Transcript

Brad Powell: 0:06

When it comes to making content, especially when it comes to making short-form video, there’s this kind of trap that you can fall into, where it’s seemingly posting just random bits of content and every day you’re thinking, well, what am I going to post today? What’s the new topic, what’s the new idea? But when you take the content creation that you’re doing and well, what am I going to post today? What’s the new topic, what’s the new idea? But when you take the content creation that you’re doing and you turn into a series that follows a very specific format from one day to the next, it becomes a much easier thing to replicate and you don’t necessarily have to come up with lots of new ideas or where you’re going to go. You’re basically following the format with a new subject. In this case, I can be doing all kinds of research and looking for people in the world who are doing kind of remarkable things with their business and bringing them into the light of day. Business and bringing them into the light of day. Welcome to the Standout Business Show, where it’s all about making a bigger difference by doing business differently. I’m your host, brad Powell, and today I am asking the question could a short-form video series be the future of audience building. And you know, when I was growing up, there was one movie theater in the town where I lived and each week there would be one movie that played, and so a movie would come to town, would run for the week and then it would go away and a new movie would arrive, and that was it. Each week you had the possibility of watching one film, but in addition to the film, always before the feature played, they always showed a short, some kind of short featurette, and usually these shorts were done in a series and it could be something like the Lone Ranger, and the Lone Ranger was always rescuing someone or catching bad guys, and every single short episode would end on a cliffhanger, so that you would want to know how’s he going to get out of this trouble, how’s he going to rescue whoever he’s trying to rescue. You would want to come back the next week to see what happened in the serial, and this worked really, really well for the theater, because it almost didn’t matter what the movie would be next week. You wanted to come back just simply to see the short. It created a lot of desire and wanted to come again and again and again.

Brad Powell: 2:45

This past week I was listening to an interview with Pat Flynn on the Social Media Marketing Podcast. Pat has just done an experiment in the last year and it’s not even a year old where he’s been doing a short form video series on YouTube. It’s worked out incredibly well. I was really amazed at how quickly he has grown an audience. He basically started a brand new YouTube channel and the only thing on that channel are these short videos that he’s created.

Brad Powell: 3:18

Now, in his case, he’s got this side thing going where he’s way into Pokemon cards and all he’s doing in these videos is that he goes into a shop and he buys a pack of cards these collectible cards and then he opens the pack and he flips through and sees if he got anything particularly valuable in the package. That’s the format, and the question he’s always asking is should I open it or should I keep it sealed? People are staying through the video to see whether or not he gets anything valuable from the pack or if he wasted all his money, and that’s it. It’s that simple, and his point in this interview was saying, if you develop a format that is repeatable and it has some kind of challenge or curiosity about it that people want to see the result. They’ll not only watch that video, but they’ll come back next time for more, and the reason is because they know what they’re getting next. This is the magic of a series or a serial is that it’s done in a format where you know what you’re getting and you want more of it.

Brad Powell: 4:34

Another big example of somebody who did this really well is Nas Daily, and this is several years ago. Probably seven or eight years ago, this guy, nazir, started doing on Facebook short videos and this is well before short form video was even a thing and he would find somebody who had an interesting story about something they’ve done that’s super cool, and he would tell their story in just one minute, and at the end of each video he would say that’s one minute, see you tomorrow. The format was always the same, and so you knew exactly what you were getting one day to the next, and he did extremely well over time. It took a while, but suddenly people discovered his videos and now, when they found one, they would go and start binging and watch several of them at a time. And this is the part of the magic of doing a series like this is that if people find one of your videos and they like it and it has something about it that they want more of. They will start binging all your content.

Brad Powell: 5:44

So I thought to myself well, I would like to see if there’s a way to do this as an adjunct to this show, the Standout Business Show. What if I created a whole series on businesses that are doing something really outstanding and turn it into a short form video series? So it could be the Standout Business Shorts, and I’m going to take a page out of what Pat Flynn did. He started by saying I’m going to take a page out of what Pat Flynn did. He started by saying I’m going to commit to doing this for 60 days. So this is my promise to you I’m going to commit to starting a short form video series for 60 days and you can follow along with me to see how it goes.

Brad Powell: 6:27

And I’m going to take the format from Naz Daily. His format, as he describes it, is that there’s four parts of every one of his videos. It starts with a hook, which is like an introduction, that always has some kind of provocative question or fact, and then he lists a problem, which creates tension by simply stating the issue at hand, and the next step is providing a solution like how did the issue get resolved? And then there’s always this outro, which is actually expanding it and showing how the solution relates to the viewer’s life and makes it personal and relatable, and this is the formula that Nasdaily has followed. So I’m going to adapt that for my standout business shorts.

Brad Powell: 7:16

And so in my adaptation at least this is what I’m starting with you’re going to have a hook which is some kind of bold, surprising, curiosity-peaking opening, and then we’ll have a backstory, which is why this business that I’m talking about matters and kind of the before picture. And then, third, I’m going to provide the unique twist of what they’re doing differently. And fourth, I’m going to describe the impact of what they’ve done and the results and how it’s working for them and how it’s working for them. And then, ending the outro, is the big question, which is does it stand out or does it blend in? And the blend in part is it’s a take on the. I don’t know if you ever saw this. What were the Blendtec videos where this guy in a white lab coat and safety goggles would stand there with a blender and he would say will it blend? And then he’d take something like an iPhone, throw it at the blender and turn the blender on, and these videos were super popular. So I’m going to be asking the question does it stand out or will it blend in? And then you guys the audience, can respond to that and give your own opinion of whether or not this particular business is doing a good job or not. So I’ll give you one example of how an episode like this would break down.

Brad Powell: 8:44

One of the businesses that I uncovered that sounded pretty interesting to talk about this way is something called Becca’s Bakes, which is a 24-hour bakery that has no staff, and so I’m just going to run through a potential narrative here. So let’s imagine that the scene is opening and the hook says would you buy cupcakes from a roadside box at two o’clock in the morning? And then we’d have a visual of this self-service bakery that’s lit up in the middle of the night. The explanation is there’s no staff, there’s no cashier, there’s just trust and cupcakes. And now the narrator comes in and says meet Becca. She’s a self-taught baker in rural Queensland, australia, who turned a single oven and a lot of heart into a viral bakery. And then a quote from Becca saying things like people drive hours just to stop by my little box on the highway.

Brad Powell: 9:47

Narrator comes in and says it’s open 24-7, it runs on the honor system and it’s built entirely on trust and short-form videos. And then Becca says again I post what I bake and the internet decides what sells out first. And now we show some scenes of the TikTok feed, where there’s thousands of TikTok followers and there’s tourists driving from other towns and it’s sold out every single day. It’s not just cupcakes, it’s community, it’s honesty and it’s the smell of fresh brownies on a country road. And then the question at the end is so what do you think? Would you trust your business to total strangers? Does it stand out or will it blend in? So that gives you some idea of what I’m thinking and what I’m up to.

Brad Powell: 10:36

And the main thing that gets me so jazzed about this is that when it comes to making content, especially when it comes to making short form video, there’s this kind of trap that you can fall into, where it’s seemingly posting just random bits of content and every day you’re thinking well, what am I going to post today? What’s the new? You know what’s the new topic, what’s the new idea. But when you take the content creation that you’re doing and you turn into a series that follows a very specific format from one day to the next. It becomes a much easier thing to replicate and you don’t necessarily have to come up with lots of new ideas or where are you going to go. You’re basically following the format with a new subject.

Brad Powell: 11:26

In this case, I can be doing all kinds of research and looking for people in the world who are doing kind of remarkable things with their business and bringing them into the light of day and then asking the audience what do you think Are they making it?

Brad Powell: 11:45

Does this kind of thing stand out? And, of course, what could you be learning from their example? This is what you can look forward to coming from me over the next little bit of time. It’s going to take me a while. I’m going to start by making at least two weeks worth of single short form serial posts. I’m going to make a two week long serial and then I’ll start publishing to give myself enough of a buffer, but I’m going to run it for 60 days as an experiment and I will come back here on Long Form Podcast and share what I’m learning along the way. In addition, this short form series is going to be a great feeder for the content on the show. So if you do follow me on the short form thing and I get a whole bunch of thumbs up on a particular person, then I’m going to invite them back and we’ll have a longer interview on the show so we can learn in depth more about what they’re doing and how they did it. So stay tuned there’s more to come, so you don’t just listen to this and go away and not actually do anything.

Brad Powell: 12:55

It’s time to take action. If you’re ready to elevate your business with video content that will do the selling for you, I want to invite you to a free video brand assessment where we’ll walk through your current strategy, see where you’re at and help you identify the video content that will drive more sales for your business. All you need to do is click the link in the show notes to schedule your free assessment and together we’ll set you up for success. Don’t miss out on this chance to transform your business with the right video strategy. And that’s it for today’s episode of the Standout Business Show. Thanks for listening. If you found this episode helpful, don’t forget to subscribe and share it with a friend, because the number one way that people find out about a podcast like this one is because they heard about it from one of their friends. Remember keep making a bigger difference by doing business differently.