The Business & Marketing Scoop
The Business & Marketing Scoop with Mark Flavin of 3B1 brings you interviews with entrepreneurs, marketers, founders and leaders. Discover actionable insights and learnings that you can take back to your business.
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The Business & Marketing Scoop
Ep 31 - The Lowdown on Video and Social Media with Guest Expert Fraser Cottrell (Fraggell Productions)
In this episode of The Digital Marketing Scoop Mark and Jen are chatting with guest expert Fraser Cottrell all about video and social media.
This episode of The Digital Marketing Scoop is brought to you by Cliq Media and Marketing.
This weekend, the digital marketing scoop. We're talking about video content creation with Frazier. Cotterell
Speaker 2:[inaudible]
Speaker 1:phrase. You're very welcome to the podcast. Hello. Nice to see what, it's nice to hear an Irish accent in rainy Manchester. It's rainy car care. There are a lot of similarities. Oh, okay. I was fight. Yeah, it's dark, rainy, miserable. It's a, it's not gray outside. I have to say at the moment, I think you can't quite see out the window here, but pretty much the same it up on the mic. I know it was the wind is why hairs? Why are we talking about weather? Right. It's the most British thing to open a conversation right. Until the weather. So Fraser tell, tell us a bit about yourself and what you do. Okay. So, um, I run a digital first video production company. Um, here in Manchester. We cover the entirety of the Northwest bar. So we do venture sometimes outside of there. Uh, and essentially we make video for digital platforms. So multiple Facebook for YouTube, Instagram, IgE, TV of that. Uh, so we don't really dabble inside television and stuff like that. Cause, I mean we don't believe in it. We don't think that's the future of video. So we don't want to work with clients that think that's the way. But obviously now and again we might, you know, we might do something for a traditional media outlet, but it's mostly focused in digital. Um, yeah. And then we do a lot of social stuff as well. Um, yeah. I mean we do all saw anything video and social. We, we normally do it. So that's, it's not just video production from our agency as well as the huge amount of concept and the creative side from your end that goes into it as well. Yeah. So, so, so we kind of, we, yeah, we do kind of the whole scope of it. So a client can come to us with just an idea and we kind of scope out the entire project of, they come to us and say, okay, I already have an idea or I already have a location already have actors. You just need to turn up film and editor. And then that's what we'll do. But we'll also give them a lot of social consultancy on the side of it so that when they deliver the video, it works. You know, we kind of know what works on social so that when, you know, so that we, the one thing we hate, and we've worked with clients who do it in the past, they will, we'll make a video for them and they will just post it at like one o'clock on a Wednesday. We'd like to hashtags on Instagram and then they'll go, Oh dang, it didn't work. You know? And that's like the one thing we don't want because obviously, you know, from a results standpoint it means that the, you know, it doesn't look great for the, for us, it doesn't look great for the clients. So we give them a lot of help on the social side of it to make sure that their videos actually deliver. Cool. So one thing I picked up there, as you said, you, you can know what works on social. So if we were to dig
Speaker 3:a little bit deeper into that, now I know obviously it's kind of specific, it's industry specific. There's, there's so much, so much that can go into it, but if you had, um, some tips for businesses in terms of what is working very well on social, I suppose in particular, Instagram, um, what kind of tips, what kind of information would you give them?
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, I mean I think the major, like the major thing that I give to everybody is you need to work the platform. Every platform is entirely different. So whether you're on Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, whatever it is, every single platform works works differently. You have different aspect ratios. I'd say that's the main thing, like 16 by nine traditional video, rectangle video doesn't work on Instagram. You know, it D doesn't work because it takes up so little real estate that people kind of scroll past it. So that's why portrait stuff works really well on Instagram. And you know, you never have, I mean, kind of IGT V out. OSA is kind of like vertical first. Obviously they've introduced the fact that you can upload 60 by nine videos now, but nobody ever does it. Like people like switch off. If you work the platform to its advantages, you can make something work for you. You know? So yeah, it just comes down to like you need to learn the social media platform before you become active in it. Everyone's always talking about tech talk and how it's the best thing since sliced bread and everybody needs to be on it. But like, like I, I, I think that unless you consume on that platform, there's no point in making a and going, okay, here we go, we're going to post on it. Because it's not, it's not, it's just not gonna work because you're going to, you don't know the way it works. You don't know how people engage on the platform. Like you need to know that platform back to front before you start creating content for it.
Speaker 4:Yeah, definitely. And it's very easy to get sucked into tech talk if anyone is like looking to like submerse themselves in it as I can. I can vouch for getting addicted to it very quickly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I mean that, that, that, that's like the one thing that people are living is that it is, it's very similar to how Instagram was in the early days where it's like, you know, you can just spend hours on it, you know, like, although I mean, it's probably not meant for our ages. I do feel a bit old when I'm on it, you know, like, I mean, yeah. Last night I was on one of our work accounts on it and there was just some school girls in the school bathroom, like dancing. I was like, Oh my God, what am I looking at this like the, I probably shouldn't be on this app. Right. And it's just a, yeah, it's, it is. Tick tock is a weird one. It's a, you know, like, I think it's going to take a long time for it to become more than just an app for kids. Yeah. Yeah. I, I,
Speaker 3:I do think though that the acceleration will happen quicker. We'd say we, you, we've had like we'd say a kind of a big migration from Facebook to Instagram now, but that's taken quite a long time. I do think something like takes off or whatever comes along next that those migrations to different apps
Speaker 1:are going to get quicker and quicker I think to a new deal. You feel like you're looking to your yeah, it's true. Yeah. Yeah. I think, yeah, it's um, it's a bit of a weird one. We've been doing some little bits for tech talkies and a few of our brands and it's like, I mean it works. Oh my God. Like you hardly need to put any effort into it to get results, which I think is like the main reason why people are like so crazy about it. But it's like, I think it's going to be wild until it works for businesses. Like you have people like Gary V preaching that it's, you know, if you're a brand you need to be on tech talk. But again, like unless you consume for a little bit on it and see what people are doing and kind of work out a niche, you will go on it and you will fail and it just, you know, it won't be good for anybody involved.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And you really need to have a brand as well that's open to experiment that bed if they're going to be happy to dive into tech talk very quickly after it's much time. Yeah. If you're a particularly conservative Rhonda probably. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean I I love to see the results that a lot of recruitment agencies get cause I mean like some of the LinkedIn videos that I've seen like get a lot of engagement and that's where recruitment isn't. It works really well. But then I've seen people posting like yeah they were posting recruitment videos on TechTalk asking people to apply for a job and I was a bit like who, who gave the okay for this cause like they're going to get some applicants for a lot of 13 year olds to be working as a, as a manager in a year. It was a bit of a weird one. Yeah. I think you do need to be a certain type of brand, right? There's a lot of trendy marketing agencies that are on it and it like, it works amazingly and I think it's a good case study for them as well that we can do this with tick tock. Um, yeah, I think just cause it's the, it platform doesn't mean that it's the right platform for you. Yes.
Speaker 3:Um, I suppose from flipping to a very different network, uh, LinkedIn, um, LinkedIn at the moment is, is working quite well and in terms of, of consuming content, it's, you know, it's, it's like the organic reach and it just seems very, very good at the moment. And just to chime in there, I'm actually really loving your videos at the moment on LinkedIn. They're, they're great.
Speaker 1:Thank you. Thanks very much. Yeah, it's smart. LinkedIn has been like, I started first using LinkedIn like two years ago because everybody who's in business needs to be on LinkedIn. Right. And um, and I, yeah, and I, I was just using it. I mean, I'm gonna, you know, I'm guilty of this and I think a lot of people who might be listening are probably guilty. They have, they have mass messaged people in the past to try and get clients in like that. Like because that's what everybody was doing. That was the trend to mass message people on LinkedIn to try and get working. I've done it, I've tried it, it fails. Right. And there's a lot of companies still selling that service and I think they're kidding themselves along with their clients that this is a good method of bringing it. I I get cold message every day. I got one before my, my latest video was about stop selling and start creating and the whole idea was stop sending me mass messages. I'm not going to listen. And if you want somebody to buy something from you then do something more than a sales pitch. I just got a message by somebody wanted me to attend an event. It was a three paragraph message about how great their networking event is and how I should pay 50 pound for a ticket and I just like folded in my video. I was like, come on guys. Like clearly happened like during your research here. Yeah, I think LinkedIn is like, you know, again, every creator like you know on YouTube and you're Gary V and stuff like that are all preaching. LinkedIn is amazing. It's the, Oh, it's one of the only things that I agree with Gary[inaudible] is that he, I'm like LinkedIn is a place to be. Like right now, if you want to create content, you're a business owner, whatever you are. Like LinkedIn is the place to be 100 110%
Speaker 4:definitely. We definitely see probably a majority of our reach is all Eddington by LinkedIn followed by Twitter, then Instagram than Facebook
Speaker 1:probably. No. Yeah, we, we don't really touch, touch Twitters, but it's like, I don't know, like we, we, we, we kind of, it's a bit of a throwaway platform for us, but I see a lot of companies getting like amazing results on Twitter and I don't know what it is. I just, we, we've never really got into it to the extent that it's brought us any kind of success.
Speaker 4:I think it's valid with Twitter though, like we've said this before in a different podcast, but it's one of those platforms that you kind of, you need to be addicted to Twitter. Like you need to be going on to Twitter and kind of tweeting 10 12 times a day and kind of reading, engaging and talking to people constantly on it. It's kind of a constant platform water down like it's quantity rodder yeah, it's definitely a lot.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Do you find, do you find that, you know from like a business account perspective on Twitter, like are you engaging with people and having like normal conversations with them and then like is that giving you any kind of like, you know, brand awareness or is that just something which you're just doing so that you're on Twitter?
Speaker 4:I think yeah, it can be a little bit of mixture. So like say for example, recently we were at a digital marketing awards event and it's, it's are things like those where there's a sudden splurge locally, have something going on that it's really good, but like on a day to day basis that, that very much flatline.
Speaker 3:I'm, is there is some general brand awareness, if we were to look up where, where client acquisition actually happens at that LinkedIn that is, I mean that's where people are finding us and reaching of where inbound leads are actually coming from. But you at the same time, it's like anything, you might have a touch point in Twitter, a touch point on Facebook, you've touched went on Instagram, but then, and then LinkedIn is the final contact. So I, I, I do think, you know, it's still good to be across everything but you know, focus on the, the ones that you're best at are the ones that are going to provide you the most, the most value.
Speaker 4:Yeah. Yeah. I definitely do. Like when we make our content it's, we have LinkedIn in mind and then we caught it a little shorter or do something with it for Twitter. But it's, it's only just because it's, it's not
Speaker 1:person. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. That's really interesting. I mean for, for us, obviously we're a small agency is only three of us. So it's like we, you know, like our, our social media manager, she focuses on like Facebook and she's really, again, like Instagram is something for us as a company, which our own personal company page, we don't really pay much attention to it. We probably should do a, you know, but then we have our like brands that we manage as well, which like, you know, obviously we spend the majority of our time on growing and making content for our, but like we don't, other than mailings in videos, we don't directly make company content because I feel like that is very branded in a sense. Whereas if it's coming from me, people connect with a person more than they do a brand obviously. So it's like for, for us, thankfully, you know, like Nick, my business partner, if I put him in front of a camera, he'd probably break down and cry and Hannah would probably be the same as well. So it's like, it's quite thankful that I'm in the position that I am, that I can quite freely talk about things. And I think if you're, you know, like I've, I've seen a lot of people making content for LinkedIn, just posting it directly to their company page, our posts in it, you know, kind of like as their company less of themselves. And I think that's my first piece of advice for LinkedIn is like you need to just be yourself and kind of, you know, let people connect with you as a person instead of you as a, as, as a brand or a company. Yeah. I mean at the end of the day people buy from people they like. So it's just taking those, those personal releases relationships and trying to bend them online basically. And we definitely do that with our, um, kind of content as well. A lot of time we will push it out from us rather than the company is Island and just kind of match it a little best yet. And I think for B2B company, I mean the goal online is obviously to establish yourselves as the experts within the industry. And I think LinkedIn is the perfect platform to push out that content to[inaudible]. It literally goes without saying you have a platform which is Facebook for people in business. Like that's, that's what, that's what LinkedIn is, right? It's like, you know, like it is the perfect, you know, the perfect customer is, is on LinkedIn and it's just, you know, a, it used to be, you know, like even my brother, you know, like my brother works in radio and he just doesn't understand LinkedIn. He's never logged on the app properly. He just like doesn't, he doesn't understand it. He still thinks it's this business thing where you know, where people just kind of, you know, talk about business and pie charts and you know, and stuff like that. But like it's, it's kind of when you, when you delve a bit deeper and get into the actual sphere, which is LinkedIn, where you start to see value, you see other people creating content. You see, you know, when you kind of get into that world a little bit more and then that's where it starts to provide value I think. Definitely. Yeah. I definitely, um, I feel like we've almost, we've almost gotten a like a LinkedIn podcast, so yeah, it's like a really interesting thing of the moment because you know, like we said, it's like a traditional business platform and people are using it to create like YouTube style content on, right. This is like, this is bizarre. Like what a weird change of a social media platform. Yeah. It's very like it's like Facebook five years ago, you know, it's, it's the algorithm is all thumbs up. Favorite one at the moment. It'll be interesting to see how if we were to have the same conversation in 18 one yeah. I think, I think LinkedIn really needs to be careful not to screw themselves and stop themselves to the back I think because like if they just carry on the way they are now and improve things like their whole entire ad platform, which I mean I don't understand how people deal with like running LinkedIn ads but like if they work hard on that and I in and out all the user problems and all the, you know, kind of server issues they have all the time. Genuinely they could have like by far one of the most successful like social media platforms for like, you know, the everyday worker. I think it's such the same cause it is a, it is a platform at the moment that has a few years behind it. And I mean they haven't even simple features like scheduling a post or you know, the, the iPod from, at the moment they're trolling me on Instagram ads to use their platform and I'm like, Oh are you using the cheaper platform to LinkedIn? You know? Yeah, yeah. But again, like I, I, I kind of liked the simplicity of LinkedIn that it doesn't have all these like, you know, features where people can abuse them and like, you know, kind of you have to, you know, like when I want to post the video I have to go into my computer or my phone, I have to write the copy, I have to post the video after like, you know, this quite a, you know, it's quite nice to be able to do that instead of just go, okay, so I've made 10 videos, we're going to schedule them for the next week and forget about it. Like, you know, it's because that is very much how social media management as a whole tends to be. And it kind of takes away a bit of the magic, especially like, you know, if you've kind of grafted on a piece of content, if I post it, I'm going to stick around for the next hour or so to make sure that it's well received and I'm replying to comments and I am, you know, like it gives you a little more control and it's a bit more therapeutic. I think LinkedIn in the way that it's working at the moment, I see a bit more connected to it from a, yeah. From your perspective as opposed to just numbers of likes saturating the news for you or I guess what was that? Sorry? It's not oversaturating the newsfeed either if everyone was, yeah, yeah, man. I would hate to think as soon as schedule and like proper scheduling comes to LinkedIn, we're screwed. Everyone is going to be like, Oh, like posting eight times a day, they're going to backlog content and it's going to be, you know, an absolute mass. I can see it coming already.
Speaker 3:Um, so in terms of like for business here we do things like testimonial videos, how-to's, explainers I suppose they'd kind of be the tree kind of main ones that we would, we would work with clients on. Um, obviously you work in the creative side a lot is around the other types of videos you think that can work really well for people?
Speaker 1:I think in like engagement content in general, testimonials are great. Like, you know, I think if you, if you are B to B company, if you're a B to C company, whatever you are, if you don't have video testimonials right now I think your, you know, you, you, you're kind of doing something wrong because you know, like we've been building a new landing page for our ads and like, you know, it's weird, we're a video company, we don't have video testimonials and it's, it feels, it feels so weird, you know, like, which could go out and make these fail easily. But you know, but we just haven't, so we have text testimonials and it just, it just doesn't work right. It doesn't convey your point properly. And so it doesn't make a real, yeah, I think, yeah, exactly. For sure. It, you know, like, you know, like, like you said earlier, people buy from people and people, you know, people take recommendations from other people and yeah. And so, and so I think like, yeah, testimonial videos, uh, yeah. But I think just general engagement content, which like the whole reason for it, you know, like you should never have a whole feed full of sales content, right? You need content to fill in those gaps and you need content which drives followers and drives engagement. And that's where, you know, general original content calms. You know, we have a big push at the moment for all of our clients. Like it needs to be making original content. Like some of the brands that we work with as some of, you know, some of the biggest followings in the world, you know, like we've worked with pretty little thing and places like that, you know. And when you look at the, you know, the pre little thing podcast is it hit like a million, a million followers, a million downloads or something the other week. Like, this is a business that is making a podcast, this isn't, you know, like a YouTube or which has made a podcast. It's a business and they've got a million downloads. Like, and that's because they're adding something value to their customers. Right. And so like, I think in any way that you can add value to a customer, whether it is podcast clips or whether it's, you know, um, behind the scenes stuff, you know, maybe if you're a film company, people really enjoy seeing behind the scenes of stuff. You know, if your, you know, a food photographer, you know, and you're looking, you know, to, to, to show your clients what goes into a day like behind the scenes of a food shoot. Like people love food, people love seeing behind the scenes of stuff, you know, so like general content that fills the gaps where your sales content isn't going I think is definitely something people should be creating.
Speaker 4:Yeah. I think as well, a lot of people forget, um, because Joe, when you're in your day to day activities, you forget that if someone else looking in on it would find that new and exciting and the talls are videoing it seems mundane or something. We're not trying to say that's perfectly good content for record. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure. People, people get, you know, like people are ask us all the time, you know, like, Oh wow, you know what, what goes into like a day shooting? It's like, yeah, go sub the camera, do above the above, you know, direct and this and that. They're like, Whoa. And I'm like, yeah, it's every day for me. Like, you know, it's pretty standard for, you know, it's the same with anything, you know, like for what you do isn't really magic or isn't really interesting cause you do every single day, you know. But there are people out there which could be a customer, which would find it incredibly interesting to see.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah. Um, so in terms of, we'd say smaller businesses who, they haven't really dipped her tool into video yet. Um, if they're starting off in house, I suppose there's two things is obviously dad is, which we've kinda touched on their bodies, but there's also for them is the equipment side of things. Um, what advice would you have for people just just starting out? Just dipping the tool where no matter what platform it is.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Video doesn't need to be expensive, right? It's something we tell clients all the time, like, yeah, okay. Right now my webcam is currently at two and a half thousand pound camera. Okay, great. But that's here though. Yeah. Yeah. But, but, but that's because this is my job, right? It's like, it's like a, Barbara is going to spend 10 pound on a pair of scissors. Right? It's like, you know, but just because, you know, just because we charge money for the product doesn't mean that you like you. So what you shoot on your phone will, will serve the same purpose. People invest in video companies to do things because they want it done a certain way in day. You know the certain things that we can do, which the average Joe Kahn, you know do and genuinely like, like I have the brand new iPhone and it's, it's amazing. Like the camera is incredible. Like we do a lot of like stock photo and stock video. 70% of the stock photos we've uploaded this month has been from our phones. Like the, these are professional photos which people are downloading and using for that, you know, for their marketing and stuff like that. It's the same with the video. Just all you need to do with, with any camera, no matter how bad it is, make sure it's really well lit. Like, you know, stand in front of a window, you know, get your lamp and bounce it off a white wall. Literally right now I have like a big lie and I'm just bouncing it off the white wall in front of me. You know, and it's like just doing something like that fills your face and makes you look well lit and then you know, if you want to, you know, put a little bit more money into it, you can get like a little tripod for your phone. You know, probably costs like 10 pound on Amazon, you know, and get like a little microphone. You can get these little road microphones. Uh, which like the like little clip on level air microphones search on Amazon. It's like called the, I don't know, pro lab or something like that. The smart lab, I think it's called, it's like 40 pounds. It plugs into the bottom of your phone and it will give you professional grade, quite light. Like we use them for our videos. Like they plug into your phone, allows you to record professional, great audio, do that, set up your set up your camera and just do it like a, and then it's, it's, it's not civil appeals. Phones are amazing. People don't realize how good your phone is. The reason your phone looks rubbish 90% of the time it's cause you're in a dark room. Like that starts what? No camera. Our cameras that rubbish in the dark. Like if you set up a lie, an office lie, a window, whatever it is, and you stand in front of it, your, your photos, your video will look a billion times better. Um, yeah. So just invest in some good audio equipment like, because people need to hear you properly. Uh, just use your, get a tripod, something like that. And just, you know, just kind of mess up out and see and see what you can do. And then even editing now, like Adobe rush is, I think it's called far, you can download it on your phone. A full piece of editing software on your phone. I movie like it's free on a Mac. Is it, is it freestyle? I think it might be, um, online anyway. Uh, and spliced out mobile ads. Islands. Quite a good one. Yeah, exactly. And then there's one which people don't like as a thing called DaVinci resolve. It's made by company called black magic. And it is like black magic make cameras that are professional cinema company, but they have a software and editing software called DaVinci resolve and it's free. You can go and download it. It's, you know, it's, it's obviously if you pay for it you get more features but the average Joe won't need those features. You can download it for free and it will give you professional grade edits in like they are, there are films that are caught on this software and it's free. There is, you know, like nothing is holding you back from making content. Like money is no longer the thing that holds you back from making content. Yeah. It's just time putting in a better time. Really.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Same effort. And as you say it, to get to get to learn the tools, the tools are there for free. It's just[inaudible].
Speaker 1:Yeah. But yeah, you know, like all you need to do, you want to learn how to add it, search, download the Vinci resolve and search on YouTube, how to add it individually resolve and they will be a million people, which you've done the same thing. Myself and Nick, we learn our entire craft from reading books and watching YouTube videos. Like, you know, that it's, it starts, it just happens that we were good at it like that. Obviously that helps. But like, you know, anybody can learn to do something if, if you really want to learn to make graphics are, you know, just, just YouTube it, it's like, it's the easiest answer I can give anybody.
Speaker 3:Brilliant phaser. If people want to find out a bit more about your business or see, see your work, where, where should they head to?
Speaker 1:Uh, they can had to, they can search me out on LinkedIn, uh, phrase cultural, uh, you can find my company we called Fraggle productions. It's a bit of a weird name. I know, but it's F R a G G E L L productions frog productions.com. You can search those finders, but LinkedIn is probably a pretty safe place to get me a, just search out my name and uh, and you'll find me there.
Speaker 3:Fantastic. Brilliant. Thank you very much. That was really interesting. No worries. Thanks for[inaudible]. Brilliant. Thank you. Thank you everyone. That's been in this week's episode of the digital marketing scoop.
Speaker 5:[inaudible].