A few short video prompts to get you started.

• The best [insert technique] l've ever done

• 10 [insert tool types] I wish I knew earlier

• You need this free tool for [insert the industry]

• Top five sites I use to save time as a [insert niche or industry]

• How I got [number] [result] in 24 hours

• Nobody is talking about this [insert industry] strategy

• This is why your [insert strategy] isn't working

• There's one tiny hack that creates exponential results

• 4 free sites to create great [insert content]

• Simple way to do [insert method] for free

Welcome to the creator 50 podcast, the podcast for Gen

X plus creators, getting into their content creation journey.

I am your host Doc Rock your content creation coach, and today we're

gonna talk about short form video.

Yes!

Short form video is all the rage and there is, I guess, a lot of waffling

back and forth on whether you should or should not be doing short form video.

If you're brand new and you're not really sure what this is.

Short form video are the vertical videos you see on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram,

Facebook, and now even LinkedIn.

And I guess many people do post them on Twitter and Pinterest, things like that.

Short form videos are normally somewhere between say seven seconds and 90 seconds.

Uh, TikTok for certain creators can go.

To three, but normally you're looking at a really short form video where you

just come in, get straight to the point, deliver your message and get out of there.

Let me tell you a little story about short form video.

Back in May.

I decided to give myself a 30 day challenge to just do an Instagram reel

every day for 30 days, I started on about May 15th and I finished up June 15th.

I went 30 days straight posted a reel every day.

And family, I have to tell you, I was amazed, absolutely amazed at what

this did for me as a creator, what it did for my growth as a creator.

Just what it did to open my eyes up to short form video.

Family, listen, short form video is not new.

It has been going on roughly for about two and a half to three

years, but I've always kind of like, I don't really want to TikTok.

I'm really focused on my YouTube channel at the time, which at

the time was a smart thing to do.

And then a lot of people were getting into it.

My buddy Diana Gladney.

She dove into it a while back.

And I was like, you know, I'll get around to it when I get around to it.

But I finally told myself it's time to start putting it off.

Let's dive in.

Let's create some short form content man, was I ever so amazed at the outcome?

Let me tell you what I learned.

I learned number one, this is very, very good.

Think of it as calisthenics or workout.

It was really good for creativity.

I was generating a video every day and I thought in the beginning, because

Instagram said 60 seconds, they had to be 60 seconds in the middle of my challenge.

They opened it up to 90 seconds.

So here I am thinking I need to use the whole 90 seconds.

It turns.

It could be as little as seven, seven seconds to 15 seconds seem to be

some of the best content out there.

But if you need the whole time, the whole time is there, you just gotta

make sure that what you're putting out is very valuable and very impactful.

So that's the first lesson I learned.

The second thing I learned is it really did spark my creativity.

I thought it would be a daunting test.

But after about day three, I was just flying.

Like I was coming up with more ideas than I had time to actually create.

And so if you're in this as a growth strategy, many people will tell you,

you wanna do three to five reels a day.

I haven't got that far yet just because of time constraints, but I'm gonna work

my way up to that because I think, yes, it will really impact your channel.

I've seen people who have done, basically a growth challenge to do

three reels a day every day for a year and grew their presence by 250,000.

And I'm like, wow, that's very impactful.

Especially if you're on a mission where sort of your growth and

your impact visibly is kind of the most important side of that.

So it can be extremely good for growth.

Talking to my buddy, Rob Balasabas, we call this type of stuff.

Your discovery channel.

My YouTube is always gonna be my main channel.

My personal YouTube at Doc Rock is gonna be my.

Channel, but I use things like this podcast, these short form videos,

these conferences that I'm speaking at, I use those as my discovery channel

to bring people into my ecosystem.

If you will.

I do wanna say, although it seems like it's been out for a while.

It's not too late to get started.

You can get started and you don't need anything special.

All you need to get started is your iPhone or your Android phone.

Any camera will do, uh, just get out there.

Make some content.

You can even start...

in the beginning...

I had a person who I was teaching at a recent conference, basically

during the lunch break of the conference, she pulled up her phone.

She did, what's known as a remix and that's where you take

a reel that already exists.

And you record sort of like a duet where you're on the other half of the screen

and she recorded her reactions to that video sort of, and over the time from our

lunch break, until we came back, she had over 26,000 views on that single video.

This was not her first reel, but it was one of her first ones

in a while because she had kind of almost turned away from it.

Now, TikTok is the big daddy.

That's where most people are getting the highest traction.

Instagram would probably come in second YouTube and then Facebook I'm

right on my Instagram journey right now, just because that's my home.

I've always been on IG.

That's where I like it.

But.

If you can, you wanna do all of them, people are gonna say, should I do

Instagram over TikTok over, you know, LinkedIn or Twitter, whatever the truth

is, both of them or all of them, whichever one you can get started get started.

Don't think about it too hard.

Don't drive yourself crazy.

You just want to dive in.

Once you get your momentum, then you can spread it out.

And get it to going.

Basically what happened at the end of that 30 days, my, um, engagement,

my reach shot up over 3300%.

My average engagement on posts were up over 900% per day.

I grew a couple thousand followers.

I am really loving this reels only strategy.

So on Instagram, I'm literally just creating reels only.

Haven't really posted a video much.

It's everything has been reels and stories, and it's been a blast.

If you are a person with a product or a service.

What you do wanna do is lightly sprinkle in your call to actions, but don't make

every single video, a call to action.

Short form video is a good place to let people discover the, you

remember people, people buy products from people, not from companies.

They wanna know the person that they're talking to.

So allow yourself.

A little bit of your personality, your style, your sense of humor, your location,

your favorite things like I've been posting a lot of reels about coffee.

One of my favorite things allow those things to shine and every couple of

videos sprinkle in your call to action.

Hey, if you want to get into content creation, come and

check out my coaching over at.

Content creation, coach.com, things like that.

So don't make every single video, a sales video you wanna get like Gary V used to

call it jab, jab, jab, then write hook.

Right?

Think of it like that.

And so you can put your call to actions in there.

Just don't make every video about your call to action.

But I just wanted to tell you real quickly and this episode, if you haven't done

so already, it is time to take a long, hard look at short form content and

to get started again, grab your phone.

Don't do too much planning, just create some reels, start with the remix, you

know, start with the duet, start with some of the simple things out there.

If you have a, a lack of ideas, reach out to me, I'll put some

ideas in the show notes that you can find over on creator fifty.com.

That will be right over here on creator fifty.com and I will put

some, some sort of activations, if you will just follow these.

And it'll get you started.

So I just want to tell you all my creators out there don't feel like you're too old.

Do not feel like you have to dance.

Do not feel like you need any special skills.

Just get out there and talk about what you know, and what you love and maybe even

just some shots around your neighborhood.

When you take your little exercise, walk.

And you're good to go.

Let's get started with some short form video and we'll see you again

on the next episode of Creator 50.

Just wanna remind you, you can get this.

If you're catching this by accident, you can find out the

whole thing@creatorfifty.com.

And of course you can subscribe to the podcast.

Anywhere podcast getting is got I'm Doc Rock, your content creation coach.

You can always reach out to me at Doc@creator50.com.

And you see you in the next one.