Why You Must Use Video in Your Marketing Transcript

Greg Wilkes (00:01):

The construction industry can be a tough business to crack from cashflow problems. Struggling to find skilled labor and not making enough money for your efforts leaves many business owners feeling frustrated and burnt out. But when you get the business strategy right, it’s an industry that can be highly satisfying and financially rewarding. I’m here to give you the resources to be able to create a construction business that gives you more time, more freedom and more money. This is the Develop Your Construction Business podcast, and I’m your host, Greg Wilkes.

Greg Wilkes (00:43):

So, today’s podcast, we are talking about video and why you must be using video on your social media today if you really want to stand out above the rest. Now, you might be listening straight away and thinking, I don’t want to do video. I’m not comfortable in front of a camera. That’s just not me. I’d rather not do it. Thank you very much. Well, I completely understand that and get that. I didn’t like being on video many years back either. It just feels uncomfortable and unnatural, doesn’t it, to have to put yourself out there like that? But the reality is that video is going absolutely crazy on social media compared to normal posts that go out with text and photos. So, if you’re not using video, you really are missing a trick. So what we’re going to be looking at in this podcast is why you should be using video, what power it has over normal posts.

(01:34)
What you can do if you feel uncomfortable about using video. We’re going to look at some strategies and techniques to make sure that you are better and perform more comfortably. In front of the camera, we’re going to give you some content ideas and tips. So, lots of practical value that you’re going to get from this episode. And hopefully, by the end of it, you’re going to think, yeah, I’m fired up. I’m ready now. And you’re going to hit record, and you’re going to get something on video and post it out there on social media. So let’s jump in, and first of all, we just want to talk about the subject of why should you be considering video as opposed to normal posts with text and photos? Well, we just know already, don’t we? Without even having to give you too many statistics that platforms like TikTok have absolutely exploded in the past few years with popularity.

(02:25)
And it’s not just popular amongst young people, it’s popular amongst all the ages. If you actually look at the age of users now, it’s going up. It’s not children anymore. So you’ll find that it’s not all about just people dancing in front of the camera. There’s a lot more to TikTok now, and I’m sure you are probably a user yourself. I’m 40 years old, and I’ve been on it a few times and trying to improve my golf swing. It’s brilliant for all sorts of things. Now, the reason video is so powerful is because it’s so much more engaging than just a text and a picture. And just to give you some stats that I’ve just got here on my computer. So as of the end of 2021, so this is a couple of years old, these stats, 82% of all internet traffic was made up of video content.

(03:14)
That’s crazy. 82% is made up of video content. Video content on social media platform have 48% more views than non-video content. So that’s really powerful. And over 90% of consumers are watching videos on their mobile phones now. So we know everyone’s got a phone in their hand. This is what they’re doing. They’re on their phones, they’re watching video content, and you probably do it yourself. You pick up your phone, you’re bored, and what are you doing? You’re probably scrolling through reels and video content rather than actual the main Facebook feeds and Instagram feeds. So think about how you behave and how you perform, and that’s very much likely how your clients are going to be performing too, or your potential clients. So we know it’s popular, we know how important video is becoming as a social media tool, but why do you need to use it as a strategy?

(04:10)
Well, first we want to think about what customers are going on social media to do. Well, first of all, we want to think about what power video has over normal posts. So the first thing that it does is it has human connection and that’s really important. We are looking for that human connection and especially if you are looking to have a project done and you want to spend your life savings on getting your house refurbished or getting a new boiler in or whatever it’s going to be, and you’re going to spend a significant sum, you really want to have a human connection with the company or the person that’s going to be doing that work. And sometimes people are out there and they’re just a little bit faceless. If you look at some companies, you don’t know who the business owner is. And do people really trust that?

(04:58)
If you’ve got two choices, if you’ve got a company and you can’t work out who the business owner is and you’ve got another company where the business owner is there and he’s presentable on camera, who are you going to go for initially? Well, it’s clearly going to be the person that you can interact with and that you feel like. So you get that human connection when you show your face on camera. And the good thing about facial recognition is that people recognize and interpret faces. So when they see a face that they see over and over again, and if they like what you’re doing and like what you’re saying, it actually triggers feelings of empathy and trust and that’s perfect. Imagine getting a client to trust you before you’ve even walked through their door. And that’s what we want and that’s what video can do for you over normal social media posts.

(05:47)
Also, you get nonverbal cues through video. So for example, when someone’s talking, you are reading their facial expressions, and subconsciously you are making judgments about their body language and their tone of voice and all of that comes across in a video, but that doesn’t come across with a picture or a text. You can’t sometimes work out the tone of a paragraph just by reading text, but you can on video. So, people really respond to that. They like this connection and these nonverbal cues that gives you more authenticity when you’re on camera. People feel like they can relate to you if they see you speaking. And also, as we spoke about, it helps you with your brand. You become no longer a faceless brand, but people see who is actually behind that brand, and they can form an opinion around you and your business. There are so many benefits for clients seeing you on video.

(06:46)
And if we were summarizing all of that up, what we are really looking for is we want clients to come and know, like, and trust us. They’re the three things: know, like, and trust. And video does all of those three things for you if you do it well on camera. So that’s one of the big reasons why you want to be using video over normal posts. Not only do we want people to see you as the business owner on camera, but we also want people to see your team because that builds up trust too, if they can see who’s working for you. So don’t be shy in getting some of your team members who might be more comfortable in front of the camera. Get them on camera, get them talking, do a little side interview with one of your team members, and talk about what their role is.

(07:30)
That’s really good because, again, we’re building up that trust, and people will start watching this and consuming your content and now feel like they know your company and your business and those that are working for you when they can see you on video. So why might you be holding back at the moment from doing video content, what might be putting you off from doing it? Well, it’s common, isn’t it, that we can feel very nervous about doing video sometimes. It just doesn’t come naturally at all to us and we think I’m just not that sort of person. I’m a little bit introverted. I don’t want to put my face out there all the time. I’m not used to speaking in front of a camera. In fact, I’ve tried it before and I just mess up every single time. So no, that’s not for me, and I get that completely.

(08:14)
A lot of us feel like that, don’t we? That we don’t want to talk in front of a camera, and it isn’t really that natural. Is it at all to have to talk away in front of a lens? But we do need to overcome that and it’s important that we do try. And one thing I will promise you is that the more you do it, the more you get yourself out there and in front of the camera, you do get more used to it and it does become more natural and you don’t mind going through it. And sometimes we’ve just got to not take ourselves too seriously and not worry about messing up because that’s the other fear. Oh, I’m going to mess it up. I’m going to sound like an idiot. People are going to think I’m stupid. No one really cares. To be honest.

(08:52)
It doesn’t matter if you mess up and you stumble and you “Um” and “Uh” and fumble away. No one’s really that bothered about that. And if you actually look at some people who are absolutely brilliant on camera now and you compare their current videos to maybe their videos two, or three years ago, you’ll see a massive improvement from those people. And sometimes you look at some really famous people, and it’s quite embarrassing. The videos they put out two, three years ago, you think, wow, how did you even manage to post that and get that out there? You seem so uncomfortable. But they do. They persevere with it, and they get it done, and they get it out there, and they improve over time. And that’s what we want you to do. We want you to do exactly the same. Just get on camera, get used to it, and you will improve the process.

(09:37)
And one big thing that you’ve got to be able to get over is a fear of perfectionism that can really cripple you and hold you back. So sometimes people want to get in front of the camera, and they’ll do a take, they’ll film it and they’ll mess it up, and they’ll do it again and they’ll mess it up and they’ll do it again and they might have one little “Um” or “Uhh” and they’ll do it again. And perfectionism will absolutely cripple you if that’s your problem. It doesn’t matter if it’s not perfect. There’s a saying that a good friend of mine, Daniel Priestley always uses, he says prolific beats perfect or prolific beats perfectionism, something like that. And it’s a really interesting phrase because that’s what we want. We want to be prolific, just get a ton of content out there and that’s much better than just getting perfect content out there that might be limited.

(10:23)
So try and be prolific in the content that you put out there on camera. So what are some of the things you need to start shooting video? Do you need to have expensive cameras and a studio and a big lighting set up and whatever else? Well, no, not at all. The good thing is now if you’ve got yourself an iPhone, something like this, the iPhones today, the cameras they’ve got on them are absolutely incredible and the microphones aren’t too bad either. So, just having a decent phone camera can do the job for you. I probably would suggest if you are using a camera, you might want to buy yourself a small tripod so you can set a little tripod up on your desk. It just cost you 10 to 15 pounds or so, for a small tripod. That can be easier than actually holding a camera out in front of your face.

(11:06)
So think about that. You do want to have good lighting too, so try and stand in front of a window with a window facing you, or you can buy some cheap ring lights that your camera can go inside or it can sit behind the camera. But wherever you do, just make sure you’ve got some good lighting because obviously, you want your face to be there and people to be able to see you. So they’re the things you want to get off your checklist: a tripod, a light and a half-decent camera, which can be your phone. With regards to microphones, there are some brilliant microphones you can use. So if you are on-site and you are filming content on site and you find it’s a little bit noisy, you might want to invest in a microphone called the RØDE go. So that’s R-Ø-D-E and GO, and the RØDE Go is an awesome bit of kit.

(11:54)
It’s a really small mic, a little lapel mic that you can put on here and you can also plug it into your phone. That is really good because it will limit the surround sound around you and just pick up your voice. That could be really useful. A mic that I would probably avoid using would be the Apple AirPod EarPods that you can put in. They’re actually a little bit rubbish and sometimes they don’t really pick up your voice very well. So I’ve tried to record video on my AirPods quite a few times and the quality has always been really poor. So I’ll try and avoid that if possible. If you are at home and you’ve got a computer desk in front of you, you can go and buy yourself a mic. Again, I’m big about RØDE mic, so I’ve got a mic here in front of me.

(12:37)
Let me just show you it. So that’s a RØDE go mic. I don’t even know what model that is, but that’s just mounted on my desk and it really does the job and picks up my voice pretty well. So quite happy with that, but you don’t have to worry about all of that. If you are out and about, just use your phone and just make sure you’ve got good lighting and that will get you started. So what type of video content do you want to be putting out there? So you might think, right, I’m up for it. I’ve got my camera, I’m ready to go, but what should you actually post? That’s the big question, isn’t it? Well, what we want to do is just plan this out and it’s really good to plan out what you’re actually going to use as part of your video content.

(13:17)
So there might be thinking specifically about construction, you might have some tutorials about how you are doing a particular task. You’re not doing yourself out of work by doing that because no one’s going to be bothered to actually do the task themselves. But what a tutorial does is it shows the customer that you are authentic and you are an authority in your space. So tutorials can be really good just showing you know what you’re talking about. You can also do some behind-the-scenes footage of one of your sites and show what’s going on. You can talk about your company and your values and what problems you solve, all that sort of thing. So a little bit of an interview about you, why you got into the business, what you are passionate about, why you enjoy construction, all of that can help. You can do interviews with your staff, talk about their roles, what they’re doing, what they enjoy, all that type of thing can be really useful.

(14:10)
So there’s really a ton of content and footage that you can put out there to make your videos interesting, and you should never really run out of ideas. What length should videos be? Well, at the moment, really popular are Reels which are under 60 seconds. We are quite impatient people and we just want to watch things really quick. So these shorts and reels are really popular at the moment. So that means you can literally film something in less than 60 seconds and that can still have a good effect. If you do film longer videos than that, longer than 60 seconds, you can still put them out there, but there are some great tools for repurposing your videos that will trim them down for you. So let’s imagine you go and put a five-minute video out there about something you’re doing on-site and you’re giving some detailed instructions about how you fit this boiler or how you’re going to pitch this roof or whatever it’s you’re going to do.

(15:04)
And you then want to trim that down, make that into YouTube shorts or Reels that are under 60 seconds. But this is what we call repurposing your content. Now, there are some great tools out there you can use to do this. One tool that I’m using at the moment, which I think is fantastic is called Opus Pro, O-p-u-s Pro. And that repurposes all your content. So you can punch in your 15-minute video, upload that, and what it’ll do is it’ll split that clip down into four or five other clips and you can say what length you want it to be, 30 seconds, 60 seconds, and it’ll give you the best of that clip. It’ll also give you captions for the clip too. So we know how popular captions are online and you good to go, that means you’ve done one five-minute video, and you’ve ended up with five other short videos.

(15:51)
So now you’ve got six videos altogether, five short ones and one long one. And that’s how you repurpose content. And before you know it, when you do this, you really start building up a bank of content of short form and long form that you can keep posting again and again, and you don’t have to worry about reposting the same stuff. In reality, people aren’t often seeing your stuff. So if you post something one week and then you post it again in two weeks’ time or three weeks time, people probably haven’t even seen it, or they won’t remember it. So don’t worry about posting things multiple times because the feeds often you don’t see what’s actually going on in the feeds anyway, so you’ve probably not missed anything, or they haven’t missed anything. If you’re putting all this effort into videos, one thing you do want to consider is, are they effective or not.

(16:37)
Are they getting you results? Sometimes there might be a video that you put out there that you think, yeah, this is going to be brilliant. I’m going to do a video about my company’s values and what we do as a business. And you put it out there and it gets no likes and hardly any views and no interaction whatsoever. And you think, oh, I worked so hard on that, I actually did a full production and got no results from it. And then you might go and do another video of literally filming one of your workers on site, banging a nail into a piece of wood, and you think, oh, this is so boring, and you might be talking about it, and it’s a bit raw and a bit rough, the footage, and that gets tons of views and tons of likes. So sometimes what you think is going to work doesn’t always work.

(17:15)
And you’ve got to use the metrics and the stats. Engagement rates, view counts to try and measure your return on investment. And when we say return on investment, you can’t necessarily put a monetary figure to it. The view counts and the engagement rates, that’s your return on time, isn’t it? So that’s what we mean by return on investment. So make sure you are monitoring what’s working and what’s not, because sometimes people want to see things that are quite raw and not necessarily all the streamlined professional edited stuff. I’ve got a friend at the moment, Ashley Macintosh. He was actually on the podcast a few months back, and he was doing a podcast on TikTok and how he’d really exploded on TikTok. All he was doing was filming himself pressure washing a roof, and that video when he did it is going to be much more than this now, but when he actually filmed that, it got 43 million views, it went absolutely viral.

(18:11)
And he said that he literally just put a camera up in a corner, propped it up on a gutter, something like that. It was really basic stuff. And he said that got 43 million views, and then sometimes some of his really polished videos get nothing at all or hardly any reach. So that’s why you do need to look at the stats and work out what’s working and what’s not and go with what’s working and double down on it. If people like the raw, uncut stuff, then use that if you need to, if you’re worried about making mistakes on your videos and ways to make them easier. There’s also an app that’s really useful, and it’s called CapCut, C-A-P-C-U-T. Now, what CapCut does is if you’ve got your camera and your phone in front of you, you can literally, if I just show this on the video here, I can push a button on CapCut and start recording, and I’ll say a couple of sentences or so and then stop.

(19:07)
And you’ll let go of the button and it’ll stop recording. And then you start thinking about what your next few lines are going to be. And then you press record again, and it will record those lines and you let go and you stop. And then you think again what the next bit’s going to be. That can be really useful because what it then does is you can do that 10 times, you get yourself a two-minute video and it will trim it all down, get rid of all the gaps, and it looks like you’ve got a nice edited, streamlined video that’s been prepared. So that’s quite useful, and that saves you a lot of time having to really think of scripts and whatever else you can just film it on the fly and just stop recording and then rerecord once again. So, my top two tips of tools will be CapCut and Opus Pro.

(19:48)
I think they’re absolutely awesome in order to get quick video content out there. So just to summarize that and wrap that up, it’s just a nice short, easy podcast to listen to today. What are we looking for with video content? Well, number one, we want your customers to know, like, and trust you. That’s absolutely crucial. And video content does that. It gets them to get to know you as a person. It gets them to know your employees and your company in a way that normal posts just can’t. So you want to be using video to get that human interaction with your clients. That’s number one. We spoke about how to plan content and the type of content that you can use, tons of stuff there using what’s going on on-site to your company values, talking about you, lots of different ideas on content that you can use.

(20:36)
If you’re ever struggling for content ideas, just pop onto ChatGPT and type in there, give me 10 ideas for some video content for my plumbing company or my construction company. And it would just rattle off 10 right there, there, and then for you that you can go out and film. So that might help. And the third thing we spoke about was making sure you measure the return on investment. And what we mean by that is the engagement rates and view counts. What is it that people are consuming and watching because that’s what you want to do more of. So I hope that helps a little bit. I’d really love to see you on camera and video. We’ll see you on the next episode.

Greg Wilkes (21:25):

If you’d like to work with me to fast-track your construction business growth, then reach out on developcoaching.com.au.