Improving Your Video Storytelling

What You’ll Learn

Taylor Holland dishes out tips for improving your video work, from planning and preproduction to software and postproduction.

Guest Speaker

Taylor Holland

Show Notes

Transcripts have been lightly edited for clarity and readability.

Introduction:
A production of pioneer utility resources story connect, helping communicators discover ideas to shape their stories and connect with their customers.

Andy Johns: What are some things you can do to upgrade your video storytelling? That’s what we’re going to be talking about in this episode of Story Connect Podcast. My name is Andy Johns, your host with Pioneer, and I’m joined on this episode by Taylor Holland, who is the digital communications manager for NTCA the Rural Cloud Band Association Taylor, thanks for joining me.

Taylor Holland: I appreciate it.

Andy Johns: So we are right here at the center of the rural broadband marketing universe. This week we are in Austin, TX and we’ll be recording a few episodes here at the NCAA marketing and sales conference. Always a good one every year. Thanks for your help and for TCA’s effort to make this. Get everybody together, of course. So your session is called DIY Video Tips and you’re going to be presenting that later. I haven’t seen it yet, but. Tell us a little bit about what you’re going to be sharing with folks.

Taylor Holland: Sure. So first thanks for having me again. You mentioned marketing and sales, it’s one of our biggest conferences, but this year we’ve got over 370 people, which is a big conference.

Andy Johns: It’s a great group.

Taylor Holland: Its’ a record including 150 plus first timers, so I think we’re sort of seeing the importance of a what we’re talking about today and be sort of the larger picture on ways we want to market ourselves and our companies.

Andy Johns: I think that’s good news for everybody to. See that trend going up?

Taylor Holland: I think so too. I think it’s a really good read into what’s happening here. And so yes, I’m moderating a panel DIY video marketing because one of the main things everybody here wants to learn this how to better tell their own stories, right? Everybody’s got a story to tell. I’m a recovering print journalist. I worked in newspapers for the first beginning of my career.

Andy Johns: Same.

Taylor Holland: And ultimately it breaks my heart to say we know that they are on the decline. It’s true there was an opening session here and they even mentioned, you know, people aren’t reading the newspapers as much anymore. What we want to do is kind of talk about affordable ways that people can tell their stories. Get their messages out without breaking the bank. Right? Easy ways to go. And so our channel to get back to what we wanted to talk about is sort of setting. People up to. Learn the different platforms, learn the different ways they can talk about their companies. They can show their work in the community. They can show the good news stories that are happening every day, all around them, and do it in a way that won’t break the bank and do in a way where you don’t have to go out and find some video specialists to come in, right? It’s very much a do-it-yourself thing. And so that’s what we’re hoping to. We’re hoping to empower people, if you will, to know that this is something they can do just from the comfort of their own desk.

Andy Johns: Perfect. I like the way that you, you come at that with that perspective, that storytelling and storytelling, they’ve got different platforms. You can do it with, but whether you’re doing print, whether you’re writing, whether it’s video, all the different platforms, a lot of those basic storytelling principles are the same.

Taylor Holland: Exactly. It’s just when you say the word video. Right, when you get a camera. Even if it’s your phone and your point at somebody’s face, it’s very intimidating too. And so that’s, that’s the chief principle that we’re trying to get across in this panel. It’s intimidating, but it’s just like what you did in school. It’s just like what you see our newspaper people do and remove the camera for a minute. Just think about it. The goal is just to get pen to paper, figure out what it is you want to communicate, and get rolling. So yeah, the similarities are certainly there.

Andy Johns: And the technology is there, I mean as good as phones have gotten right now, sure you can bring in the production crew and all that. There’s great work to be done there. There’s a time when that works, but you can also do so much with the phone and some of the software. Some of the other pieces that that you guys are going to be sharing in the session.

Taylor Holland: And I don’t mean to, you know. Decide the importance of the video cruise right. There’s always a time and a place, but yeah, but sometimes you just want to go out and show your folks putting fiber down. Sometimes you just want to go talk to a local business owner, right and say, how have you used what we’re providing you? Well, how has our service helped you? You don’t have to spend a lot of money on that. That is something you can just point and shoot on your phone and that’s really something like I said that we’re trying to drive home with the session.

Andy Johns: What are some of the other things or areas you that you think the session is going to go into.

Taylor Holland: Today, so platforms, right, we obviously know Facebook. We got someone going to talk about Snapchat a little bit it’s certainly just the various different social media platforms that we have found to be successful. And spoiler alert it is all three of those. And so we’re going to get into a little bit about that and then some tips to how to make your videos work. I talked about how people aren’t reading as much anymore. People sure as heck aren’t also going to watch, 3,5,7,10 minute videos and so we’re going to sort of outline how to make a successful video as well, which I think is something that a lot of folks here can benefit from as they as they go out for the first time, whether it’s a marketing team of 1 or a marketing team of 3,4,5, it’s something that I think everybody needs to practice and get pretty well versed at.

Andy Johns: And it’s changing. You know, I remember just a few years ago it we, you know, we joke like never turn your phone vertical to shoot video always go horizontal. But now there’s I mean with TikTok with reels with all that stuff.

Taylor Holland: Snapchat, same thing. You’ve gotta go.

Andy Johns: So it’s changing and I imagine that’s something that’s gonna come up with the group too, that that even if you knew if you knew how to do video three or four years ago and maybe different rules now.

Taylor Holland: It’s part of the game, right? We’re even. We’re talking about video, right? Clearly the way we are telling our stories is changing. Every day. And that’s why I think we see 370 people last year at this conference and that’s why I think the video sort of topic is a is a hot topic for this conference. You’re absolutely right.

Andy Johns: Now I don’t want to take anything away from the from the session, and I know you’ve got some great panelists lined up, but what are some tips or what are some rules, some of the things that you’ll be sharing in terms of takeaways from the session that you hope folks will bring back home with them?

Taylor Holland: So what we’re really trying to get across is that it’s not as scary. It’s not as daunting. It’s not as intimidating as you think it is. We’re encouraging folks to come in, take pen to paper and kind of figure out what it is they want to.

Andy Johns: Right.

Taylor Holland: That’s the key for these really short 15,30,60 second videos, right? You want to get your message across right at the top and then roll with it so people don’t have to watch too long because if they do, we’re going to lose them. Right. And so we’re going to tell people not to think about their message. Get it out quick. And then one of the key things where I think we lose people. Too is when we look at analytics. I think people see that their videos may not be shared as much as they may think. They’re not going viral. There’s not a meme of us doing these right. It’s just sometimes when you start your numbers aren’t that great and one thing we’re really trying to tell people do is your story is important. You hear it and so don’t let those numbers don’t let those analytics throw you off your game.

Andy Johns: And then you’ve always got somebody and I’ve heard it come from executives. “Hey, we need a video to go viral. Go make us a video that will go viral. Or whatever it’s like, well, good.

Taylor Holland: You almost feel like, you’re set up to fail. People want to hear what you’re doing. They want to see what you’re doing and they love to hear the good news. Not only that, with these self-made videos, people love seeing themselves. They love seeing their neighbors. They love seeing building they drive past every day, right? It’s little things like that that maybe won’t go viral. But what they will do is catch your community’s attention, and it’s going to enable you to share your story to tell your story. On your platform, frankly, and it’s, it’s easier than people think.

Andy Johns: Now there was a key point to what you said there. My favorite Mark Twain quote and the listeners have probably heard me say this before, but allegedly Mark Twain said “I didn’t have time to write you a short letter. So I wrote you a long one instead” because short, concise messages, whether it’s a letter, whether it’s a video, they take a lot of planning, it takes a lot of work. So, I like that you went into that, you know? Yes, it looks like the influencer or whoever just put a camera on and started recording, but there’s really a lot of planning and prep that goes into that to figure out what you’re going to say in a very limited amount of time.

Taylor Holland: Frankly that’s sort of when you start to feel comfortable, you’re not just going Facebook live right, we’re not just expecting you to come out and drop some serious knowledge on us. There is a lot of planning and you can take as many takes as you need. You need to go in knowing what it is you want to talk about and that sort of comfort. Again, it’s the same way for me when I was a journalist. I’d sit down and I know what I was going to write about and the paper sort of flowed. So that’s we’re encouraging folks to know.

Andy Johns: What else from the session did you have? You got a couple notes written here. Anything else that you? Want to share that we haven’t gotten into?

Taylor Holland: Well, you mentioned you mentioned how hard it can be to get a short, concise message out. And I think that the other thing we’re gonna sort of impart into people is that you can drive people to your website. You don’t have to be a one stop shop right? You need to get peoples attention, which you can do again, showing them, showing their neighbors, showing your community, showing your good news stories, and then you can drive them to a site where you have to. If you need to put in larger information, you’re welcome to do it. And so it’s just about how to be quick and noticable. And just catch, you know, we’re all scrolling through our phones, whether it’s in a session here. Heaven forbid.

Andy Johns: No, never, never.

Taylor Holland: Out on master?

Andy Johns: Not an NCAA conferences. Maybe the others.

Taylor Holland: Never MTC conferences.

Andy Johns: Definitely on mass transit.

Taylor Holland: You’re plane this taxing out, you’re looking at, you know, you don’t have sound. So you wanna make sure you have captions. And I mean it’s just little tips like that where we really think we have some useful thoughts we can share with folks to set them up for success.

Andy Johns: Last thing for you, as if somebody’s listening to this or somebody attends the panel and they, they do have limited resources, a small shop that think, yeah, I really need to step up the, the game here for video. What advice would you have for them, or what? What do you tell folks when they’re kind of getting just getting started?

Taylor Holland: No, it’s a good question and I think like. We said because video is constantly evolving, the way we’re telling stories is evolving. There are more than ever. There are so many different resources on how you can get your videos uploaded and edited for a while. I won’t call out specifics, but there was really only like one platform, right? And So what I would encourage people is not to to fit their square. They can find what works for them. And I think knowing that there are easy solutions out there, you don’t have to be a video expert. You don’t have to be an editing expert at it. There are very easy platforms that can enable you to get your videos edited, get it done well and get it up quickly. And it’s not as daunting as I think it was even when I was going through journalism school. It’s getting easier. And they’re making it so you can do it. Anybody can do it, whether you’re a team of 1,2,3,5. So I would just encourage folks to kind of explore around and find what works.

Andy Johns: It’s out there and it’s getting easier. Who knows, in a year or two when we do this, if we get back together at one of these, we may be having AI do all our videos for us. Who knows.

Taylor Holland: I was going to say that seems like a great session for 2024.

Andy Johns: Let’s go ahead and plan. Well, thanks for joining.

Taylor Holland: Hey, I appreciate it.

Andy Johns: Thank you for your time. He is Taylor Holland, the digital communications manager at NTCA. I’m Andy Johns with pioneer. And until we talk again, keep telling your story.

Outro:
Story Connect is produced by Pioneer Utility Resources, a communications cooperative that is built to share your story. Story Connect is engineered by Lucas Smith of Lucky Sound studio.