re doing within the context of your business that you want to be talking about. So go in with those things in mind. And there’s nothing wrong with saying to the host, or, you know, when the host approaches you and asks, Hey, what do you want to talk about in this episode, you can set it up for success, you can be like, Well, yeah, I really like to talk about this, this and this and have it be like four things or five things that you want to be able to make content out of. And you can kind of already have some of your talking points, kind of like maybe not like super rehearsed, but kind of know where you want to go with it in your head. Like this podcast, for instance, I’m recording it on my end on my computer, in addition to what you as the host are doing. And I’m going to take that give it to my editor, I’ve already hit several points in this conversation that I want to make content out of, because like right now, if you’re following me on social media, on LinkedIn, on tick tock on Instagram, you will have seen, a lot of my content that’s coming out right now is scripted, and I enjoy that content, but I’m getting tired of it. And I know the audience may not be getting tired of it. But I want to see some variety in my feet. And so I’ve been doing a lot of podcasts lately. And this is the way that I’m going to be able to change up my content, so I can be happy with it. And that’s another thing, if you’re producing content, you have to find something in it that you enjoy, there has to be some level of satisfaction that you get from creating the content. In the process of creating the content, you have to be able to enjoy the process to some extent, or you will not continue with it. I enjoy getting on podcasts, I enjoy talking with people having conversations, learning from them, teaching them, I enjoy that. So this is a very easy way for me to create a ton of content, I think this is my fourth or fifth podcast this week, my editor is going to be working overtime, and I’m going to be poor. Erin Ollila 28:05 Yeah, but you’ll have all that content that will help you you know, grow your audience and make you know, nurture the people who are already paying attention to you. Especially like you said, you’re you’re presenting them videos in a different way. So, you know, nobody does want to see just scripted videos all the time or off the cuff videos all the time. So just giving them that variety is also going to keep them more engaged and interested in what you’re creating. And I think from like the ideation perspective, what you said about having fun with it is very important. You know, I will talk with a lot of clients about, especially after like a website goes live, they’ll say, Well, what’s next? What do I do? And, you know, obviously, we cannot just expect a website to like, bring in clients, if there is no SEO like there is nothing bringing them in. So there are so many options, you can blog, you can be a guest on podcast and create content about your guest experience. You can have your own podcast your own YouTube show. But the point of the matter is, is you have to create content. And if you sit down and try to talk about topics that are one uninteresting to you, but you think maybe your audience wants to hear these things because other people in your network are talking about them. You’re not going to do a good job and it’s not going to be that interesting to your audience. So always start with the things that you feel passionate about what you feel excited talking about, because it that will build up that confidence factor to write you’re talking about something that you know, well, you’re excited to talk about and that will come across in the video. Alex Minor 29:40 For everyone at home. My head has been nodding Erin Ollila 29:44 yes, if you’re not seeing this part on video, just know his heads nodding. Alright, so we’ve talked about the idea of repurposing, creating, why people should even do video shorts but the final question that I have for you is where do we put them? Alex Minor 30:03 So where are you put them? Kind of is an offshoot of the question of why is it a good idea for people to be doing them, as this podcast is about SEO and related things? Let’s take it from an SEO standpoint. One interesting thing about all these developments in video and in short form content is that it’s become such a priority for the world that Google is now indexing short form content on Tiktok. They are indexing short form content on YouTube because they own YouTube. And now it is becoming possible to rank short form video. Before if you were trying to rank video, the only game in town pretty much was YouTube. And maybe Vimeo, if there was like nothing else online about whatever it is that you’re talking about. But the majority of the time, if you’re ranking a video, it’s going to be from YouTube. And it’s much, much easier to rank a video in search than it is to rank a website, something that a lot of people don’t know. And most businesses don’t know. And it drives me crazy, because they’re like, well, we want to rank higher. We want to have better SEO, why aren’t you doing videos? It’s so easy to dominate your niche by ranking videos. my soapbox? Erin Ollila 31:30 No, that’s okay. Please stay on the soapbox. I don’t want to go far from here too. But I just want to address the reason why it’s like everyone says, Well, you know, when was the best time to invest in SEO 20 years ago, right? Like so. But there’s no not a missed opportunity. Because right now is the best time to use video to invest in SEO. Because if, if they’re just starting to index, and you’re in the group of people who are pushing out that content, you’re going to be indexed. And any effort in SEO builds up your credibility with whatever search engine it is to build you up in the future. So like that one short video could potentially move other content you create much faster than someone who just does this two, three years from now. Are you still on your soapbox? Or do you have an ask a question? I don’t know, if I lost your train of thought. Alex Minor 32:24 No, there’s there’s a lot more to go into the current conversation of where to put the stuff so it doesn’t stop there. The choice of where to put stuff also depends on where you how long you expect it to live. So with a lot of the short form content, we think of it as disposable. We think of it as consumable, like it has a short shelf life. That is not necessarily the case because what is happening, especially on Tik Tok, and what’s going to happen to a further extent on YouTube, is that people are searching for information in the short form content with Tik Tok, specifically, the younger generations are using it as a search engine where us, you know, probably 30 year olds and up have been using YouTube as a search engine in which it is it is a search engine, but tick tock is becoming more of a search engine, because that’s how it’s being used. I’ve read many articles and her many anecdotes of younger folks talking about how they went to Tiktok and searched for a solution to a problem, they found a video teaching them how to do it in like two seconds, you know, whereas we back in the day, we will be searching on YouTube and finding a video that’s 510 1520 minutes to help us solve our problem. So they’re going to tick tock now. And finding the short form content that can help them solve their problem like that, because people are becoming more and more creative with how to pack information into a shorter timeframe. And the solutions are there to be consumed. Now, there’s a caveat to that now because tick tock does let you have longer content now. And they’re starting to encourage longer content on the platform, which is kind of a 180 from how they started out. And I even saw a video on Tiktok today from a tick tock are who says he makes a significant amount of money. That tick tock came to him and asked him and another group of creators to make more long form content on tick tock. So this whole game is changing short form is the way to get attention quickly and organically, but do not devalue the long form as well. And I’m going to tell you if long form is your game and what you love. As far as video is concerned, YouTube is still your jam, you can still build a massive platform on YouTube. But you can also build a massive platform on tick tock the Pro for for YouTube is that it’s a good place to archive things to create a library to have a set of content that folks can do a deep dive in and it’s easy to access. I’ve got videos on YouTube that are four and five years old that are still getting views. Right. But with this new content with the short form content, I would highly encourage more businesses to dive into Tik Tok, especially now that SEO is really becoming a thing on Tik Tok, they extended like Do not ignore the copy on tick tock, I know a lot of people put very short copy on tick tock, they’re used to doing long copy on Instagram, but do it on tick tock to back this past fall, they increased the character limit on tick tock, you can put long SEO packed copy onto your tick tock videos now. So that in combination with captions, and things like that will help your videos rank in search. So if you’re going into this thing, you know, because we’re talking about the show in the context of SEO, if SEO is your jam, you need to be on YouTube, you need to be on Tik Tok. And also there’s a case to be made for LinkedIn. Because things like LinkedIn articles do rank, they do get indexed by search. And you can you can embed videos into LinkedIn articles. You can embed podcast players into LinkedIn articles, graphics, infographics, all sorts of things. This is stuff people don’t do not know. And ways that they can be, you know, leveraging their content, using it to generate backlinks back to their websites, in all sorts of things that are all good for SEO. Erin Ollila 36:34 Yeah, I did not know you could embed things into a LinkedIn article. So you just taught me something new over there as well. And I love that you brought up the idea that like you know, this isn’t a long form video versus like video short conversation, because they both have value. And I think that that’s a super important thing to drive home. I think that one one thing that I want to bring up to about LinkedIn is you had said, How long do you want it to live? Now there’s definitely different ways to look at how, what that means, right? So like you talk about like YouTube, and the idea that like, it’s searchable, right? So someone could be like searching the internet, searching the actual YouTube player for content, and it could be content you created two years ago. But when we think about LinkedIn, let’s think algorithm when it comes to how long do you want it to live? Because you know what you see on LinkedIn, you post a video to Twitter, let’s say it disappears in less than 24 hours, unless you have everyone who’s following you is following barely anyone else. That’s just the way that that platform works. The beauty of LinkedIn is that it really consistently shows you content that is not as time sensitive. You know, someone that was on I’m Tanya, who talked about LinkedIn thought leadership, she talked about how, you know, the day of her interview, someone had said, you know, thank you so much for sharing this post, it really meant a lot to me. And she said, What post and it turned out, it was a post from two weeks ago, but because how each individual uses that platform and just how LinkedIn is in its own. It’s showing content that’s been there for a while. So that could be another way to look at what’s Alex Minor 38:13 new, actually, because I’ve been a heavy LinkedIn user for the last three, four years. And when I first got on the platform, it was a very much one day and you’re done type of deal. So they have tweaked the algorithm. And well, they they’ve changed the algorithm several times over the last few years. But it’s it’s really like in the last year so that you started to see that where the content lives longer. It used to be if you didn’t get your views on day one. It was done. Yeah. Erin Ollila 38:44 Well, and I would assume that still like day one is a high priority, right? Like you want Alex Minor 38:50 it but the content does live a little bit longer. So it used to be when I posted a video on LinkedIn and in my context for LinkedIn is going to be videos that’s the majority of what I post his videos. Other types of content don’t work as well for me consistently, like every now and then one of them pops off. But videos what works best for me. And why would that be because I’m the video guy. And, and it used to be like I would post a video, I’d get a ton of views on day one. And then next to nothing after that. Now like I just had a video that I posted last week that surprised me. When on the day that I posted it. I was looking at it and I was like okay, I think this video flopped. I come back to it yesterday. It has over 2000 views. Erin Ollila 39:39 Well, yeah, I love everything we’ve talked about so far. And I keep trying to think like, is there anything we’ve missed? And I think the only thing we haven’t talked about when it comes to video, especially short video is Pinterest. We’ve talked about social we’ve talked about YouTube, but is there anything special people need to consider about putting videos on Pinterest as compared to what Well, we talked about with the other platforms. Alex Minor 40:02 And I keep saying within the context of this show, because the show is focused on SEO. So I’m kind of trying to keep the conversation there. Thank you. If you love SEO, Pinterest should be your favorite platform. Because it’s basically a platform full of backlinks. That’s really all it is. Yeah. So when it comes to video short form, specifically, I read an article recently, where the CEO of Pinterest himself said 10% of the company’s revenue comes from short form video content. Wow. So when it comes to short form, Pinterest is probably not the platform that people are thinking about. But the people who are on the platform are saying, This is what we want. This is what we’re interacting with. And now, Pinterest is providing more tools for people who want to pin their video content who want to have that be their drug of choice. And there’s two types of posts. There’s the idea post, and there’s the I think it’s just the regular pin that you can do. But the great thing about Pinterest is that you can post that video, you can embed, you can put a link with the video, you can put copy with the video, and send them to whatever place you want to send them, whether that’s your website, or whether that’s your landing page, your offer or to your social medias, wherever it is, like, it’s your choice. Yeah. And so in the context of talking about SEO, this is pretty much a dream when it comes to combining SEO, and video and all the things because it can be easy. If let’s say you got a podcast, it’s easy for you to start pinning clips from your podcast on Pinterest, you link to the podcast or you link to your website, or you link to somewhere else that’s relevant to whatever you said in the clip those Erin Ollila 41:54 Yeah, I think an important thing to say about that too, is the reason that videos like short video is so important is because it’s bingeable. So I would suggest considering that versus sending them off platform, right? Like the algorithm like even though you have the option to link out, and you should, on occasion, consider how you can build up that like continued conversation. So you can train the algorithm so your viewers can train the algorithm to get more of you. Because you know, the beauty, that’s the beauty of YouTube, like and you mentioned this earlier is just that, like, it is a storage container of sorts of your videos, but that the playlists and all of these things, if people like find you on these platforms, because they’re searching, so they find you, they can then kind of just get lost in your world. So if the first thing they see is an opportunity to leave that social platform, then all you’re really doing is giving them that one chance. So I’m not suggesting you, I mean, for Pinterest, yes, absolutely get those get those URLs in every single pin. But for the other platforms try to be a little bit more strategic, I’d say about like when and where you send them off. Alex Minor 43:05 You definitely shouldn’t be putting a link in every book. Yeah, like, let me say that. I personally think it’s like the 8020 rule, you know, 80% of your posts should be value should be, you know, giving it away or providing something to the audience that they would find valuable. But you know, you closed mouth, don’t get fed. Exactly. Ask for what you want. And there and there should be and let me not say should. But it’s not a bad idea to train your audience by putting calls to action in the majority of your posts. And, and a lot of people think a call to action has to be a call to buy. And that’s not what it has to be at all. It can be, Hey, were you feeling this content? If so, leave me a leave a comment. Let me know, Hey, make sure that you like and follow so they can get more of this. You know, like simple things like that. Absolutely. You know, like, hey, if this was great, or like if your live stream, hey, if this was if this is great. If you’re feeling this, put some fire emojis in the chat, like that’s a call to action, share it. Right. You know, if you if you love this content, send it to somebody who needs it. Yeah, absolutely. No, I think something like that in the thing is you get you soften them up over time, by getting them asked us to you ask him for things. Yeah. So that when you finally ask for something that translates into money. It’s not an outlandish app. It’s not so jarring at that point. Right? And hopefully, you’ve given so much value to them on the front end, that when you finally do make your ask. They feel almost like Well, of course I want to support Yeah. Erin Ollila 44:47 All right, Alex, this has been so helpful. I could keep you here talking all day. But I mean, I want to be respectful of your time and everyone else at this point. So at the end of all of my episodes, I asked a few questions and one of them Um, is if you could give a homework assignment to the listeners something super easy and actionable that they can do based on our conversation, what would you give them? Alex Minor 45:11 Take out your cell phone and record a video in this video. If it’s your first video, you’re, you’re just gonna say, Hey, guys, this is me, you’re gonna start seeing a lot more videos from me. This is what I’m going to talk about. Stay tuned. I live in post. Erin Ollila 45:30 Yeah, I love that because it is really truly as simple as it can be. And it’s just, you know, when I write sometimes I just kind of put like a bunch of junk in a Google doc because I hate staring at a blank page. So it’s kind of that like, what you’re doing right there. It’s like, I am going to be back filming videos, but you’re not starting from scratch anymore. You already have something out there. Next question is if you could meet anyone could be business related. It could be not business related, who would it be and why? Alex Minor 45:58 There’s a there’s a YouTuber I follow named Pearl Davis, I would like to meet her just because she’s very, she’s very interesting. And she’s like, killed it in the last year. You know, got over a million subscribers, I kind of came out of nowhere. But her stories is like just the way that she’s grown on YouTube has been very interesting. And I would love to have a conversation with her. Erin Ollila 46:22 All right, that we’ve got a six degrees of separation this somehow so we’re gonna prioritize that for this episode when it goes live, everyone, let’s help make this connection. Absolute final question now. And this is always the random, but do you have any like Best Video blooper moment for your own personal video creation that stands out to you? Alex Minor 46:43 I don’t know if you’ve got caught on video. But there was a time back when I was in a rap group and I was doing a stage performance at this bar in in Winter Park. And we were on stage we were killing it. You know, hidden it. My verse comes up there’s a drum riser on the stage. I go to jump on the drum riser. My toe catches the edge and I go splat. Oh, no. did not stop wrapping that up the entire time. Erin Ollila 47:14 That’s even. That’s pretty impressive. All right, Alex, thank you so much for your time today. I feel like this is like a super actionable and you know, interesting episode because I think there’s just so many different ways people can approach their short form videos. And I really do hope it really inspires people to just take action and try it in some different places. Me too. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Talk Copy to Me. If you enjoyed spending your time with me today. I would be so honored if you could subscribe to the show and leave a review. Want to continue the conversation. Head on over to Instagram and follow me at Erin Ollila. Until next time friends