7 Power-Packed Pro Tips for Short Form Video Success | Ep. 14

Short form video (aka Reels, TikToks, Youtube Shorts) have only just begun, and if you’re using social media for business, you don’t want to miss out on this style of video!  In this episode of Coffee Social, Instagram Reels & Storytelling Coach Jonathan Howard & Social Audio Marketing Coach Mimi Langley breakdown pro tips for creating short-form videos for social media platforms. They cover topics such as the basic format of a video, the use of hashtags, the importance of recognizable intros and closings, the role of captions, finding trending audio, and creating visually appealing cover images. They emphasize the importance of focusing on your audience and providing value in your content. 

EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
: Jonathan reveals the basic 3-part format you should be using in your videos.
: Are hashtags still important? We go over that.
: Hooks are vital for stopping the scroll. Jonathan gives an example of what’s working right now.
: What kind of call to action works?
: Caption length - Oh, we dive into that! Don’t worry.
: How do I find real trending audio?
: The cover image - what should I include?

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keywords
tiktok, instagram, facebook reels, reels, youtube shorts, short video,  social media for business, creating content for instagram 2024, hashtags for instagram, call to action for content, captioning reels, captioning tiktoks, value-driven content, coffee social, business podcast

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

It's Coffee Social, the podcast, all about social media and business. And now here are your hosts, Jonathan Howard and Mimi Langley. Hey everyone, Hi Jonathan Howard, Hello Mimi Langley.

Speaker 2: 0:19

Ooh, I'm feeling your energy right now. It feels good.

Speaker 1: 0:23

Feels good Okay.

Speaker 2: 0:25

Is it the coffee? It's the coffee, what's going?

Speaker 1: 0:28

on. It is the coffee I had, a very big. This is a big coffee for me.

Speaker 2: 0:33

If you're watching the YouTube video you'll see it. Cheers my friend, cheers everyone listening. We know we have to sip. I always say that I have to give instructions.

Speaker 1: 0:41

Sip and back away from the mic so that our listeners do not hear us gulping.

Speaker 2: 0:45

Always A little ASMR never hurt anyone. Okay, real quick, though we do want to encourage you. If you haven't already, please rate the podcast, give us five stars, give us a thumbs up. If you could write a review, that would be awesome. We're really, really excited, you guys. We're trying to spread the word more about the podcast.

Speaker 1: 1:02

But, mimi, they haven't even heard a second of us on the podcast. How are they going to rate us?

Speaker 2: 1:07

Well, this is for the people that know who we are. But if you're new here, why don't we go ahead and do some quick intros and then we're going to dive in, because we have a lot for today's episode. Okay, I get to go first.

Speaker 1: 1:19

Yeah, of course. Well, thank you very much, my Thank you very much. My name is Jonathan Howard. I'm the owner of Success on Social and I help successful female coaches reach their ideal clients on social media through short-form video, sharing their story and eventually changing the world one person at a time. And back to you, mimi.

Speaker 2: 1:33

I love that. You know I always. I love your intro. Hey everyone, I'm Mimi Langley. I teach women in business how to host rooms, how to moderate on social audio that includes LinkedIn audio and Clubhouse really to grow your business from the ground up. It's a great way to get visible and all the good stuff. And, jonathan, I am so stinking excited for this episode I'm sure you are, because this episode is like your field.

Speaker 1: 1:57

Yes, I love talking about this, and there's so much that we could talk about. I could talk for hours. I have spoken for hours on this topic.

Speaker 2: 2:05

Well, can we show the viewers on YouTube what the notes look like? It's a lot of notes. Okay, let's dive into it. And again, this doesn't have to just be for beginners, right? You could be seasoned and maybe miss some of these points that are really important for short form video. So, whether you're putting it on Instagram Reels or TikToks or wherever YouTube Shorts, a lot can be applied all across.

Speaker 1: 2:27

Yes, Especially since I teach it a little bit differently.

Speaker 2: 2:30

Yeah, which is I love the way you teach this and I think it's important, especially the first one. If you are making short form video for business, what would be like the basic format of a video that we should be focusing on?

Speaker 1: 2:45

Sure, if you're making short form for business, you're going to want to make sure that you have a really simple three-part video, and that is you need to have a hook. What is something that they're going to want to get out of the video? So you want to have a really quick hook in the first two seconds of your video. What is the reason? And that should be spoken and written on screen and portrayed in as many ways possible so that they actually know why they should watch the video. Then the center portion of your video is the value portion of the video, and that is where you include whatever it is you promised on the hook, whatever it is that you said hey, here's the information that you wanted, here it is.

Speaker 1: 3:24

And then the third part is your call to action, and this should be. What do you want them to do next? What is the next step for them? So, after they watch your video and this is a really easy one like and follow for more tips like this, and you can obviously optimize it for whatever it is you're teaching, but that should be. You should always have a CTA which is call're teaching, but that should be. You should always have a CTA which is call to action. That tells them what to do next?

Speaker 2: 3:49

Yeah, I love that. I mean it's it seems pretty straightforward hook, value, cta, call to action. Yeah, and you know what I've noticed and this is something I don't know if you agree or disagree with it, but I noticed a lot of people will do the same intros and they'll do the same closings, and I don't, and I think that's a great way to brand yourself really. I know, when I'm scrolling and I see that I'm like oh, this is so-and-so's video.

Speaker 1: 4:10

And the reason that I teach creating your own signature style and it could be that it could be something different but is so that people recognize you, so that they see that video and go oh, I know who that is, and that's what you want. That's what you want when you're creating videos and creating a brand and trying to get people to follow you. So I think it's great. There's some ways to do it correctly. There's some ways to do it where it's just like oh, another one.

Speaker 3: 4:36

You know, and I've got.

Speaker 1: 4:38

I have got a client who did a took a trend and made it her own to the point where she's getting merch out and all that sort of stuff for it. But she got I was counting it up earlier well over a million views on this type of video.

Speaker 2: 4:52

Congratulations, mr Coach over there. Seriously, though, make sure you guys are connecting with Jonathan on Instagram so you can see his. You know he preaches what he, or he models what he preaches. There we go. If you guys want more examples, follow the man. We'll put his link below in the show notes or the description. Let's go from Instagram.

Speaker 2: 5:11

I mean I'm sure all the other platforms have their own thing, but let's talk about hashtags for a second, Because, yeah, I feel like you know YouTube shorts they have hashtags. I mean, are hashtags still a thing?

Speaker 1: 5:27

So what hashtags do? And I always tell people this, and I might be dating myself, but when you walk into a library, if you need to find a book, you go to the card catalog, that card catalog is hashtags.

Speaker 1: 5:35

I know that card catalog is your hashtags. It tells people where your post belongs. So you're not going to find the book in the library if it's not in the right place on the shelf, based on the card catalog. You're not going to find the post, or your people are not going to find the post on Instagram unless it's under the right hashtag. Use very specific, very optimized hashtags that can work with your keywords. Use five to seven and they're always going to get you some visibility. I will say that I stopped using hashtags for a while and I started using them again and I'm seeing a lot more of my post views coming from hashtags. So they're they still work.

Speaker 2: 6:19

Wow, that's really good to know. That's really good to know Real quick. Do hashtag generators do anything, or?

Speaker 1: 6:27

They can, but you should still always check the hashtag before you use it, because it may be a valid hashtag, but it may mean something entirely different than what you thought it meant.

Speaker 2: 6:38

Okay. So you guys know what we need. Right, we need an episode about hashtags. If this is, I mean, I'm voting for it, I'm raising my hand. If you want hashtags, write it down. But also, you guys let us know. We want to make sure we cater this podcast to what you're needing, and hashtags, I think, would be a great episode. Okay, awesome Hashtags, good to go. Earlier you talked about the basic format. So earlier you talked about the basic format hook value, cta. You gave a little bit of what a hook is, but can you just give us, like, what am I doing? Like I know it's the opener, but like, what am I trying to do?

Speaker 1: 7:16

It's the opener and what you're trying to do is really capture the attention of your ideal customer and only your ideal customer. If you're creating short form videos for your business, you want to attract your customer and push away everybody else, so you're going to create content and the first line out of your mouth needs to be something that's going to grab their attention. So right now, on Instagram especially, there is the conversational hook that's really trending and, by the way, if you're looking for hooks, I'll make sure that we put the. I have a hook guide that's $7.

Speaker 1: 7:51

I'll make sure that I have the hook guide, the call to action guide. I'll put all those things and the nine reels. I'll put all those things in the show notes for you guys. But conversational hooks are something that's really doing well right now. So a conversational hook could be we need to talk about. That is brilliant, so we need to talk about this, or let's have a conversation about or maybe have you heard about this? And when you have those kind of conversational hooks.

Speaker 1: 8:27

What you're doing is you're talking to your girlfriends, right? And it's like I'm talking to my besties and I got to girl you would not believe. Jonathan Howard just said girl you would not believe. And guess what that is going to hook? If that's your audience, that's going to hook them in because they want to know what they're not going to believe. They want to know what we need to talk about. They want to know those things. So that conversational hook is something right now, as of the beginning of March when we're recording this, that is the trending kind of hook that's working right now.

Speaker 2: 8:57

I like it though. It makes sense to me and it's not hard to do you know, and it's quick? And what about with the hook? What about, like, what would be like a one thing not to do? Because I see people sometimes be like stop scrolling and watch this video. You know what I mean? It's like those kind of.

Speaker 1: 9:18

I hate those, the ones that are like three tips for this. They're not performing as well. They did well for a while, but it's not what people are looking for right now. That's it's more. That was more of a 2020 reel. We're in 2024. Reels have been out for four years, guys. They're changing. The way that people are doing them is changing and having a little bit more conversation. That is something that's doing well right now and they'll change again in a couple months. There'll be another trend. I mean, we can talk a whole episode and a half about Risa Tisa over on TikTok, so we'll get to that another day.

Speaker 2: 9:55

Yeah, and before we go to the commercial break, jonathan, I just want to kind of bring this point up, because we talk about this a lot with other parts of social media, and that is would you recommend looking at other reels for inspiration, just to kind of be in the know of what's happening? So, for example, if you are in the coffee business, don't you think it would be wise to look at what is Starbucks making reels on, or local coffee shops, and they're doing well, like, what are they doing? Do you recommend that?

Speaker 1: 10:24

So what I recommend? First of all, I know that business owners are busy and they have a lot going on. I always recommend I have a program that provides you with a lot of the trends and stuff, all that information all in one report that you can get into any program it doesn't have to be mine Any program that has something like that that's going to keep you up to date, because it's a lot to keep up with. I will tell you it's a lot to keep up with but it's a lot, you guys.

Speaker 2: 10:49

It's a lot to keep up with.

Speaker 1: 10:51

Yeah, I also don't want you to fall into the trap of comparing yourself to other people. So a lot of my members they're starting out on reels and they're like I'm never going to be as good as this, I'm never going to be able to do this and this is really hard and I get that. So I don't want you to feel like that, want you to feel like that, so don't look at it necessarily. But you got to look at it from a business standpoint, like what, okay, these are reels that are doing well, these are things that are doing well. So if you can get it into a program any program or if you can look at it from above, like the eagle eye view, and say these are trends that are happening, I can do these trends.

Speaker 2: 11:29

So yeah, that's great. That's what I would recommend. Yeah, okay, and again, we're going to put all the information in the show notes. You guys, it's important. Jonathan does a great job organizing all that every month for his members, so all the information will be in the show notes for you. Okay, let's go ahead. Some quick commercials, a commercial break, and then we will be right back.

Speaker 3: 11:48

You guys, with some more tips for short form video. Take it away. All right, let's go. I don't know if you're like me, but I'm a busy mom with big dreams. I feel like I have no time in the day to write my book or start my blog. That's why I signed up for the Girl You've Got this Action Over Perfection Community. It includes dedicated co-working sessions to get things done, brainstorming sessions so you don't drive yourself crazy, and social audio trainings to learn more about gaining visibility and making sales. Check the show notes for a link to sign up.

Speaker 1: 12:21

Tired of being overlooked on social media, ready to be seen in the crowded marketplace, attract your ideal clients and increase your impact. Decision to Membership combines all the tools you need to level up your presence, share your powerful stories and have a bigger impact in the world. See the link to join in the show notes. And we're back, mimi. What's up next?

Speaker 2: 12:41

No, no, Honestly, I'm having so much fun listening. I'm like you know, this is a good topic. It really is, and you've helped me personally so much with my videos. So, all right, let's go ahead and continue on with some tips when you're creating short form video. I have here on the list call to action, which I know you mentioned. Call to CTA earlier but, I just wanted to ask how should we be using that? Should we be putting words on the screen? Should we? Also be saying it, should we just?

Speaker 2: 13:09

be, putting in the captions what's going on.

Speaker 1: 13:12

Your call to action should be on the screen, in the video, as many places as it can be, and it should be as simple as possible. So what I mean by as simple as possible is you don't want the follower to. They're not going to go to click the link in your bio from a reel. First of all, that should not ever be a call to action right now. But they're never going to go there because they have to leave the Reels feed. Go to your bio, go click on the link, figure out which link it is in your stupid tree of things, and they're not going to do that. So what you want to do is make it easy for them. So the first call to action on a Reel should be like and follow, because once they follow, then they're going to see you more. So you want to gain followers that are interested in what you do, so get them to follow, especially if you're just starting on reels. Get them to follow. Yes, there's other things you can do, but that's the best one, especially if you're just starting.

Speaker 2: 14:08

Can I ask you real quick, and then we'll move on to the next tip, because I know we try to keep these episodes digestible, short and digestible for you guys. But should I be saying it as well, like? Should I be saying okay, like and follow for more? Because I find myself just putting it on the screen.

Speaker 1: 14:33

I'm counting it. But the more you do things, if you say it, if you encourage them, if there's a little slide or whatever it is, that's going to help because they'll get it more and they're more likely to follow. Because once they're following you, they're in your ecosystem, you can reach them, you can get their email, all those things.

Speaker 2: 14:46

I love that a lot. Okay, that's really good, you guys, easy to do and again, it could be the same for almost every short form video you create. You don't have to overthink it. Let's talk about captions real quick, because I have my opinion on this, and my opinion is there are blog post length captions out there. Is this something that we should be doing? I would assume that no one's going to read all that on Instagram, but what do you think?

Speaker 1: 15:16

So here's the thing that's happening and I don't like this trend at all and I try my best to not do it. But there's this trend to do like a three second reel that really has no value in the reel itself and directs people to the caption. And the reason why this is working is because then the person is reading the caption. Even if they don't get to the end of the caption, they're still reading. It's a lot of three seconds and the replays count as plays, so as long as they're actively reading the caption. So there is if you've got a really quick reel and a really long caption, there's a reason that works. Also, if you've got a really long reel, nobody's they're not going to read the caption, so you can play with the length of it. I will say the longer it is, the harder it is going to get somebody through it, just like the video. But you could leverage it to get more people and more views.

Speaker 2: 16:16

No, I love that, but my question is do you think that people are writing blog posts type captions because they feel like that's going to help the algorithm, the reach?

Speaker 1: 16:26

because of all those words. No, they're writing them on reels because they think that they're going to get their people to read it longer and get more views. Okay, and many of them, if you actually read them, have zero value. It's just fluff. Don't do that to your people, okay.

Speaker 2: 16:40

Don't waste their time. That's my opinion on it. I wouldn't probably sit there and read a blog. That's not what I go to Instagram for.

Speaker 3: 16:48

Right.

Speaker 1: 16:49

And that's my thing. Yeah, and that's my thing. You always. If you start to focus on the algorithm and not your people, you're doing it wrong. You can't focus on the algorithm. The algorithm is just a machine that's measuring how your people are interacting. So fix what problems you have with your people and that'll be better.

Speaker 2: 17:08

See, and you know what You've always said, that ever since the first day I met met you, you're like F, the algorithm that's all about your people.

Speaker 1: 17:16

It's your people we're building a community. That's what we're worried about.

Speaker 2: 17:19

Exactly. Um, okay, I love that. Okay, let's we have two more points and then we'll wrap it up. The next one is how do I find trending audio, and is that is that effective?

Speaker 1: 17:30

Okay, okay, super easy, okay, super easy. One, you join my membership.

Speaker 2: 17:34

No, yes, though, tell them, though you do give them I do?

Speaker 1: 17:38

I give over 30 trending audios and some updates throughout the month in the Reels report that you get as a part of the signature membership. So you get all of that, plus extra ones in Discord, but you also get you know a very simple way of doing it. You're going to go on Instagram and you're going to find a trend, a trending song, and that's one that has the diagonal arrow up next to the song title. You're going to click that song and it's going to pull up that the page for that song, and then you're going to click the trending part, that where it says trending. Click that and that'll bring up your top 50 trending songs on Instagram.

Speaker 2: 18:12

Okay, and that's when I'm inside of the reel, like editing, I see the music button when you're inside actually any reel.

Speaker 1: 18:20

So if you're watching a reel and you're like I love this song, I want to do a reel to it. Is it trending?

Speaker 2: 18:28

no-transcript. Yeah, that's nice, that's really nice, okay, so should I even care about that?

Speaker 1: 18:35

It makes a little bit of a difference. But here's the thing If your content sucks, it's not going to make a difference. There's no amount of trending song that can help crappy content.

Speaker 2: 18:44

I'm just going to come in here and say, jonathan, edit it out, the S-H-I-T-T-Y. Okay, I love that. That's a solid line right there, jonathan. About trending audio Okay, and we'll talk more about this, you guys, because I want to talk in another episode about Instagram. I would love to hear his thoughts on original audio, because you see that a lot popping up, so we'll talk about that in a future episode. Make sure you guys connect with us and follow the podcast. Okay, so we'll go ahead and wrap up the episode with this last tip, and this is going to be a really good one. This is about cover images, because, for me, I feel like I stop to scroll a lot of the time when I see a really visually appealing thumbnail. What do you think about cover images? Should we take our time with them?

Speaker 1: 19:27

A Reels cover isn't going to make or break your Reel. The Reels covers only show on your full Reels feed when people are scrolling. What's more important is that in that first two seconds you have something that grabs their attention. So you don't need a reels cover per se. Now I'm a little bit old school Instagram. I'm a little bit. I'm still a little bit aesthetically pleasing, got to follow my brand and all that stuff and not as everything everywhere.

Speaker 1: 19:57

What you want is somebody to be able to know what the video is about when they're scrolling your feed, because that will allow them to click into it and watch it. Even if it's a video that's five, six, seven weeks old, they'll still know that this is useful information for them. They can click on it and use it. So for discovery, past that first initial push that you get from Instagram, it's important because you want somebody to know what it is about. Now you can do that just by making sure that the first thing that's in the screen, which I always recommend, is readable and a decent start, and sometimes you just do what you can always do is record yourself standing still for a second before you start the video, and then that's the part that you use as the cover with the hook right there.

Speaker 2: 20:50

Oh, that is so smart Because I always find myself struggling to find a good image for the cover photo.

Speaker 1: 20:58

Right. That is really smart, wow, so you just you hit the button and you stand. Now you're gonna have to chop up off anything that's extra. You want it to be like a half a second. If that because you're gonna lose viewers if you're standing there for like a second and you're like so I would click for you, jonathan, because I would click for me. You're so funny.

Speaker 2: 21:24

Um, okay, so the cover image. Should I have words on the cover image, like, if I'm gonna care about anything, should it be at least the words okay, yes, yes.

Speaker 1: 21:31

Yes, yes, like and we've, and even if it's we need to talk about, like we were talking about that hook before we need to talk about they're going to then click in. What do we need to talk about If that's on your cover image or you know social audio and you go for things that are shocking, go for things that are going to peak some curiosity. You know social audio is dead.

Speaker 3: 21:54

Like, if you, for things that are going to pique some curiosity.

Speaker 1: 21:55

You know social audio is dead. No, it's not. But if you put out a reel that said social audio is dead, people would want to watch. Why is she saying that? Mimi Langley is saying that. Right because I'm a thought leader in that.

Speaker 2: 22:06

Yes, I see what you're saying.

Speaker 1: 22:08

Yes, Wow, so really just using those sort of things, and if that was on your feed and you're listing yourself as social audio, people would click into that and be like what? So that's what you want. You want the words so that they will click in and actually watch the video and share the video and all those things.

Speaker 2: 22:26

Can I hire you for a one-on-one?

Speaker 1: 22:29

Yes, you can. Yes, as a matter of fact, you can.

Speaker 2: 22:33

Jonathan Howard. What an episode, because we got to get the grammar right for all the grammar people out there.

Speaker 2: 22:40

But, seriously, though. We hope that you guys really took a lot from this and can apply it I know I for sure will and again, a lot of these are not it's not just for Instagram Reels. A lot of what we've shared, what Jonathan has shared, can be for Tik TOK, can be for, you know, YouTube shorts, all of that. So, Jonathan, let's go ahead and wrap up the episode. We'll probably do it like part five 20, 200.

Speaker 1: 23:04

We're just going to talk about reels for the entire rest of next season.

Speaker 2: 23:08

For season two Instagram period Season two Instagram See Two Instagram period, Season two Instagram Can we do a little stories?

Speaker 1: 23:14

Can we do a little stories on season two?

Speaker 2: 23:16

Yeah, yes of course, if I relate them to Instagram. Yes, yes, can I talk about Clubhouse, if I can relate it to Instagram? Sure, you guys were just being silly, jonathan do you? Want to. You know, give your spiel the Vanna White of it all.

Speaker 1: 23:31

I do. I do want to give the spiel. I want to let people know that if they haven't already rated us on whatever podcast platform they listen to us on to, please just do us a little quick favor and go over and hit that five stars, because Mimi loves her stars and we would love to hear from you If you've got something to say. If you're on Apple podcast, you can review us and let us know what it is you have to say. You can also find us on YouTube, instagram and, soon, onlyfans.

Speaker 2: 23:58

Oh my gosh, you'll see Jonathan's feet. We'll pay for that, though, jonathan. Jonathan Howard's feet.

Speaker 1: 24:05

No, I have ugly feet.

Speaker 2: 24:07

I was going to say too, if they leave a review, I mean, the easiest thing you can write is I am team Mimi all the way, because she's the best. What easiest thing you can write is I am team Mimi all the way because she's the best what? No? That brings me to the question, the most important question of them all, and that is are you team Mimi or Team Jonathan? I don't care how good his coffee looks right now as he's sipping. That ice really came through, by the way. Thanks guys, thanks for listening, thanks for watching.

Speaker 1: 24:33

Thanks for listening guys. Bye, by the way. Thanks guys. Thanks for listening. Thanks for watching. Thanks for listening guys. Bye, jonathan Howard, bye Mimi Langley, bye everyone, bye everyone.