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My Weekly Marketing
Join conversations about marketing, business, and life-in-between with marketing strategist Janice Hostager and a variety of world-class entrepreneurs! We will fill you with step-by-step training, marketing strategy, and life experiences from where life and business intersect. We'd love to have you join the fun!
My Weekly Marketing
Overcoming Your Fear of Video Marketing with Nick Niehaus
Video marketing can feel overwhelming. Between setting up equipment, figuring out what to say, and the fear of seeing yourself on screen, it’s easy to put it off. But according to Nick Niehaus, CEO of Business Video School, video is one of the most powerful ways to connect with your audience. In this episode, he shares why video marketing is worth the effort, how to get past the fear of being on camera, and simple ways to ease into creating videos without overcomplicating the process.
If you’ve been avoiding video because it feels too intimidating, this conversation is for you. Nick’s insights will change the way you think about video marketing and give you practical steps to start feeling comfortable on camera. Plus, he shares a game-changing tip that makes getting started easier than you think.
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I'm Janice Hostager. After three decades in the marketing business and many years of being an entrepreneur, I've learned a thing or two about marketing. Join me as we talk about marketing, small business and life in between. Welcome to My Weekly Marketing.
Janice Hostager:So how do you feel about creating video? If you're anything like me and I'm finding that there are lots of people like me out there, video isn't something that you love to do. For me, it's not only the issue of getting past watching myself on a screen, but also the time it takes to brainstorm ideas, pick out the clothing, get the equipment set up, record it and for me, that typically takes several takes and then edit the video. No, thank you. But as my guest on my podcast today, Nick Niehaus, points out, video allows us to connect with people in a way that's unlike any other kind of marketing, and he makes a really good argument why it's worth all the hassle and the discomfort of doing it. Nick is a CEO of Business Video School and he comes with a unique perspective. He understands the marketing side as well as the technical side of video, and I know that you'll love his insights. If you've ever experienced any hesitation about doing video, then this episode is for you. Here's my talk with Nick. Hey, Nick, thanks for joining me today.
Nick Niehaus:Yeah, of course, been looking forward to it.
Janice Hostager:So video is one of those things that we all know we need to do more of, right? So tell us like why you're passionate about it, so like how did you, why did you decide to make a career out of it?
Nick Niehaus:Yeah, yeah, that's a great question, because actually what I was doing before I got into video was still doing marketing. You know, we came into video in my business from the marketing angle. We were doing like flyer delivery, you know, and mailings and things like that. And this was about 10 years ago and it was right around the time that Facebook released their video advertising product, so before that you could run ads on Facebook, couldn't run video ads. And so I saw that news and I started thinking about it and to me it was sort of this moment of realization of like, hey, that's kind of like a TV ad, except you know, it starts at a dollar a day in terms of the budget, you know, and you can upload anything you've made and run an ad with any of it. And it sort of felt like a moment where it was going to be obvious. To me it was obvious, it's sort of like all right, now we can all have our own television ads, and TV ads have been the gold standard in advertising for big businesses for a long time. So I kind of assumed, like small businesses are just going to dive in. You know they're going to realize, oh wow, now I can, I can sort of have my own television ads and they're going to do it.
Nick Niehaus:It did not turn out quite as simple as that. I didn't predict the amount of fear and anxiety and angst that would come in when it came to people getting on camera. And so you know, initially it was, I got into it because I just sort of saw it as like a no brainer marketing move. You know, it just seemed like it was going to be a big deal.
Nick Niehaus:Obviously, it has turned out to be a big deal since then and I've stayed with it and I've kind of become more passionate about it because of how challenging it seems to be for a lot of people. And so you know, my, my kind of mission has become helping people realize. It's just a form of communication, you know, it's just a new way we talk to each other. It's just another way to get your face out there and let people develop. You know we call it a parasocial relationship with you and yeah, so now, now that's kind of my, my full-time focus is helping people. You know, not just realize. They're not just learning how to use video, but realize you know what they're doing to themselves that's preventing them from using it and then letting go of some of those things.
Janice Hostager:That is cool. First off, I just want to say I really wish the days where we could do a dollar a day on Facebook ads were still around, because those were the golden days.
Janice Hostager:It was just nobody realized it at the time.
Nick Niehaus:. I, uh, you're absolutely right.
Janice Hostager:Right, and you're absolutely right. It's like nobody, it was just an unexplored frontier, right? Nobody knew what was going to happen with video ads. Um, and I, I love it's, it's really been interesting and I could go on a whole tangent on this. This is my ADD talking, so I won't do that. But, um, you're, you're also right that it really there's a lot of psychology involved in getting in front of a camera, because you're so far removed from the individual that you're going to be talking to who you don't even know who you're really going to be talking to. I mean, we, we all know who we our ideal customer is, but there is a lot involved like how to get in front of the camera and feel comfortable, and I know so many of my audience members feel that way too. So how can small business owners build confidence to be able to get in front of a camera? So I'm just going to go right into that one.
Nick Niehaus:That's a huge one.
Nick Niehaus:Right, I know that's a big one, right. So you know it's interesting. It's coming back to part of what you said there was we don't know who's going to see the video, you know. And I think that I think that's where a lot of the fear and sort of.
Nick Niehaus:You know, everybody has all these explanations for why they don't do something, right? I mean, we all know how to make excuses. We tend to get better at it as we get older, I think. So it's one of those things where it's easy to tell yourself I'm not, you know, people used to tell me I'm not a video person. You know, like I have a face for radio, all kind of stuff, right, um, and I always kind of, you know, roll my eyes because it's like, well, you, you are still meeting with people face to face, they are seeing you. It's really no different, you know, they're just going to see your face in a different sort of context.
Nick Niehaus:But I think a lot of it comes from I'm not necessarily scared to talk to people I already know through a video. I don't know who's going to see this, right, and so then we started to imagine, you know, and for a lot of people I always point out like a lot of folks grew up with video meaning TV or video meaning movies. It's only recently that it's meant, you know something else, something on the internet, Zoom meetings, video messages, stuff like that. So I think our brains tend to go to oh my God, I could be seen by hundreds of thousands of people and I don't know who they're going to be and they make fun of me and I've got that one really mean cousin. They're going to see this and they're going to give me crap for years and I get all that. Yeah, I mean that's part of it, right. I mean that's just kind of performance anxiety. What I find is you're going to get over that with exposure.
Nick Niehaus:But that's not a great answer, right? A better answer is to say why don't you start with videos where you do know who's going to see it, right? So you kind of eliminate that uncertainty or that potential. So I almost tell people I don't want you to try to go viral, maybe ever. I think sort of trying to go viral can be a mistake, but you know, I certainly don't want you to do that initially. I want you to focus on let's start as easy as we can Like what's the most basic, the easiest kind of video we can make. There might be more than one answer to this, but my answer is always a birthday video message, right?
Nick Niehaus:So we're talking about a video you send to somebody on their birthday. It is only being sent to them. You are saying their name, so it's a video that you're recording one time for one other person, and I mean talk about low pressure, talk about a positive thing. I mean people don't we're getting more of these now, like other folks have started to discover the power of this stuff, but it's still very uncommon, you know. So. So you're doing something that takes you just as long as it would to post on their Facebook wall. You can do it literally through Facebook it's where most of us wish each other happy birthday at this point in time but there's a message button and you can literally send a message that just contains a video, and you can even record it in the Facebook messenger app. So technologically it's really simple. No one's going to judge you for how your hair looks, you know. Nobody's going to get to a 10 second video of you saying hey, happy birthday and go. Oh, I don't like that shirt, you know.
Nick Niehaus:And if the person does.
Nick Niehaus:You probably don't want to know that person anymore, right? So that I think I mean that's a long answer. There's obviously other parts to it, but I think especially initially right, if you're we had a lot of people that have been putting this off for years. You know, I knew I should have been making videos four years ago. I still haven't done it and I think because of that they think I got to go all in on day one. Like I, I need to make something that's going to get me business tomorrow.
Nick Niehaus:That's just not a good way to learn. It's not going to work. You're probably going to really hurt and embarrass yourself and you're not going to want to do it again. So put it aside. Give yourself a couple weeks and start with something like one-to-one video messages, happy birthday videos, you know, checking in with people you already know, and you're going to get familiar with it, right, and as we start to eliminate some of those challenges, you know, if we start to learn the tech, we start to learn what direction to face, how to get our lighting dialed in a little better, then the more complex stuff that's going to be seen by strangers will become a lot easier.
Janice Hostager:Oh, I love that idea. I mean, one thing I did myself to try and get a little more comfortable with is just to kind of videotape myself, like around the house, you know, like, or in the car. I'll just, you know, have a video chat with myself, basically. But it did kind of get me a little more comfortable with being on camera. But I love your idea because you're actually sending it to another person. Another human is going to see it, it's not just for your eyes. So I really like that.
Janice Hostager:Another thing you said that just made me realize something that you're right when, especially people like my age with, who didn't have grow up with a phone in their hand, you know that they could just videotape or whatever. I think we all have the standard of if we're going to be on video, we need to look like they do in Hollywood or that they do on a newscast or something like that. Like that standard is super high, it's super professional, it's super polished, super edited, right. So I think that that feeling of just like getting on camera and being casual and talking like you are actually talking to another human being is a little foreign initially and I think that may be part of the challenge that people face.
Nick Niehaus:Oh, for sure.
Janice Hostager:That's my theory.
Nick Niehaus:No, I mean, you're right, I think it's a huge part of it. You know, I think we I like to say you know, video is a conversation, not a performance.
Nick Niehaus:And it can be a performance, right. So that's not entirely true, because, you know, if I'm going to, for instance, go on a interview show or something and there's going to be thousands of people that see it like you should probably still try to dress nicer and, you know, do your makeup correctly and all that kind of stuff. But most of what we do on social media I mean the truth is like, if you look at some of the research that's been done, typically, if you, if you try to do your videos sort of a too high of a polish, you know, if you try to dress up too fancy or lighting, looks like you're in a studio that can turn people off, and they actually get less views and shorter views on that content. So people tend to like the stuff that sort of feels like you know, it's a spur of the moment. Granted, most of those videos are not right, but that sort of feeling of like I just pulled my phone out of my pocket and I'm walking down the street and I'm just having a conversation with you.
Nick Niehaus:That is what tends to get the most views, that's what tends to get the longest views, the most engaged followers, all that kind of stuff, and I just think that just goes to show like there is a place for the polish, but most, most of the viewers, they don't expect that, they don't want it. You know, like that that's just not, it doesn't work. And so, yeah, we, we have to. It is a reset right, cause we, we, we all have that idea in our heads of, like this is. You know, this is like I'm getting up on stage. You know, it feels a lot like kind of public speaking. Um, it just isn't.
Nick Niehaus:You know, and the truth is, a lot of people like this, this, some folks that I've known for years but I have not talked to in years I hadn't been to this networking event in quite a while and they're talking about the videos that I've made recently. They don't comment on those videos. I've never seen any comments, I've never seen any likes. You know, like, as far as the evidence is concerned, like they were not seeing this stuff, but they were. And a lot of viewers are that way, right, so it's not.
Nick Niehaus:You know, a lot of people like they just they just want to have kind of this little sample of what you're up to you know what you're thinking about, what's going on. They can watch a few seconds. Here's the crazy part they will remember that few seconds for weeks, if not months, if not sometimes even years, because of the way our brains work and our brains remember faces. So you could post something text-based over and over again and I may or may not remember later, but if I see you, if I see your face for a few seconds, that will stick with me. Again, this is getting into the psychology of it and the kind of social relations and all that, but that's what it is right.
Nick Niehaus:So I think it's much better to just think of it as like look, this is just another 30 seconds or a minute's worth of an ongoing conversation that I'm having with people and this networking event that I went to. It's a weekly meeting, so I'm not in the group anymore, but that's how they do it. They meet every week. I think that's a great analogy for video. You know, it's like just what. You know, what's the 30 seconds or minute worth of stuff you would say to like your referral partners at a weekly networking meeting? That's your video for the week, you know, and if you put that out, a few hundred people see a few seconds of it. You don't have to perform, you don't have to dress up, you don't have to overthink it, but you will have talked to a couple hundred people that week and that's that's amazing, right? I mean?
Nick Niehaus:That's part of why
Nick Niehaus:I'm not in the weekly network anymore is because I get more out of the videos that I do, quite frankly, you know. So again, long answer to that question as well. But it's the familiarity, right. It's just the fact that I'm seeing your face, quite frankly, and I've done a lot of these types of experiments and stuff. It doesn't really matter what you're talking about in a lot of cases, like you want to talk about the right things, you want to attract the right people. But especially for the folks you already know and I think that's where a lot of missed opportunity is I know a few thousand people at this point, right, like I just run into people, network all this kind of stuff over the years. I just got to remind them I exist and if I do that consistently enough, they will come to me when they need my product or service.
Janice Hostager:That is cool, and I love what you said about the psychology of seeing a face, because that's true. When you see a video, you really feel like you almost like you had a conversation with them or you know, or you listened to them in person. Somehow, you know, there is that kind of that element to it that it makes it feel life in some ways.
Nick Niehaus:I mean really, really non-consciously. Your brain doesn't know the difference, you know I mean when we see a face, like our brain.
Nick Niehaus:You know, like sure, consciously, we in the past, you know, 100 years have invented this thing called video and you know, consciously, we're aware of what that is. But all that instinctual reaction stuff doesn't, it does not know. It's different, right right, and there's a lot of negatives there, like I think it's part of why we have like a lot of really sort of obsessive celebrity relationships, you know, because they've gotten a lot stronger over the years, because now, instead of seeing somebody on tv every couple weeks or in a movie every now and then, we can get on Instagram and see them multiple times a day, every single day. And who do you see that? Often like family members, maybe, you know, like your absolute closest friends, and your brain a lot of levels, it doesn't know the difference. So so I see a lot of feet.
Nick Niehaus:You know people, especially younger folks, that you know they they almost seem to have these like really deep connections with the influencers or celebrities they know, and that might be a fact I'm not saying it is, I don't know, this is my area of expertise but it may be having effects on other parts of their life. You know, other relationships and whatnot. So yeah, but it is true when I see your face. Look at Zoom, right, look at the pandemic. There is a reason we went to Zoom. It might have been frustrating, I know we got all burnt out on it after awhile. But we still wanted to see each other's faces. We could've done a bunch of conference calls. We could've on the phone all the time. There's a reason we turned to Zoom, right. Cause that face of the person is what our b rain is looking for. That's what. There's literally a part of our brain called the fusiform face area that just recognizes faces.
Janice Hostager:That's interesting. I was just going to bring up Zoom. Yeah, the pandemic, I think, has done a lot for that, and we do feel like I mean there are people that a lot of people actually that I've actually never met in person. Clients, people you know that I probably will never meet like I will probably never meet you in person, Nick, but you know, I feel like we've had a conversation and it is it's that seeing of the face so is powerful stuff. So thanks for bringing that up. For me personally, I've gotten a lot more comfortable being on video, but for me the hang up is the amount of time that it takes to think of an idea, get my clothes in order, set up the lighting, the camera and then film it. So do you have a way in which you recommend now I think you kind of just answered this like the small business owners kind of go about managing their time when it comes to planning and shooting and editing video?
Nick Niehaus:Yeah,
Nick Niehaus:What I like to do there is I will actually, I'll set up two blocks of time in my schedule. One is for planning and so that's where I'm, you know, writing scripts. If I have a script, a lot of the times I don't. I'm just kind of picking a topic and then I'm just sort of talking off the cuff on it. Depends on your audience which of those you want to go with and kind of how comfortable you are. But you're going to want to have the ideas figured out and you're going to want to have any kind of notes on how you're going to shoot it. And I like to do that separately from recording, because if you do that in the same time block and this is again just my personal experience, it tends to fill the whole time block as a way of procrastinating, right?
Nick Niehaus:So I'm like, oh, I'm going to come up with ideas and then I'm going to film them. Okay, it's been an hour. I have four ideas. I didn't film anything, guess I didn't get to it, you know, and it's just sort of a subconscious procrastination. So I separate them. I have the calendar note in the second block, then that just has the ideas, and so that way I can you know, that's my day where I'm putting my nicer shirt on or whatever it is, and doing my hair, and you know that kind of thing. Um, it helps me.
Nick Niehaus:I'll say this like, depending on what I'm filming, I either try to not worry at all, and this has really changed. And I've been, I've done video a lot and I've only recently kind of got to the point where I'm able to just take my phone out and record, no matter where I am. Like one day I had just worked out and I'm like you know what, just go record your videos. Right now, like sweaty hair and my towel around my shoulders, you know, and part of it was just to kind of practice, you know, being ready to make videos and not worrying about your appearance, and lo and behold, I think those videos actually perform better, because people are like what is what's going on? Why is this hair all messed up? You
Nick Niehaus:know, what's that, you know?
Nick Niehaus:Just kind of natural human curiosity. But if I am going to set anything up, I like to get all that ready. I do think if you want to have a polished look or if you're making videos where you need to project a certain level of professionalism a lot of professions probably need to do that, it does help to have a dedicated space as well. That way you know that you're either facing like so for natural light you want to be turning towards your source of light, so like if there's a window in the room, you want to face the window, put your camera between you and the window. That way you're getting that light directly on your face. If you don't have that, maybe you have a couple lights. You turn on something like that. So, for instance, like where I am right now, I have, I have a sort of studio set up and I can literally just turn it all on at about one minute, sit down, and it's going to look and sound pretty, pretty clear, which is all I'm really worried about. I don't need it to look, you know super fancy. I just want to make sure my voice is clear and you can very clearly see my face, and then I just sit down and I crank them out right. So whatever I have scheduled, it's all batched. I get it all done. So that's kind of the production side.
Nick Niehaus:I think, in particular, separating the planning from the shooting is a huge help, I will say on the planning, this is where AI is very helpful now. So this is obviously relatively recent. But if you're not sure what ideas to work with, I mean you can talk to ChatGPT, like we have a tool that's literally available on our blog and our website that will generate 48 different video ideas for you. So you just sort of put in, like what your business does and who your ideal customer is, and here you go, you got an entire year's worth of video ideas. So that's, that's gotten a lot easier. It used to be a big excuse. I don't know what to make my videos about work with AI, or just you can rip other people off. There's a million ideas out there, and so that's that side right. So let me put that down.
Nick Niehaus:I want to talk about editing for one second here too. Lots of things, and we could get into that separately. But what I will tell you just from my personal experience, is either record stuff that requires minimal editing which is why I've always liked live video, because you can't edit it, it's already gone out, it's done or pay somebody to do it, and I know when you're first getting started, maybe you don't want to have to have that cost, but you can find people overseas. Fiverr, like it's gotten really affordable at this point. And I will say, of all the people I've worked with, probably the number one sort of mistake for people that get themselves to start making videos right, um, those people, the mistake they often make is they record something and they sit on it because they still need to edit it, and then they never edit it and it sits on their phone or their computer for months and months, and I've done that.
Nick Niehaus:I did that a lot, so I ended up just hiring a full-time editor to help me out. Um, but editing, yeah, editing can be a major time suck. If you like it, if it's fun, if it seems like a cool hobby, go for it. I mean, then it's your hobby. You're going to be doing it several hours per video, depending on what you're making. But for most folks they don't like doing it, they don't want to have to do it and I think, getting that off your plate. I mean, if you record something, you put it in a Google Drive folder and four or five days later you have a polished, edited version of it, you're a lot more likely to go ahead and share that. But again, some people like editing.
Nick Niehaus:I just don't.
Janice Hostager:Yeah, no, and it does take a lot of time, for sure. Even if you enjoy the editing, it is definitely time consuming. So I run into a lot. I know we talked a little bit about different types of videos, for sure, but and social media is one thing, I think, just pulling your phone out, maybe even walking down the street, and you were just at an event and you had an idea and you thought and I thought, and you can just share it on the fly. However, a lot of my clients I really feel like they need to have video on their websites and I do recommend that they do that.
Janice Hostager:Do you have certain videos that you think every business should have on their sites?
Nick Niehaus:Yeah, I mean, what I will say is I think I agree with you every business absolutely should have video on your website. I could probably think of an example or two, or maybe they shouldn't, but I mean really it's pretty universal, right. I mean video, I mean people just understand content better typically through video, right, I mean they can hear you, they can see you, you can show versus just tell. So anything you would have to describe in text, like you can literally show it in a video, and you know 99% of the time that makes it way easier to understand.
Nick Niehaus:Now, in terms of what kind of video I mean, that will, in my mind, that does depend a little bit on the business. I do think some sort of introduction or overview, everybody needs that, right. So you're sort of one to two minute, maybe a little longer. Some people might call it a brand video. You know something that does a good job of kind of summarizing. You know, like, basically, if I show up on your website and I can click a video, that 90 seconds later I know who you are, what you do and probably how I can hire you if I need your service. That's probably a no brainer right.
Nick Niehaus:Another one I think that pretty much everybody should have if you can get it is testimonial videos. Not the easiest thing to get cause you gotta have clients that are willing to get into camera for you. But sometimes that's easier and a lot of people seem more comfortable making a video talking about somebody they respect and like and enjoyed working with rather than they would talking about themselves. Sometimes we get those a little bit easier. But I think that's a huge one. I will say if you do get testimonials, it's very helpful if you explain to the customer, restate or actually start here. Don't ask questions, make statements. So instead of saying like you know what was it like to work with me, say tell me what it was like to work with me. Right, tell me what that was like and the reason you do that. It's a little psychology trick. If you say tell me what was you know what was it like to work with me, they'll say, oh, it was great. Yeah, that's not a good video, right.
Nick Niehaus:You need them to say it was great working with this person. Here's why you know, get into the details and then give them several, you know, ask them because you're going to want to cut their testimonial down. Most people are going to talk for five or 10 minutes and you need 30 seconds of it, right? So testimonial, that's a big one.
Nick Niehaus:I think you know something that goes into your processes or how your business functions or you know kind of gives people a sense of what it's going to be like to work with you. That can sometimes come from testimonials or that can just be you kind of explaining and talking it through. So those are a few kind of bare bones. I would say you know entry level type things. And then from there, you know I wouldn't necessarily sacrifice something and replace it with a video, like if I'm going to make a blog, I don't need to say, oh, it's just a video now and I'm not blogging anymore. But I like to think of video as a perfect supplement, you know. So anywhere it makes sense to sort of sum up what is in text in a video form and add it to that page. That's going to be very helpful. It's going to help with your SEO. It gets people to stick around your site longer. It makes you know people just more interested in spending time there. It's going to develop trust. That's probably the biggest thing. Because back to the face, right, if I've seen your face and I feel like I've talked to you for a couple of minutes, so that's a lot of it. And then one that doesn't necessarily go on the site.
Nick Niehaus:But one more I'll recommend is when you get a lead, you should probably always have some sort of video that gets sent to that person very early in the process, maybe not the first thing you send. So, for example, if I get a lead on my website, I don't necessarily want the very first text to have my video in it, because it'll be a link, and that can be. You know, I get a random text. You know, yeah, I just signed up on your site, but the first thing I get is a link, you know. So I probably want to start by saying, hey, you just signed up on our website, thanks for doing so. I'm going to send you a video in just a moment, you know. So just keep an eye out for it.
Nick Niehaus:Now, I know this is a trustworthy phone number, and then I get the video right but I think a video very early in your conversion process. That really does help a lot. It's always the same thing right. Now I've seen you. Now you're real, you're a real human being, and it just increases the trust right. So now, when I get that next text, that next email, you're not a stranger, you're a real person. I know who you are, I have a bit of a relationship there. They're just more likely to respond as a result.
Janice Hostager:I love that idea. That would work really well in email too. Like if you've got an email welcome sequence that goes out like the first or second email could certainly include a video. I love that idea, gosh. So a lot of people have said that really all you need is like a good iPhone to shoot the video. Do you kind of agree with that, or do you feel like that people should invest in something a little better if they're going to do a lot of video, or what are your thoughts on that?
Nick Niehaus:Well, I do agree with it especially the past few years, the cameras in the phones, there's like four five cameras in your phone now. I mean, it's really ridiculous, you know. So it really is more of a camera than a phone. I mean, we kind of it's kind of a misnomer now to call it a phone anymore. But I agree with that. I think it's a great camera. I think you know Android, iPhone, pretty much. Any of them anything less than three or four years old is probably plenty.
Nick Niehaus:Now the only case in which I would say you maybe do want to invest in a nice you know, quote unquote nicer camera or a webcam is just if you want a dedicated setup, right. So, for example, like in my office here, I do have a mirrorless camera. You know it's set up, it's, you know it's got a big old lens on it and all that kind of stuff, not because my phone wouldn't record good enough video, but because I do this so often that it's just easier, because it stays there, it stays focused. You know all that kind of stuff. If I use my phone, I got to set it up on my tripod, I got to, you know, wipe the lenses, do all that kind of stuff. Not the end of the world, but for me it just made sense to have a more permanent setup. But realistically, yeah, I mean you can. You know, there's two things equipment-wise that might be helpful with your phone, but that and I think those things are a tripod so you can mount the phone, so you can get it out of your hands Right and you get it nice and stable, and that can be a desktop tripod or a full size tripod. And then the other is a microphone. Again, a microphone is really only necessary if you're going to be far away from the camera, like if you're going to set it up in one spot, maybe you're going to walk around a little bit while you're on camera, or if there's like a lot of noise in the environment.
Nick Niehaus:You want to make sure you isolate your voice a little bit better, and that can be, you can get wireless ones, literally like something that just clips to your shirt, you know, six, eight inches below your mouth. That's kind of where you want to put it. We've all seen these now. Five years ago it was less common, but now we see all the you know influencers with a little wireless mic clipped on their shirt. We're used to that now. Some people put it like in their hat, you know, like that kind of thing. But that's it. I mean if you you don't need just to be clear, try to record without anything, right? So just take your phone out and record and see how it looks and sounds and then if you feel like, okay, it was really. You know I was shaking around a lot. Okay, I need a tripod, you know my voice is hard to hear. Okay, maybe I need a microphone but yeah, I mean, these are all things like.
Nick Niehaus:I know a lot of people years ago that told me well, I got to invest all this equipment, I got to, you know, I still got to buy the lights, I got to buy the fancy computer, and they did. And they set up a studio somewhere in their house and all it did was just give them 10 other things they had to learn how to use before they could make any video, you know, and it just became another reason to procrastinate. And unfortunately, the correlation is, I think more of those people have not made progress than the people that never bought all this stuff because they didn't have anything else to learn, right? So don't.
Nick Niehaus:Yeah, I always tell our students in our school my rule is you buy a piece of equipment once you've encountered the problem that that equipment solves, right, so like if I've never had the problem of my lighting is terrible. I'm not buying a light. Yet you know if I've never had the problem of not being able to hear what I'm saying in a video? I'm not buying the microphone, and you know. In that case you probably don't need a lot of it. And if you do, you know you need it and then there's a reason to actually go learn to do it. But you've already made some progress at that point.
Janice Hostager:Okay, that makes perfect sense.
Janice Hostager:I was gonna ask you about the lighting, but, um, I think that's a, that's a good way of putting it. Yeah, it's like you don't need the three-point lighting setup, like, or something like that. Where you have it, you know, light over here and a light over there and a light behind you, kind of thing. Yeah, like I I have a ring, a ring light setup here that I use quite a bit, which is kind of nice to fill when, especially today, is a kind of cloudy day kind of thing.
Nick Niehaus:So right, right and well, yeah, and especially if you're, if you're using natural light, it's good to be able to supplement it, because the natural light changes every day, right?
Janice Hostager:Right, yeah, so that's good to know. So I don't need to invest in anything, anything big and special, unless I'm going to do this all the time. Is what you're saying?
Nick Niehaus:Yeah, I mean again, I think the, you know, if you, if you follow the way that a lot of influencers, you know people that maybe kind of grew up with this stuff, you know that's what they tend to do, right, it's like their earliest videos are like them in front of a laptop and you know they're in front of a blank wall and you know it sounds and looks very kind of poor quality. But that's where they started. Yeah, you like everybody asks like, okay, what kind of light should I buy? What kind of this, what kind of that? It's like well, everybody's gonna have their own preference, you know. So, for example, like a ring light, ring lights are great for a lot of people, right, if you wear glasses, you probably don't want to have a ring light because you see the, the ring in in the glasses, right? So so, everybody, you know that's just one example.
Nick Niehaus:But there's yeah, I mean there's different lighting setups. You mentioned the three point. You know there, there's there's four point, there's two. I mean you know you can do all kinds of different things. Um, it's going to depend on your space, it's going to depend on where you live in terms of the natural light. You know, like, I've got, uh, in this room I'm in, we ended up just putting like really dark curtains on the on the windows, just so that we didn't have to worry about it cause we couldn't really set it up in a way that we could face the windows? So we had to kind of block them off, right.
Nick Niehaus:So you know, again, everybody's going to have something different, but I do think there will be cases where it is helpful to have those lights and that equipment. Try to do what you can without them and you may be surprised. And the last thing I'll say there too, is AI is getting to the point where you're able to fake the lighting, which is kind of mind blowing. So you know, most people aren't going to be using those tools. That's fairly advanced stuff right now, but I don't, I don't think it's going to be that much longer before you'll basically have a button in an app that just fixes your lighting, you know. So, even if it wasn't great when you recorded, you click a button. Now you look like you're in a professional studio, and if you bought a bunch of equipment at that point, you won't be using it anymore.
Janice Hostager:Wow, that blows my mind. So you just you think, like we just upload a video. I suppose that makes sense, because I can see that even now, just using Photoshop or some of the other design software that I have, that you can pull the AI in really easily. So that will probably happen with video too. You're thinking down the road.
Nick Niehaus:It's, I mean there are some tools that are basically able to do it. Now I mean it's super processing intensive and kind of expensive in that sense and I don't, you know, a lot of this stuff is like if you're making a TV show or a movie or a documentary or something like that, stuff's maybe justified. If you're just making something for your business, for a few people to see, like, don't mess with it, it's just not worth the effort or the cost. But yeah, I mean, it all just gets cheaper as it evolves.
Nick Niehaus:So I mean really and I play with AI all the time I would predict, I don't know, one to two years that's probably about it before we're at a point where these tools are kind of just, you just sort of talk to it and it fixes whatever you want it to fix. And yeah, that's going to be. I mean, that's both good and bad, right, because it's good in the sense that we can do it. It's bad in the sense that, man, we're going to have all you know, people are going to be trying to fix things they don't need to be fixing, just as a reason not to put their video out. You know, I can't get the lighting quite right.
Nick Niehaus:It is exciting. It's like lot of fun for sure.
Janice Hostager:That is cool.
Janice Hostager:Well, Nick, where can people learn more about you?
Nick Niehaus:Sure, so probably the easiest place to find me is I'm very active on Facebook. I'm fairly active on LinkedIn as well, and so you can just look up my name. You know Nick Niehaus, but really you're going to want to go to bizvideoschoolcom. So B-I-Z videoschoolcom. That's our website, and if you check out our blog I think I mentioned this earlier we do have a tool on there that will actually give you 48 video ideas completely customized to your business. It's an AI tool that I built. You just put in what your business does and then what kind of clients you want, and it'll give you an entire one-year content calendar plan for free. So it's pretty cool. So, yeah, that'd be. That's probably a good thing to try and kind of just to see what we're doing. And then there's all kinds of other good stuff on there. Yeah.
Janice Hostager:Oh, that's awesome. No more excuses.
Janice Hostager:right, I'm talking about myself here.
Nick Niehaus:That's the point, yeah, trying to eliminate all excuses for people you know.
Janice Hostager:All right, well, we'll put the links to those in the show notes for sure. So well, thank you so much, Nick. I have learned a lot today and I need to go make some more videos. So did our conversation help convince you to do more video? If so, I'd love to hear about it. If you post a video on Instagram or Facebook, please tag me in it at Janice Hostager Marketing. Thanks so much for joining us today. For more information on anything we talked about today, visit myweeklymarketingcom. Forward slash 95. If you enjoyed our conversation, I would so appreciate a follow on iTunes or your podcast platform of choice. See you next time. Bye for now.
