Hello and welcome to the Monday Morning Marketing Podcast. And I'm Melanie and I'm here on my own. Esther thought it would be safe to leave the podcast in my own incapable hands. How brave of her. Anyway, I'm not here completely on my own. I'm sure you'll be pleased to hear I'm also here with the King of Videos, no less than Matt Hughes. Welcome to the podcast, Matt.
Thank you very much. So delighted to be here, as always.
So this is our second time for speaking, isn't it? The last time we spoke? Well, it was leading up to our workshop and we were speaking on Irish Tech News.
Yeah, that's right. So it's workshop and then it was a whole event. Right.
And how did that go for you? Do you have a nice time doing the workshop?
Yeah, I love workshops. I think any opportunity to get in front of people to share your genius I think is great for everybody. So. And that's definitely how I learned, you know, going to events and sort of picking things up from other people. So, yeah, absolutely love those kind of events.
We were very lucky actually, to get you because of the kind of courses that you offer. It was actually really beneficial because you could actually literally take people through the process of learning how to do video, which today is all about. It doesn't really matter what time of year you listen to this podcast. If your vision is to get started on video, then what do we need to get our audience ready to do? What kind of preparation do they need to go into?
Well, let's talk about preparation for a second because preparation is such a funny thing and it depends what kind of person you are. I find some people like me will run into things with zero preparation, just really excitable prepared to fail and do whatever happens. Right. And then there's other people that prepare for seven years and never do the thing. The reason why I wanted to bring that up is because you're somewhere in between those two extremes, I think. So. I think all you've got to do in terms of preparation is decide on something to talk about. And whatever your skill set is, whatever your area of genius is, it doesn't really matter on a daily basis. You should have something to talk about regarding your expertise. So the first thing you need in preparation and you probably expected that to talk about equipment and all that kind of thing. But actually the first thing you need is just a topic to talk about. And once you've got that, then you are ready to go. Unless you're stuck in the 90s. If you have like a knock, you're 32 ten, you're pretty stuck. But for the most part, most people these days they've got a smartphone which has Internet access. We're all pretty much unless some of us are in the stick, still pretty much good connections to be able to go live. And that's it. And the first thing I recommend people to do is to take that topic and go live on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, whatever your platform of choices is to go live, which sounds really scary potentially, but it really is not.
So you reckon to prepare people for video is to go live first?
Yes.
Seriously?
Yes. And when I do a presentation about video, I always get that kind of reaction, like, oh, my God, if I'm scared of video, why would I go live? And the reason I do it is because I had a Facebook Live challenge. Right. So I know this work. Hundreds of people have done this with me, and I know it works if you just go through that process. So the reason is because before you do video, you have so many preconceptions, and it might be that you've watched TV, Netflix, YouTube, TikToks, whatever. You got all these preconceptions and certain messages that people have told you, oh, my God, the trolls are going to arrive and destroy you. They'll tell you how much they hate you or how big your forehead is or whatever, right? So you have all of these preconceptions in your head, and actually, none of them happen. You go live, you talk to people, and then you get people like your mates or your colleagues or people that you work with that say, hey, it's lovely to see you heard your voice for ages. Oh, my God, how can you do lives? This is new. This is interesting. So you get that kind of like really supportive, nice, warm welcome when you first go live. And what that does is those preconceptions, those misconceptions that you've got, they just fall away because you realize that actually it's not as bad as you made it out to be. And of course, in your head, that's what happens. And think about it. You ask kids to do this stuff and they go, yeah, okay, let's do it. Really excited. Can we do it together? But as adults, because we've had all of that fear put in as about these public speaking and standing in front of people and putting yourself out there, it feels like a disaster thing. But it's not.
The only difference between me and my kids is I regret it before I start. And they regret it afterwards.
Yeah, definitely. And they'll say they'll see something from a year ago and go, oh, my God, I was so cringe a year ago. And you're like, what are you talking about? It was a year ago. Yeah, but that was ages ago. And you're like, Wait till you're 38. It does not seem that long.
Yeah, no, it doesn't. Moving on, we've done the preparation. And one thing that came up in the conversation actually today with a customer that I was working with, and she had a MacBook Pro that she was working on for her laptop and she had an Android Huawei or however you pronounce it.
Huawei? Yes.
And she said she was told that Huawei was the better camera. Do you agree with that?
100% yeah. Wow.
So why was that better?
So MacBooks until very recently, I think the new Imac is the only new Apple device that this has changed on in the last five years. All MacBooks, even the Pros. I've had all the pros used to upgrade every year. The webcams are always terrible, really awful. So what I recommend is like, if you've got an iPhone or an Android, you can use some software called Camo. And there's a piece of software called Droid Cam as well for Android. I don't know if the overall phone I've never owned those phones. So I don't know which lets you use your mobile phone as a camera. And because your cameras, one of the first things they advertise and talk about a lot is the quality of the video camera. Right. So, you know, it's updated, you know, it's good quality. And when you use that as a webcam, it is far better than a Mac or any sort of webcam that you can get out there, any webcam. Some people come to me and say, oh, Matt, but I've got this 4K Logitech breed. It costs £300. And I'm like, yeah, it's still terrible compared to a mobile phone because the mobile phones are amazing these days.
Wow. So Camo, is that C-A-M-M-O.
No, C-A-M-O. It's Camo by Reincuba. If you're struggling to find it because you can imagine searching Google for camo, you'll find all sorts of stuff. So it's Camo by Reincubate. Reincubate.
Reincubate. Okay, cool. And then Droid Cam was for Android.
Yes. As I understand again, I've just been told that that's the case, that's the alternative. But Camo works on a Mac, works on Windows, and it's for iPhone.
And are these free or do you pay for them?
Camo is about 350 a month. Or you can pay like 50 quid for the year, I think something like that. So if you're thinking about upgrading your equipment and you're thinking about spending a couple of hundred pounds on a webcam or seven or £800 on a compact camera that you can use as a webcam, paying £50 a year for what you've already got to be able to then level up your video is definitely worth it. And I promise you, I've got a YouTube video where I compare the two. And I promise you when you see it, you'll be like, oh, my God, this is amazing.
Wow. Okay, that is a hot tip. I never realized actually just how different they would be. And so she really surprised me when she mentioned the Huawei. But it doesn't matter if you do have an Apple phone, does it? It's not the end of the world. You can still use Camo by Reincubate.
Yeah. And your mobile phone is where you should start. Melanie. One of the things that people do in their preparation is they assume they need to buy something. I'm starting something new so I've got to buy something. And actually it's just not true. The next level and I put it in levels. Your mobile phone is kind of the starter level, the pro level. The next level up is something like a Sony EV one or ZV one. And that's £700, which when I first started with my video company, we spent 2000 £3000 on a camera that was good enough at that level. So the cost of it is a lot less than it used to be. But I appreciate that still a lot. If you're thinking about 150 pound webcam or something like that, the middle ground with that. You start with your mobile phone because it's 1000 pound device already. And then if you want to upgrade, you can go to that Sony's everyone later on.
Yeah, I think people forget the cost actually of the iPhone, don't know, expensive.
Even if you're on contract, the contract makes it feel like it's not expensive. But when you add it all up, 1000, 1500 pounds, easily somewhere between there.
Yeah. So we're prepared, we've got the phone, we've got something to talk about. How long should we talk for?
Okay, so what I'm about to say, I used to use this as a way to motivate people. I realize it can be demotivating as well. So I'm going to tell you why it's important, this statement and it's by a guy called Dan Kennedy, as I understand. And he said, you can't be too long, only too boring. Now the reason why. So I thought that was motivating because for me I was like, oh, that's perfect because I can just talk forever then if I'm being interesting. But for some people they go, oh well, my subject matter is boring. Maybe I'm an accountant, the one I always think about because the guy introduced me himself to me and said, I'm an accountant. And he said, I'm really sorry, this is a networking event. And I was like, what do you mean? I was like, you save me money and make the best use of my tax and all that kind of stuff anyway. So accountants are the ones that say, well, my subject matter is just boring. And I'm like, well, but it's not though, for the people that are interested in it, for the people that need your services, for the people that are at tax return deadlines and VAT deadlines and all that, you are the most interesting person. Even more so when you can change your tax bill from ten grand to four grand because you know all the rules like money talks and people love that kind of stuff. So when I say you can't be too long, only too boring. That's not a thing about your content. Just assume whatever your content is, whatever your subject matter, is there's somebody out there that will love it as much as you love it? But in terms of the length, like people watch Love Island and they watch it every night. For example, people watch strange programs. Sorry for the Love Island fans. They will watch anything on YouTube. There's halls. They're called shopping halls where I'm just making a vast assumption that they are teenage girls or young women that go out to Primark or wherever, buy a load of equipment, try it all on, and then they just put it on YouTube for an hour, right. Or there's gaming channels that my daughter watches among us. Among us is like a five minute game on a phone and she'll watch 3 hours. A guy playing among us, 3 hours. It's insane. I'm like, what are you doing? I'm bored as hell. So people watch if it's interesting and it can be two minutes or it could be 20 minutes an hour. There is no such thing as too long or too short.
So would there be a working formula that you could give people that would help? Because I know well, I know that you have to have a call to action. There has to be a point to it. Sometimes there has to be a point to it. Sometimes you can just do fluff for fun. There's absolutely no harm in doing that as long as the majority actually has a point. Because I think one of the reasons people like stories like Instagram stories and Facebook stories. Do people remember those? People forget about Facebook stories, but we do have those stories so that we can see behind the scenes and meet the people and see the outtakes and the bloopers. And what was it? A beautiful image that was taken, put up on Instagram. You can see propped up with cardboard boxes and washing baskets and God knows what else. And having a little bit of fun and sense of ownership is also quite important as well.
Yeah, I totally agree in terms of formula. Formula is a great question because again, it's a great question for preppers because they need the answers ahead of time to be able to do this stuff. But my formula is really straightforward. I think this is fair to say. You kind of mentioned it with what you said about call to action. It's a standard formula for anything. And if you think about back to your English, what is it? Maybe English literature classes where it's like beginning, middle and end. That's how you can imagine your videos to be. So in the beginning. At the start, you're going to do an introduction. In this video, I'm going to talk about XYZ. So you've got to line it up and give the audience an opportunity to say I'm out if they want to. The hope is that the ones that say I'm in are going to stick around because you've told them exactly what they're going to find in that video. So in this video, I'm going to talk about football. If somebody's interested in tennis or rugby, they're going to say I'm out. If they're interested in football. And then I start to talk about tennis or rugby, they're going to be annoyed that I've moved on.
So tell them what you're going to talk to them about and then stick to that topic. It's super important that you stick to that topic. Then you deliver the value of the message or the opinion or whatever it might be. And then at the end there should be some call to action. And when you get really good at this, you can put calls to action throughout. So an example of this is for YouTube. For example, when you're doing your videos, you want to at some point throughout the video say, don't forget to like my video because YouTube needs the signals like liking the video as an indication that this video is wherever your people's time and attention and they're liking what's going on. So don't forget to like my video. Hashtag replay is what people use on Facebook Live. If you're watching this video on the replay, don't forget the hashtag replay in the comments. And there's loads more. But there's a couple of examples, and then at the end it's just a call to action to do something. So what's the logical next step for those people to take after they've watched your video? And that might be if you've enjoyed this video, share it with your friends, or tag a friend in who might like this message, or it might be something even more direct. Thanks so much for watching this video about video editing. Did you know I've got a video editing school course and you can go and find it on my website. Here's the URL. So something to give them a logical next step. Some people won't even get to the end and see it, but if they stuck around to the end, then they're really interested in what you've got to say. So it's a great opportunity to say, here's what's next if you want it.
A lot of these videos, whether they're prerecorded or whether they're going live. You can do this format for both, can't you? But would you recommend putting all of your videos, no matter how short and long, on like a YouTube channel? Or is that really only for certain things? Is there a real strategy to YouTube or can you just put any old video up there?
Yeah, there's definitely a strategy because I do lots of videos, so I'm doing lots of Facebook Live and lots of ad hoc, thought provoking stuff. It's just general stuff. But with my YouTube channel, I'm very strategic with it. So I called the video that you put on YouTube signature video content. So it's your signature video. So if you think about that when you're doing general stuff, chitchat, then that's appropriate for Facebook, Instagram and all that kind of stuff. But when you're doing good quality pieces, then that should be the stuff that you put on YouTube. So then it becomes an asset library. Imagine, like even now, if you watch Netflix or any of those sort of online subscription shows beforehand, you'll see the stars of the show talking about the show. You'll see Facebook stories, Instagram stories, all about the show in preparation or movie or whatever it might be, and they're talking about all that stuff, but their signature content is the actual piece of content. So it's the same thing for you. You want to talk about it, you want to build up the hype. And then when you release that piece of sealed content, then you can send them there, and then they get to Netflix, Binge style, your YouTube channel. If you look at it in that way, then YouTube becomes this amazing asset library of business content. That really helps. It helps drive no liking trust like nothing else. There's no other platform that can do it quite as well as YouTube, potentially TikTok. But I'd still argue that the short form content doesn't give you enough valuable content from a business perspective.
Well, not yet, anyway. I'm sure that's to come. Now, there's just a couple of things I'd like to cover before we finish. So most people are going to be using their phone when they start. Correct. So bearing in mind that we have to allow for people of both types, what kind of editing software would you recommend? And do you have to be a scientist to work out captions on YouTube?
Right. I'll answer the first question. So video editing software. I don't edit a lot on my mobile phone anymore, but there are two pieces of software that come to mind. The first one is called In Shot. And the reason I've got a course called Mobile Editing School, and I used In Shot to do that because I knew it was available on both platforms because that was my challenge when people kept asking me what's available on Android because I was doing Imovie before. So In Shot is multi platform and LumaFusion is the other one. And I'm sure that is multi platform, but I could be wrong. So In Shot is the main one, I would suggest.
Is it free?
Adobe Prep. It's not free. There's a free version. But like most things, when you start using it for any length of time.
It'S worth going on to the paid for.
Yeah, yeah. And then the other one, which is like our movie, actually, that I forgot about, is Adobe Premier Rush. So Adobe Premier Rush is Adobe software. As you can imagine, it's kind of a precursor for Premiere Pro. So Premiere Pro is the professional where they make movies and that kind of thing, or when they edit movies. Premier Rush is like a cut down version. It's a bit like Imovie, but the reason why I love Premier Rush is that it's cloud based. So what you can do and what I've done in the past is you can start editing on your mobile phone and then when you get to your desk at home and you've got your laptop or your PC, you can go into the project and it's available to you and you can start editing there. So it allows you to move between devices, whether you're on Android or whatever, which is just amazing in terms of workflow and ease of use. Like, it's so amazing. So many people say to me, I use my iPhone to film something, but I can't get the footage off my iPhone. I don't know how to do it. I'm like, come on, really? But if they'd have uploaded it into a Premier Rush project, it would just be available because it's in the cloud. So definitely a good piece of software. And then the second question. What was the second question?
Being a scientist on YouTube captions, right?
Captions. Another bit of software talking about captions is descript so descriptive. How I do content repurposing for my mobile editing school is a course that I have for editing. Descriptors the course I have for content repurposing because with captions, it is absolutely amazing. And it completely keeps improving every week. Like, it's so annoying trying to keep up with the changes. But it's so brilliant because things like they allow you to do the Gary V, top and bottom, you can change the size of it from portraits to landscape to square or whatever. And they've just added, like, the progress bars, the progress bars that are at the bottom. So they're adding things like that. They've just said they're going to change to adding custom fonts as well. It's just everything in there. It's so easy to use.
Wow. So that's pretty much got at least some of our audience started. Where do we go? Here's a call to action, guys. Where do we go to learn more? And what would be the easiest way to get further information from you, Matt?
So my website is Kingofvideo.co.uk. And on that I had loads of different links and all sorts of stuff everywhere. And I've now got a page that says start here. So if you go to King of Video Co, it says Start here. And it's literally got everything I do listed in sort of different sections. I've just filmed before this podcast. I filmed a video that's going to go on there today. So I'm really excited about that because you can find everything you need. Kingandvideo.co.uk
Okay. Well, thank you so much, Matt. I do appreciate it can get really hard to get yourself motivated and sorting out videos. It can be scary, it can be frustrating, it can be messy. I'm not talking from personal experience there, but there are resources out there and people such as Matt, who he doesn't just call himself King of videos for the sheer sake of it, he knows damn well what he's doing. Thank you so much for coming on thank you for being our amazing video speaker in our DMAC 21 last year. Really appreciate that Matt and we will be back very, very soon. Hopefully with Esther. She probably won't let me be alone again for a while, but thank you so much for listening very soon. Bye for now.