Should I Create Short Form Video?

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Welcome to the creator 50 podcast, the podcast for Gen

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X plus creators, getting into their content creation journey.

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I am your host Doc Rock your content creation coach, and today we're

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gonna talk about short form video.

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Yes!

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Short form video is all the rage and there is, I guess, a lot of waffling

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back and forth on whether you should or should not be doing short form video.

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If you're brand new and you're not really sure what this is.

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Short form video are the vertical videos you see on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram,

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Facebook, and now even LinkedIn.

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And I guess many people do post them on Twitter and Pinterest, things like that.

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Short form videos are normally somewhere between say seven seconds and 90 seconds.

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Uh, TikTok for certain creators can go.

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To three, but normally you're looking at a really short form video where you

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just come in, get straight to the point, deliver your message and get out of there.

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Let me tell you a little story about short form video.

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Back in May.

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I decided to give myself a 30 day challenge to just do an Instagram reel

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every day for 30 days, I started on about May 15th and I finished up June 15th.

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I went 30 days straight posted a reel every day.

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And family, I have to tell you, I was amazed, absolutely amazed at what

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this did for me as a creator, what it did for my growth as a creator.

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Just what it did to open my eyes up to short form video.

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Family, listen, short form video is not new.

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It has been going on roughly for about two and a half to three

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years, but I've always kind of like, I don't really want to TikTok.

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I'm really focused on my YouTube channel at the time, which at

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the time was a smart thing to do.

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And then a lot of people were getting into it.

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My buddy Diana Gladney.

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She dove into it a while back.

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And I was like, you know, I'll get around to it when I get around to it.

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But I finally told myself it's time to start putting it off.

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Let's dive in.

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Let's create some short form content man, was I ever so amazed at the outcome?

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Let me tell you what I learned.

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I learned number one, this is very, very good.

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Think of it as calisthenics or workout.

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It was really good for creativity.

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I was generating a video every day and I thought in the beginning, because

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Instagram said 60 seconds, they had to be 60 seconds in the middle of my challenge.

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They opened it up to 90 seconds.

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So here I am thinking I need to use the whole 90 seconds.

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It turns.

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It could be as little as seven, seven seconds to 15 seconds seem to be

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some of the best content out there.

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But if you need the whole time, the whole time is there, you just gotta

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make sure that what you're putting out is very valuable and very impactful.

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So that's the first lesson I learned.

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The second thing I learned is it really did spark my creativity.

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I thought it would be a daunting test.

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But after about day three, I was just flying.

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Like I was coming up with more ideas than I had time to actually create.

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And so if you're in this as a growth strategy, many people will tell you,

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you wanna do three to five reels a day.

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I haven't got that far yet just because of time constraints, but I'm gonna work

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my way up to that because I think, yes, it will really impact your channel.

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I've seen people who have done, basically a growth challenge to do

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three reels a day every day for a year and grew their presence by 250,000.

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And I'm like, wow, that's very impactful.

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Especially if you're on a mission where sort of your growth and

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your impact visibly is kind of the most important side of that.

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So it can be extremely good for growth.

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Talking to my buddy, Rob Balasabas, we call this type of stuff.

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Your discovery channel.

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My YouTube is always gonna be my main channel.

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My personal YouTube at Doc Rock is gonna be my.

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Channel, but I use things like this podcast, these short form videos,

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these conferences that I'm speaking at, I use those as my discovery channel

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to bring people into my ecosystem.

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If you will.

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I do wanna say, although it seems like it's been out for a while.

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It's not too late to get started.

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You can get started and you don't need anything special.

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All you need to get started is your iPhone or your Android phone.

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Any camera will do, uh, just get out there.

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Make some content.

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You can even start...

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in the beginning...

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I had a person who I was teaching at a recent conference, basically

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during the lunch break of the conference, she pulled up her phone.

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She did, what's known as a remix and that's where you take

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a reel that already exists.

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And you record sort of like a duet where you're on the other half of the screen

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and she recorded her reactions to that video sort of, and over the time from our

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lunch break, until we came back, she had over 26,000 views on that single video.

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This was not her first reel, but it was one of her first ones

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in a while because she had kind of almost turned away from it.

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Now, TikTok is the big daddy.

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That's where most people are getting the highest traction.

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Instagram would probably come in second YouTube and then Facebook I'm

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right on my Instagram journey right now, just because that's my home.

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I've always been on IG.

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That's where I like it.

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But.

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If you can, you wanna do all of them, people are gonna say, should I do

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Instagram over TikTok over, you know, LinkedIn or Twitter, whatever the truth

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is, both of them or all of them, whichever one you can get started get started.

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Don't think about it too hard.

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Don't drive yourself crazy.

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You just want to dive in.

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Once you get your momentum, then you can spread it out.

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And get it to going.

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Basically what happened at the end of that 30 days, my, um, engagement,

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my reach shot up over 3300%.

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My average engagement on posts were up over 900% per day.

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I grew a couple thousand followers.

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I am really loving this reels only strategy.

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So on Instagram, I'm literally just creating reels only.

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Haven't really posted a video much.

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It's everything has been reels and stories, and it's been a blast.

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If you are a person with a product or a service.

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What you do wanna do is lightly sprinkle in your call to actions, but don't make

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every single video, a call to action.

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Short form video is a good place to let people discover the, you

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remember people, people buy products from people, not from companies.

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They wanna know the person that they're talking to.

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So allow yourself.

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A little bit of your personality, your style, your sense of humor, your location,

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your favorite things like I've been posting a lot of reels about coffee.

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One of my favorite things allow those things to shine and every couple of

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videos sprinkle in your call to action.

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Hey, if you want to get into content creation, come and

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check out my coaching over at.

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Content creation, coach.com, things like that.

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So don't make every single video, a sales video you wanna get like Gary V used to

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call it jab, jab, jab, then write hook.

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Right?

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Think of it like that.

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And so you can put your call to actions in there.

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Just don't make every video about your call to action.

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But I just wanted to tell you real quickly and this episode, if you haven't done

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so already, it is time to take a long, hard look at short form content and

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to get started again, grab your phone.

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Don't do too much planning, just create some reels, start with the remix, you

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know, start with the duet, start with some of the simple things out there.

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If you have a, a lack of ideas, reach out to me, I'll put some

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ideas in the show notes that you can find over on creator fifty.com.

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That will be right over here on creator fifty.com and I will put

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some, some sort of activations, if you will just follow these.

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And it'll get you started.

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So I just want to tell you all my creators out there don't feel like you're too old.

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Do not feel like you have to dance.

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Do not feel like you need any special skills.

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Just get out there and talk about what you know, and what you love and maybe even

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just some shots around your neighborhood.

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When you take your little exercise, walk.

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And you're good to go.

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Let's get started with some short form video and we'll see you again

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on the next episode of Creator 50.

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Just wanna remind you, you can get this.

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If you're catching this by accident, you can find out the

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whole thing@creatorfifty.com.

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And of course you can subscribe to the podcast.

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Anywhere podcast getting is got I'm Doc Rock, your content creation coach.

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You can always reach out to me at Doc@creator50.com.

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And you see you in the next one.