Video is a great way to stand out, get in front of more prospects and convert them to clients. In this chat, Ben from Engage Video Marketing covers how to make video work for you and what platforms to do it on.
Resources mentioned in the episode
- Soapbox video editor
- VidYard’s recorder
Connect with Ben
About Ben
Ben is a passionate online video strategist, entrepreneur, video producer, international speaker and educator working with savvy brands across Australia and the world to connect them to their ideal audiences through effective online video marketing. He is the Owner and Creative Director of Innovate Media, an online video strategy and production agency based out of the Sunshine Coast, Australia.
As host of the Engage Video Marketing Podcast, and creator of the Online Video Strategy Blueprint Ben’s mission is to help other creatives, marketers, entrepreneurs and video producers better understand how to attract, engage and convert audiences online with video.
At the heart of it all, Ben believes that effective online video content has strategy at its core. As content producers, marketers or business owners we must rise up against the ‘avalanche of average’ video content surrounding digital audiences today and deploy video strategically, deliberately and creatively across platforms for maximum results.
Behind this, Ben’s a proud Dad of two daughters, a family guy and an adventurous Aussie who loves building sandcastles with his kids at any of the beautiful beaches of his home town on the Sunshine Coast, Australia.
Transcript
James Rose
Hello, and welcome back to Agency Highway. This is Episode 85 with Ben Amos from Engage Video Marketing. Ben, thanks for joining.
Ben Amos
Good day, JImmy. Thanks for having me on your show.
James Rose
Yeah, I feel like this should have happened sooner given. We've known each other for quite a while and run into each other at random events all the time. It's actually been a while now because I stopped doing a lot of local networking stuff. So I just see you on the internet all the time now because you are seemingly everywhere, which is good. Yeah, and it's such a good topic video because I feel like we haven't really covered this a lot on the podcast. So we're breaking new ground. I'm really keen to learn about how agencies can use video businesses in general, obviously, but maybe a bit more specific to agencies so nice. Where do we start like why why do we what people I think a pretty solid on video. Maybe we should talk about that. Quickly a little bit introduction on what you do in your business.
Ben Amos
Yeah, hey, you know, 2020 is the year of video, right? Although it has been for the last, what five or six years, I've been reading things are saying it's the year of video online video is taking off, you know, you got to be doing video this year. And look I've been I've been in video production for over 20 years. And I mean, the world of video production has changed significantly over that period of time, you know, particularly as we've moved into producing content now for for digital and online spaces. And even that, in that last five, six year kind of period as businesses and started really embracing video as well. It's changing all the time. So I think what I'm seeing all the time is people as you say, Jimmy, that they know they need video, they get the power of video, but the confusion often comes from what should I do and where should I do it? How should I do it to ensure I get a return on investment and that's what it often comes down to is, and my big mission, I guess, is to help people to stop doing video for video sake, just, you know, just for the sake of getting something out there and start doing video more strategically. And we can break that down. But I think that's at the core of it is now it's just so possible for everyone to create video really quickly and cheaply. You don't need to hire a video production company anymore, although there's time and a place for doing that. But you can turn on your webcam or press that go live button on your smartphone, and you're producing video content. So that's not a barrier anymore. So the barrier now is how you going to ensure that your content actually cuts through, reaches the right people and actually moves them to take some sort of action that's going to make a difference in your business. So I think that's where people get stuck and we can dive deeper into that.
James Rose
Yeah, I've seen a lot of interesting stuff around video lately, like as a lot of people saying you do it but to cut through now. You have to have like good production and all this sort of stuff and like I don't know about you, but I tend to disagree with that. I'm no video expert, but I can just see that there's like videos that actually do well that aren't very well produced. And I thought it was quite funny because there was one guy I listened to a podcast yesterday that he was talking about, he's actually going to start cutting back on video this year. Because all the stuff he did last year didn't really get that good results compared to other stuff he did with his time. And then because he went so much into the production value, and then he went on to say like, literally five minutes later, that the best video he had the previous year was not produced at all. And it was a quick screen share with like, no production value at all. And I was like, wait, didn't you just see that connection in your own thing like it didn't need to be you didn't need to go to so much plenty work. I just found that really interesting.
Ben Amos
Yeah, what I find interesting about that without knowing that full story is it kind of reflects what I see and hear all the time is people think of video and they immediately turned to the technical aspects of video they, they turned to Okay, well, if I need to do video or how am I going to make this, you know? Do I need to pay someone? Do I need this piece of equipment or that piece of equipment? How do I, how am I going to edit this thing that's just, you get focused and bogged down on that. But the reality is, is video is just another form of communicating an idea from my head into your head for a brand to a consumer and causing them to change the way they're thinking about something to take some sort of action video just happens to be currently the most effective way of doing that in digital channels because it's like the it's like a one two punch of, you know, technical and logical information that you can communicate effectively to someone and the emotional connection that the human elements video allows. So, you know, getting bogged down in the technical aspect isn't the right way to look at it, there is absolutely successful and effective strategies you can do effectively with no resources, you know, with nothing with screen share and stuff built into your computer. And there are times and places when it's worth investing in higher quality production as well.
James Rose
And, you know, I've seen I guess people doing both James Schramko is a very prominent online marketer. I know he's got the gear because I've seen his professionally produced videos, but I see him putting out it's like a video every day at the moment. And just like a one minute thing is quick little tip that he puts on LinkedIn, YouTube and on his blog. It's a crazy amount of content that's always coming out. But these are just one minute clips, you know, and they can be repurposed into transcripts and posts which his team do so I mean, if Schramko is doing something like quickly talking to a foreign and putting that up like, to me that says, you can get away with it because I mean, he's not going to do things that don't work.
Ben Amos
Yeah, I think what you know, the important thing is, is it's not just about putting content out there because it is easy. You can just, you know, press record and film a one minute video and put it out there every day. You can do that. But without a strategic kind of mindset behind doing that. chances are it's just going to be noise, you know, like, is there's so much video content. I mean, the stats crazy like you know, over 80% of global Internet traffic in 2020 this year is going to be video. The not all that video is good, right? Not all that video is getting watched or returning on investment. So I'm sure someone like James Schramko has a good strategy behind what he's doing. Yeah, I should have shown that people can file.
James Rose
Yeah, I should have specified that because yeah, like some people might hear that and go I know I have to do a daily video. And that is just video for video sake. But what I've seen Schramko doing, I was at a conference with him sitting next to him, and I saw him writing down a lot of notes while he was talking to people. And I was like, What are you doing man? And he basically every time someone asks a question, so he does a lot of business coaching. And if someone asks him a question, and he answers it, he writes it down, along with his answer, and if hears a question being said that he thinks is like something he could answer on video, he basically just answers them on video really quickly and upload them. I thought that was genius. I still don't know if that falls into video for video sake. But yeah, I just thought it was a really good way to continually create video, which is I've heard this as a strategy for agencies as well just recording video and content around the questions your clients ask. So, I mean, let's get into that. Like where should an agency actually start, like low hanging fruit without having all the tech gear and all that Where do I start?
Ben Amos
Yeah, it comes down to, it comes down to that idea of having a strategy behind what you're doing. And at its simplest form, I kind of see a strategy as needing to start with with your audience, you know, and your agency audience probably understand the value of understanding who you're talking to. Understanding that audience, both on a demographic level, but also psychographic level, because if you know, what they care about, and you know what they what they're struggling with, and what their pain points are in their life that you can help them with, then immediately you're starting to be more strategic about the content you're going to create that's going to address those pain points, great way that you just shared. There's the idea of just answering questions that people have if your people are coming to you with common questions, you have the answers, then that's a great place to start creating content. When you've got the audience then that leads into the goals for your strategy. So when you think about videos, to magically, you need to think what am I trying to achieve, right? And the goal for your strategy is going to be different based on where people are at within that journey to buy from you. So for people, like if you think about a funnel, right, your audience is probably familiar with the idea of a marketing funnel that you've got a cold audience at the top of the funnel. And then as they move through the funnel, they're going to be a warm or hot audience, and then they buy from you and become a customer. So at the top of the funnel, the goal is is awareness, you know, getting people to become aware of who you are, who heard about you before, and awareness is an emotional thing. It comes from the inside. It's not a logical brain part. It's an emotional thing. Basically, if you can show up for people and make the right emotional connection for them, then they'll begin to like you and begin to trust you. And they'll move into your funnel, ideally in the right way, right? and then basically as you've got them in the funnel, so a lot of what We say with video content, when it strategic is that middle of the funnel content, which is providing value or educational information to people, because when people are in the middle of the funnel, they just have answers or they have questions or they want answers, right? So if you can be the brand or the business that provides more value to your prospects before you ask them to buy from you, then when they do get ready to buy, they're more likely to buy from you. It's reciprocity. You know, one of the for sure GLD needs principles.
James Rose
Yeah, just to clarify, do you mean by middle of funnel Do you mean like they're on your email list and you're sending them content.
Ben Amos
So by middle of funnel, it's, it's people who are aware of the need that they have to buy something that haven't yet bought something so middle of when they're in the middle of your funnel. So you kind of think of the customer journey as the customer is going to go on this journey anyway. Whether you're with that customer or not in your brand or businesses is reaching the customer. So if a customer is wanting to buy the services of, let's say, a web design agency, they're going to start at the top of the funnel, which is when they're not even really considering who they're going to buy from. They're just getting frustrated with the lack of results from their website, or they look at their website and they go, it's just doesn't reflect us anymore. And so it's pain. It's kind of frustration and unhappiness, right. So that's top of the funnel at this stage there, in order to reach them as a web agency. You want to be creating content that talks to that pain and that frustration, and probably emphasizes the pain that if they stay in that state of frustration, that it's going to lead to, you know, problems for their business and things like that. You also want to come alongside and create content at the top of the funnel, which basically tells stories of other people who have been on the journey with your agency and have achieved a great outcome. That's that emotional tie in, you know. So it's kind of like, wow, if I do this, go on this journey with this agency, my life is going to feel better, you know, my business is going to be booming. That's the kind of emotional time that people at the top of the funnel, they need to hear from you. Then when they're in the middle of the funnel, basically, they're in that consideration phase, they kind of go, Okay, so I'm going to, I'm probably going to get a new website, will I go with that agency or this agency? Or will I do it myself or whatever, right? So they have questions, and they're making decisions that will lead them towards purchasing. This is where your content needs to shift from being emotional and now be a bit more rational. So it needs to actually provide value. Educate people about their options, share information, share insights and knowledge that you have. And do it in a way this is where video really seems do it in a way that builds a relationship with you as the guide that's going to help them achieved that outcome.
James Rose
Yeah. And that's, I just want to double down on that point to add, like how much video builds a relationship is insane. Like, I've only realized this really in the last maybe six months where I've gone to conferences, and people have literally said they feel like they know me, and I have no idea who they are. And it's 100% Well, I mean, the podcast helps and but the video is massive. And I like it if you feel a little bit bad in a way, but, but it does speak to the power of just being on video where people can see you and hear you. It's, it's crazy.
Ben Amos
Yeah, it comes down to the fact that people buy from people, you know, where we're all humans, whether we're in a b to b or b to c space, like we all buy and make purchase decisions based on human human instinct and human decision making processes which is influenced by other humans, you know? So that's where video just just really makes difference. So I kind of think of this idea of, you know, we used to be pre pre internet, we used to be in a low tech, high touch kind of a world, you know. So there wasn't much technology around us. So to do business, it needed to be very high touch, you'd walk into a shop, you talked to the shopkeeper, you shake hands, you'd know each other's by a first name, you know, and then you'd buy from that person and you wouldn't, you wouldn't buy your bread from a bakery down the road. If you built a relationship with the baker who's right in front of you, you know, you know his first name. But now as we've gone digital, it's very much a high tech, low touch kind of a world that we live in. Video brings the high touch back to high tech, particularly online video, you know, we can build that human connection and we can do it through digital, digital means and that's what humans crave. That's what we need
James Rose
Do you do a lot of like direct one on one personal video is something I've done a little bit of using tools like on your own on that way, you know, I might send a video to a person that signed up and just like welcome them to, you know, because otter contents now, just curious if you do that kind of thing.
Ben Amos
It's a severely underutilized use of online video, which most people don't think about. And it's something that we've been experimenting with and having great success with over the last 12 months, particularly enduros, a tool that we've used quite a bit for people who have bought some of our online programs, for example, to welcome them personally. And it gets an amazing response of people reaching out saying, Hey, thanks for that video. That's so awesome. Really excited to be part of the program, that kind of stuff. I mean, that's it. That's kind of an easy win, right? using a tool like that, send a personalized direct message, video, and it can be automated as well. Where I've seen great success, which I think is a benefit to an agency audience, particularly is bringing personalized video into the proposal and quoting process, I was going
James Rose
to ask you about that. I'm so glad you without
Ben Amos
you doing any of this,
James Rose
I don't do proposals anymore. But I literally just got a video like this. Yeah, walking me through our proposals like yeah, that is that's good.
Ben Amos
Yeah, so a tool that I recommend here is so Books by Wistia. So Wistia is an online video hosting platform you may be familiar with, but they have a free tool, which is a plugin called Soapbox. And Soapbox actually enables you to record your screen and your webcam at the same time and walk someone through a proposal. For example, maybe you've got a PDF version or an online version, a proposal, you know, walk them through and basically talk them through it. It records it real time and then it gives you some basic video editing capabilities afterwards, just right there in their platform. So effectively, you can switch between seeing your face full screen, to then just choose a point where you going to cut to seeing the screen recording. And you can have like your face on the left to the screen in the PDF on the right of the screen. Or you could just do some basic video editing and just trim some of the maybe you screwed up at the start. So you going to trim the start off of being really quick, really simple. And then you send it straight through email. And yeah, we've had great success with that landed a particularly large project last year. And the direct feedback from the client was well that video that came with the proposal just made us decide that you're the right fit for us and
James Rose
that's awesome, I'm just having a look at it now. I did not know this existed and I am a famed for new tools. So thank you. I'm currently using Camtasia still for this kind of thing. But it's a bit more annoying, just like upload. You've got gotta do the edits, like fairly manually and then upload it and then like change the sharing on the file.
Ben Amos
Anything that can speed things up, man, you gotta you gotta Yeah, know that you know this?
James Rose
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, this isn't really what I do any more like, I don't need to walk anyone through a proposal, but sometimes I use Loom, Loom is another choice for this but the video that this creates I'm just looking at it with there's like the side by side it's almost like a vertical like Instagram story vertical video of the person with the screen on the right hand side so I think real estates really good well like Loom I think it only puts in like a small bubble in the corner. Yeah. And Tommy So yeah, I really liked that format and I can see that it would work really well. So have you tried Loom?
Ben Amos
Yeah, yeah, I use Loom mostly for process driven videos to record screen to record basically screen capture videos to share with our VA and things like that for internal process documentation. I think that's super easy. It is limited in how you can use that content and share it with the client for example. Another great tool just as we're sharing tools here is by the guys from Videographers and other video hosting platform. They have a plugin or tool called GoVideo. I think it may be that maybe they just GoVideo name and it's just the video Chrome Plugin. Now, again, a free plugin which similar to Loom basically enables you to record your screen or record your webcam and send a personalized video. The good thing about this is you can have the GoVideo, the app on your smartphone, and basically record a personalized video message someone and just shoot it off by a text message. And it plays basically, you know, within the SMS kind of window on your smartphone. So it's a really and it it tracks it as well. So you know if someone's watched it so let's a great way to use this is for example, if you've just come out of a scoping meeting with a client, really good meeting you feel good about potential moving forward on the project. Maybe when you get back to the office, or even in the car in the car park on the way out, you can shoot them a quick video and say,” Hey, awesome to meet with you. Thank for the time as a promise don't get the proposal through the later this afternoon. In the meantime, reach out if I can help you any further.” benefit of that. It just, it's unexpected. And it humanizes that relationship and you seem like a real person. And when you get a personalized video like that, in your, in your text message, it feels like it's from a friend, right like that, yes, we play The only other time you'd get that kind of thing. So, you know, any way, any way that you can humanize business is always going to win.
James Rose
All right, cool. Well, I'd like to circle back a little bit and talk about actually marketing these videos, getting these videos in front of people because we've talked about, you know, creating some top of funnel stuffs and middle funnel stuff. The big thing I know people are going to ask is, how do we actually get people to see these videos?
Ben Amos
Yeah, well, it's a good question. You know, if you create a video and it's not saying, why create a video, righ? so what it comes down to really is it's about deciding on what is your primary platform going to be? So where are you going to actually distribute these videos and like we said before, the options are kind of endless, because every social media platforms, a video platform, you know, you've got your star wars of online video, YouTube, which tends to be the go to for people. But then more people tend to find it easier just to, you know, upload things to Facebook, for example, and now LinkedIn is becoming a video platform. That's another another one on the market. So the question is, how do you get people to see your videos on the platform that you're distributing your videos on? And the answer is different based on those different platforms?
James Rose
Probably also depends like what your businesses which platform you choose.
Ben Amos
Absolutely. So it comes down to really understanding your audience and knowing where it is that you're going to show up for those people so that you can actually engage the right people in the right way. So understand that first and I always talked about deciding on a primary platform and and that primary platform for your video strategy should be your growth platform. So deciding on based on your understanding of your audience, your goals for your business, How you going to build content strategically for your audience, decide on the on that platform, if that is YouTube, if that's what your primary platform is going to be, then you create your content, you produce your content, with YouTube's kind of language in mind. So the way you're going to produce videos for YouTube is very different to how you produce videos for Instagram TV, for example, to take two very different platforms. So decide on your primary platform, create the content with that platform in mind. And then you need to consider how you're going to optimize that content to get it in front of the right people. And the optimization strategies are different based on the platform. So YouTube, for example, we're talking mostly it's based on search behavior on the platform. So your typical SEO search engine optimization type things is what you need to do without going too deep into that. Thinking about keywords, titles, tags, descriptions.
James Rose
Yeah, that's exactly that's how I operate with YouTube. Right? It's I'm doing a lot of like, what I complete. For example, I'm like type in the Stock, you know, from doing some Zapier stuff. I just talked in Zapier space and see what autocomplete stuff comes up. There's obviously a bit like there are some tools that try to guess the YouTube volume as well. But yeah, I mean, that's, I guess that I've always tried to mix it and have some stuff for the subscribers. That's not keyword driven. And some it is.
Ben Amos
Yeah. And what you're talking about there is the optimization. I look in two ways. You've got algorithm optimization, which is the technical stuff we're talking about there, which is optimizing your content on the platform to suit the algorithm. And every video platform has some sort of algorithm at play that decides who sees the content who doesn't. So algorithm optimization is one factor. The other factor is what I call audience optimization. Okay, and audience optimization is about understanding how you can create content that hooks or engages your ideal audience to encourage them to actually watch because algorithm optimization will get your content, I guess exposed or, you know, put in front of the right audience, if you do it well. But if they don't actually click play, and if they do click play, but then they don't watch the video for longer than a couple of seconds, then it's not optimized for the audience. And that also sends negative signals to the algorithm in most cases, as well. So they're all they interplay. But what I recommend is always optimized for audience first, and good algorithm optimization will follow. And we can break that down a bit more. But if you basically, the mindset here is create content that your audience loves, that they want to consume, that answers their questions, and, you know, is exactly what they're looking for at any given time. And do it in an engaging and interesting way. So actually watch the entire video. And all of that plays into good algorithm optimization anyway.
James Rose
Yeah, I love that, like, you know, doing anything engaging ways important because there are so many videos that I've seen where literally, like a minute and a half to three minutes is just like, Hi, I am this person and this is what I do. And you know, I like this thing and like, like this is a random droll and it's quite funny because sometimes on YouTube some you scroll down and one of the top comments will be actual video starts at and someone will put a timestamp in. So you can click the timestamp and it'll jump
Ben Amos
skip all the rubbish
James Rose
Yeah, it's quite funny when there are those kind of videos. So just quickly, like I don't know if this is possible to do this, like, quick but maybe a couple of dot points on each platform because you mentioned that they are different, right and you you do things in different ways like you might speak to an audience differently on LinkedIn. Is there like a quick summary you can give on each one. If someone's like I don't know which platform I should start on, obviously, yeah, do that what platform they should start on sorry, should depend on their audience. That's something that listeners will have to work out themselves based on, you know, who their audience are. But then like, if they get started on YouTube, what what are they doing differently on YouTube than on LinkedIn, for example?
Ben Amos
Sure. So I mean, let's just look at YouTube. And we touched on it just briefly before but YouTube is primarily a well, it is hundred percent of video platform, which is different to the other social, social network type video platforms. So but YouTube is primarily search driven, okay, so people go to YouTube, and either they're engaging with content that from their channels that they subscribe to, which is one factor to consider, or in most cases, they're going to YouTube with some kind of intent to find an answer or to seek some sort of information. And that, you know, that could be entertainment as well, but Usually, you know, they're seeking some kind of information or education on something. So with that in mind, it's that's where optimization really leans towards your standard SEO stuff that we talked about. But critical to the main, I guess algorithm, things you can do on YouTube is really it comes down to that, how you going to hook people because, you know, the idea of audience optimization that I talked about before on YouTube is so critical because even if the algorithm shows your video to someone, if your thumbnail isn't engaging, and the opening seconds of your video aren't going to hook people in, then people are going to drop off straightaway. So in your analytics data, you can see that retention curve, the retention graph, which usually shows a steady decline from the beginning of the video to the end as people are dropping out of your video, but where you can see you really have a problem is when you have A very steep cliff a drop off, which happens far too often in the content that I'm, you know, analyzing on YouTube because people aren't considering those opening seconds of a video. So really, it comes down to an interplay between the quality of the thumbnail and how that gets someone to click play in the first place. And then the quality of your opening seconds to drive people further into your video. And once you've got them, like 10 , 15 seconds in, provided that you're giving value in your content, then you should be right to get pretty good retention, and engagement on YouTube. It's different on other platforms as well, but you want to go deeper into YouTube.
James Rose
know, I think like, this would be a whole other topic like you know, there's literally courses on how to optimize for YouTube like I know, you probably have one Do you?
Ben Amos
No, I don't specifically but there are a bunch of people have been on my podcast who are experts in this?
James Rose
Yeah, I know Brian Dean is big on YouTube stuff here. You know, everyone's got their own sort of ideas on how should be done. He's I think he's literally released a course recently. But I guess I was just trying to give a little overview of each platform because it's interesting because you know, you should some intent driven I imagined LinkedIn , Facebook are going to be like you interrupting, right? The only way people are going to LinkedIn to watch a video or find an answer. They're scrolling around, and you have to like hook them imagine in a very different way.
Ben Amos
Yeah. So LinkedIn is is a different platform again and LinkedIn, it it's actually harder to get solid evidence or data that says as to how video is being treated within the LinkedIn algorithm. There is certainly speculation and there are a lot of people have done a lot of tests on LinkedIn to kind of work it out and the best ways to kind of hack optimization for LinkedIn video, but the main thing is what it comes down to is like said before, understanding your audience and understanding the platform. So on LinkedIn, what you need to be doing is to consider that it is interruptive. It is a feed driven platform. But you also need to consider how it's relevant to, to the platform. So it's a business driven platform. So you wouldn't want to be putting your Casey Neistat type vlog, you know, your weekend on a holiday in Bali, kind of a video on LinkedIn, unless that really aligns with your brand. But you know, we'll assume that that's not the kind of video that's going to resonate, and therefore perform well on LinkedIn. So again, like all the platforms, if you can create content that is going to hook people and keep them watching to stop the scroll, then that is the biggest signal to LinkedIn to actually show this to more people. There are other factors to consider on LinkedIn particularly engagement in the comments. using hashtags as well is is very powerful on LinkedIn. And, also the, the currency I'm trying to think of the right word there. So LinkedIn videos specifically Basically, it's going to show the hour is going to show it to more people in its early stages of its life on the platform versus later. Now this is a factor that is even more pronounced on Facebook. In fact, once a Facebook video is kind of two days old, it's not going to be barely shown anywhere in the feed. But so LinkedIn, you've got a longer, you've got a longer lifespan, but if it's not getting engagement, then it's going to drop off very quickly after those first couple of days, no one's gonna see it. You can resurrect a video on LinkedIn by adding new comments to it, or encouraging new comments like tagging someone and saying, Hey, I noticed you haven't watched this video that I released last week. Hey, James, what do you think and then add some more comments in and that'll boost it back organically in the LinkedIn feed. So that's a good strategy. And then Facebook's different. Again. You know, Facebook is all about building community. You know, Zuckerberg came out a couple of years ago and said that the platform is all about building meaningful connections with people not brands, right? So, again, it needs to be about content that people want to watch that they want to engage with. A good signal for the algorithm is comments in the, in the comments field and things like that likes and shares. That sort of stuff is really in Facebook, it's really more about, there's really four things to break it down really quickly for Facebook optimizations about original content. So Facebook wants it to be original native content. In other words, content that's made for Facebook, not that you've had on YouTube, and you just stuck it up on on Facebook, for example, certainly not. And they actively demote video content that's like a mash up or, you know, rip from somewhere else. So used to see a lot of that on Facebook almost go viral, but they're actively pushing that sort of stuff down. Now, another factor is viewing behaviors. So I mentioned before that if people are watching the videos for decent retention so longer than three minutes in particular, then they're going to very actively promote that video within the feed. So if you get good viewer retention, which is very hard on Facebook
James Rose
yeah i bet . Everyone's kind of such a small God, what's the word? Everyone scattered.
Ben Amos
attention span?
James Rose
Yeah, that's it.
Ben Amos
It's not there on facebook
James Rose
I can't word today. Yeah, no, I mean, I'm just like, if I click on a thing on Facebook, then and I see that length is like, three minutes. I'm usually out immediately. Like it's I'm very much like a minute or under kind of watch on Facebook.
Ben Amos
Yeah, and you're not alone there. I mean, this is this is how Facebook have set up their algorithm is videos longer than three minutes are going to get preference in the in the algorithm. And, you know, let's be skeptical about this. It's probably because once a video is longer than three minutes, they can input basically an ad sticking ad in there. So you know, that's what Facebook's all about.
James Rose
Yeah I do I try to give Facebook signals that I hate mid roll ads by closing a video and stopping watching it whenever it rolls one.
Ben Amos
I do that too.
James Rose
Maybe they'll learn if we all do it or something because Middle Ages the worst, I know that, you know, again, just they're trying to make money. They're a business, but still I just hate it so much. Yeah,
Ben Amos
Yeah, it's interruptive advertising and that just doesn't work anymore. But that's a whole other conversation. Yeah, I just wrap up the final two factors for Facebook. The other ones loyalty and intent. So what that means is basically if you can create video content that people go to your channel to seek out so you know, it's a bit different to subscribing on YouTube. But the idea that would people want to come back to your videos on a regular basis so having a consistent posting schedule, like a weekly show, for example, that people turn up every Monday to your Facebook page. So sort of signals is what Facebook really loves when it comes to video. They recommend producing content for the Facebook watch platform, but I don't think many people are using what. but anyway. And then the final ones engagement we talked about that before. So if you can create content and encourages authentic engagement like likes, shares and comments and builds conversation in the comments not just you don't want just strings of comments with like great video or thumbs up or a Hi James or something like that, like, what you want is real detailed conversation in the comments. That's that's a very active signal for Facebook. So you want to avoid tactics that used to be popular on Facebook of like, you know, give me a thumbs up or say yes or no in the comments and you know, that gives you a string of comments, but they're not good comments. So that actually isn't valuable at all actually. One of the main things with Facebook
James Rose
Yeah, awesome. I actually just was gonna say that I find the comments on video especially Xlive video you know, once it once you do a live and you can watch it again. I find that so annoying the way the comments work. It's not like a normal video post. And it's always so frustrating to find the comments that I want. It's just like, completely unrelated bugbear of mine. with Facebook. It's funny you mentioned Facebook watch too. I'm glad no one's using it because I hate Facebook watch because they launched on day that we went live with contents now on Product Hunt. And we got number two product of the day behind.
Ben Amos
freakin Facebook, watch. Take it on the big boys.
James Rose
mate ,There's a lot of stuff to unpack. I think hopefully that should help. Some people decide where to start with video, what platforms how to modify what they're doing for each platform. I think that's a good point to wrap up. Just wanted to say thank you so much for dropping all this knowledge.
Ben Amos
Cool and Yeah. Thanks for having me on the show.
James Rose
And where can people go to find out like a bit about what you do? And I know you've got a podcast and engage video marketing. Tell us a bit about what you can help people with.
Ben Amos
Yeah. So if you podcast listener. assume you are if you're listening, engage Video Marketing podcast is where it's at. So I interview a whole bunch of people, experts in the world of video marketing, video strategy and all that sort of stuff. So that's a good place to go. Otherwise you can head over to engage video marketing.com and that's kind of my online home for free education things and things that are hopefully going to help you be more strategic with your video content and and really nail your video strategy in 2020 and beyond.
James Rose
and head over there. Sign up for whatever Ben's got, especially if it's free. I guarantee it's all going to be helpful for you. So Ben, thanks again.
Ben Amos
Cool. Thanks, James.
James Rose
I'll see you guys in the next episode.