Alright. We're gonna get started. Okay. Hi, everyone. My name is Lauren Zoltick. I am the director of performance marketing at storyblocks. Storyblocks is a stock media subscription service, and we're focused on enabling brands and creators create more video content faster and better than ever before. I am very excited to be joined today by Kyle Denhoff. He is Hubspot director of New Media. And, Kyle's focus is on HubSpot's YouTube network, Creator Network, podcast Network, all, focusing on building a portfolio of content brands, that help businesses grow through news and education. And if you haven't heard of HubSpot, that's surprising, but also HubSpot is a CRM form, that helps, teams communicate, across different teams, so sales, marketing, and customer service. And so for this webinar today, we're going to talk about how to leverage your internal team, members as creators for your brand's video marketing efforts. A big part of what we do in our mission at Storyblocks is helping to enable creators and brands, scale their video production output in spite of, increasing constraints, in terms of budget and resources. And, you know, at storyblocks, our marketing team isn't immune to this either. We've had to scale output, with increasing, budget constraints. And we've had to tackle this in a number of different ways. A few examples, and perhaps most obviously is we leverage storyblocks so we don't film, or animate or compose everything in house. We leverage our full library of templates and b roll in audio. We also use, AI editing tools. We've also become a little less precious with the fidelity of our content, in our, for our marketing output. And we've actually seen that some of the low fi content we put out is, more successful than the highly produced branded content, even for ads. But one of the most successful strategies we've employed is leveraging team members across our organization from growth, to product managers, to not only be in, but also create content for our marketing efforts. And so that's what we're gonna talk about today. We're gonna hear a bit more from Kyle on how They've employed this strategy at HubSpot. And then we're also going to talk about how you can leverage the strategy for your own brand and business. So, before we get into the conversation, a couple of ground rules, One, please, submit your questions at any time in the QA tab. We're gonna wait till after we have this conversation to answer them, and we'll to as many of them as we can. But feel free to submit questions at any time. We'll also be sharing a recording of today's webinar after the fact So if you want to rewatch it, you can rewatch it every day as many times as you want. You can also share it with your coworkers or peers but we wanna make sure that you have a recording of this and can leverage all of the insights that we share today as much as you need. Alright. So without further ado, let's jump in, and talk about how to leverage internal team members as your creators for your brand's marketing efforts. So to start, I wanna go a little bit broader. How let's talk about why brands might wanna invest in video opening overall. And if you can share a little insight into how they might determine where to invest, like what channels, platforms, replacements, and how much of money, resources, and time to invest, in video marketing. Awesome. Thanks, Lauren. And thanks for the intro. In regards to, like, our new media energy at HubSpot, you mentioned, like, why are we investing in video? And I think as marketers, it's our job to create and capture demand in the market. Fill our pipeline and grow our business. And when we decided to make a decision to invest in video, it really came down to shifts in the market and, like, shifts in consumer behavior. So when we build our marketing strategies, we ask ourselves, okay, like, what's our objective? Who's the audience we're trying to reach? And then what channels can we use to reach that audience? And I think there's some statistics that stood out to us. Over the last year that were really eye opening. One being that, I think Nielsen earlier in July mentioned that YouTube is now at the top streaming platform in the United States even beyond Netflix. TikTok had put out a press release earlier this year that a hundred and fifty million Americans are using their platform. And so there's this fundamental shift in how our prospects and our customers are consuming media, whether that's news, education, product information, and clearly it's in video. And so when we were going through our strategic planning last year and figuring out what our investments would be this year. We pulled on some of those market trends, and then we said, okay. We need to invest and be on platforms, and we've started to build up those capabilities over the last year. All of that. And, yeah, I think it's been very clear that there's been a huge consumer shift and how we want to consume information and news insights. And so, let's talk a little bit more about why brands might wanna leverage internal team members as creators for video content. Yeah. I think this is like a great question. We've we've had the debate ourselves internally? Like, do we need to hire folks who are YouTubers that are highly animated and engaging? And then almost, like, teach them marketing so that they can help our audience. And I think we came to the conclusion that our HubSpotters are true experts in what they do. They're practitioners. They're working on marketing strategy, sales strategy, you name it every day. And so we wanna make sure that our video content is genuine. And so we thought, okay, can we build a production process around our people? And it can when we wanna do a video on keyword research and SEO strategy, Are we pulling one of our SEOs from the growth team and saying, hey, Amanda. We think you'd be like a great fit for this video. Can we work together to teach our audience? How to do their keyword research and develop their content strategy for the next quarter. And so I think for us, it it came down to, like, expertise and can those people really actually, like, speak in the language of our audience? Another example I have is what partner with, like, our paid acquisition marketers, our media buyers. And when they say roas, right, the people watching that video are gonna know what means and why it's important to pay the acquisition strategy. And so I think for us, we've tested it. We've brought new people on board, and we've seen a lot of success just working with our employees and leveraging their expertise. Yeah. And I think to your point around shifts in consumer behavior, you know, I I recently was reading a study around how we consume news. And there's been a a really interesting fundamental shift especially with how we consume news on social. And a lot of folks, you know, previously Twitter Rex was the the top platform for consuming it, and people were leveraging or were were consuming news, from media outlets, so like CNN, MBC on that platform. And there's been two shifts that have happened. One is more folks have gone towards TikTok for news consumption on social. And with that shift, they focused more on getting news from individual creators on the platform versus news outlets. And so I think it speaks to a larger trend of people wanting to hear from individual people and experts. And I think that plus the democratization of video production that we've seen. You know, a big reason why even I joined storyblocks is because of the mission around enabling everyone to create content and tell their own story and share their own point of view. So I think exactly what you're saying, like, being able to leverage experts and knowing that because of this democratization of video production and and creation, we can really hear from them in in new ways it's made video consumption so much more interesting. Yeah. So, yeah, I was Yeah. I just that point, like, the one thing I'll say is, like, I I had mentioned we work with our HubSpotters because of their expertise, but I think you're also right from the consumer perspective, which is I just wanna learn people who are are credible sources of information. You see media companies. Right? We're not a huge media company like the New York Times, but their columnists get a lot more FaceTime. They brought over as recline from Vox and then gave him his own column. He now has his own podcast. And so you're starting to see the writers and the journalists and the experts who are behind these stories, not necessarily, leading with the times, but leading with the person. Another consumer example that I really like, just because it's in the headlines recently. So Pat McAfee, for, folks who aren't sports fans. He was a punter in the NFL. He retires from the NFL, and then starts his own YouTube channel in twenty seventeen. He just did a deal with ESPN for, I think it was eighty five million dollars over five years. And so you're actually seeing this fundamental shift from someone who started as like an independent creator and personality on YouTube. Being pulled into the traditional, like, broadcast and content space. And I think that's just a representation of, to your point, how people like to consume information. I wanna hear from these entertaining personalities, these educational folks. And I gravitate more towards the person, and that's where my loyalty lies, then the brand or the solution itself. Yeah. A hundred percent. Alright. Let's jump into our next topic. We're gonna look shift a little bit from the why to the how. So what to look for when you're identifying internal team members as creators on your team? So to start, let's let's start with that. What what are you looking for when you're identifying those team members? Yeah. So we're we actually just went through this. Over the last week. We're trying to figure out how do we bring some of our really strong blog writers on to YouTube because we're sharing a lot same education and information for our customers and prospects. And when we're looking for folks, I think you're looking for three things. One is you wanna make sure they're an expert in what they're talking about. Like, I mentioned, like, genuinely understand the subject matter. I think you wanna find folks that have energy I think when you're on camera or you're behind a mic, you do have to have some personality. You have to be engaging. And so we are looking for folks that that have that energy when we're work, partnering with them. The last piece I would say is probably folks that are, like, strategic thinkers. So A lot of the content that we develop on YouTube has a story arc to it in different segments, and we wanna be able to help under help someone understand the concept from the opening hook all the way through the ending CTA. And so we like folks that can understand consumption habits, and they can talk about something and then move on to the next topic seamlessly. And so the way that we actually test this is pretty simple. Like, Some of our bloggers went to Best Buy, got some webcams, and we said, hey, here's a brief. Could you write a script and shoot, like, a sixty second video talking about this topic area just so we can get a sense of how you are on camera. And if you're someone who likes to write and deliver for video, And then as I mentioned, like, we're we're kinda grading folks on those three things to make sure that they're up to the quality standard for the YouTube channel. Amazing. So real quick, I see that a lot of folks have joined, coming over from the other link. And just wanna to reiterate that we will be sending out a re recording of this entire, webinar after the fact. So if you missed anything upfront. I promise you will get a recording and get all the information. And, Bob, I am, honored that you think that this is prerecorded, but obviously not. So, we'll keep going, but thank you all for joining. Alright. So let's talk a little bit about the mix here. How do you determine a good number of internal creators to work with? And and how do you find, like, a good mix of, like, positions and and seniority for folks to with? Yeah. I think when it comes to, like, personalities that you're putting on camera for your your content strategy, We tend to try and keep it, to a pretty low number. One to maybe three personalities. And the reason we do that is because the audience actually gravitate towards the person. Right? So we wanna find someone who's a great representative of HubSpot, they're a subject matter expert, and they can consistently deliver that you to the audience so that the the audience knows to come back. Oh my goodness. Lauren, just to release another video, I wanna go check it out. Right? And so we try to to keep it to a minimum. Certainly, there's some production techniques where we can bring in other experts. Note one person can be an expert on everything. And so sometimes they'll interview other HubSpotters ahead of their recording to write a script and get a quote and make sure that they're providing the right information. Or we'll actually, like, bring another HubSpotter on camera to do an interview and and provide a quote. So I think there's a mix, but if you're gonna invest in a video strategy, and a YouTube channel or a TikTok channel, I would keep it to a minimum, you know, one to three personalities that are out there representing your brand. Yeah. It makes a lot of sense. So obviously being, a creator for your brand's YouTube channel or or other channels is a time commitment. And so how do you work with, those creators on one setting aside that time for themselves, but also ensuring that their leadership is bought in and they have that availability for you. Yeah. That the resource thing is like a real challenge, because video video is not like, blogging. Right? Like, there's there's folks who have to take a lot of time to research script, shoot edit, reshoot edit, and get to a fine piece of content. And so it is really time consuming. The way we think about it is if if we're gonna make a full investment on a YouTube channel and we know that is gonna be a twelve month, twenty four month, three year plus investment. Let's hire someone full time who can work on the channel and its content. If it's something where we're like, okay, we wanna invest in it for six months or twelve months, see how it does. We're not ready to make that full FT investment. We'll find some folks who are hub spotters that are great on camera, and we'll approach their boss or their manager and say, hey, we have this idea. We think it's actually gonna be really, impactful from a business standpoint. So we always tie it back to a business objective. So we think it'll help us with our reach goals or our demand goals. We're thinking it might help the sales team. And then once we align with their manager, you know, we'll the person, and we always like to make sure that we define the deliverables. So we'll say something like, this will be an eight hour commitment a week, which tends to be one day. And we're hoping that they can produce, two videos a month, and the videos will be five to seven minutes long. And just being, like, really specific on what the commitment is. And I think people appreciate this so that they know, okay, if part of their time is going to support our video content, I still have this much time to obviously have them work on other things that are core responsibility of the role. So To sum that up, it's really, like, align it to a business goal that we all agree is important. And then second, like, make sure that we define the deliverables and the time commitment so they they can carve out time to do it. No. That makes perfect sense. And I think to that point, having objectives that you're aligned around that they can point to as why they're doing why they're dedicating that time to the work can be really helpful. So with that, I'm gonna jump into our next topic, which is how to align your team around strategic objectives. Before I do, I just wanna remind folks or for folks that are joining us a little late there is a q and a tab. So please feel free to, ask questions at any time, and we're gonna do a q and a afterwards. So yeah, please enter questions in there, and appreciate all the conversation so far. So let's start a little bit more broadly. How do you go about setting goals for your video marketing, initiatives? Yeah. So the way that we think about it, and this is really timely, because I I was telling you before we jumped on, I'm in in twenty twenty four planning meetings all day. And the the way that we think about it is how do we align our video content strategies to the business objectives? So the way that we plan initiatives is objective audience channel content. So the objective maybe we wanna grow reach and awareness for our company, or the objective maybe we wanna fill pipeline for Those are two very different objectives. And then we would go down to, okay, who's the audience we're trying to reach and what channel can we use to reach that and a lot of times YouTube comes up as a potential channel to reach that audience. And then the final question is what type of content do we wanna create on that channel to help us reach that audience and meet our objective. And so then your content strategy becomes a bit diversified. If your goal is to grow the reach and awareness for your company, your YouTube content strategy may be more around news and for commentary, maybe some, like, brand videos that are purely built to grow reach and impressions for your brand. If your objective is I need to fill pipeline or generate revenue, for my company, then your videos may be product tutorials, and that's a very different content strategy. So the way that we think about it is, okay, what are the business objectives that leadership is asking us to meet? And then let's plan our channel and content strategy up to those objectives and make sure that we're developing videos that'll help the business reach its goals as opposed to starting at the, like, content or YouTube level where we're like, alright. We just wanna grow our subscriber base. We just wanna grow our viewership. Those are metrics we care about, but they're not necessarily how we start planning. Amazing. So I'm seeing some some great comments in the chat around sometimes unrealistic expectations, for video. Like, make it go viral, request that I'm sure we've all gotten. And so I wanted to ask around how you won rally, those internal video creators and their leaders around the strategic goals, that you've set up for for the video content that you're putting out. But then also how do you, kind of guide those those goals and expectations to be realistic? Yeah. We we align on the objective, as I mentioned, first. And so the objective is never to go viral. Like, the objective is generally So one example is we have a new HubSpot YouTube channel that's all about our product. Product tutorials, product walk throughs make it very easy for people to navigate our software and the features inside of it. The objective of that channel is software acquisition. We want people to watch the video and sign up for the product and start using it. So we'll set that objective up front. So that when we're making videos and they're seeing more of, like, a steady organic view growth on the channel, they're not coming to me and saying, hey, why didn't we get a hundred thousand views on video. I'm like, well, it's not made for that. Right? Our objective is to grow organically over time and generate sign ups and check out the conversion rate and the sign ups that came this video. And they're like, oh, you're right. That's exactly what we were trying to do. Let's keep keep at it. So I think make sure that, like, sit down with leadership to find that objective and then keep pointing to it. I think your team should be creative and try new things. I, you know, I don't I don't want folks to be too rigid. But at the same time, point that business objective. And as long as your videos are meeting that, I think that the leadership team will respect you and continue to invest in it. Yeah. And it makes perfect sense. And and so to that end, if you're giving, these internal creators, some, I would say, like, rope to create content. What guidelines or guidance are you giving them on how to meet those objectives? Yeah. This is, like, I'm a firm believer that when you work with creatives and anyone who's a producer or video editor or a marketer who's making video is is certainly in a creative mindset, you do you do need to put up some constraints and say, okay. Here's the objective of the video. This is the topic that we're trying to cover. This is the audience that we're creating the video for. And this is ultimately the objective of the video. Like, what are the calls to action within the video? So within our production, like, process, our marketers will write a one page brief, and it just outlines why are we making this video who is this video for? What's the ultimate outcome of this video? But it doesn't say, hey, this is the exact intro I want. And here's the segments inside the video. And here's how I want you to close the video. And what do you think about this b roll in that? We just write the brief upfront. And then we let the marketer and the producer work together on some creative solutions that meet the brief. And so that's how we think about it is the brief is important for providing, like, guidance, but it isn't necessarily telling people how to make the videos. They're creative, you know, talent should come through when they bring you that script in the first cut. Yeah. Well, that makes sense. So, related to this, I wanted to jump into, our fourth topic, which is around the tools and resources that you're providing your talent, in order to create video content successfully Yeah. So just to kick things off, what tools do you equip the team with, in order to create video content? Yeah. The way we the nice thing, what you and I talked about, I think, like, in preparation for this is that democratization of video. I think there's there's so many new tools that are available for folks to create videos that are of good quality and and good enough to go up on your website and your tube channel without having the full studio. Right? We we have to be able to produce remotely. So when we talk about our tools, We have pre production tools, production tools, post production tools. Pre production, we have folks that are conducting research, writing outlines, testing new headlines. A lot of our, like, marketers and our producers are actually using the new AI tools that are out there, whether it's Bard or Chat GPT. Where they're conducting research trying to find various sources of information, then saying, hey, can you help me with the outline for this video? This is what I'm thinking for it. And just getting a strong foundation before they they script and record. And then once we're in production, we're working on we're working with a couple different tools depending on if like a video podcast or, a long form video, but we use Riverside, we use Dscript, a great little tool is screen studio, fairly inexpensive one time fee, where you can actually do, like, really professional on screen tutorials, and then in post production, we're using tools like StoryBlacks. We're using Dscript. We're using Final Cut and Premiere to cut the final pieces, bring in the b roll, bring in the animation. So I think our team has a nice tool set. And I think there's probably two to three tools that a single marketer could use to bring it all together and get something out there that they're excited about. Yeah. And I think on our end, we actually kind of accidentally stumbled on a great tool. We we made this video series, last year called the beginner's guide to creating video, and it was intended for our our audience and and, you know, people that use storyblocks. And then we actually ended up sending it to internal, team members who are planning to create content for us because it's like a quick guide. So I feel like there's a lot of different ways to to leverage, information and and resources, to help equip the team. I love that. You're ahead of us. You're ahead of us. We have some guidelines, but I think we need to be able to to create one of those. The that teams are running pretty fast. But I love that idea of, like, hey, we're gonna document, you know, the general process and the tools we use and then enable folks to go make their stuff. So I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna jot that down and borrow that one. I can send you the link. So in terms of, like, brand usage, consistency, of format, like, what are some of the How do you ensure that that there's consistency across the different videos? Yeah. This is a this is a debate we have all the time. There's this friction between, like, what performs and what's consistent for the brand. I imagine, like, if folks go on to YouTube, right, you see the kinda baby thumbnails and the headlines, and they don't have the brand polish to them, but they do have high click through rates. So The way that we've thought about it on our different channels is we partnered with our our brand marketers, and we've said, you know, here are the use cases, here are the videos that we're looking to make. We'd like some guidelines around channel artwork, thumbnails, watermarks. And they tend to be a live little overboard on the branding. Right? And then we'll get in a room and say, hey, here's some feedback from the video side that we think, we'd like to kinda, like, pull back on the branding a little bit so that we know it'll perform on the platform that it's living on. And then once we we land on that, we have you know, Google slide decks where we're saying nothing too too robust, but five to ten slides. Hey, here's the general you know, art direction and creative guidelines for the channel. And I think our marketers and producers follow those really well, and you start to see consistency coming out of the team. Yep. I love that. So we know that these internal creators that you're working with are, you know, experts in in their own, field. But they maybe haven't recorded, video content, or learned how to make engaging video content before. So are there any resources that you give them in order to, like, how to hook an audience or how to create engaging content? Yeah. The we so I'd say there's probably, like, a couple of things. One is we do love spending time on YouTube and TikTok and taking a look at, like, what works. Right? So I think as marketers, we're trying to figure out what our audience is engaging with. And we'll send we'll send some of those examples to folks that are that are coming on camera and we definitely focus on our category. You know, we don't necessarily go into the videos that are developed by really, really famous YouTubers or media companies or production studios. Like, we're finding YouTubers that have a good presence, but we know it's kind of this low fi. Production quality. And we'll show folks, hey, here's here's what other YouTubers are doing that's successful. Here's what other TikTokers are doing that's successful. We're gonna try to replicate this. But I will say, like, sometimes if you give people too many guidelines and too many examples, they'll they'll fake it. And they'll they'll try to be a little too rigid in their delivery. And so we tend to just shoot it. We're like, you know what? We're gonna script it. We're gonna shoot it. We're gonna put it out there. We're gonna see how folks respond. And your first video, if we're gonna be honest, probably isn't gonna be very good. But your tenth video is gonna be a lot better. And so we've taken that approach with our video programs is just put the right people in the room, let them make something, put it out there, make sure, you know, a good representation of your brand, and then just iterate on it. And by the time we get to our tenth, fifteenth, twentieth video, they're really they're really impressive and the audiences tend to gravitate towards it. So that would be my advice for anybody who's starting a program, like, just put somebody on camera, coach them a little bit, and then let's go. Yeah. I used to, I used to work for Marriott, and we did a partnership with Ted. And part of our marketing with them, we did we were able to interview one of the head, like, speaker coaches are the person who trains the speakers for TED Talks. And, my favorite piece of advice, I think I've ever heard when it comes to, like, sitting in front of a camera or public speaking, was that no one in the audience is rooting for you to fail? Like, no one wants to feel awkward. No one wants to, like, you know, watch someone not do well. And it always, for me, when I'm doing public speaking, it, like, instantly makes me feel calmer I'm sure I'll get someone in the chat telling me that they that's not true. But, no, I think it can be really helpful for for talent who is having some anxiety. And I think the biggest thing is just to get started, like you said. So Alright. So last question for you. Before we get into the Q and A, what results have you seen to date, using this strategy, and then what's next for for you at HubSpot? Yeah. So we may I mean, we made a significant investment in video over the last twelve months. We saw those consumer shifts, you and I talked about earlier, and we said we need to get ahead of that. And so we operate, like, three different like, channels within these three different verticals. One is kind of our news and expert commentary vertical, and these channels are built around how do we just provide people with the best tech and business news. We have a vertical around education, which is educational videos on YouTube. I saw on the chat. Somebody mentioned Kyle Jepson, one of Academy professors. He's fantastic, especially on LinkedIn. And then we have, like, our product videos. And so each one of those channels is at a different stage of maturity, but I would say over the last year, we've been able to get over one one point five million organic views per month. Just by, like, focusing our efforts and building out those channels. We've been able to five x the leads that we're generating the sales team through YouTube over the last year. And so it's really been a focus on, okay, what are those core business objectives? Let's build channels that map to those objectives, and let's put the right teams in place to create content for those channels. And I know, you know, we I I think we have the luxury of of you mentioned, like, the talent internally, and we have, some budgets. But on YouTube, in particular, like one of our channels, there's just three people. There's the channel manager, the producer, and the video editor. And they're running this thing, and it's doing incredibly well. And so I think that any anyone who's on the the webinar that's planning out for next year or it wants to enhance the video strategy they have today. It doesn't have to be a huge, huge resourcing conversation. Just get two or three of the right people in the room, and I think you'll see results after, like, six to nine months. You'll start to see some organic traction traction on those videos. Amazing. Alright. So before we get into the Q and A, because we wanna get to there's some great questions in there. A couple of quick, items. One is we're gonna be doing this these webinar series monthly. So the next one is gonna be October twenty seventh. We're gonna be talking about, kind of what something we've been talking about throughout this, leveraging AI to speed up your video workflow. So that'll be October twenty seventh at one PM, and that'll be with Phil Edwards, who's a senior video producer at Fox. We also have a, resource center storyblocks dot com slash resources has a ton of great, content on their tutorials and guides. So if you're looking for more information like this, please check it out. Okay. Let's jump into some of the Q and A. I think the most important one I saw so far is, if you can answer this, what is a hub spotter? Yeah. Sorry about that. That's fair. Someone who works at hub spot. So I'm a I'm a long time HubSpotter. I'll be five years in January, but anyone who works for us, is considered a HubSpotter part of the group. Yeah. Had to had to start start you off with the with the softball? Yeah. Yeah. That's right. So this one is from Robin. I keep hearing AI will take over your job from non industry people. What are your thoughts? Just in turn. What are your thoughts on that? Yeah. We we have this in internal discussion a lot, actually, especially, like, when it comes to resourcing, right, leadership will be like, hey, there's these new AI tools. Shouldn't you be able to do this without more people or money. I think the AI tool is at least from what we're using and from what we're building. HubSpot has its own tool called chat spot that our team's starting to adopt. It helps you get to the final product faster. That's what we're noticing. So the folks that are doing the research and the scripting, they can get to their final script faster. Right? They don't have to go through three rounds of revisions with another person. They can work on their research, their outline, ask for feedback from the AI tool and then get there. When it comes to production, I do think, like, these new tools that we mentioned earlier in the call they all have AI features. So the production processes is sped up a little bit. Folks still have to spend, you know, thirty minutes to an hour on camera, delivering the content, but then that post production piece is is sped up. So things like editing just through tech as opposed to having to sit inside a final cut is something you can do in Dscript. There's a couple of these other tools that'll let you do clips and cut downs really quickly. So they'll find places within the video where someone said something that had a reaction or, you know, their voice went up. And so it must be something they're passionate about. The AI tools will turn something into, like, a sixty second or thirty second clip. So we've tested some of those tools We're not using them in our workflows as much just yet. But I will say AI is not coming for the jobs. I think it's gonna make us do the job better, and help us get there faster. And then folks who are in some of these roles that are more operational If they can spend more time in the content and creative piece, I think that'll be something that can't be replaced. Yeah. A hundred percent. I I completely agree. I think, you know, it's it's it's gonna be an enhancement, especially for these for these creative roles. I've even started to see, like, for conferences or people that are presenting at conferences, people going out of their way to say, like, I didn't use AI for this. It's it is a creative, you know, which I think is is an interesting trend. So, this is a question from Scott. What tips or advice can you share to beat or play the platform algorithms, to ensure content engagement is maximized? Gosh. I wish I knew. I wish I knew. We're we're trying to figure it out. I'd I'd say our team's constantly constantly working on it. Some things that we have found to be, like, really impactful. One is getting viewership and engagement within twenty four hours of publishing the video An example I have is we'll publish a video on the hustle YouTube channel, which is our channel built around business and tech news. We've timed it up with the email so that we'll publish it in the afternoon or evening, and then it goes out in the next day's email. And so there's folks clicking on it, going to watch the video, hopefully liking and commenting on that video. And so then we'll actually start to see a little faster trajectory for a newly published video. So I think timing that up and getting viewers on it right away. Another thing is, like, encouraging the audience to engage. So we do know that the algorithms looking for videos and creators where the audience is actively commenting or liking the video itself. And so you'll see in our videos, our our talent will actually say like, hey, for next week's video, can you leave a comment down there so that we can plan out, an answer for you based on this discussion we're having. Or, they'll say things like please make sure you subscribe to the channel so you get our new video next Tuesday. So being, like, really direct and giving your audience direction, because on YouTube and TikTok, it's a one to one relationship. Right? Like, we don't watch TikTok with our family. We don't, like, hold our phone out and watch it with five people. I'm sitting on my phone. I'm looking right at it. And so the person speaking directly to me So that's one way we've gotten to increase engagement on those videos and try to get some things, sped up from an organic view perspective The last thing I'll say is also within, like, YouTube and TikTok, there's videos that target keywords. So it's more of an SEO play, and they'll build slowly over time. But then there are videos that are made to target trending topics. And those will get picked up as, like, suggested videos within the algorithm. So, using marketing as a as a topic area, we may do a video on how to build a Facebook ad campaign in twenty twenty three. SEO targeted video will get some nice viewership, but it'll really grow over time. We may do a video on should Twitter have branded to X, and what's that impact on marketers? Should we be investing in X or threads? And that's like a trending topic. People are searching for it. People are talking about it. And we're trying to get the algorithm to, like, pick up our opinion. On that conversation. So I'd say those are three things folks can consider as they're building out their content strategy. Yeah. I always feel like it's you know, it's it's about finding a balance too. Right? Like, if you I I often reframe people that are asking, like, how can I play the algorithm to also considering, like, what your audience wants from you? And so I think it's about finding that balance of, like, you can't ignore the algorithms. Right? You can't ignore trends, but you also need to prioritize what your audience actually wants to watch. And I think that can really help. And if you can find, like, you suggested that in between of, like, okay, this is a topic that is popular this makes sense for the platform, and it's a interest area for my audience. Like, that's the sweet spot. I don't think posting it at you know, noon or two pm is gonna make a huge difference if you're putting out content that people really want to engage with. That's a great point. Yeah. It has to be audience first. It does. And you're right. That sweet spot is, you know, what what's your audience looking for and what's the algorithm pushing out? This is a question from Amy. Are supervisor struggles to picture things from a storyboard or description And we try and balance how much time we're spending creating, in case he's not gonna go for it. So he just needs to see it. Any suggestion for, how to find this balance. Yeah. I think this is, like, age old creative right, when you're pitching a client or pitching a boss. I do love developing concepts. So we'll we'll tend to do, like, a title, a log line, and then sometimes we'll write, like, video titles, like example video titles, And then we'll do the mood board based on here's kind of the look and feel of it. Another thing that we've tried in the past too is we'll say it's just like this type of video. Just on this topic area. So we'll show them something they're familiar with or something we found on YouTube. So you like, you're you're saying, it's an Ali style style video, but we're gonna be talking about this topic and teaching our audience this. And then it gives them a visual to, like, look at. And so, hopefully, then folks will come around. Some folks just Honestly, I think struggle with creative concepts in gray areas. And sometimes you just need to ask for permission and say, hey, can can we just produce something you. I wanna make something. We'll shoot it. It'll be a rough cut, but I wanna show you what we're thinking. And a lot of times, if you position it as an experiment, I think you'll get the yes. You know, I think you'll get the yes. And, not necessarily saying, like, this has to be the video and it is going on our product page. Right? It's like, hey, I just wanna experiment with something. Let me make it and show it to you first. Absolutely. I there are so many amazing questions I don't think we're gonna get a chance to answer all of them, but let's do let's do maybe two more. So this one is from Lisa. You mentioned sharing your video content on YouTube and TikTok, but I'm curious to know if you also share short form video and other social platforms like Instagram. And if not, why? Yeah. So we do. We do. I think, candidly, like, we've gotten pretty big where you have folks are focused on Instagram and focused on TikTok. We're actually trying to come back to, like, a smaller production team that's working on things together. We have this discussion right now and framework around, like, video first content strategy. And if you're able to create a long form video for YouTube in that same production process. You can also make sure that you're doing a vertical short or two that can be used for social. And so I think if you lead with long form on YouTube, that content and that work, because people are putting in a lot of work into research and scripting and shooting it. That work can then feed your social channels, YouTube shorts, Instagram and TikTok. And then even that video can be embedded in a blog post. That's another thing that we share with our leadership team is video content can actually help feed all these other channels and provide us more content on the blog. So for folks that aren't active YouTube viewers. We're providing them with an article, a transcript, and a video on our blog. And then you can even repackage it into your newsletter send that's going out that week because I don't think it's the same audience on YouTube on TikTok on your blog on the newsletter. Right? Folks have the channel that they like to hear from you on. But that one piece of video content can help support each one of those channels. And that's what we're trying to build. We're trying to to make sure that the, the YouTube long form stuff is able to feed the social channels, and there's a feedback loop from the social team telling us, hey, this is what works. This is this is what doesn't. So, last question here, from, Tanya. I think this is one that we've all experienced a lot over the past few years. So team works remotely, and only a few people have, like, what what we would consider good camera or audio equipment. How do you handle other team members creating video without the equipment? Yeah. It's it is tough because you do The content itself is a representation of your brand. Right? So you you want good audio. You want good lighting. You want, decent camera. I don't think it has to be as high quality as it used to be. We call it, like, premium DIY. So you can still get a pretty good HD camera at by, you can order, like, a Sure microphone, or a yeti microphone, to have it home. And then with a simple webcam, and a good microphone, you can produce some really great content. And I think, like we mentioned earlier in the discussion, there's probably only one to max three people that are representing our brand on video. And so that's one thing we'll do is we'll just say, hey, beginning of the year. These are the two people that are gonna be on camera for us. Let's make sure they get that HD webcam and that nice microphone, and let's commit to this program. And so I think that's one big difference is we're not trying to do, like, one off videos and trying to ship, the equipment everywhere because to the to the comment, like, it'd just be too difficult from a production standpoint. Yeah. A hundred percent. Okay. So that was our last question. Wanted to thank everyone for joining us. Thank you Kyle so much for the incredible insight. And just remind everyone that, again, we have our next webinar on October twenty seventh. You can also check out storyblocks dot com for resource slash resources for more information like this. And, yeah, thank you so much for joining us. Appreciate the flexibility with the, new link. And again, we will be sending this out on demand afterwards So if you missed anything or wanna watch it again, you will have the opportunity to do so. Thanks again, and Kyle was great great chatting with you. Yeah. Thanks for having me.
