Salma Jafri

I'm Salma Jafri. I'm a Video Content Strategist and I also run a YouTube show called Be The Media, where I teach brands and entrepreneurs how to own their presence on video and just have a presence on all sorts of video networks. I'm a Channel Partner with Entrepreneur.com and I also run a training academy for video marketing called Be The Media Mastermind. So I really think that there is a concept going around right now, which is like, okay, we got to do video, right? So brands are like, okay, we got to do video and then let's make a video and then just publish it on Facebook and Twitter and YouTube and Instagram and Snapchat and on and on, right? And I'm really passionate about helping brands understand that just like people are different, social media networks are all very different. They have different algorithms, they have different audiences, people use them in different ways, and so you cannot have a one video strategy and do like a copy paste job with video, right? You need to understand how to adapt and strategize before you even start filming. You have to understand what the different platforms are there for, what kind of video is going to work on each platform. What works on YouTube will not work on Facebook, will not work on Pinterest, will not work on Instagram necessarily, right? So I think that you need to go into cross platform videos with a strategy and understanding what the different social media platforms bring to the table. So first of all, I think we're in a video first era, hashtag video first. So I really do believe that when you're thinking about your inbound marketing or your content marketing strategy as a whole, it's almost easier to start with the most difficult thing and for most brands that's video, right? So it's easier if you start with video and then use that video to maybe take the audio from there and run a podcast, take the transcript from there and convert it into a blog post, make nice thumbnails or code cards from there, put those up on Instagram. So that's part of my upcycling strategy where I help brands create video content but then all of these other pieces of content from it as well. So that's something that I think is a way of working smarter with video and it's harnessing the entire power of video because video's got everything. It's got images, you can still screen, you can take bits and pieces of audio out from that or the entire thing. So it's just the richest medium of communication right now and I think that you can sort of break that up into other mediums of communication once you have a great looking video and a great sounding video. Well, I think one of the reasons is very simple and obvious. It's differentiation. It's what blogs or advertising used to do maybe 10 years from now or even 5 years from now. Everyone wanted to either have Facebook ads or Google ads or they wanted to have fresh content via blog. So now I think podcasting and video is becoming more of a way to differentiate yourself and to be able to get your message out in a more richer way than just blogging per se would do. So I think that's one reason but I think another reason also is because the technology is becoming so much fun to use. Literally there's an advancement happening in video technology every other week or so. There's all the stuff that Facebook is doing. It's hard to even just keep track of all the stuff. There's Instagram stories. That's a whole new medium, how to use video for that. And so it's just fun to explore all of these mediums and see how you can make the best use of it. So I think that the tech companies are giving us all of these tools and for us as marketers or as entrepreneurs it's fun to sort of experiment and see how far we can take it and what more we can do with it. Well, it totally depends on the platform. So for example Facebook would count a video view in 3 seconds whereas YouTube would be a couple of minutes. So that's one thing. So you have to understand the metrics are going to differ, the success ratio is going to differ depending on the platform that you're on first of all. The other thing that I love to see on all platforms is watch time, retention. So how much of my video is the audience actually watching and then engaging with? Because if it's just going to be a fly by video and they're not going to remember it or engage with it, because the thing is that if they engage with it they're more likely to remember it and more likely to stop scrolling next time to see it on Facebook. On YouTube for example they're more likely to be searching for my brand. So in the beginning they might be searching for like, so for example I make video marketing topics, so they might be searching for how to create a Facebook Live. But once they find my video then they might be searching for Salma Jafri Facebook Live. So the searches start to become more branded and that's something I'm measuring and I'm tracking that okay after the initial Google search then am I getting branded searches after that, which means that there is brand recall happening. The other thing I love for YouTube Analytics is I like to see the audience retention graph and where attentions are falling and where they're picking up. Because that's a great indicator of where people might be getting bored. Is your intro too long? Is your music distracting? Did you say something, did you choose a topic that people were not interested in? So that's something that's very powerful and you can adjust like literally in real time. You can adjust and make better videos based on how your audience is reacting to them. So I'm a big fan of YouTube Analytics right now. That's my main go to. I'm probably in my Analytics like twice a day and I have the Creator Studio app on my phone which is actually a great app. Then I also use a couple of other tools like TubeBuddy. So that's also a great app. I use Morningfame. It's a fairly new app. Still in beta I think. But yeah those are some of my go to apps. I think going forward there are just basically two things. Retention, how much of an audience can you retain? And then I think brand recall is something that you want to really pay attention to. So I think those are the two I would watch. Oh okay that's like a loaded question right? So video success means different things to everybody right? It would really depend on what you want to get out of it. So if you want to get just brand visibility and awareness then entertainment would be probably one of the best ways to go because people watch something that shocks them, humors them, makes them laugh, makes them feel all of these diverse emotions right? So that would be something. So video success would really just depend on what your ultimate goal is. So if your goal is subscribers then make more videos. Like have a consistent schedule. If your goal is brand awareness then do interesting collaborations with influencers or mini influencers in your industry. If your goal is like a lot of entrepreneurs I work with they want to be speakers and they want to use video as a platform. So if that's your goal then you know practice your on stage presence and use video to harness that. So it just really depends. But work backwards. Define what your success metric is and then work backwards on how you can get there. So if you want conversions I would say use YouTube end cards. Use the, use info cards within your video. So for example if you have maybe a five minute video and it's teaching people on how to do something. It's an informative educational video right? And they want to learn more. Bring in a little bit of entertainment value to your production as well so it's not dry content because nobody wants to watch an academic style video. So make it fun, make it engaging, be authentic to what your brand is. But then put in a lot of CTAs. So you want one at the beginning, you want one in the middle and you want one at the end. So utilize end cards, utilize people being able to click directly from their mobile phone to go to your product, to your website, to your sales pages and also say it. I find that a lot of brands think that if they just put links everywhere people are going to click on them. But I think that you need to go the extra step and actually tell people, links are in the description. Go click over here to watch more. Subscribe to the channel if you want more info on this topic. If you enjoyed it leave a comment below. Share this out if it made you smile. Say it as well as have links everywhere basically. At least I would say in the beginning, middle and end for a five or ten minute video. And then if you want to take that strategy over on Facebook again you have to figure out where to place your CTAs. So learn more or watch or shop here. So those could be the kind of CTAs that would go at the end of your videos which would be integrated into the Facebook platform. Well I think that the hack comes from a problem. So the problem is that people start to think of video production as oh my god there's so many moving parts. There's all of this tech stuff that we have to learn. There's all of this scripting and production and everything that needs to go into it. So the hack is if you batch produce videos and if you plan out your content strategy. So what I do is I help brands plan out the next three months. Why three months? Because it's not too long and it's not too short. If you do it for a year things change, stuff happens in the industry and you lose that flexibility and spontaneity. If you do it for just one week ahead you feel like you're always playing catch up. But three months is sort of the sweet spot of planning out your video content strategy. What topics do you want to cover? Can you do like eight videos in one day? Can you streamline your production? So you just pay once for either booking a studio or booking time for you know filming and production and then editing and all of that. So I just think that if you work with a strategic plan then it saves time, it makes your content better because you can be like okay this is the main content we need to shoot, this is the b-roll we need to shoot and then you can have your entire production done in like a day or two and then have content for the next three months. So I think that makes you feel like you're on top of things. It's based on psychology, the rule of three. Should we get our future glasses on? So I find that if I like a certain video, a certain brand and I get value from that or I gain entertainment value from that then I want to watch more of it. So I think serialized content is going to be a big thing in the future. So it's not like one off videos so much as having an entire show. So I think that where we're headed is the best production, the best production value but also producing on a consistent schedule, constantly being able to give value. So it's what blogging was in 2005 like constantly creating new content every week. So I think for video that would be serialized, a regular show where people tune in every Monday 9 p.m. tune in, this is what we're going to be talking about, these are going to be our guests, this is what's coming up. So it's like TV brought to the internet and to the mobile phone basically. It's the same concept as you would tune in for your favorite show, you would tune in for Facebook TV for example or for YouTube. So I think that we're bringing that concept to life now and I think a lot of brands are starting to get on this. Yeah and I think it's more interactive because once you're running like a show you can have live call-ins, it could be a live show or a recorded show but you could have people send in questions and do answers and run contests and have more of a two-way and multi-way because your audience is talking to each other as well. So it's not like TV where it's like one to many and you're just watching right, one to one. If both of us are watching the same show, Facebook is going to be like, okay your friend is enjoying this too and then I might pick you up and be like, hey Madeline that was pretty good right, you want to catch this next week as well? And so we'd become friends over similar shows for example on Facebook TV. Well I think it's a completely different strategy right. So shorter videos are more for immediate attention grabbing right, it's a different purpose. It's more advertising I would say in a way. So if you show like a 40 second recipe but then not everyone wants to see the 40 seconds, some people want to see okay what ingredients were used, what was the methodology and they want like a full cooking show for example. So you could do both. You could have that 40 second ad quick thing on Facebook but then you could tell people for the entire show if they're interested that could go on YouTube. That could be like a two minute, three minute, five minute whatever you know entire show from just like a regular show with personality and chefs have character and you know they're making mistakes and they're cooking and they're talking and they're sharing their life experiences and so it's a deeper level of engagement but you can hook them with the shorter videos. You know so it's like you get the social videos, you get the shorter videos to grab attention and then you have the longer videos to keep that attention. So I think you could do both.