Nail Your Short Form Videos with This Simple Formula

Let’s break down exactly how to nail your short form videos without feeling overwhelmed, whether you’re creating Reels, YouTube Shorts, or TikTok videos. In this episode, I’m sharing real examples of reels that have exploded with engagement and how the three S’s apply every single time.. We’ll discuss why certain words work so well to make your videos relatable and actionable and the importance of specificity in your hooks to truly connect with your audience and increase shares. We even cover how to benchmark what viral really means for you, average engagement rates, and leveraging trends that make your content instantly relatable.

In this episode we’ll be covering:

• Quickly creating reels that focus on simplicity, specificity, and shareability - the three S's
• What going viral could look like for your account and typical engagement rates you can expect..
• Importance of using relatable and specific hooks to increase engagement.
• Why showing the desired end result first in short form video grabs attention quickly
• Using intentional word choices to create easy, actionable content
• Leveraging specificity in video hooks such as locations, occasions, and brands.

Links to reels in this episode:

• Reel #1: Design and Delights Stamp vs Wallpaper
• Reel #2: All Inclusive Resort
• Reel #3: Mental Load Kids Clothing Swap
• Reel #4: Jaws Trend

Other episodes you might have missed:

• Episode 005: Create Shareable Content to Increase Your Reach with the 3 S’s
• Episode 021: Getting Your Audience to Care About Your Content
• Episode 042: Your Simple B-Roll Can Become Easy Reels That Actually Convert
• Episode 055: We Love B-Roll Because Simple, Shareable Content Never Goes Out of Style

Sign up for Reels Lab

Join the Social Squad Society

Love this conversation? Tap the follow button so you never miss an episode.

Connect with me over on Instagram!

Transcript

Shannon McKinstrie [00:00:05]:
I am your host, Shannon McKinstrie. Welcome to Good Content. The podcast where I remove the never ending content creation guesswork and overwhelm, so that you can actually enjoy being on social media again and growing your business with what has always worked, good content. Alright. I am so excited about today's episode because I found a perfect reel to break down for you exactly how to nail short form video, whether it's YouTube shorts, TikTok, LinkedIn, reels. Right? We know video is obviously huge right now. It's not the only way to grow. It's not the only way to create.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:00:42]:
We know that too. But let me tell you, I know I'm a big fan of talk to camera. I'm a big fan of there's no one way to do a reel. Right? There's hundreds of ways to do a reel, but I'm also a huge fan of simple reels that should not take more than, like, five minutes to put together. And this is a perfect example. Now, again, this reel went viral for this creator. Right? What I always like to say, a reel went viral for you if it got, like, quadruple plus views than you normally would get. Right? So let's say you have 500 followers, but you get a you have a reel that goes to 10,000 views.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:01:12]:
Like, that's huge for your account. Right? For me, I don't really consider a reel to go viral for myself until it's over a million. That to me signifies, okay, I had a reel go viral. Because usually, my standard views are anywhere between 50 k and, like, 200 k for a reel. Again, a carousel post. Most likes I typically get on a carousel post is around, like, 3,000. So if I get 8,000, 10 thousand, I would consider that carousel to have gone viral. Okay? And just to remind you guys, average engagement rate on Instagram, 5%, meaning 5% of your of the people that see the piece of content have liked it.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:01:49]:
So you're probably doing better than you think. A lot of people are like, oh my gosh. My engagement rate's at 8%, 10 %. I'm like, you're killing it. The more followers you get, that average engagement rate goes down. Like me, average engagement rate for an account of my size is between, like, 1 and 2%. So with that said, I saw this reel doing really well for creator because she's around 30,000 followers, I believe. She had over 8,000 likes.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:02:10]:
Let's actually see how many views. Because remember, it's not always about the views. Someone will be like, I got so many views. And I look, I'm like, oh, man. Not many comments or likes. So we gotta figure that out. Alright. Let's break this reel down because, like I said, there's so many ways to create a reel, but one of my favorite ways is just a quick, either one solid clip or a few clips put together that demo what you're saying.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:02:32]:
So again, this is great for products. Right? If you're you're baking a cake and you're saying this is the best cake to make for whatever. Something again, remember specificity, what's going on right now? We got Mother's Day coming up, summer, July 4. Right? Think of things that are coming up so that they can kind of gravitate. Now let me just tell you real quick. I saw another reel this morning. Again, specificity. Think of what your person's actually actively looking for right now.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:02:55]:
Genius hook. It said, black tie wedding guest dresses. If she said summer wedding guest dresses, I mean, that's fine. But she said black tie because that is something they're gonna attach you because they're like, actually, I do have a black tie wedding coming up or she could have said a different type of wedding. Right? So again, you wanna make sure that you add just one or two extra words, something they could attach to an identifier of some sort and they're gonna go, that's me. I have that coming up or that's me. Right? If I see a reel, it says toddler mom, I'm watching. If I see a reel, it says, Raleigh, I'm watching because that's the area I live in.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:03:27]:
If I see a reel about Outer Banks, I'm gonna stop. If I see a reel that says something about a show I'm watching or a store I frequent. If I see something about Trader Joe's, I'm watching. Right? Another great example of this is when White Lotus, like, was really, obviously, like, the talk of everything a month ago. I saw an interior designer. I'll have to look her up and see if I can find it and put it in the show notes. But she would break down what she thought the characters' homes would look like based on their characters on White Lotus, because remember, they're not home. They're at a resort.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:03:56]:
So she's like, here's what I think x y z's home would look like. And she's an interior designer. So she's basically taking their character and personality, and people were loving it because guess what happened in the comments? People saying, actually, I bet this or actually you nailed it or what about even this kind of style. Right? It started conversations and it's a beautiful way to take something that's popular right now and, create that specificity. So with all that said, now that I've said all that, I've got one specific reel I wanna break down, then I have a couple more because, again, I want you guys to nail this. This is not rocket science, but it does take a little probably just research, and you can use Chat GPT for this. Right? So I would love for you guys at the end of this episode to go start making a list of words and phrases and brands and stores and shows and things like that that they can that your people actually attach to. Okay.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:04:45]:
So this is the reel. I'm gonna send it to Steph right now so I do not forget. This creator, let's see what type of creator she is, is a home decor creator. DIY tips, home finds. That's her thing. Design delights is her account. And, again, let's see how many views this got. 179,000.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:05:02]:
So, again, for an account with 34,000 followers, and she normally it looks like she normally gets around oh, she's got a lot of good performing reels. Then it looks like her average is, like, 6,000, and then she's got some that are over a hundred thousand. So that's probably her benchmark. Over a hundred thousand for her is great. It's quadruple close to quadruple her following. So here we go. It says the first clip, and I want you to think about a cookbook. I want you to think about a magazine for think about country living.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:05:30]:
If country living, the the cover of it and maybe the whole theme is like summer country patios. Like, you know, inside you're gonna get some cool ideas for how to make your patio pretty. The cover wouldn't show a bunch of stuff in boxes and pressed up against the wall. Right? Or, like, it would show the final results. Right? Same with a cookbook. Right? Maybe it's a cookbook for desserts. You wouldn't show a bunch of like mixes or maybe what you would show typically the end result, the desired dish, the desired cake. Right? Because that's what we want.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:06:02]:
So same goes for this. So she starts her first clip shows the thing they want. Again, you don't have to do it that way, but that's what I see that does so well. They show you the desired look first. So whether you're in home decorating, cooking, styling right now styling, I usually see them start with something kind of like, quote, unquote, boring, frumpy, and then they go. So this isn't applied to everyone. But this is just a great way to just remember the word demo. If you don't wanna start with the end result, you know, you can always start with the before and then do the after.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:06:29]:
But sometimes, a lot of times, I see the after and then the process. Okay. Here we go. Ready? It says but she lets the text do most of the heavy lifting. And that is why I love Reel so much because the video doesn't have to be anything crazy beautiful. Because if your video isn't the best quality, it's right. It's not you don't have a videographer. And like me, I let my text do the heavy lifting.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:06:51]:
That's just me. Okay. It says, ditch the pricey and time consuming wallpaper, grab a stamp, and DIY your own. Let's break this down why this did so well for her. So again, the video starts with the end result, starts with the desired result that gives them a little dopamine hit and goes, oh, I want that. And then she takes you to the store, shows you the stamp, and then she shows her putting the stamp on the bare wall, and then she shows the result. We're going back to the three s's, which you all know I love. Simple, specific, shareable.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:07:20]:
The words that scream simple. Ready? Ditch, grab, and what do you think the third one is? DIY. So, ditch, we love to ditch things. We'd rather ditch things than add on to our plate. Correct? So the word ditch is great. Because it's like, oh, I can I'm ready to ditch something. Grab is way better than buy. It's way better than drive thirty minutes to the store to get it.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:07:40]:
Grab. Right? Learn. We hate the word learn. Like, we don't wanna learn. We just want the prize. Right? It's human psychology. It's also just it's again, this is Instagram. We're not here to lock into master classes.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:07:50]:
Okay? Grab, the word grab. Again, this is short form video that I'm talking about. And then the word DIY. Right? DIY signals capable. I can do this. I've got this. So those three words. Those fall under the word of simple.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:08:04]:
This makes it simple. It's also a simple tip overall, but those words signify simplicity. Next, specific. What is specific in that hook? And again, it's the same text the entire time. She didn't make it complicated. She probably took five. She went through her camera roll, grabbed five or six clips, put them all together about one point five seconds each, and put one text up the whole time, and chose some audio that matched the vibe. Done.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:08:28]:
Specificity. Pricey. She should have also said expensive. Pricey and time consuming. Good. I geek out. I love it. Time consuming.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:08:35]:
Right away, we're like, yeah. You're right. Wallpaper is pricey and time consuming. For what? Right? And then again, ditch the pricey and time consuming wallpaper. She could have just said ditch the wallpaper. I would have been like, why do I wanna ditch the wallpaper? Wallpaper's so pretty. Ditch the wallpaper because it's time consuming and pricey. And she's giving you another option that is, like, so cute and so adorable.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:08:55]:
Ditch the pricey and time consuming wallpaper. Grab a stamp and DIY your own, you guys. And in the video, she shows it. She goes, here's the end result. Here's how I got here. I grabbed a single stamp and I smudged it all over my walls. And now look at this. You guys, insane.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:09:09]:
2,500 shares. Guarantee it led to followers for her. Guarantee it led to DMs. And then her caption's simple. A $6 stamp and some extra paint, and it's the most fun laundry room ever. Now she didn't do any you know, I always I love hooks with the words I, me, etcetera. So she wants to repurpose this in, like, a month, which would be really smart. She go, I decided to skip the time consuming and pricey wallpaper and create my dream laundry room with a stamp.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:09:37]:
That could be another way she could repurpose and do the I, me, method that I love that and then see doing. Okay. So let's go back. Here's another example of this. There is a travel reel. Right? Because I wanna make sure you guys know, like, oh, well, you know, I love, you know, and I'm the same. I wish I had pretty videos. Of course, it's a lot of fun to show pretty interiors.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:09:56]:
We love to see it. But I wanna assure you just because you're not an interior designer, if you're not an interior designer, you can still do this s s s to get crazy shares, etcetera. Here's an example for a travel agent. Again, I know travel's pretty, but give me a second. I promise I got you. I got you. I got you. All inclusive resort, only two hours from Miami, Six Hundred Seventy Eight Dollars including flights.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:10:17]:
A bunch of tiny one second clips showing this. He or she could have said oh, it's a travel agency. Looks like it could have said all inclusive resort in The Caribbean. Cool. Not not gonna stop the scroll though. Not gonna go crazy for for them. 4,000 shares, 4,000 shares off 5,000 likes is insane. That's like almost 100%.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:10:37]:
Right? She said all inclusive resort only only the word only signifies simple, specific wording, all inclusive, resort, all those are specific. The word Miami is specific. And of course, it's shareable because once you add in simple and specific, it it's shareable. So specific, it's it's simple. It only two hours from Miami. That signals, oh, if I can just get to Miami, we're there. I can be at the beach by noon. Right? I could be at the pool by noon.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:11:07]:
Okay? So that's another example. Let me find one more for y'all. I love this because this is a mom account. She is oh my gosh. She's following me. Let me follow her back. Paige Connell. She's a working mom, mental load childcare, sharing the realities of marriage and motherhood.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:11:21]:
Okay? So that's her account. So, again, personal brand and probably a lot like me where it's like, I don't really get to record a bunch of pretty things. I'm in the house most of the time. Right? Her hook is beautiful. The mental load, kids clothing swap. She could have said motherhood mental load. We know we know we're aware kids clothing swap. And because of the video, again, demo, demo doesn't mean you actually have to take a product apart, put it together, go to the store.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:11:48]:
She's demoing simply because the tub of clothes is in the video. So right away as a mom, I know what that looks like. We have to do it every six months because these girls grow so fast. It's insane. She's got a tub of clothes right there with all the clothes in it. So right away, it signals to my brain, relatable, familiar. I get this. And again, she didn't just say motherhood mother, you know, or, you know, she's about to talk the mental load.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:12:13]:
And the word mental load is a phrase I can attach to it's an identifier I get. And then kids clothing swap specific, shareable, also because I'm gonna share with my mom friends, I'm gonna share it with my husband, and then she goes on to talk about the mental load of, like, it's not just getting rid of clothes, it's going this is a phase of my life that's dwindling. It it goes so fast. Not to get emotional. Okay. So with that all said, I just love to kinda come back every few episodes and just talk about some reels that are doing really, really well. Hers had a ton. Let's see.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:12:40]:
She's got a large following. So let me tell you real quick to break down the numbers for you. It is pouring. Do you see how just dark it got in here? And by the way, guys, I just got the Osmo camera. So by next week, it's gonna be we're stepping up this podcast, y'all. Okay. Finally. You guys are probably like, thank god.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:12:59]:
Alright. So 37,000 likes, 27,000 shares. Holy moly cannoli. 1,000,000 views. There we go. We got a viral hit. So because she's got 245,000 followers. So so a million.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:13:13]:
So, again, like, three to four times more, than your followers is a good way to look at it as well. Again, there's no book that says you went viral if you got this many view. No. It's like if it went viral for you. Okay? So let's see what the comments are saying. The sadness when you put something away that both your kids wore and it's the last time, oh my god, I'm gonna die. That is my kids right now because Chloe's our last. So when I put away Chloe's stuff and give away, it's gone.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:13:40]:
It's done. Oh, so, again, this is one of those heard reels. It's also storytelling. It's beautiful. She's telling you in the moment, and I tell you guys all the time, record in the moment. Don't force the content. Let the content happen in your life or force it. You have to sometimes.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:13:55]:
Sometimes we gotta force it. But as much as you can document those real life things and talk about it. But, again, her hook is brilliant, specific, shareable, simple. Okay? So there you go. That is the winning formula. And, again, like I always say, if it if if it's not a voice, if you're not talking, make sure the audio typically, you want it trending. It doesn't necessarily have to be, but you'd ideally, that's great. Under about 5,000 uses is is great.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:14:16]:
Also, look at the videos within the trending audio, see if, like, they're also getting a lot of views. Again, there's not a real science to any of this. There's no one way to do any of this. I always say good content. It's good content. Good content is going to go off whether the audio has a million uses or two, but just make sure that the audio matches the vibe. If it's a really like touchy feely hug reel, the audio should reflect that. If it's a fun tutorial that's upbeat and, like, exciting, make it fun.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:14:42]:
So there you go. I hope that helps. Those are a bunch of viral reels right now. They're doing really well, and they come down to the three s's every time. Even if it's a humorous reel, it's specific, shareable, and simple because it's a one usually one funny concept. Oh, let's talk about it real quick before I let you go. Sorry. This is longer than normal, but I wanted to cover all this.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:14:59]:
My I decided reel go insanely viral for me. It's at 2,000,000 views, I think so far. For me, that's I've had a couple viral. I had one at 1,000,000, which is just and let me let's talk about that hook real quick. Subliminal hooks for your reels that are super subtle, but proven to increase views. Again, one subject, simple. I know I'm making them feel capable because the list is easy peasy, so there's that. But the other one that went viral was humor, and I said it was off a viral trend.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:15:24]:
I got 1,800,000.0, and the shares, 20,000 shares, 73,000 likes. It's been crazy. And it's me doing the, Jaws trend. I'll put it again in the show notes. And, essentially, all I'm doing is demoing what people do. And I say, how friends and family who never like or comment on anything be in your stories. And I'm just kinda creeping and then walking away, then creeping and walking away. People loved it because it's relatable, and it's so again, the specificity, I could have just said how people, I said friends and family.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:15:55]:
I could have said Instagram. I said stories, not just Instagram stories. And the simple was it's a simple concept. It's right. And then it's obviously shareable because it was relatable. So it doesn't always have to be educational content talking to camera. The three s's apply to every single short form video, I promise you and you'll start noticing that. So there you go.

Shannon McKinstrie [00:16:14]:
Make your word bank. Use chat GPT again, instead of learn or buy grab, use steal, we love stuff like that it feels simple. And then specificity, talk to them with phrases, words, brands, etc, that they know and attack they can't attach to and the shares will go crazy. I love you, friend. I'll talk to you next week.