75. Simplifying Your Video Content Creation
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Welcome to January: the time of year when everyone starts sharing their marketing strategies for the upcoming year. Over the past couple weeks, I’ve shared not only my predictions of the changes coming for video content creation in 2023, but also my own marketing strategy and the way I’m changing things up as we enter the new year.
As I've seen more people sharing where they're focusing their energy for the year, as a video content coach, it's naturally quite interesting for me. I was chatting with one of my best business friends recently, and she was specifically curious about my reaction to one specific repurposing method that’s begun cropping up among creators.
In summary, the goal of this method was to make it so a creator only had to sit down a handful of times over the year to complete all of their video content creation, and essentially outsource everything else. In my opinion, this goes along with other more extreme strategies I’ve seen on social media—like the Nine-Grid method, for example, or posting thirty consecutive days of video content.
This made me realize that the theme of these marketing strategies was avoiding doing the work.
Video is such a big part of how we're marketing and creating on social media, but it’s also one of the factors that feels like the most work. It can be easy to see these types of solutions that promise a no-effort approach for video content creation and find them very appealing. What if you only had to sit down and film once for the entire year? What if you never had to post to your feed?
It sounds like a huge load off of our shoulders…in theory. We tend to lean into these things that help us avoid doing the work that goes into video content creation because we think we don't like creating videos.
Maybe you think that video content creation needs to take time and energy, or you feel like video content creation has been and will continue to be very complicated. Especially as the conversation of being present on other platforms, not just Instagram, comes into play. Now you’re trying to figure out how to do TikToks, or Youtube, or even something like LinkedIn, and it gets out of control very fast.
But the truth is, your strategy shouldn’t be about avoiding the thing. It should be about simplifying how you are implementing your video marketing plan for the year. You do not need to go to extremes to avoid it altogether.
I want to address the three common pain points behind why you might be avoiding video content creation and leaning into these extreme systems that, to be honest with you, just aren't going to work.
Not Enjoying Video Content Creation
This is for the person that thinks they don't like video content creation. If this is you, you've probably had one of these versions of this thought: “I just don't want to be in my content. I don't want to create or edit or film, and I don't even like creating content. I didn't sign up for this when I decided to start my business.”
It’s true: you didn’t consciously sign up for this. But I have supported thousands of small business owners through my courses and my products and my free content as a social media manager, and what I've seen over and over again is that no matter what that person believes or thinks about themselves, is this: when it comes to video content creation, deep down inside? They actually do like creating, and they love sharing what they do. They love their brand. Maybe they love connecting with their community; I've even seen people sharing more about their personal interests in order to connect more deeply with their audience.
People inherently want to share. They want to create. Whether you identify as a creative person or not, we all have that. So maybe it’s not that you don't like video content creation, but rather that you don't like the type of content you're creating and how much time and energy goes into creating it.
One area where I often see people getting burnt out with video content creation is when they lean too heavily on trends. I often see people looking at trends as the easiest and most obvious way to use short-form video content; however, I’m willing to bet that it doesn't actually feel good for you when you use them. You're probably actually thinking, “I definitely did not sign up to do a little lip sync trend.”
It totally makes sense why you think you don't like video content creation, because you're creating video content you don’t even like! We need to give ourselves the permission slip to create content that we enjoy, not what we think we need to be creating based on others.
Because here’s the thing: if we like our content, we're going to show up far more consistently. And when we like our content, our communities feel that. You’ll see such a transformation in the engagement and interactions and conversations you're having when it comes to video.
So for this pain point, I really want to encourage you, especially as we're going into a new year, to think about how you can enjoy video content creation more instead of trying to completely remove yourself from the process.
Too Much Time, Too Much Energy
The next reason why you might be avoiding doing the work when it comes to video is that you think video is going to take hella time and hella energy. If that’s you, hop on over to my podcast and binge all of my November and December episodes, because I talked all about a lot of ways to create simpler video content.
Now, I’ll be honest: there is video content that takes more time and more energy. A few of these might look like talking videos. Talking takes physical energy. It takes mental energy. Editing, especially if you don't like editing, takes energy. And when we force ourselves to post more, because we think that is the ticket to seeing success with our content, that will also take more time and energy.
But this isn’t the only way we can create. I’m actually going to be doing my growth webinar, How To Authentically Grow With Video, pretty soon. Just a little spoiler: a common growth tactic when it comes to video is posting more. So I'm going to talk about why that isn't necessarily the only way to see growth, but I’m also going to go over how to lean into that and why that method does work. You can find the link for that webinar below!
If you want to save yourself time and energy, what it really comes down to is leaning into systems that make video content easier. They don't need to be extreme ones that I already mentioned, because this doesn't allow for flexibility. You need to be agile with changes with your business and your industry, and most importantly, we want to make sure we still have that ability to connect with our people.
If you're really wanting to optimize your time and energy, you need to audit how much time you really have for a marketing task, such as video content creation, and stick to it. Prioritize it. Don't do it on the weekend, don't do it late at night after you've worked all day. How much time do you have? Block it off and do it.
The other thing is leaning into lower-energy content. I love working with stock content and quote videos for my video content creation, which I teach inside my free video confidence challenge (another link you can find below!). This also means repurposing and reusing your content; stop always starting from scratch. That is what gets us into the time and energy war versus using what already worked and repurposing it very thoughtfully.
These are all lessons that I teach about inside my Video Content Camp, and I have an entire podcast episode, my Framework episode, where I break that down a little bit more. You can find that link below as well. I have plenty of resources available to help you with this pain point!
Too Complicated
The last reason you're avoiding doing the work is that you think video content creation needs to be complicated, and that's just not true.
More often than not, you don’t need to do all the fancy edits and transitions and things to be successful with video. Often we think that is the key to making our content better, but it’s really just overcomplicating things that we're not ready for. There's a lot of things I would want you to have in place in your video marketing strategy before we add in the fancy edits and stuff.
This is where utilizing stock content and repurposing well-performing pieces of other content becomes a great source for you. That could literally be all you're doing and it would be effective.
Stop Avoiding the Work—Simplify Instead!
You have to stop avoiding doing the work—we just need to simplify things.
I really believe the core of this overcomplication is comparison; we see everyone else doing all the things on all the platforms, and we think we need to do the same. And while building your content ecosystem is something that I'm a huge proponent for, a lot of people do it too soon, without the systems or strategies or even skills already in place.
The reality is this: adding in all the platforms will not fix your marketing problem. Whatever you think is not yielding results, whatever you think is not working, that's not it.
I know this was a little spicy, a little tough-love, but it really does come from a place of love. I don't want you to feel like you need to do the absolute most and end up avoiding creating video content because of that. I want things to be simpler for you when it comes to using video marketing.
WORK WITH NATASHA:
Create your video growth plan for 2023 during a 60-minute live webinar on January 26th at 12 pm EST: https://shinewithnatasha.com/webinar
Join the Video Content Camp: https://shinewithnatasha.com/camp
Participate in the FREE video challenge: http://videoconfidencechallenge.com/
Get an inside look at my signature Shine Framework: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5o75i4l3GcLzz4LcyVtQlY
CONNECT WITH NATASHA:
Website: https://shinewithnatasha.com/podcast
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shinewithnatasha/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCL2BMkT_7jIu5NeV_yAXScw
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