Webinar Replay: Mastering Video Content for Maximum Impact

Transcript:

Sarah Loyd: Welcome to today’s SND Webinar, “Mastering Video Content for Maximum Impact.” We’re going to cover how your institution can use video to improve social engagement and talk about some easy ways you can level up your video game. If you have questions, please drop those into the questions box in the webinar as we go through today, and we’ll take some time to answer those at the end.

Before we get started, just a little bit about us. Social News Desk is the only social media management software that’s purpose built for critical communicators. We were founded in 2010 and since then we’ve proudly supported America’s largest news companies, cities, government agencies, school districts, universities and businesses who require powerful, always on social media tools.

Social News Desk helps organizations save time with a one-stop shop for social media publishing. Take control of their entire social footprint in a single easy to use dashboard. Stay informed and engaged with the community around them. With social listening tools, demonstrate value to stakeholders with powerful reporting and gain peace of mind with our always ready human support team.

And a little bit about me. I’m Sarah Loyd, the head of Product Success and Evangelism here at Social News Desk. I’ve been with the team for 10 years, and prior to joining SND I managed social media and worked in several newsrooms. I was actually a social news desk customer before I joined the team.

Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn. The address is there on the screen, and I’m also pleased today to welcome Alesha Meadows, the digital content coordinator for the city of Wentzville, Missouri. Since she joined the team in 2022, she has been instrumental in growing the city’s social media presence through reels.

In her role, Alesha creates engaging content, including long form videos, reels, TV graphics, billboards. Graphic design projects and newsletters. She’s a busy lady. She’s passionate about crafting reels that not only highlight the city, but also bring a fun, trendy flair to municipal storytelling. Alesha’s dedicated to helping others learn how to stop the scroll by creating content that resonates, connects, and builds a sense of community.

We’ll hear from Alesha at the end of today’s webinar, so please pop those questions in the questions box as we go through today. First, let’s talk a little bit about why video matters so much on social media. In 2024, social video platforms recorded an average of about 52 minutes of engagement a day by 2028, it’s expected to reach 57 minutes a day. 79% of US consumers now prefer watching videos on a smartphone, making it the top device for digital video consumption. According to one of Meta’s latest earning calls, Instagram users now spend around half the time on the platform viewing reels. This shows that even though reels were only launched on Instagram a few years ago, they’re now a core part of the product.

Likewise, Facebook users spend about half of their time in the app watching videos, including reels on YouTube. According to Google, users are 87% more likely to take action after finding a product or service on YouTube. And videos are now the most shared type of content on LinkedIn and Garner the third highest amount of impressions on LinkedIn after polls and multiple image posts.

Video tends to humanize public institutions giving a face to something like a government agency, a school, or even a news outlet. This example from the city of Ville shows city employees, along with some fun facts about them as part of a campaign to encourage more people to apply to work for the city.

Video also helps to improve transparency and trust with your community, giving your followers a behind the scenes look at what your agency or institution is up to. While we can publish plenty of documents going into the details of a city budget or school board meeting, sharing video makes that content more accessible to the public, and in turn helps to foster a more informed community.

Several cities, including the City of Ville, record a quick mayor’s minute to allow the mayor to speak directly with the community and call attention to important issues. Sharing video also enhances outreach efforts for key initiatives like public safety, enrollment, or community events. Video campaigns tend to be more memorable and engage audiences in ways.

A simple link or image post just can’t always do This. Video showcases the different ways residents can pay utility bills while taking a cue from Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl halftime show. There are many ways you can integrate video into your overall social media efforts. First of all, short form videos are king right now with the format popular on TikTok, Instagram reels, and YouTube shorts.

You can share tons of content in a short video that’s less than a minute and doesn’t need a ton of editing. Share event highlights, quick tutorials like our utility payment method video or a day in the life video. This video from the city of Princeton, Texas highlights government communicators day in a fun way.

Explaining how city or campus services work is a great use of short form video as well. This simple video from the city of San Antonio highlights their updates to the 3 1 1 SA app and shows some easy ways residents can make use of the app. I’d be remiss if I didn’t highlight this recruitment video from the Fort Worth Police Department.

Parodying Kendrick Lamar’s not like us with more than half a million views on Facebook alone. It highlighted why they’re encouraging people to apply to their department and specifically not Dallas. Although I’ve heard this Friendly beef has encouraged more applications in both cities. Using case study videos to highlight stories from students, residents, or community leaders can be an effective way to demonstrate services or even recruit potential employees, such as this video from Genesee ISD, highlighting the heartwarming story of a bus aid turned bus driver.

Now that we’ve looked at a few different ways you can use video, let’s talk a little bit about some platform specific best practices. For TikTok, focus on trends, music, and hashtags to boost visibility. Videos under 60 seconds tend to perform best and they should be highly visual. I love this TikTok video from the city of Minneapolis with their take on the Wicked trend from late last year.

Instagram reels also tend to rely on trends including trending music. Head of Instagram, Adam er suggests that videos will perform better if they have no watermarks. Contain added music in our three minutes or less, and our original content. Use captions when people are speaking to keep things visual, even if the viewer has their sound off For YouTube videos, optimize for search with compelling titles, thumbnails and descriptions.

You can also use playlists to organize content by topics such as safety tips, educational resources, and meeting replays. YouTube shorts operate much the same as reels and TikTok videos. Optimize your videos with a great title so they’ll appear higher in search and keep your shorts under 60 seconds for easy watchability.

For Facebook and LinkedIn, focus on more professional polished videos for press releases or community updates, and be sure to use captions for accessibility and higher engagement. Okay. Blue Sky now has a video custom feed, which makes video discoverability easier. You can definitely repurpose vertical video from other platforms to share on Blue Sky as well.

So how can you create your best videos? There are tools for every budget, whether you’re just getting started or want to improve your video production. And when it comes to shooting video, you can get started simply with your phone. I recommend shooting both vertically and horizontally as this gives you plenty of options for editing later.

Whether you’re creating a reel or want something a little longer form for Facebook or YouTube, I. I’ve seen a lot of recommendations for the DJI Osmo Pocket three. This is a small, lightweight camera with a gimbal that allows you to shoot smooth video horizontally or vertically, and many communicators in government and education swear by the current generations of Sony and Canon mirrorless cameras, which shoot both video and still images, and they can be pricey.

But if you’re shooting a lot of video, it may be a good investment. If you wanna elevate your video game even more, consider adding some accessories to your kit. Many video producers swear by the roadie pro wireless line of microphones, especially if they’re using an upgraded camera setup. However, you can get pretty good results, even with just a cheap wireless mic that’s designed for a mobile phone.

It’s definitely an upgrade from using your phone’s microphone without a ton of investment. Ring lights can also elevate your video production by giving a warm, soft light to your subject as well as making it easier to shoot in the dark. If necessary, you can get larger ring lights to mount on a tripod or small clip on ring lights that work with your phone or laptop.

Tripods are also valuable tools to have in your kit for stable video, especially if you’re shooting alone and need to put yourself on camera. You can also find things like gorilla pods that can even wrap around poles to get interesting angles. When it comes to putting your video together, Canva and Capcut are some of the easiest video editing tools to use.

Both have free versions so you can get started, and I love Canva for simple video edits and adding text and graphical effects without a lot of fuss. Capcut also has powerful captioning tools to make it easy to automatically add text to your video and even edit via text. It also offers a mobile version for info editing.

But be aware, Capcut is owned by TikTok, so if your state doesn’t allow use of TikTok, it may be out of bounds for you. InShot is a mobile only app available for iOS and Android that’s well reviewed and recommended by several government and education social media managers. Adobe Express is a popular, lightweight video editor that’s available on iOS, Android, and desktop.

And Kapwing is a mid-range editor that’s been recommended by video producers and it has a free version and is really reasonably prized. Their pro plan is $16 a month and goes up to about 50 bucks a month for their business plan. Moving on. Da Vinci Resolve is a more powerful, non-linear editor and it has a free version and includes a comprehensive editing tutorial to help you get started.

Adobe Premiere is a professional video editing suite that many experienced social video editors used, and it’s extremely powerful. People edit movies using Premiere, but it does have a high barrier to entry if you’ve never edited video before. And finally my favorite final cut pro. This is my personal favorite for non-linear video editing.

I’ve been using it since my days as a promo producer in TV news, so a really long time, and I still use it today to edit tutorials and social media videos. A few pro tips regardless of what equipment you’re using, shoot in natural light whenever you can for better quality. Frame and shoot video for both vertical and horizontal videos if possible, just in case.

So you have a lot of options when you’re editing. Use captions and text overlays for accessibility and audience retention and keep your branding consistent with logos, colors, and fonts. When crafting a video, give the story a, a beginning, middle, and end by crafting a simple arc. And a great way to envision the arc of your story is the five Cs of storytelling, character, context, conflict, climax, and closure.

First, decide who your characters are. Is it a community member, a student, a member of your staff, or someone well known? You can use personal stories or local heroes to really connect with the audience. Next set up the context, the scene for the story set up the stakes. Why does your audience care about this character and their journey?

Build conflict and tension in your story. This is the problem to be solved or the opportunity that your character is reaching for. At the climax of the story reveal how the tension is resolved. This is the aha moment where we realize the character is going to achieve resolution to the conflict. And finally, give the audience closure.

What’s the takeaway of the story and what do you want audiences to remember the most? So now that you’ve crafted a great story with your amazing equipment, how can you measure success when it comes to video? It ultimately depends on your goals. Key metrics to watch include video views, overall watch time, engagement rate, and click-through rate.

If you’re looking to drive traffic, you can use a tool like social News desk, post manager and reporting to track video performance and identify your greatest hits. Use audience feedback and data to refine future videos. Experiment with different lengths, formats, and tones to find what resonates with your audience.

And now let’s bring in our guest for some Q&A. I’d like to welcome Alesha Meadows, the Digital Content coordinator for the City of Wentzville, Missouri. Alesha, thanks so much for being here.

Alesha Meadows: Thank you for having me.

Sarah Loyd: Yeah, of course. Tell me a little bit about your role in Woodsville. So I am the digital content coordinator at the City of Wentzville.

Alesha Meadows: I’ve been here almost three years, and I do anything that moves is basically how I always explain it. So I do all of our video content, both reels and long form videos, and then. Like you mentioned before, I do all of the billboards. I work on some of our newsletters, TV graphics, write for the mayor. It’s a lot of variety throughout the day, which is pretty fun.

That’s what I enjoy the most. Yeah.

Sarah Loyd: Awesome. Yeah, it sounds like your job is a lot of work, but also a lot of fun. Thanks again for being here today. So my first question is, how many people are on your video team?

Alesha Meadows: Yeah, so we have a communications team of three people, but I am the only one that does video.

So I come up with the ideas, run ’em past my supervisor, and then from there it’s me editing and filming, getting people involved and posting it.

Sarah Loyd: So you’re doing a lot with a little.

Alesha Meadows: Yes.

Sarah Loyd: With your time.

Alesha Meadows: Exactly.

Sarah Loyd: Alright, so what platforms do you typically share video to?

Alesha Meadows: So we have a few, we do all of our short form reels, go on Instagram and Facebook, and then if they apply to hiring, we put ’em on LinkedIn because we have an audience there that likes to see some variety.

So we try to put some hiring reels on there. And then as far as all of our long form videos, those always live on YouTube. So those are our few platforms.

Sarah Loyd: Gotcha. Okay, that makes sense. So since you are the lady in charge, what do you use to shoot and edit your videos?

Alesha Meadows: So I am like what you talked about. I use my phone for everything and I swear by it just continues to get better.

I have the brand new one for my work phone and it does phenomenal. We actually have a camera that I’ll occasionally pull out, but I like my phone better, so all the shooting goes on the phone. And then I also. Talked about this too. My little $20 Amazon mics, that’s how I do the audio. Anytime someone’s gonna talk, I plug those wireless mics in and honestly, they work better than most of the more expensive ones I’ve tried out.

So that’s pretty much like a very budget friendly version of shooting video. And besides that, it’s just. My handheld tripod, and that’s pretty much it. And then as far as editing, I love Premier, so that’s where I tend to go. And then all of our graphics I make in Canva, I’ll make them in Canva, bring them over to Premier and add ’em to the video.

And then the last tool is actually veed.io. It’s a new one that I just started using and I use it for captioning. So they have really great tools to help with all the captioning. We’re trying to get better at adding that to our videos. So I am now starting to use that, and I really like it so far.

Sarah Loyd: Awesome. Do you mind spelling that for me?

Alesha Meadows: Yeah. It’s VEED and then a period and then io.

Sarah Loyd: Okay. veed.io. Okay. Awesome. That’s really helpful. Yeah, I know captioning is super important, and some of the tools do it and some of them don’t. So finding a really easy to use tool, I’m gonna have to steal that one from myself. Thank you.

Alesha Meadows: It’s a great one. I love it. Yeah.

Sarah Loyd: So you guys have a great variety of reels. How do you find inspiration for new ideas?

Alesha Meadows: Yeah, so I’m sure people have seen this where it’s I swear I’m working. That’s me. I’m always on my phone at work and it’s not just me messing around. It’s my job because I am on TikTok and Instagram reels all the time.

That’s how I find 90% of the video ideas that we do, and I really take inspiration from any idea. It can be from a business, another local government agency, or just. A person that I see post a trend and I apply it to our content. So I would say I am not afraid to take an idea and expand upon it. And maybe it wasn’t even the original concept.

And that one you showed of someone dancing to pay their utility bill is a great example of that because it was a trend happening. But I wanted to really use it for our content and that’s just how I tied it in. I definitely find my inspiration from TikTok and Instagram reels like everyone else, and then tying it in is the goal, because we do want it still to relate to local government.

It needs to have some purpose and not just a fun reel. That’s great, but it does need to have a message behind it. Absolutely. That’s absolutely us.

Sarah Loyd: Yeah. And I love that reel so much. It’s just such a fun way, like it’s very memorable. It sticks in my head and I will now know all the ways I can pay my utility bill if I’m ever in Wentzville.

Alesha Meadows: That’s great. That was the goal. That’s the goal.

Sarah Loyd: Exactly. All right. What KPIs do you focus on to measure success for your videos?

Alesha Meadows: So we actually do a monthly report that we pull to things and its impressions. We just wanna see how many times someone watched a video and then engagement. So we include shares and likes and that, and we look at comments, but it’s not our main focus.

Our aldermen really just wanna see if it’s performing and the payoff of the video. So those are our two things we focus on.

Sarah Loyd: All right. Yeah, that makes sense. So here’s the big question. How do you get other people involved in video shoots, especially those people who are really hesitant to participate?

Alesha Meadows: Yeah, that is a big part of it. So the first thing I would say is I always make sure everyone feels prepared before I ask ’em to do a video. I don’t wanna catch anyone off guard. That’s definitely not the goal. So I write a brief description of what the video’s gonna be. If it’s gonna have talking, I’ll give a script.

If I’m gonna ask him questions, I let ’em know those ahead of time, just. Be prepared. Like they wanna know that they’re not gonna get caught off guard and not know what they’re talking about. So that’s the number one thing. And I found people are more willing to say yes if they know what they’re saying yes to.

And like I said, if I’m inspired by an Instagram reel or TikTok. Then I include that example of what I saw and show them so that they know what the heck’s gonna happen in the video. And then I also would say that I show them past videos because some are very hesitant and they wanna make sure I’m not gonna include all their ums, but maybe we had to do a retake.

They wanna know that’s gonna get cut out. And I make sure to reassure them that’s not my goal to leave in those things. I don’t want those in there either when I’m talking. So that’s the power of editing. And I think when I first started, that was what people were worried about. They didn’t know how I would do it, and now they’re like, okay, she’s gonna take that out.

It’s gonna be fine. So that’s a big part of it. And then I would say the third thing is I’ve just learned some people, they’re gonna say no, and I give ’em their space. I don’t push it. And then I have a great example of when this played out. For me like our chief of police, he really was hesitant.

Didn’t know for sure if the video thing was for him, but he saw a lot of his guys underneath him do. Few videos. We do a lot of videos with them. And so he actually asked me to be in a video recently, which was a huge win, and I was so excited about, because I hadn’t pressured him, I just took the, no, gave him some space and then he came back.

So that was a big part of it. And it ties into I guess the last thing I would say is. Just building trust with the coworkers that I have in content is a big part of it. There’s some probably never would’ve said yes, but since I know them and I talk to them and they just know like my goal isn’t to make them look silly or anything and my goal is to get the message out and not always just have me do the video, then that trust has allowed people that I never thought would say yes to be in videos I would say that’s like a mix of the different ways that I go about it.

Sarah Loyd: Yeah. No, that’s great. And I think building trust is so important and demonstrating what we’ve done in the past, like you said and showing Hey, my goal here is to make us look good. I’m not gonna put something out there that doesn’t make our city look good.

Alesha Meadows: Exactly.

Sarah Loyd: All right. So my last question, I know we have some questions in the q and a, but, what other tips would you wanna share with people who want to level up their videos?

Alesha Meadows: Yeah, I would say first be willing to try new things. So if you maybe have no experience with video or you’ve done one style of video, try changing it up a little bit.

We didn’t have any reels on our page before I started working here, and so I was lucky. I just had a. Go forward and have fun mentality on my team. But I would say try the trends. Also, I would recommend maybe starting a video series of some kind that’s really worked well for us. You mentioned our mayor’s minute.

That was a big one, that people just love our mayor here, and I really wanted a way to highlight him and get him in front of people. And so every month he does a video and that’s just a consistent video. You’re gonna have. It helps. ’cause sometimes if you’re trying to post two reels a week, that can be tricky when you’re doing all the other things part of your job too.

So knowing you for sure have that salad idea every single month helps. I would also say a big thing is don’t let the negative comments ’cause you might get ’em impact like future content that you put out. So we’ve had a few instances where we have that happen and you just have to keep rolling with it.

It’s. It’s gonna happen. It’s gonna maybe be shared somewhere that’s not great. Get some negative comments, but you gotta keep pushing forward. And then I would say my last thing is don’t be afraid to be turned down. It’s gonna happen. I go highlight businesses all the time and they don’t always say yes to me filming and that’s okay.

So it’s just part of it. It’s gonna be something you’re gonna learn to just get used to hearing, but you’re gonna get a lot of yeses too, and that’s the most important thing.

Sarah Loyd: Alright, awesome. I’m gonna move on to our next slide, but we do have a lot of questions in the q and a and a lot of them are for you, Alesha. So I will try not to throw you any curve balls here, but I’m doing my best. So the first question is, do you have templates or processes that help you quickly make branded reels?

Alesha Meadows: Yeah, so for my video series reels, I do, I have a template for the two that I do every month. So the mayor’s minute, I have a template and I just throw the footage in there.

And then for the business buzz reels that I do, same thing. I use the same song every single time. And same question slides. I would also say for captioning, we stick to like our branded colors. And so that’s another template sort of way we do it. But then. Other than that, it really is just up to me.

So if I think like music needs to be underneath it or if I think it needs a question, the answer slide included, I just play with whatever the video type is. Not every video is gonna be laid out the exact same.

Sarah Loyd: Yeah, and I know Canva makes it really easy to save your brand colors and have all your logos handy, so that probably helps a lot as well.

Alesha Meadows: I have a whole entire document just for reel elements, and I pull from that all the time. ’cause if I liked how a question slide looked, I might reuse it. So I definitely keep that handy.

Sarah Loyd: Yeah, that’s really smart. All right. So I have a question here about social newses. How does s and d track metrics from different social platforms?

Is there any extra KPIs that can be pulled? If I use s and d, so all of the metrics that we pull in our post manager tool are coming straight from the social networks themselves. The big benefit there is that you can actually compare across. Across channels. So you can compare the views on your TikTok video to the views on your Instagram video to the views on your Facebook video.

So everything is in one place already, so it makes it really easy to compare across networks which is what I really love. There’s not really any extra KPIs, but they are really warehoused all in one place, so it makes it really easy to pull those metrics. Let’s see. What are your agency, this is a question for you, Alesha.

What are your agency’s content pillars? Do you follow a strategy that you can share?

Alesha Meadows: Yeah, so we actually always go back to our core city focus. So we have five pillars for our city. It’s not just related to communications team, and it’s all about making sure people know that we’re a city that focuses on like financial development.

So maybe I’ll make a video about economic development or focus on a business, and then we wanna highlight that we really appreciate our residents. So I’ll make a video. That’s the focus. So I focus on our five pillars and we basically made a rule that if it can’t apply in some way to that, then it has to have another reason to make the fun real, because there’s so many fun trends out there, but if they don’t apply, then it’s not really getting to the point we want.

So I would say that’s the main thing for us, is just making sure it actually relates to what our focus is at the city. Yep.

Sarah Loyd: Yeah. And that kind of dovetails into this next question. How do you remain professionally minded working within a government agency while still trying to make engaging content?

Alesha Meadows: Yeah, so I have heard that a few times from people and I think we are a younger community, so it’s definitely know your audience. We knew that a lot of our residents were on social media, and so therefore, like the professional side that they wanted to see was more what they could relate to. Their own social media that they like to see.

So we were trying to do a balance, like if someone watches the mayor’s minute videos, those aren’t necessarily a fun trend. That’s just him talking. So maybe that works really well with that audience. But then the dancing trend, it might go more for the younger audience. So we are trying to reach all of ’em.

I would also say our long form videos definitely go more into the serious. City side, but we’re also just trying to get more engagement. We saw like a lacking from the younger audience on stagnant posts on our social media. They just don’t want to read a long caption or sit through a long video that might be 10 minutes long.

So that was really like the focus behind the reels, but. It’s definitely important to stick with the business side. I definitely understand that, but also some of our audience, that’s not what they’re fully intending to see all the time, so we’re trying to reach everyone at the same time. So yeah, hopeful that is the question.

Sarah Loyd: Yeah. And so that brings up this next question. Do you ever get feedback from the audience if the content is resonating from with them? Like how do you get that feedback?

Alesha Meadows: Yeah, so I would say we definitely get a lot of comments in our videos. I know not everybody gets that, but that is what we have tended to see.

So we know if people are liking it or not, or sharing it. And that’s helped for sure, because sometimes you do get in a rut and you’re like, is anyone even seeing this? Or is this how they’re resonating? And then we’ve also had in person where a few people have said oh, we found out about. This event through the reel can, and they’ll come into City Hall and ask for more information, or we might post a reel about it and a week later post just a normal Instagram photo and someone will say oh, we saw the reel about this. Can you explain more? So we see a few different ways that we get response, and that definitely is exciting because it makes you know that people are engaging with the content.

Sarah Loyd: That’s the dream, right? Someone comes in and they’re like, yeah, I saw your video. You’re like, yes, my work matters.

Alesha Meadows: Yeah.

Sarah Loyd: That’s awesome. That’s great.

So Alesha, which someone was asking which mics that you use, I know you mentioned they were like $20 Amazon cheapies, but do you know the particular brand?

Alesha Meadows: It is literally the ones that you showed in the mic slide. So it is basically. I typed in wireless mics and for iPhone, and that’s what it was. It’s an off-brand. It really doesn’t have a name. The box doesn’t have a name on it, but it’s one where you just plug it into your phone and then the mic, you just hold it in on the back and it connects automatically. You don’t need Bluetooth, you don’t need a wire and to charge it. It’s just USB, so it’s the easiest because the wire situation can be tricky. Yeah. Depending on who you’re filming with. And it comes with two, so you can have two people talking on camera at once, which is great. And even the charging is easy. So I’ve loved them. We have the road mics and I honestly don’t use them at all because these are just so much easier, especially when you’re like doing reels and you’re having to travel around the city. It’s not always convenient to drag around the huge camera and the mic set up. And this is a one little box that I carry around and $20. It was great.

Sarah Loyd: Yeah. That’s awesome. Somebody else was asking a question about the mics. Do you have to replace them every so often? And they were asking if you noticed that they tend to blare the audio.

Alesha Meadows: So we haven’t had that problem. I’ve had ’em for two and a half years now, and. If they haven’t blurred audio at all for us, I would say like the only thing maybe we’ve experienced is a little bit, if it’s windy, a little bit of feedback.

Also I always make sure they put it down further on their shirts because if it’s too close it will get like really muffled. So those are the two things I’ve noticed. But besides that, we haven’t had any issues. I’ve only ever used the one set though, so I’m not really sure if there’s another one that’s not great out there.

Yeah, we haven’t had any problems, which is good.

Sarah Loyd: Yeah. Yeah. And when I was searching there are like tons and tons of them and a lot of them, like you said, are off brand. So I would definitely, try one if it doesn’t work well for you, just use that Amazon return policy and try another one. Or if not, you’re out about 20 bucks. So hopefully not too much of an investment there. Yeah. Alright. How much time do you typically spend on editing a video?

Alesha Meadows: So

Sarah Loyd: when I first started, it probably took me if, depending on the length of the video, I never do a reel over a minute in 30 seconds because like you said, people don’t love longer videos.

Alesha Meadows: So if we’re specifically talking about reels and it’s like a 30 second reel, when I first started, it probably took me about a half hour and now I would say if. Depending on if someone’s talking in it. ’cause that does take a little longer to make sure you make them sound okay. It probably takes me about 15, 20 minutes if it’s just a reel that has music underneath it and is a trend like the dancing one, it’s gonna take 20 minutes.

If it’s the mayor’s video, it might take an hour because I put B roll over it too. I just really like doing that so that it’s not just him standing still. The whole time changes it up, and I am going to get that B roll from past footage. So that’s just why it takes a little longer is finding the right clips and also editing what he’s saying.

But

Sarah Loyd: besides that, like that’s the longest it ever takes me. So yeah, 15 minutes is an average for me, which is great.

That’s great. And yeah, I would imagine like getting your mayor down to a minute is probably a big challenge as well.

Alesha Meadows: That’s the other part of it. Yeah. When you agree to a series that’s focused on a minute every single time, that’s tricky.

Sarah Loyd: Yeah. You gotta keep it to a minute. Yep. Keep it short.

Alright, so last question. Do you post or find value in YouTube shorts?

Alesha Meadows: So we actually are starting to put our reels on YouTube shorts, so we’re not filming separate footage for it. I haven’t had a ton of engagement yet ’cause we just don’t have as many followers on YouTube.

But I think they’re great because they’re just another audience to get your content out there. I would say we probably have had 30 views at most on ours, so it hasn’t been a huge investment. For me yet, but yeah, that’s definitely something we’re slowly trickling into. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

Sarah Loyd: Yeah. And using a tool like Social News Desk allows you to publish to multiple platforms at once. So you don’t necessarily have to go to YouTube and upload it. You can just upload it right there in the tool. So it’s really clicking another checkbox. So it makes it a really low barrier to entry.

Alesha Meadows: It’s been great. I’ve been doing that. Yeah.

Sarah Loyd: Awesome. I’m glad to hear it. Yeah. Alright, thank you all again for your time and attention today and huge thank you to Alesha.

Thank you so much for being here with me.

Alesha Meadows: Of course.

Sarah Loyd: If you’d like to learn more about Social News Desk or wanna try it for yourself, you can head to socialnewsdesk.com/demo or email us at info@socialnewsdesk.com. Thank you all so much. Y’all have a great rest of your day.