KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

• One of the best things you can when it comes to Instagram Stories is to learn how to manage the 15 seconds you are given. To do that, you need to know how to edit your videos in a way that maximises the time you have.
• Use techniques you have seen on TV and in movies to inspire you to be creative.
• If you’re using video, you don’t need to tell people what you’re doing as people can see that. Think of more creative ways to share your story.
• When it comes to video there are both visual and audio aspects. What people don’t realise is that your visual and audio don’t need to correlate.
• Show you’re doing something and try to tell a different story; it will hold people’s attention much longer.
• Make the most of b-roll content.
• You don’t have to use fancy equipment, as video can be filmed on your camera phone. Once you start worrying about what camera you’re filming on, you miss the point of creating relatable content.
• Film as little as you can so you don’t have to edit as much. To edit on your mobile, Adobe Rush and Splice are great options.
• Although it can be awkward to film yourself in public, it’s easy once you learn how to be tactful. Look at your surroundings and decide the perfect opportunity.
• If you need to transfer music to your phone, use a Dropbox that you can access through Adobe Rush.
• If you think people will be viewing your story without audio, add subtitles letting them know they may want to listen.
• To get started, you need to understand the story. Find out how you can tell a story without speaking.
• Every story needs a start, middle, and end. Make sure your story has an opening and closing scene, so people know what is happening.

THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…

Aim to have 2-3 minutes of content a day, any more than that and people will start to switch off. Think about the stories you watch; do you skip if it’s too long?

HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISS

• Introducing Dillon Osborne – 04:45
• How to Limit the Content You Post, Without Cutting Back – 11:00
• Finding Your Creative Flair – 16:00
• Showing Your Personality in Your Stories - 21:31
• Tools and Equipment – 27:13
• Directing People to Your Long-Form Content – 39:30
• How To Get Started With Creating Your Own Stories - 44:02

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY'S EPISODE

• Live Masterclass Sign Up
• Adobe Rush for Mobile
• Splice
• Epidemic Sound
• Diltakesphotos Instagram

Transcript below

Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the podcast, and I am your host Teresa Heath-Wareing, as always. How are you. This week we are talking about one of my favourite subjects, Instagram, and more specifically, Instagram stories. But before we jump into that, I just want to remind you that this Thursday, Thursday the 18th of July, I am running three, that's it, not one, not two, but three, live master classes. I've done three so that hopefully, no matter what time zone you're in, you're going to be able to find a time that suits you. And you heard me say before that I love doing these master classes, I love doing live training, and I love answering questions and helping, so I really hope you've signed onto it and you're going to be joining me. If not, you can head over to TeresaHeathWareing.com/MasterClass and you can sign up there. I can't wait to see you there.

Okay, on with today's episode. If you've been following me for a while, you'll know that I love Instagram. It's my most favourite platform at the moment, has been for some time, and one of the things that I love most about Instagram is Instagram stories, because I love how creative they are, how quick they can be, and I just like that kind of honesty of someone being on camera or showing you their day. I find them really interesting. And I don't know about you, but I always have certain go-to people that I like to watch, and obviously, given the algorithm, it puts those people at the front of my feed all the time. Today's interview is with someone that I've been watching on Instagram for a long time, and I love his stories, so I had to get him on the podcast, because I want to share what he does with you, and I want you to go check him out because he's amazing.

Today I'm interviewing Dillon Osborne, who is a freelance creative and storyteller who believes in ideas. He works with people to create engaging and exciting stories and bring them to life visually. Dillon is one of the most creative Instastory creators, have I just made that up? Does that sound right? That I've ever seen. So I met him through another guy who I had met at an event, and I started following this guy, and he mentioned Dillon in his stories. So as you do, I clicked and had a look at Dillon, started looking at some of his stories, and honestly, they were brilliant. They were the most creative stories I've ever seen. They were quick and interesting, and they literally kept me captivated, and I've carried on watching them for ages. So I wanted to bring him onto the podcast because I really wanted him to talk about these stories, and also share with you how he creates them, what he comes up with. Because there are very few people doing Instagram stories like his, and like I said, his are super creative, and you really do find yourself wanting to watch them over and over.

Dillon and I, I have to warn you, had quite a laugh. He is such a funny guy. We really giggled about quite a lot of stuff, which is great. And he talks through how he got to do what he does now, how he got creative on Instagram, and how he started using insta stories to really showcase what he does. But then the great thing about this is, he talks us through different apps he uses on his phone. Because he does the entire thing on his phone, which is kind of unbelievable, and he tells us what apps he uses and how he puts it together and some of the considerations.

Dil is obviously a creative, so he is obviously going to have a good eye for this sort of thing. He's obviously going to be able to put together a good video because that's his job. So I'm not saying that ... Me or others may be as creative as him, but I wanted you to definitely have a look at what he does, because I really think this is going to help you think about your stories more differently. He says some really funny things and really interesting things like, I think at one point he talks about the fact that, when we're on camera we tend to tell people what we're doing, and he's like, "Please stop telling me what you're doing. I'm watching you, I can see it." So that was really cool, and made me think about how I do my stories.

I think you're going to love today's episode, so I don't want to drone on and keep talking, I want you to jump strange in and see what you think. Make sure you check this guy out, he's amazing.

Introducing Dillon Osborne

I am so excited today to welcome the very lovely Dillon Osborne to the podcast. Welcome Dil.

Hi, how's it going? Thanks so much for having me.

My absolute pleasure. I've got to be honest, we've just been chatting all prior to being on this interview, so we've been chatting for about 30 minutes, which is terrible, we joked that this podcast obviously is going to be really short, because obviously we've done all our chat. But it's so good to have Dil on. I've explained in the intro how I found him, and I've been watching his stories, and I recommend that anybody goes and watch his stories, but I knew I had to have him on just so that he could talk to us about this, because it was so cool. But before we get into that, Dil, can you explain to my audience a bit about who you are, and how you got to do what you're doing now?

Yeah. It's a funny one, I have been a graphic designer and a photographer for the last, I like to say about 15 to 18 years, somewhere around that. Got out riding bikes and kind of developed a love of photography and making videos. I've worked professionally as a graphic designer and art director for the last 15 years, and part of that journey I worked in a bike shop. It taught me a lot about building and creating artwork and solutions and stuff, and how to develop it with no budget. It was just one of those things. It was a small bike shop that became one of the largest online retailers in the world. So I learned this insane amount working with them, and the first time I was given a job with them they had asked me to do this thing, and we had this budget, and I was like, I'll try to work it out. I eventually solved it, and that was sort of how I did things for about 10 years with them. I didn't realise the value in that until I then made a move into creative agencies in breakfast, and it sort of just spiralled into this weird thing.

I have, over that time, used that skill and developed it into an Instagram, which to me is just a bit of a laugh, it's just kind of a good fun, but it's become a real important tool for me, as a creative person, now I've gone through the stage of working brand-side into client-side, and now I work freelance. So I now operate full-time freelance working for myself, and Instagram is like my show reel and my expressive outlet. It greys the line sometimes for what it is, but it's an interesting question to answer, because most people are like, "Are you an Instagrammer?" I guess. I guess I am.

I love that, because actually there are so many people in an industry, whether it be a creative industry, as a videographer or a photographer or whatever, who sometimes do not perform how they are telling other people to. So it's almost like, practise what you preach. And you totally do that. And also, do you feel that you can get away with being as creative as you want? Because often clients are a little bit more nervous, and maybe if they see you do it, they might then go, "Actually yeah, I love that."

Yeah, I think so. When I started doing these stories, these stories basically developed from, I kind of wanted to make some more videos, and I had started watching Casey Neistat before he did daily vlogs. I'd been watching his [inaudible 00:08:02] and I really liked it. The concept of talking to the camera resonated with me a lot, because for years I'd filmed my friends, and while my friends liked riding my bikes and doing tricks and stuff, getting them to do things for me was quite difficult. So when I saw him doing this, it was before he started daily vlogs, I said this is interesting.

When he went to daily vlog it snapped, I was like oh, this makes sense to me now. I can tell a story like this. Because this is what I do with home videos, so let me try and work this into what I want to do. So I started doing it on Instagram, and it started as your regular, "Hi guys, [inaudible 00:08:41] sandwich." Just sitting there doing something mundane. And then I [inaudible 00:08:45] thought, "What can I do? How can I push this, how can I make this more creative?" Since that point to where I am now it's like ... I said to my wife early on, "I want people, my dream would be for people to hire me to do stuff because of the way I do things." I'd rather get hired to do a job because of me rather than to do a technique.

That's kind of how things work now. People quite often come up to me and they go, "I watch you on Instagram," or, "I've seen this video you did for this other client. I really like your vibe," or, "I like your style. I'd love you to come and have a chat to see what you could do for us." Nine times out of 10, that ends up me doing some version of me, maybe not me talking, but some version of my style for them, and I think yeah, people feel a lot more confident in doing that, because they're seeing me do it, and they're coming to me, they're being proactive kind of, going, "We kind of want to change things up and do this style. Can you apply that to us?"

Yeah. I love that. I think as well, it's interesting thinking about how, I know you're in this creative industry, but social media in general is getting way competitive. Well it is, has been for years, but Instagram over the last two three years has got more and more competitive. Stories are being featured more and more, but you've got to keep people's attention. And one of the things, and it's really hard for us to talk about, so urge everybody that's listening to go and, and obviously I'll link it in the show next to Dil's Instagram and you can go and watch some of his stories. No pressure Dil, you've just got to do really good ones now. I'll let you know when this is coming out, and you make sure there's some bloody good ones on there. [crosstalk 00:10:17]

I'll do my best.

Otherwise I'm going to send people there and they're going to go, "What is this?"

[inaudible 00:10:20] the sandwich.

Just all together. The whole thing about trying to keep your attention, and one of the things that I love is that you create content, you know ... And digress aside, but have you heard of Mrs. Hinch, Dil.

Yeah, the cleaner lady. That really belittles her, but yes, only because my wife buys the Minky cloth.

I love it. It's so funny, if i ever mention this it's always a husband saying, "Oh my God, my wife just listens to her all the time."

Yeah. She came home with a bucket of stuff. "[crosstalk 00:10:50] this."

You mean like [inaudible 00:10:53] cleaners, right.

Yeah.

That's so good.

Yeah. [inaudible 00:10:55] and I have to use the what?

How to Limit the Content You Post, Without Cutting Back

Yeah, I bought them for my husband. People think I'm joking. He came home, it was like Christmas for him. So she does stories all the time, and sometimes, when I get to her stories, and I see all those tiny dots at the top, that makes me see that she's done literally 50 stories in a day, I get like, "No, move on, I can't watch all that."

Too much pressure.

Yeah, and it's an investment in time. And I know it sounds the most ridiculous thing that, I'm not willing to invest that amount of time in you today, Mrs. Hinch. What I love about yours is, you manage to cram in a lot of content ... Because basically let's explain, you're not just straight up recording an insta story, you are putting together video within one story, and therefore you can get a lot of detail in with those 15 seconds, and therefore you might only have what looks like, I don't know, 10 stories that you've done in a day, but actually you've managed to cram in so much more into that, haven't you.

Yeah. My stories started, like everybody else, [inaudible 00:11:55] front facing camera, talking to the thing, you're doing it 15 seconds. Then I started learning to manage the 15 seconds, and try to get a lot out in 15 seconds, and be able to use transitions in between the Instagram app itself, so I would use ... I'd make a camera movement at the very last second, then I'd make another move on the new second. That's very tricky to do.

Then I kind of had this idea where I was like, well what if I edit these things? So I was looking around, there was no vertical editing platform, so I used to use iMovie, built into the iPhone. I was like, I could film a minute of footage, and there would be four stories, but it would be a load of stuff, rather than just a 15 second clip of me talking. So I started filming cutaway shots of really the environment, or set up things where you see me walking in and out of shot, and I was editing it out on iMovie. But what was mad was you could only edit horizontal movies in iMovie. So I'd edit it, you'd end up with the two black bars at the back, on each side, and a vertical video in the middle, and then I'd export that as like a 1080 HD video. But if I brought it into Instagram, if you double tap that video, it filled the screen perfectly, so you end up with a ... But it was really questionable quality.

But that was the only option back then. I hadn't seen anybody else doing this, because I started doing the stories a couple of weeks after Instagram launched the platform. Stories feature, more so. And I started editing them pretty soon after. I was editing them this way, and I hadn't really seen anybody doing anything like this until I found Jessie Driftwood through some links. That was early day sort of Jessie Driftwood, before he'd gotten insanely big. I suddenly started to see some of ... He's the first person I've ever seen editing this. Because when I first started doing these stories I said to my wife, "I'm going to take the vlog platform and put it on Instagram, because it makes more sense for me. My phone's with me everywhere. So why vlog on YouTube when I can vlog on Instagram, and at the end of the day I hit upload and it's done. I don't have to do this big edit.

So I sort of slowly developed that into this process of filming a clip as I go, dropping it into my timeline on iMovie, and then editing as I go. So with the last clip I filmed, I would drop it in, export it, upload it. And it was a pain back then, because we didn't have apps to cut up your clips into 15 seconds, none of that existed. So there's all these apps now that I use that are insane, which makes my process even quicker, but back then I was editing a two minute video. And I would have to open that two minute video in my phone gallery, and I'd have to trim it to 15 seconds, save it as a new clip, then go back to the original one and find the next ... So it was manual. And I did that for like months and months, until I found other options and new apps started coming out, things like Splice, that started dealing with vertical video. We've come a long way from those days of iMovie, and when I think back to that now I'm like ... You know one of those, you abound like you're dad, you're like, "You don't appreciate it. I used to sit for hours cutting that up ..." It's like bang, throw it into continual and let's cut.

That's brilliant. That is so funny. Let's go to the fact of, when you create your insta stories, you do the ... I want people to go and look at, and want people to think about your insta stories and how they can make it more creative, but we did just talk before the podcast that, obviously, Dil is a creative person, this is what he does, so he obviously has a very good ... Eye is not the right word, that's not good enough, but this is what he lives his life for. So actually a lot of the success of his story is down to the fact that he's very creative in this space. It's not to say that you can't go, and people listening can't go, and try it, and make theirs a bit more creative, or add a few different elements for sure, but obviously a lot of what you do is because you're so creative.

Finding Your Creative Flair

So just explain, because we watch your videos ... When I say we, I have to explain still that my husband and I love them, and we'll be watching it be like, how long did it take you? Because you will literally set up your camera and walk past your camera. You will set up ... You might be going on the train or the tube or whatever it is, and your camera will be the other side of the tube and you're sat on the seat doing whatever you're doing. Do you physically have to think, every single point, where am I going to do this, what am I going to do? Or is it now becoming very natural?

It's become very natural. I think at the beginning I sort of dithered a bit, but I've always kind of done videos like that with my own family, and I used to make these videos at home, and then I would just WhatsApp...