Ask Us Anything with Ange and Scott

In this video, Angela and Scott take questions about Instagram videos, re-posting old videos versus fresh content, pre-recorded video versus live, which is best..

Transcription

ANGELA: Hey! Ange here, and I’m with Scott from Blue Lizard Productions, and it’s Tuesday, so here we are going live again. I think I caught you a little off-guard. I just pressed the button and you were doing something.

SCOTT: Yes, you did.

ANGELA: Today we are here because we’re going to answer your questions. We actually had a subject picked that we were going to talk about, and then I just wasn’t feeling it, so I reached out to some businesspeople and I asked what questions they had.

We are going to use our time today to answer questions that you might have about video. Whether it be Facebook Live, whether it be prerecorded video, whether it be about equipment, content, messaging, marketing your videos, whatever you want to talk about, that’s what we’re going to get through toady.

We are going to try to get through it in 10 minutes, so we might not be able to get to all of the questions, but we want to be able to give you guys some really good feedback and value and help you launch your online videos so you can increase your businesses, really.

SCOTT: This is our third live video that we’ve done together, and it’s still always a learning curve. I’m realizing right now – this is something I tell all my members and clients to do before you roll your camera: just listen. And what do you hear? I can hear the air conditioning.

ANGELA: I can hear the air conditioning too.

SCOTT: Do you want to go run and turn the air conditioning off? Or are you going to let me through there?

ANGELA: Yeah, I’ll let you through. I mean, it might get hot in here. We’re actually not using lights today; we’re using natural light in our office, so the light might change. We normally recommend not to do it. But we also recommend to people we speak to, just do video. Just be doing it.

You don’t want to do it in an environment that there’s chaos and it’s dark, but if you’ve got decent lighting – even if it does change a little bit like it’s going to here today – and if you do have a space that’s clutter-free and (now) noise-free, that’s the best place to film in.

SCOTT: Actually, I have one question for you. I know we’ve got a few people in the room. Does everyone hear us okay today? How’s the audio? Last time we didn’t use an external mic, and the time before we used an external mic but it was clipping too loud. So when you get a chance, let me know, how’s the audio level? Is it good? Could it be louder, could it be quieter? Yeah, that’s my only question for right now.

ANGELA: Normally I’m not on my cellphone when I do these, but that’s how my questions are coming in. Scott just popped out – oh, audio is great. Hey, Sara. Hey, Yasemin and Michelle. Glad you guys could join us today. I think Erica might be here too. Thank you. Thank you for joining us, and if you have questions about video, ask us. Good, I’m glad our audio is all good.

So Carol Davies asked me a question. It was a two-part question, and I’m going to just talk about one part of it. She said “Can I post the same video content on Facebook and Instagram, or should the focus be different for each platform?” I’m going to try to give my 1-minute answer for that, and then Scott, you can give your thoughts.

To me, the platform isn’t as important except to know how long you have on each platform. Facebook, you can do a video for like ever. I don’t know what Twitter’s Live is. You can do that for a long time too. But whether it’s Facebook or Instagram or Twitter or whatever it is, first of all you need to know what your time restraint is, because that may dictate your content.

But secondly, is your Facebook audience the same demographic as your Instagram audience? If it is, then your content can be the same. But if you’re reaching a different demographic on Instagram, which I almost assume is probably true, then your message has to be different because the people that are in your demographics in your Facebook page speak a different language than the people on your Instagram.

As well, Instagram is just 1 minute, Scott?

SCOTT: Yeah, my understanding of it right now – and these things change almost daily, but the last I heard is that for a prerecorded Instagram video, it has to be 60 seconds or less. Now, I haven’t done any live Instagram. I know that’s a new feature. I don’t know if anyone who’s online right now has done any Instagram Live, but I am curious about that. I haven’t experimented much with that. I know it’s a capability.

Like Angela is talking about, knowing your target audience and where do they hang out. Our target audience, without a doubt the majority of them hang out on Facebook, so that’s where we spend most of our time.

But I do want to learn a little more about Instagram because it’s really popular. If we want to start targeting that younger demographic – 20 to I guess even 30 is probably where most of their age is – then we would definitely want to be spending more time on Instagram. Instagram for me right now is more of a personal tool to share some photos with family and friends.

We have one friend who sells Panama hats, and he’s got like 10,000 followers. It’s a very successful tool for him to reach out to his target audience.

ANGELA: Yeah. For me, I really only go on Instagram when I want to engage with my son, because he’s not on Facebook anymore but he’s on Instagram.

So I hope that helps answer that question a little bit. If your audience demographic is exactly the same, then the message can be the same, but if it’s different then it needs to be different.

Katie Thompson Aiken asks, “Making new video content versus reposting old videos – how often should you do these things?” You answer that.

SCOTT: Yeah. I’ll talk about that, because the Video Star System that I developed is based around the idea of creating a television show of 10 episodes that you can put online.

But there is a point, if you’re making prerecorded videos and they’re evergreen, which means they’re not really tied to any news event or promotional event that’s coming up and they’re just general value/information to your target audience – what people call evergreen; no matter when someone watches this video, it’ll have value for them – those type of videos you can absolutely repost.

I recommend doing say 20 videos. 30 is even better. But if you do one new video every week for 30 weeks, once you get to Week 31, there’s no reason you can’t go back to Week 1 and repost the same video. Like on Facebook, you can just repost that post on your business page, and all the likes and comments and everything stick with that.

It’s actually a very effective tool to repost your content. I see a lot of people – Tim Ferriss is one that I thought of that does his podcasts and he just keeps sending the information out again to hit more and more people who maybe missed it the first time.

For those in your target audience that say “Oh, I’ve seen that video,” they’re just not going to watch it because they’ve already seen it. Or maybe they want to watch it again to be refreshed, because that was 30 weeks ago that they last watched the video.

I think you need to build a bit of a library up of videos before you want to start reposting videos, but I think it’s absolutely a great tool. I’ve got almost 10 in my first season, and I’m going to start reposting those just to learn more and test how that actually works for myself.

ANGELA: Yeah. Ditto, ditto. I think, too, you can especially repost when it’s relevant. For me, when I think of these videos, are they two-minute marketing videos, are they value-based content that people can use to learn and grow their business or that you can use to help the video? Especially those you can repost over and over. But not quickly; like you say, 10, 20, 30, and then you just start adding new and then reposting old, adding new, reposting old.

SCOTT: Yeah, absolutely. You can definitely mix it up. We’re still working on coming in at around 10 minutes. Can I address one of your questions that you read to me earlier?

ANGELA: Yeah.

SCOTT: One of the questions was about Facebook Live and how long your videos should be and how long you should stay on. We don’t really know. This is part of what Angela and I are experimenting with. I personally think 10 minutes is a pretty good time to start thinking about wrapping things up. 20 minutes might be too long.

But again, it really depends on your target market. We talked about this in our first episode two weeks ago. You’re really going to have to test and measure and just start doing live videos and seeing when people fall off or when you hit that critical mass where people are online and watching. We’ve still got six – just dropped to five people watching this live. That’s actually not a bad number at all. We might see that drop off from there. My only point is you need to test and measure.

The format that we’re using today is more of a question and answer, so we’ve got some pre-questions. There’s six of you in the room right now; does anyone have any questions? Post a question below. We’re going to answer that question, and then I think we can probably wrap it up.

ANGELA: Sara says “I have done 1-hour Facebook Live and kept majority of the audience.” It all depends, right? It all depends on what you’re giving them. Actually, Karen, the one who asked that question, said “sometimes people take 10 minutes to even get started, and I don’t have that kind of time.” So know your audience, know what they need, and look at your stats. If you know that your audience stays on for an hour, that’s great. But if they don’t, then adjust.

For Karen, because she said time is one of our most valuable commodities, and she can’t take 30 minutes – especially, she said, when they take 10 minutes to get going just to wait for people to come on, and they kind of waste time for 10 minutes. It’s one of my pet peeves too, actually. I don’t like that. I like two minutes, three minutes.

I also don’t like when people do four-minute live videos, because by the time I’m on, they’re done and now it’s not live. I feel less interactive. That’s just a note that I have about that.

SCOTT: Sara, I watched one of your live videos, and it’s about being engaged. You were very engaged and your audience was very engaged with you as well. You can gauge that, and you can feel that from the people that are in the room. You’re engaging and a lot of fun. It was fun watching that video and your kids bouncing around in the background. It was great.

ANGELA: I’m going to go through Michelle and Erica’s questions. Michelle says “Live more attractive than prerecorded?” It seems to be the thing right now. But there’s a place for each of them. Like I said, if you’re going to do a two-minute live video, why are you doing a two-minute live video? Because the chances are, by the time people get in and get engaged, you’re not live anymore. So take some time and do that prerecorded.

So is live more attractive than prerecorded? No. It’s all about content.

SCOTT: Yeah. They’re actually two very different strategies. You’re trying to accomplish, I believe, two very different things. We even talked about this briefly this morning.

With a prerecorded video, quite often, those two-minute videos, people that are at the top of your funnel (if I can call it that) that really don’t know, like, and trust you yet – those two-minute videos are great ways to start bringing some of those people in. They can invest two minutes, and when they watch the two-minute video, there was some value there, and they can use that in their business or in their life. That has value, and they’ll watch the next two-minute video.

Whereas a 10-minute video, you need more of an engaged audience in order for them to stick around and hang out a little longer and invest that much more time. They’re two very different strategies, and I believe that we should all be doing both. Some people who aren’t comfortable with video might want to start with prerecorded two-minute videos and then eventually move on to live.

But we all could be doing both, and this is something that Angela and I, like I said, are experimenting with. This is only the third one we’ve done together, and we’re going to do some prerecorded ones as well. We’re going to test and measure all that stuff and share that information with you.

We’re at 13 minutes.

ANGELA: But I do want to answer, because Erica asked a really good question. So I think we’re going to go over the 10 minutes today because I want to answer these questions.

“What is a good balance between information around mental health and my followers getting to know me?” Well, it’s the same thing. You are your best marketing tool. That’s what we say with every seminar we do and every public speaking engagement we do and in our workshops. You are your best marketing tool, and so is your knowledge.

Everything we talk about is video, and by answering the questions around video in the way I answer them, you’re getting to know me. And Scott and I are a bit different. We have different outlooks on things, we have different perspectives. I’m a 44-year-old woman, he’s a 44-year-old man, so we’re a different demographic. But you’re getting to know us, and you’re getting to know who we are, even though our content is specifically about video marketing.

So information on mental health is still people getting to know you.

SCOTT: I’ve got two more questions I want to try and answer before we wrap up. Yasemin asked are we still playing with the time that we’re going live? Yes, we are. We did 9:15 the first time, and then we did 3…?

ANGELA: 3:45.

SCOTT: 3:45, and now we’re trying 10:00. So far we’ve had a lot of engagement today and more people in the room, so we might stick with 10:00 for the next couple shows, and we’ll see how that goes.

But we also did a bit more pushing some information out prior, like right prior to going live. I posted on my personal page, I posted on my Scott Clevely business page, we posted on the Blue Lizard page. So we tried to spread that information out a little further. And you did actually some direct posts, I believe, inside a group as well.

ANGELA: Mm-hm.

SCOTT: Spreading that message probably helped as well. So it’s going to be a little hard to test and measure it, but so far 10:00 seems to be the best time.

ANGELA: Sara says “Can you talk about where the camera should be? Some people put the camera right under their faces and it looks like they’re talking down to the camera. Am I making sense?” Scott and I feel your camera should be somewhere around eye level, right? A little bit above, a little bit below, but eye level.

SCOTT: The rule, if there is a rule, is when you’re taking your smartphone and you’re raising it up and down, wherever the lens is, you want that lens to be right at eye level, and you can favor slightly on it being a little bit higher than that. So taking your camera, looking right at your lens, making sure it’s eye level, and then just a little bit higher.

I know you really can’t see, but if this is my camera from straight on, my camera right now is tilted down just a little bit. So it just favors down a little bit. It’s just a bit of a more flattering shot.

You can do – I mean, we can get into filmmaking style – there’s reasons you’d want to do a low angle shot or a high angle shot. If it’s a low angle looking up, it creates a position of power for the speaker. If you go too high, it gives the viewer more power.

Sometimes when I see these high angle shots of video where the person’s looking up, in my opinion as a filmmaker, my background in film, you’re diminishing yourself. You’re making yourself feel and look like a lesser person. That may not be entirely true, but again, Ange and I differ on this. That’s my training as a filmmaker. If you want to make someone feel… I don’t know what the word is.

ANGELA: In power?

SCOTT: Yeah, in more of a power position. Like Tom Cruise, I always use this example. He’s not a tall man, so they quite often will have that camera a little bit lower to shoot up at Tom Cruise to make him have more stature.

Anyway, I’m going way off in left field with that question. Basic answer to your question, Sara, is eye level, just a little bit higher is the best place to place your camera.

ANGELA: And framing, this is as close – from the top of my head to like here – that’s as close as you ever want the camera to be. I know sometimes it’s hard if you’re doing impromptu handheld. We have kind of a set of rules, but they’re loose. They’re loose.

But if you’re doing handheld and you’re holding your camera and you have maybe shorter arms or you can’t bend your arm all the way and your face is right here and people are looking up your nostrils, that’s not entirely flattering.

Now, if your content is so good and so powerful that unflattering won’t distract people, that’s great. But it’s not usually the case. Usually you want to be a little further back. And if it’s just talking like this, then on a tripod, where it’s nice and straight.

“That came out wrong.” What came out wrong? Yes, Sara, yes. [laughs] She should, she should.

SCOTT: That’s funny.

ANGELA: Yes. Okay, Sara, you’re making me laugh and I’m live. If you’re a woman and your chest is going to be in the video, should you wear a bra? If you feel like it. If you’re a bra-wearing person. [laughs]

SCOTT: I have nothing to say about this topic. I’ll leave this one up to the ladies.

ANGELA: Too funny, too funny. Speaking of being a woman – that’s the other thing. Scott was talking about camera position, and I think as women we really want to have that flattering view where the camera is higher and it slims our face and it slims things.

But as Scott said, as a filmmaker there are things that they were taught not to do, and you need to consider those things, even though it might be a flattering angle, how that viewer is now positioned to view you. If you’re trying to be an authority on something but in the way you’re holding the camera, you’re giving all the power to the viewer, it might lessen your authority.

SCOTT: Or maybe as a filmmaker, maybe that’s a strategy you want to go with. Every camera angle, lighting, everything needs to be motivated by some reason. So if there’s a good reason for you to put your camera up high that somehow affects your target audience, the people who watch your video, then I say go for it. But just make sure it’s motivated. You’re not doing it because you don’t know why you’re doing it.

Anyway, we’re at 20 minutes, and for me I never want to go over 22 minutes. This gets back to my need to live in the television world, and most television shows are 22 minutes. So that’s going to be my cap where I’m going to always try and wrap things up for. We’re at 20 minutes right now, and just checking my last comments. Yes, Michelle, depends on the type of business you’re promoting. [laughs]

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got for today. I really enjoyed this more informal question and answer. We’ve got some questions we weren’t able to cover today; we’ll probably cover those next week. We’re probably going to reach out to a lot of you again and see if there’s anything that you guys want us to cover.

Join us again next week and ask your questions live, and we’ll address them.

ANGELA: Yeah, awesome. And yeah, Sara, jump on. Jump on, we’ll do it for an hour, girl. No we won’t, because Scott just said we’re not allowed.

SCOTT: I’ll just walk away. You guys can finish it out after 22 minutes, but after 22 minutes, I’m probably walking away.

ANGELA: Awesome. Have a great day. We hope that you can use these tips, and we hope to see you back next week at 10 a.m.

SCOTT: Yeah, and we’re going to see a lot of you tomorrow in Guelph at Ten Carden for our Smartphone Video Marketing Seminar.

ANGELA: Yeah.

SCOTT: All right, see some of you tomorrow, and the rest of you, we’ll see you next week.

ANGELA: Have a great day! Bye.