Are you looking to do more with video in social media? Join me for this interview with video marketing expert Jayson Duncan as we discuss how can businesses get into a groove of creating video on a regular basis, how to get people to watch your videos on LinkedIn, Facebook and YouTube, how to create successful video ads, and more! Learn more about Jayson and his company Miller Farm Media here: https://millerfarmmedia.com/
If you want more information on the Age of Influence pre-order campaign - which expires March 16, 2020 at 11:59 P.M. Pacific time, please go to https://nealschaffer.com/influencer-marketing-age-of-influence/
Finally, please join our "new" community on Facebook: Maximize Your Social Influence Facebook Group
Key Highlights
[01:21] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Jayson Duncan
[07:30] Aligning Video With Sales
[12:20] How To Get Into The Groove Of Creating Videos
[18:12] Why Content Batching Is Powerful
[20:13] One Of The Steps That Brands Forget
[23:54] How To Get People to Watch Your Videos?
[25:22] Different Types Of Content Work On Different Platforms
[26:23] The Importance Of Captions
[27:51] The Sweet Spot In Video Length
[32:34] Jayson's Insights On Video Ads
[39:16] How To Create Successful Video Ad?
[41:37] Measuring ROI For Video Ad
[43:11] Jayson's Final Advice
[46:16] Connect With Jayson
[48:32] Summary
Notable Quotes
Learn More:
Are you looking to do more with video in social media? Join me for this interview with video marketing expert Jayson Duncan as we discuss how can businesses get into a groove of creating video on a regular basis, how to get people to watch your videos on LinkedIn, Facebook and YouTube, how to create successful video ads, and more! Learn more about Jayson and his company Miller Farm Media here: https://millerfarmmedia.com/
If you want more information on the Age of Influence pre-order campaign - which expires March 16, 2020 at 11:59 P.M. Pacific time, please go to https://nealschaffer.com/influencer-marketing-age-of-influence/
Finally, please join our "new" community on Facebook: Maximize Your Social Influence Facebook Group
Key Highlights
[01:21] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Jayson Duncan
[07:30] Aligning Video With Sales
[12:20] How To Get Into The Groove Of Creating Videos
[18:12] Why Content Batching Is Powerful
[20:13] One Of The Steps That Brands Forget
[23:54] How To Get People to Watch Your Videos?
[25:22] Different Types Of Content Work On Different Platforms
[26:23] The Importance Of Captions
[27:51] The Sweet Spot In Video Length
[32:34] Jayson's Insights On Video Ads
[39:16] How To Create Successful Video Ad?
[41:37] Measuring ROI For Video Ad
[43:11] Jayson's Final Advice
[46:16] Connect With Jayson
[48:32] Summary
Notable Quotes
Learn More:
This is the maximize your social influence podcast with Neal Schaffer, where I help sales and marketing professionals, entrepreneurs and small business owners, build, leverage and monetize their influence in digital and social media. Hey, this is Neal Schaffer. Welcome to episode number 151 of the maximize your social influence podcast. It was a crazy week last week speaking at Social Media Marketing World on influencer marketing and then attending pod Fest in Orlando, Florida, my first foray into a podcasting conference, it was really fascinating, educational, inspirational, absolutely wanted me to put more energy and time into my own podcast, but I'll be sharing with all of you in future podcasts what I learned there, but today is going to be all about video, I am telling my clients whenever possible, we already know we need to think mobile first. Well, I think more and more, we really need to think video first. And everything we do. This is a challenge for a lot of businesses. It's a challenge for my own business. But I plan on accepting the challenge and seeing what I can do and really, really just thinking video first and all of my content creation and promotion going forward. So today, we have Jason Duncan, who is the CEO and founder of Miller farm media, located right here in Orange County, California. I've known Jason for almost a decade now, truly an expert in video marketing, he has been contributing to my blog, Neal schaffer.com, as well as what it used to be called maximize social business comm for many, many years, someone that I truly respect and look up to. And I think that no matter where you are, in terms of video marketing, you're going to pick up a thing or two today. So hope you enjoy the interview, before we get to the interview, Just a friendly reminder that this episode of the maximize your social influence podcast is being sponsored by the age of influence my new book, which well it's coming out a few days after this podcast drops on March 17 2020, I do have a pre order campaign, you can get the book right now on Amazon at a very reasonable price, send me over the receipt. And you will get access to two exclusive trainings, online live trainings that I am doing, just for people that pre ordered my book. So one of the trainings is going to be about scaling your digital branding, your digital marketing, how do you do this? How do you do more with less? What are the tools, the processes, services, people you might be able to outsource different tasks to the second training is going to be all about SEO slash blogging slash keyword research, it's really a critical part of Digital Influence is having an influence on the worldwide web, right and with the Google algorithm. So we're going to talk a lot about that as well. The instructions on how to apply, it's really simple, actually, just make sure you do this before the book goes on sale. So you can preorder until March 16 11:59pm. Pacific, just send me a receipt of your order with Amazon or whatever online outlet you're using. And that's it. Send me that receipt to Neal at Neal schaffer.com. And you'll be getting notification of those webinars, which I hope to do near the end of this month. So there you have it there. I also just want to let you know, before we get to the interview that this podcast for all you listeners, we now have our own community. It's called the maximize your social influence Facebook group. And it's actually a reincarnation of a Facebook group that I have had for a few years now called the Social Media Center of Excellence. We already have about 1800 members. We don't post necessarily every day in the group, you're obviously welcome to whenever you have a question, but I really want to make it a place where we can talk more about these episodes in depth. But another arena where you can get hold of me ask questions, and there's a lot of great community members that will respond to those questions as well. So definitely go to facebook.com Search for maximize your social influence of Neal Schaffer in the Facebook groups, you'll find it or just click on the link in the show notes. So that's it. Without further ado, let's get on to the interview with Jason Duncan. It's always a pleasure to have a local guest and not just a local guest in Orange County because we are a a thriving economy of I think our population is like 3 million if I'm not mistaken. We're a thriving economy here with lots of businesses doing great things. And one of those businesses is actually run by my friend, fellow blogger who's been contributing at Wow, back from the windmill networking days if I'm not mistaken, Jason Duncan, Chief storyteller at Miller farm media. We're going to be talking about video video video and not just for the big brands, but really how every small business can increase sales of video. Jason, I know you've been doing this probably for a decade and it seems like it knew that long. So you're the perfect person to really educate based on your experience of working with customers and seeing how video has really become this mainstream technology or when you compared to 10 years ago, it's just you know, anyone with an iPhone now can shoot video now whether you want to do that for your brand as long as a story, I'm sure that we're gonna be talking about later on. But, Jason, welcome to the show, please. That's my intro for you. Please introduce yourself and, and how you work with companies.
Jayson Duncan:Hey, I'm really excited to be here. Neil, you and I have been friends for a long time. Uh, yeah. Goes back to the windmill networking days. And I'm I don't know if I want to say this out loud. But I think I've got two decades in this whole video business at this point. I know, we were putting videos on websites, when we we knew how to do flash, and I bought a book, it's still in here in my office somewhere how to how to program flash, who can get videos on on websites?
Neal Schaffer:You know, it's amazing that with the devices back then with such limited CPU and memory, that we use so much flash, you think we use more of it today when when the devices can handle it. But it's a funny world, isn't it?
Jayson Duncan:Yeah, it suddenly got a bad name. So it happens sometimes. What's your brand's everybody watching? Today, you know, we're always trying to test and tune and provide our clients with the things that are working today that the social media stuff, it changes every second. And our focus is helping clients increase sales with video, because we're so long companies have creative videos for vanity purposes. And we've got a whole system that we help guide our clients through that it leads to sales, and it connects their social media, their websites, their email campaigns and their sales team all together to give them that push.
Neal Schaffer:That's awesome stuff. I love the approach that is very, you know, aligned with sales. As you said, there's a lot of content creation, that is vanity, and I guess videos, you can see a lot of that but obviously in social media as well. Wow. So aligning videos with sales. I think that a lot of companies just as part of the content creation, we got to make videos without really, you know, connecting the dots. So I you know, I know we have a lot to talk about today. Why don't we start with it sounds like a mindset like a mindset shift. When you talk with businesses. Maybe I know you do a lot of speaking here locally in Orange County. So people when they hear you they get it, they reach out to you. But what about those companies that are listening or watching that already have done video? Or maybe they haven't started video? What is that mindset of aligning videos with sales? How do you sort of explain this? And how do you help your own customers achieve this?
Jayson Duncan:Well, it starts with coming at this as a as a fewer servant. Right? You're in business because you say servant like I'm holding a platter here. Yeah, sure, sure. Everyone's in business because they provide a service that is valuable to the marketplace. And if you don't provide a service that's value the marketplace, you soon go out of business. So thinking of your content as a service to the marketplace first, and selling as a piece of that, but not the first thing out of the gate is the is where you need to start, you know, brands that you see all the time, right? It's the it's the infomercial, it's the slimy salesperson that that gets online and says, hey, buy my stuff. Well, we'll get there. But let's let's guide them and set yourself up as a leader first, because people connect with leaders, they they don't connect with brands right away.
Neal Schaffer:And this is something that is very well aligned with what I teach my clients in social media marketing. And in general, it's not. I mean, I've gone even one step further with my book and influencer marketing, talk about social media being really a platform more about collaboration than promotion. But before that, it's really about education, and helping if you if you help people, they're gonna want to do business with you, right? We do business people they like know and trust. So I've never heard of video being thought of in the same way, that's very refreshing. But it really makes sense. I think that a lot of companies, I know a lot of my clients, you know, customer education is just a key thing. And that's, I guess, maybe that's the easiest way for traditional marketers to think about videos in that mindset that you're offering them, which is okay, let's start with customer education. You need to educate the industry to know how great your products are, how do you go about doing that? Right? And maybe that gets them out of that traditional, you know, vanity or promotion mode, right?
Jayson Duncan:Absolutely. And, you know, we see it with brands like Tesla, if you look at Elon Musk's twitter feed compared to Tesla's Twitter feed, he's got a lot more followers than the brand does. So it's, you know, to be a servant first to be a human. And it's not just about education. Education is such a huge part of it. But we're seeing thought leaders emerge. And video is so powerful for that. I mean, you've been a thought leader for a long time, understand the importance of not just the How to content but what's the next practice what you know, beyond just best practices.
Neal Schaffer:Yeah, that that makes a lot of sense. And obviously, we talked about thought leadership. I mean, I, I like to apply what I talk about to both b2b and b2c. So I, you know, I believe that consumer brands can and should be thought leaders as well, just like personal brands, and b2b as well. So, and obviously videos apropos to all that. So let's get back to you know, the agenda that we talked about that the key things you wanted to bring up today, for those that are listening or watching. I think the first part is, so when I work with businesses, and I'm sure you hear this a lot, normally, we talk about social media, right? And in order to be active on social media, you need content. So what do most companies do they start a blog, and okay, well, you know, how often do we need to blog? Well, ideally, a blog once a week, and it's, it's not easy to do. And some companies blog more or less, but let's start with a target a once a week. And then obviously, we want to be active on social every day. Wow, that's a lot, right. And then, I mean, we don't even talk about video, because video is so resource intensive that if we do talk about video, my advice is like, you know, create, if you could create an awesome video once a month, that's a really, really good frequency knowing and I know that your advice is gonna be different. Jason said it seen where you're coming from. But it does require you even if you're gonna shoot it with a low end device, like an iPhone, it does require and, you know, you made the my own video that's on YouTube, and my book trailer video. So I understand the process of sort of storyboarding, and there's just so much time, you know, it's almost like people now are starting to realize the time it requires for video when creating an Instagram story, they're realizing that wow, this actually and getting the text and the hashtags, it's a little bit different type of a process that people are spending, you know, 1530 minutes for a 22nd video on Instagram, and we're sort of it started replicating what you've been seeing all along that it does require time, and therefore a lot of companies just don't do it. Or they obviously work with an expert, you know, agency like yours. So, you know, one of the things that you you talked about was businesses getting into a groove of creating video on a regular basis. And I agree that regardless of its video, or podcasting, or blogging, or social media, it does require this groove. And I know you're a musician, I'm a musician as well. So I dig that word. But how does first of all, just the way I describe it to businesses is sort of very a common thing you hear from other businesses. And second, you know, how do we begin to get into that groove? If we're not video creators to begin with? Yeah, I
Jayson Duncan:think you're spot on there. And the interesting thing about video is Twitter and all these other social media platforms, it's, you know, it's easy to create a tweet it and we're learning that that stories are more difficult. So that so now we're it's starting to click on our brains that okay, video is, is important. But man, even on a simple device, it's more complex, more more thought process. And I think what we're seeing now, especially with stories, is that, you know, there's so much content, this is across all all platforms. I mean, we're talking about video content. Yeah, yeah, I think I first heard you say that, you know, we just we've hit, we've hit critical mass, really, when it comes to content, and there's so much noise. So now what brands have to do, especially the ones that were slow getting in is they've got to take that to the next level, beyond what they had ever thought of before to stand out. The good news is that when I talk to clients or prospects, and we do some competitive research, the majority of their competitors aren't doing anything, or they're doing poorly, even by getting started. Oftentimes, with the right strategy, you can win because everyone else, you know, especially in b2b brands, those opportunities are still there. And I think they're going to be there for years to come. Because again, as you said, videos got is complex. So to get weekly video, the first thing to do is be human. That's the element we all have some people get lost in though any graphics and any delis other stuff. No, be human. It's it's as simple as what you and I are doing now. It's it's a face on the screen. And then we need to choose the style of video that fits our budget and our brand. So if you're the North Stream of your industry, you got to spend more money to get there. If you are an influencer, and you can look at all the influencers on on all the platforms and the videos they're doing. You know, you can do that style. And I see a lot of big brands getting caught up in the influencer style videos when they're not influencers yet, or they're they're bigger brands. So knowing your brand, knowing your budget and knowing the style of it, you get to create to be authentic within those platforms, and then use what you have, right I mean, everyone's got you know, we do we work with clients around the country. And some of them it's as simple as we log on via as a zoom call and coach them and direct them as they record videos on their sub smartphones. And that works really well because they get that feedback from somebody who's done this for a few years as we talked about before. And what we also do is batch content. Because what I found over the years is that I don't have a studio that I record my, my weekly videos in or weekly, I mean, I'm, I'm not always good about getting videos out, but I batch them, I sit down and I, each week I write a script or somebody on my team writes a script. And then one day a month, I record all those scripts for the month. And some of our clients, we go to them, and we'll record you know, 12, six, three months of content at one time, because it's just too much for a brand to do it every
Neal Schaffer:week, you bring up a few really, really important parts that I would consider best practices across platforms. So I would also add, there's a lot of competition out there, but very few businesses are doing this very well. And every client I've worked with found that in almost every industry, right, there might be one or two that are doing well. But it's really, really easy to get that number three spot and then work your way up from there. So that's an it probably always will be your right because companies just don't, they just don't get it. Or they just don't want to make that investment. So the first thing you said was just be human, be yourself. And I couldn't agree with you more authenticity is really the key thing there. And I think that what people forget, it also ties back into what you were saying about this competition is that you have to remember that when you're competing with video on a platform where other people are publishing video, you have like professional videographers professional photo, I tell, especially on Instagram, you know, you're competing with content creators, that they're really good, right? So, but on the other hand, people really dig that human authentic part of you and your company and the people in your company. So without a doubt that authenticity and being human. That is by far the number one best practice, the number two best practices, I talked about social media being about collaboration. And you know, I think it was a Marcus shared in Sales Lion who first started his inbound marketing company, basically doing interviews over the phone, and then creating blog posts, right, you could do interviews over the phone and create podcasts from them. You can do zoom interviews, it's about repurposing. So I think having a collaborator that either Hey, come to our studio and do it, or that in some way handhold you through the process is going to make it a lot easier for companies. And it's also going to make them accountable because they're working with someone else. And they have to have to keep commitments. So that's a great way for companies, I think to get into that groove by saying we're going to work with Jason. And we're going to contract for X number of videos, and we're just going to get it done. And then that gets the third point, which is batching. And I'm a huge fan of batching. I think when it comes to photo video, you almost have to batch and you have to take advantage of the environment, the infrastructure, I'm the same way, you know, I'm recording for a podcast this week, right? For live stream. So right there, it's for Facebook Live Stream is for podcasts and for videos. And if I didn't do that, it would be really really hard on a weekly basis to to find the time to promote every week, what have you, it just makes it a lot easier when you batch and you see this really, with influencers and Instagram and photographs, they will do a photo shoot and get 100 200 photos that they're going to be using, you know, throughout several months. So batching is definitely a best practice. And it can be done with blog content as well. And the more evergreen that content is obviously the more applicable batching is if it's something that's really timely. Yeah, sure, you may not be able to batch it, but there's a lot that you can batch. And that's really, I think that's the key to success in a lot of you know, content marketing is batching. And being able to stay consistent, right? And killing a lot of birds at once when you do it that way. So that that was awesome stuff, Jason.
Jayson Duncan:Yeah, thanks. Yeah. batching is so powerful. And it changed my business when I finally said, Okay, here's what we're gonna do. You know, sometimes people will say, Well, what if something comes up, and we need to be able to insert this other topic right away? Well, it's like, when you and I used to play in the band, right? You had your, your list of songs sometimes. So if you took requests, and my band didn't, but you could you could throw one in if you had to, you know, have a plan for that, if something in your industry is cutting edge and suddenly needs we talked about?
Neal Schaffer:Yeah, and you know, you can batch and then say, you know, if you were to do this on a weekly basis, well, once a week, you know, we're gonna shoot it at the moment, covering timely topics, but then three other times we can use our evergreen content, right? i It's funny, because I am sort of that way with Instagram that I don't want to batch photos and schedule things a month in advance, because it's not in the now. But I know when I look at influencers, and I know the way the algorithms work, especially on Instagram, for what we know, just showing up consistently is you're going to be way more successful if you could do that on a daily basis. So at some point you're going to have to batch I mean, I know no one on a day to day basis. I mean, maybe some people will but you know if you have a job to do no one on a day to day basis is always going to have those pictures, you know, at Valley or in Europe, if you're like a travel influencer, so it's always going to come from past contents. So I think that's, that's one thing that businesses are going to have to deal with that hurdle, that mental hurdle, right of batching. And, and reaching back into older content that they can publish today. And it'll still seem like they made it today.
Jayson Duncan:Yeah. And I think the last, or one of the steps that brands forget this whole thing is that they hire a videographer or an editor, and they expect this whole process to work for them. The problem is that a vague or iOgrapher, an editor, those are specific skills, and they're not marketers. So what I tell people is, yeah, I don't care who you work with, but find a video marketer, and have a monthly phone call with him or whatever you need for your campaign, make sure that you're doing the things that are really going to work and they can help guide your team. And I was at a meeting the other day of marketers local associations, and there was somebody on the stage saying, you know, that they had just done a bunch of research, and they were going to bring this in and do this internally, in he had essentially, you know, spent a month researching how to become a video expert. And I thought that's not gonna work at all, you know, most of you know, even though video marketing is fairly new, I mean, at least most of the really good ones I know have got you look at influencers on online in terms of video marketing, at least five years of experience, there's a lot to learn to really get a strategy that comes together and provides value for your brand. Yeah,
Neal Schaffer:I think it'd be learned in only a month, and we'd all be out of business. So that's that's funny. But yeah, I think, you know, people feel empowered. And I think younger generations especially, I mean, I'm a Gen X, or I'm a year younger than me, but just the notion that it's all online, right. It's not about like, the knowledge economy that we used to call it back in the 80s. Everyone's sharing everything. So yeah, there's a lot that you can pick up, but without actually having the experience and not just the experience of doing it with your own brand. But with many brands, you're going to need to fail several times to be able to learn and that's obviously the advantage of working with someone in a company that's experienced. And you know, I say the same thing with influencer marketing, if you don't have the data, or data, this big debate over how you pronounce that, but of working with many influencers, how do you know like, what's sort of the market price, right? How do you know how to work with them, you can't just read about it in a book, you have to experience it. And I think marketing, you know, it's data driven, yes. But you have to do a lot of experimentation to get that data. And then you have to be able to figure out what works and to try it again. And it's an iterative process, right? It's not just something you, you learn today and implement and it's done. You might be able to implement something, it doesn't mean it's going to be successful and most most chances it won't be successful, right?
Jayson Duncan:yet. I know a lot about failure after 27 years of this whole thing. So there's value in that for sure. I always think of everything we see online as the original MacGyver, there was a in the 80s when your kids it was this rumor that went around that with all the concoctions that MacGyver came up with, they always left that one ingredient, so you couldn't do it at home. I when I look online, I watch things, I feel like there's always like an ingredient missing, just so that you you have to hire somebody to hire that person to get to the next level. So always keep that in mind as you're watching those tutorials.
Neal Schaffer:Yeah, you know, nobody's gonna give everything away people who do it know a lot of different strategies, a lot of different secrets, a lot of different tools. Why would they give that all away for free, right, they give away a lot of information. But at the end of the day, they're also doing content marketing and trying to get you to become their customer by their course. So yes, I mean, absolutely. So, alright, so that groove of creating video on a regular basis you talked about and I also sort of added my own, you know, thoughts on that, but just tag me in that mindset that you need to do it is really that important part? Obviously the the collaboration with someone or or you know, a company, and then the the batching process. So once you start doing this, how do you actually get people to watch your video whether it's on YouTube or whether it is an Instagram story, or whether it is a LinkedIn video or someday we're going to be able to do this live stream on LinkedIn and not Facebook? But you know, how do you actually attract and and when you attract people is it different than a piece of blog content? Or like a like an audio podcast?
Jayson Duncan:Yeah, it's it's all about that face right? So we've got our internal thought leaders or internal influencers you and I have a video coming out in a couple weeks or well in the next month or so. No need to commit
Neal Schaffer:it's okay I get it. It was part of a batching video shoot wasn't it
Jayson Duncan:Yeah, so got my counter again what's today so look for that on on YouTube building influencers internally and you talked about connecting this to your sales, your sales team, make those salespeople your influencer. So start with with a face that people can recognize and in a location they can recognize. So don't do what I call the police lineup. Look where it's you're standing against a blank wall I mean, The, you know, you're currently in your office, I'm currently in my office. And if you watch my videos, my studio office is different than my actual office, because the lights and everything won't fit in here. So you know, have those places that you, you consistently show up and you can move it around. But when you're starting out, you gotta you get to build that relationship with in places a huge part of story. And in each of the platforms are providing us different opportunities right now. And we're always finding the different types of content work on different platforms. So LinkedIn right now is a great opportunity for organic growth, we've seen a drop off in the last seven months, you know, at the beginning of 2019. Man, you could put a video on LinkedIn, and they were really pushing them hard. I'm seeing a drop off now. But there's still an opportunity, you know, get out there and get your stuff on LinkedIn. And in LinkedIn, because video is so new you influencers like Goldie Chan, she's got a very unique brand. That's not It's not corporate and stuffy. And it probably doesn't work for most companies, but it works for her. And I I've been amazed the way she's grown in the last year and a half, two years. She's got green hair, and just you know, it fits your brand. So LinkedIn is changing, I think Microsoft trying to figure out what to do with it all the time. And it's fun to watch to see where it's going, I think video is going to be huge part of video ads are such a good opportunity with the targeting because your your b2b brand. So that's kind of where I see LinkedIn going, keep keep your video short. And make sure you're getting those captions in there. Because the autoplay thing is, is awesome, but you got to have those captions and draw them in.
Neal Schaffer:Yeah, I think that's one of the best practices. And correct me if I'm wrong, is having captions in your videos. So you shot the video, great, it's done. No, it's not done, you need the captions. And, and I mean, Jason, you and I know that there's a lot of services out there that can easily create that caption file for you. So it's not rocket science, it's just an extra step you need to do that you should do before you publish your video. So I started with a question of you know how to promote but with the case of LinkedIn, they'll sort of promote your video for you in the feed, because they are prioritizing video. And I agree, I have seen a drop off. But it's still definitely a very, very high performing type of content. What is you know, if you were to look at LinkedIn, versus Facebook versus YouTube, so when I first started know your Jason, you know, YouTube video should only be like two to three minutes. And obviously, that's sort of reality is God, right? You know, today, where do you see as sort of the sweet spot in terms of length, whether it's LinkedIn, or Facebook or YouTube, but I'm assuming, you know, I consider YouTube and it's similar to what the CEO of Pinterest says about Pinterest that it's a discovery network. It's not a social network, and YouTube and Pinterest are the exact same as people searching for things. They're not necessarily engaging with the content creators, right? So for YouTube, I'm assuming it can be as long as you want to short as you want. on social networks, like LinkedIn, Facebook, a little bit different, right? People are scrolling through newsfeed seeing things. So what do you think is that is that sweet spot in terms of length? And would you see any difference between LinkedIn and Facebook?
Jayson Duncan:Yeah, there's, there's big differences between all the platforms. And it all goes back to your funnel. So knowing where your buyer is in the in the journey, knowing your audiences in a journey with you as a content creator, as a brand. So I like to LinkedIn, I still think you're in the two minute ranges is really good. That seems to be where we're seeing a lot of it. And again, it depends on the content, you get something that's just really just everyone's really glommed on to, and you can be as long as you need to, to get that information out. YouTube. Interestingly enough, the videos that do the best are in the seven to 14 minute range today. Yeah, we've seen YouTube, YouTube's growing up, right? YouTube, oh, six was when YouTube came out, it really became a business thing around Oh, eight. So I mean, they've got over 10 years now. And, you know, with their apps, and they're always trying to push themselves as a social network, they really are still stuck in that discovery mode because of the relationship with Google. But it's interesting to see how they're trying to bring in their own kind of version of stories and create content, and use the comments for conversation. So if your brand is new to YouTube, I think that two minute range is probably where you want to start, you know, get them used to you as a brand, and then start to expand those, you know, there's been some rumors, and that, you know, the only content YouTube cares about is in that seven to 14 minute range. And maybe there's some truth to that, but I wouldn't spend a lot time worrying about it at this stage, especially if you're a new person to YouTube. It's really about being consistent showing up the same time every week, and creating content that they want. You know, it starts with educational and thought leadership content, and you can kind of move around from there.
Neal Schaffer:Yeah, that that makes a lot of sense. So, but you wouldn't necessarily so for instance, this is going to be a one hour video, you wouldn't necessarily cut up this sort of video into seven to 14 minute pieces. If it doesn't make sense to do right. So it's the late is important, but it's also the customer or the visual experience that you expect to see an entire show or whatever it is. There's no need to artificially cut things up so that they're there Each seven to 14 minutes apiece, correct?
Jayson Duncan:Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we've seen YouTube gave money to certain creators a few years ago. And they made basically TV shows, you know, one of the most famous of the or one of my favorite of those was a show called roadkill. That was a collaboration between motor trends or Hot Rod Magazine. And that actually helped Hot Rod Magazine and Motor Trend, that whole parent company launch Motor Trend On Demand, which is now part of discovery network. So they were able to, like, build that and sell it off. I mean, we did a reality show a couple of years ago. And I remember that, yeah, yeah, I got a lot of flack from my team about, Hey, why are we creating this 40 minute, you know, reality show, I said, Trust me, it's gonna be gonna be great. The problem is that reality shows a really expensive to make something cool. You only did one episode. But we learned a lot from that. And it was lots of fun. And I have plans to continue that in the future. If if the money shows up the right time.
Neal Schaffer:Yeah, I have a friend in the Bay Area who did in I believe it was animated. But it was about four guys on a golf course. And they're like guys that knew each other for decades, and they were in their 40s. And just about the stuff, they talk about golf courses, and I think that they actually got a sponsor for that. And it was picked up on like a Fox Network somewhere. But you know, businesses or brands sponsoring TV shows, is something that obviously we see happening with with, especially with YouTube like that. So that's, that's not the first time I heard it. I don't know how many brands listening this are, are going to be doing that. But you know, like brands sponsoring, you know, podcasts, it's, it's sort of the same idea. So that might be another way. If you want to work with influencers don't want to create your own video, that might be a shortcut, but expensive shortcut, obviously. But you touched upon video ads, and you know, part of social media organic content as easy as the organic of the paid. So the organic, we've talked about the paid Suzu pretty compelling. And I I know recently, it was at the Content Marketing Conference, where heard a gentleman named Dennis you, and maybe some of you're familiar with, and he's really big on Facebook, and he really big on Facebook ads, that Facebook video ads give you the cheapest way to acquire the massive amount of people on your pixels that you can retarget them. And it's almost like do a video ad for the ability to retarget them later with other ads. So so the video ad is not the end, but it's sort of the vehicle to help you get to the end. I'm sure obviously the video ad can be the objective as well. But tell me, you know, have you ever heard about that technique? And do you recommend it? Or you know, what sort of the what's the state of the union for video ads today? On the different platforms?
Jayson Duncan:Yeah, and that's the thing I push the most is that your most valuable? Audiences your retargeting audience? No, no, everybody in social media says that, but they don't hear usually from a video guy. And it's it what I love about Facebook, and I spend so much time talking b2b companies off the ledge with Facebook, because they've heard stuff in the news. And but it's so cost effective, I think we're paying like between two and 10 cents a video view. So to build an audience to get a remarketing audience with, again, some kind of thought leadership content is huge. So that strategy is a big part of what our clients do. So it's all about funnels, right. So knowing that that that thought leadership content, leads them to probably more thought leadership content, where you can then retarget them with an ad or retarget them with more content. It's just keep that moving. And what I love right now is that I don't think that there's one platform that your brand needs to be on, I think you need to combine the power of few different platform well, especially with b2b companies, I love starting on LinkedIn, but getting them to where we're targeting them on Facebook, because Facebook's so much more cost effective. You know, LinkedIn, the cost per ad for ads are there, it's deep. It really is deep,
Neal Schaffer:and very kind of adjective to use to describe them.
Jayson Duncan:Yeah, I've tried to get in the good graces so but you know, we sometimes we forget about YouTube, I mean, a six second ad is very cost effective on YouTube and everybody forgets about them. So you have to be able to play with retargeting on all these platforms and combine them together to make a super platform is I think right now is is one of the keys I'm seeing to success on social media with ads because like I said, you can't get anywhere without buying ads these days.
Neal Schaffer:Yeah, I mean I'm looking at my own I boosted you know, with various targeting options, these previous live streams that I've done, I was just looking at my Facebook Ads Manager and I'm getting you know, the cost per view is anywhere between nine cents and 28 cents depending on the targeting the contents, that's obviously I mean, and I've worked with brands that have been able to get likes for you know, five cents, but I think that those days, you know, the cost of likes, the cost of links are definitely getting more and more expensive on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, probably a little bit cheaper but definitely for for videos. I mean, that's, you know, and I tell brands at the end of the day, we're going back to the days of TV. So back in the days of TV, it was very simple. They they create content, but at the end of the day, they wanted to get advertisers, right. But the better the content, the longer you stayed watching that channel, and therefore, the more the advertisers are going to pay to be there. So it's the same thing with social, the longer you stay and consume content on that platform, right, not clicking a link going somewhere else. But the longer you're there, the more valuable you are. So as a content creator, I mean, video will keep people on there the longest, right? Unless you're, you know, LinkedIn, you have native blog content, obviously, you might have a, you know, an audio file. But video is the way to do that. So it makes sense that the Facebook's are are pricing videos very, very inexpensively, because it will, it is an ad format that will keep people on the site long. And it's all within Facebook, you're not clicking going outside. So I think from from an ROI perspective, it is a win win win, right for the customer for the brand, as well as for the social network. The challenge
Jayson Duncan:is, is that last year, this time, we were paying one cent to two cents for those video views. And now we're paying three I think it has jumped into we're in the three to 1020 cent range now. So that means brands are going to get on board today, because with the California Privacy Act coming along, and all the other states starting to play with him and Congress making threats, it's just gonna make ad costs skyrocket, and it's gonna make running ads so much harder that all these sudden experts that have taken a class are gonna have to are gonna either have to really up their game, or they're gonna go back to the real experts finally helping brands as opposed to these all these newcomers we're seeing right now.
Neal Schaffer:That's funny. I'm actually wearing a shirt that they gave me the Promo The Hey, I have a promo.com shirt. I'm a video expert. It's it's a video app. Right, great app, by the way. But yeah, it's not like going to be everything that your company might need for video marketing. So anyway, beyond that, I agree with you. I think that things at the beginning when it seems inexpensive, you have to maximize it because it doesn't stay that way for long. And even sort of the background for why I'm writing a book on influencer marketing is that you know, organic social use to have reach it doesn't hate social use to be cheap. Well, it isn't in people don't trust ads, and they're seeing your paid social as an ad. Right. And that's where you get into, you know, working with influencers. And I'm curious from a video marketing perspective has that ever has, you know, brands working with influencers as part of their video or or Miller Farm Radio working with influencers? Is that Is that something that's come up?
Jayson Duncan:It's coming up? I mean, it's since the beginning of television, right. So I mean, we're basically to film a TV model. I mean, so you've got TV stars, promoting all kinds of things. I mean, the they launched the new Corvette yesterday, I mean, they use the astronauts to help sell Corvettes back, you know, when when the the Apollo missions happened, they would, they would sell a Corvette to it to a total influencer marketing, right? They would sell it, they couldn't give it away because they were they were government employees. They couldn't give a Corvette to an astronaut, but they could sell it to him for a buck. And they always talked to even in the launch they did yesterday. It was all in back to those influencers from 50 years ago. So talk about the power of influencer marketing, still helping a brand after 50 years. That's That's amazing. And it was so it was fun to watch that it did a great job with that launch. Yesterday, I actually here in our neighborhood in Tustin. So yeah, influencer is still important with video but but don't get lost. Because I see. You know, we were helping create an infomercial for a company that that's still running with a big late night star. I debate how important he was to that whole campaign. But he did bring something something to it. So being careful and not getting stuck on. I need a big influencer, I got to go to a micro influencer, who do you know, that you can help build up as an influencer?
Neal Schaffer:Right, right. Yeah. And I do believe that TV analogy, right? It really does exist today. It's in a different format. But even you know, like radio stations, right? You're, you're not just tweeting out ads all the time. You're you're having music. I mean, music is the content. And it's all curated, right? Radio stations are not developing their own music, they might have their own personalities, the good ones, but they also have ads. And in order to get people to listen, the ads, they need to provide good music, they need to provide good content. And I think that's really the key thing here. But getting back to that that's the ad so we know now sort of, you know this latest strategy of and obviously the cost efficiencies of video ads, how do you go about creating we talked about creating successful video content before how is creating a successful video ad going to be different from that
Jayson Duncan:it starts with making your your ad unstoppable at some kind of moment, that as they're scrolling through their feed that makes them go what just happened? I need I need to stop here. Or that topic is interesting. I mean, we use the you know, on Facebook will oftentimes for thought leaders will make the video square and then put a title up above and try to draw people into that. So making it unstoppable. That's the first step if you can't get them to stop. From there, you got three seconds. So you gotta you gotta you really make that moment important for them so you can get another five to 10 seconds or whatever that number is. It seems to change all the time. and keep building that to draw them through it. And the really the key if it's just about ads, keep it short. We have really good luck. We're running just an ad for a product with a 15 second mark, especially on Facebook, YouTube, those six second ads are so powerful I love the new Intuit dented Vito set of ads that they've done. I see running. That was that was that's a good example of an influencer. I mean, everyone loves Danny DeVito, right. He's such a, he's a character in himself. And they've done such a good job of reaching business people like me with the pain points, and they've done. I don't know how many they did. I haven't done a case study on that campaign yet. But it's something very simple that fits into that six to 15 seconds did a great job on that. So again, that goes back to influencers, thumb, stoppable, creative and creative as a piece of advice missing, right? We're all forgetting to be creative. We're throwing little money at all this stuff, and we're losing the creativity.
Neal Schaffer:Yeah, so it sounds like of all, everything we've talked about video ads is really where you need to up your game. Obviously, that's where the storyboard the creativity, to be able to create that what's going to make them stop in their feed. And then that first three seconds, are they going to continue watching or not that I'm that must be an art, right? And maybe if you're not convinced you need to work with an outside resource for your video, the video ad becomes the impetus for you to start that relationship, especially, you know, you were talking about using videos to increase sales. Well, they obviously when you do paid video, that video out I'm assuming is going to lead to something that will bring those customers into the marketing funnel. And therefore that's how you measure the ROI of of that cost for the video ad Correct.
Jayson Duncan:Dragon, it's good to remember, it's not just one ad, you've got to have that series, that funnel of ads that that build, I mean, there are certain hacks that you can do. So the most famous, I think of video single video that did well, and this was five years ago that squatty potty, that is yeah, that is a sales video. And it combines what you love about Superbowl commercials with what you hate what works of infomercials, because it really at the end the day, it's just an infomercial that got creativity behind it. So those videos still work as standalones. But when you when you if you study those, and when we create those, we create so many different versions for testing. And that's the first step when you're talking about creativity, talk about ads, know who your buyer is, know your persona, and then take your creative and run it by the persona. I can't tell you how many times I've been creating meetings where somebody who's thinking about the spot as themselves kills the spot. It's happened so many times. I mean, I mean, happened a couple weeks ago, where somebody who was not the target audience, not the generation that that was needed, shut down everything because they didn't understand what needs to be done. They were thinking television as opposed to social media.
Neal Schaffer:Right, right. I can see how that happens when you have a big age gap between content creator and content producer or owner of content from expletive words. That's really interesting. Hey, Jason, this has been a great conversation. I think we've covered organic video paid video, why Video Influencers, we've covered a great deal. Are there any other any other advice for those small businesses that are listening, of how they should be leveraging video, any anything we didn't, we haven't covered yet today,
Jayson Duncan:remember the importance of your title and your thumbnail? Those, those are the things that are going to draw people in your video needs to be engaging and to and they need to know how much value they're going to get, you know from the get go. So so I know creators that spend as much time on the thumbnail and title as they do their video. It's so important.
Neal Schaffer:When you say title, you also mean the title that is going to appear on YouTube as the title title of their their file. So there's also a little bit of SEO involved in that as well.
Jayson Duncan:Correct. Yeah, the file title thing, it doesn't work as well as it used to, it's not as important. But definitely that the actual video title is of you know, the utmost importance. You know, this description is important as well tag on Youtube tags don't matter as much anymore. YouTube's changed the rules there. But that thumbnail is key and it needs to have a person in it. It needs to be see the whites of their eyes, and then the elements around that help tell the story of the people in that video.
Neal Schaffer:Very interesting. So do you with a title? Do you shoot for SEO? Or do you shoot for an engaging title? Or both?
Jayson Duncan:You got to hit both Yeah, because you know, especially if you're a new creator, YouTube has got so much content you've really got to stand out so that the SEO is important making sure that you're creating videos people are searching for if you're trying to build an audience, you've got to go where the people are, are shopping for those topics. So
Neal Schaffer:so I've seen I've been introduced to some YouTube tools that help with sort of like a B testing thumbnails or title ideas. Are there any do you have any like go to tools and this is not from the video creation side. Obviously this is more on the video amplification specifically YouTube, but are there any tools that you suggest listeners go and check out?
Jayson Duncan:Yeah, I mean to Buddy is great. Vid IQ is great. I love one of them to sponsor me. That would be awesome.
Neal Schaffer:too, buddy. And we got vid IQ. What's the one? You said? Vid IQ? Yeah,
Jayson Duncan:those are the the two that I think are most powerful
Neal Schaffer:do they give? They provide that functionality that I was just describing? Maybe they were the ones I heard of?
Jayson Duncan:Yeah. And there's chrome plugins for both. I've, I've played with both. And there's benefits in upsides and downsides to both. So just figure out what works best for you. I mean, I think the what works best for your budget. And you know, being careful to not to get stuck in a template that isn't going to work. Because sometimes, there's all these, and it's not so much with these tools. But there lots of tools out there that promise, you know, we're going to create videos within three minutes and know the limitations of those and how they best fit into your strategy and don't get sucked into some of the stuff that doesn't work.
Neal Schaffer:That's solid advice. Thank you so much for coming on. And perhaps while we're on again, depending on the questions that this podcast generates, obviously, but I think you covered it all from you know, getting into that groove batching obviously, the different video for the different networks, YouTube influencers, I think we cover the entire spectrum. So thanks for your advice, Jason, I know you're over at Miller farm media, but I'm assuming that people should go to Miller farm media that's going to Miller farm media.com is going to be the best way to find you,
Jayson Duncan:Miller for me calm and then also check us out on YouTube at Miller from me calm and all the mean all the socials there. But I think those are the most powerful places that you're going to learn from us on it. And of course, Neal Schaffer calm monthly, or BI monthly, but blog post, and there's a lot of content there. I was telling somebody the other day that I've pretty much got a year's worth of content, I'll have to ever blog again, make another video, I can just repeat that content over and over. So
Neal Schaffer:Well, it's funny, and this, you know, this goes beyond video. But with blog content, you know, when you think about it, what are people search for, for video marketing, YouTube marketing, it's a limited subset of things. And once you blog like 10 to 20 to maybe 30, you've pretty much covered that. So then you need to go in and actually revise that right. And I know I've been doing that. And I've offered contributors the ability to do that as well, in lieu of blogging once, Let's revise your old content and republish it. And a lot of content marketing experts say that they should do this. I recently did this my LinkedIn for college students, blog posts, where it was a very, very old post, I decided to do a podcast on it because my niece asked me for advice on LinkedIn for college students and said, Okay, let me update this. And let me just publish it as a new post. And it was the impetus to do that was the podcast episode. But I've seen it perform really, really well since I did that. So you don't always have to be making new content with videos, it's probably going to be a little bit different. But with written content, certainly you can repurpose and republish, and just an extra little tip for those of you that are listening. So Jason, and I'm assuming that obviously you're you're based here in Irvine, you're in Tustin, we're next to each other, but you also do business nationally, I know you've flown out to customers around the country. So even even potential customers out there, wherever they may be, they can contact you knowing that you'll still support him, correct?
Jayson Duncan:Absolutely. Yeah, we're located here in Irvine. But we travel around the country. And we're actually working with some brands around the world virtually. So it's been interesting to see them reach out and to, to be a part of that. So yeah, we'd love to help anybody that wants to reach out and check in with us. And, and thank you so much for allowing me to be a part of this today. It was it was lots of fun. And I think we've got some great stuff for people to take and start to try to implement their business.
Neal Schaffer:There. Once again, Miller farm media.com. If you go to my own YouTube page, youtube.com/neal Schaffer, look for my maximize your social book trailer. Look for the video I did with me speaking and telling my life story. Those were both shot and really created in storyboard together with Jason and his team. So I think that probably speaks really well for for the work. He's done that I'm recommending them as well. So once again, Jason, thanks again for coming on. I hope that a lot of people reach out to you if they have video marketing needs. And if you have any comments or questions, obviously find Jason Miller for me, media.com. And maybe we'll do this again, as video just becomes more and more important for businesses over time. So Jason, thanks again. All right, I hope you enjoyed today's episode number 151. As always, I appreciate and really rely on your feedback for you to let me know what things you want me to talk about which of these episodes resonated less or more with you, I do look at my analytics, which gives me some idea. The other way of letting me know is by simply taking a screenshot of wherever you're listening to this podcast and tagging me by posting it on social media. You can also write a review and the reviews really do make a difference. I just want to read one review that I got from Anna malakian great podcast powerful information. Love this podcast recommend you to subscribe to it. The LinkedIn material is very relevant and value. Always Learning thank you so much on it's feedback like that. For instance, I want to hear more about the LinkedIn advice you have or about Instagram advice or whatever it might be. It's things like that, that really make a big difference. So thank you so much, Anna, thank you all that have already reviewed this podcast. And it would mean so much to me if you could become one of those reviewers as well. So that's it for today. You know, there's a lot of stuff going around. There's a lot of people in panic mode, at least here in the United States regarding the Coronavirus. So let's just all make sure that we do the right thing. We all have the proper procedures in place in terms of washing hands and what have you. And I am a believer that we're all going to get through this. Okay, so long as we do the things that we should be doing. So want to leave on a positive note. And we'll be back next week with another episode next week is going to be a solo episode. Until then, if I can be of any help, please feel free to reach out to me. And wow, next week will be the first episode after the official publication of my book. So I'm really excited about that. I hope that you're excited for your next week as well. And I'll stop there. So wherever you are in the world, make it a great social day. Everybody will talk to you next week. Bye bye