Brad Powell, Business Video Coach - Awesome Videomakers

LiveStream Rockstar. That's really my goal in life. And the whole process is that a lot of people these days are understanding that video is really important, but they're not yet doing it or they're not feeling like they're ready to do it. Or either they're feeling like it's too daunting, the technical part, the camera equipment is too hard to figure out, or it's way too expensive, or it's going to take a lot of time and they don't have the time for it. Or they think that they have a face for radio and they don't want to get in front of the camera themselves. And so one of my jobs is just to convince them and show them that none of those things are true. It really doesn't take a lot of time. You can create a strategy of video making. It fits in with your regular routine and your regular thing that you're already doing. And in fact, that's one of the best things to do is to be filming yourself in your business and the other people around you in the business that you have. So that you're taking people sort of behind the scenes and showing them what you're like and what your work is like and who you are as a person. And that's what people are really interested in. More than getting in front of the camera and saying, hey, come buy my thing. This is all about my stuff. You don't want to be doing that. And all of that can be fit into your normal routine of schedule. And you can do it with your phone. You don't need to go buy a fancy camera. You already have a camera and it's a really good one. And it's in your pocket and you have it with you all the time. So it's not hard to figure out. You pull the phone out. You turn it on. You hit record. And boom, you can be live streaming on Facebook or LinkedIn or Instagram or Twitter. Any of those places. Even YouTube. They all do live streaming. And when you go live, you're instantly in front of some audience of some size. And they can actually engage with you in real time. So they can comment. They can like your video. They can ask you questions. You can ask them questions. And all of that is lead generation. So when somebody comments, they literally show up. They go, hey, it's me. This is my name. Here's my picture. That all is there. And if you're doing that, say, on LinkedIn, you can go and look at their profile and read their resume and learn all about them. And this is really, really good warm audience building. So that if you keep talking with them and you reply to them and you carry on that conversation and you invite them to have a virtual coffee chat or something like that, this works really well and it can really shorten the cycle of when someone has never heard of you to when you actually make a sale and close the deal or get them to come in. And buy your thing or buy your service. And all of that together, this is why video has become so powerful. It's because it's your personality and your face in front of your business. And most people, they don't buy a thing. If they want to work with you, they want to work with you. Yeah, the trends that I see right now, it's really interesting. One thing that is really striking is that compared to text posts and picture posts, people prefer to watch video. In fact, there's a statistic, I think HubSpot and Inbound published this, where 82% of the content that's being consumed online right now is video. And when it comes to engagement, you know, if you have a live video, a live video is going to get more engagement, 1200% more engagement than all the text posts and picture posts combined. It's a huge difference. And the cool thing about doing live is that people will watch a live video for a much longer period of time than they will a pre-recorded video. So if you go live and you're streaming for, you know, 20 minutes, half an hour, something like that, people will hang in there with you and they'll talk with you and you can actually have this conversation that is very engaging and helps you learn as much about your audience as your audience is going to learn from you. I really love the whole webinar format, although I think there's a lot of new creative things that can happen. In fact, we're producing a whole series of one-day conferences, which are basically one-day summits where we have, you know, 10 or 12 presenters. And it's just like going to a conference except you don't have to leave your home. And you can get, you know, these will all be about video making. In fact, the next one we're doing is called the Awesome Video Summit. And it's all going to be about how to grow your brand on video. And I've got people who are doing that on LinkedIn and I have people doing it on YouTube and all these different, you know, different facets of how do you grow your brand using this particular medium. And in just one day, people are going to be able to learn, like, all these different strategies and techniques for doing that. And the format is several, you know, webinars sort of strung together over a one-day seminar. And one of the reasons that we're doing a series like this is because, first of all, it really helps build and engage your audience. So by reaching out, you know, one of the great audience growth strategies is simply to go out and interview other people who are thought leaders in your space. And if you do that and you're doing it in a webinar or you're doing it as a live event, what happens, especially if this is being broadcast onto social media, whether it's on YouTube or whether it's on Facebook or any of those places, that event is going to be informative. And it's going to be in front of the audience of your guest, which is not your, like, this is a brand new bunch of people to you. And so the more you do this, if you create a series where you're doing, like, an interview show series and you do this week after week after week, then you're going to be in front of a new audience every single time. And I have clients who I work with, and this is the growth strategy that they use, is that they create a show and every week they do what is essentially a webinar. And they're giving, you know, they're doing a webinar together with their guest and the two of them will teach, you know, one topic of high value and the guest brings their audience. And so each week, you know, my client is getting in front of a new person every single week. And the cool thing is that because it's video, you can see who's watching, you can track their engagement, and you get all of that results and all of that information, which is not possible, like, in an actual live event. Like, you know exactly what people are doing and whether they clicked through and whether they took your call to action and if they did, you know, where they are in your funnel, all of that kind of stuff. Did they get on your email list? And then you can follow up with every single person. This is why doing this kind of thing is so, so helpful and valuable. So in other areas, the things that I see in terms of growth in video is just simply the sheer numbers of new platforms that are appearing in terms of social media. And they kind of go up and down. One of the things that's happened recently is LinkedIn, which is not a new platform, it's, you know, a platform that predates pretty much all the other ones, has, since it got bought by Microsoft, has done a bunch of changes. And if you haven't been on LinkedIn lately, you should go there now because LinkedIn is really acting much more like a social media platform than what it used to be, which was just sort of a resume collection place for getting a job. And so now that they have adopted video as one of their main ways to post, and recently they have live video on the platform, the cool thing there is that there's a lot of people on the platform who are paying attention because they're there because they're business people and they're professionals. And it's not like Facebook. There aren't any really stupid cat videos going on. People are interested in learning about the platform. They're interested in learning about how to market themselves, how to show up better, how to find leads, how to make their business grow. They're looking for that kind of information. And if you show up there and you start genuinely helping the crowd on LinkedIn, of which it's a really big crowd, you're going to stand out. And the organic reach right now on LinkedIn is terrific. So, you know, for instance, personally, my own videos, I'm getting probably 40 to 50% reach when I post a video, which is huge. You know, organic reach on Facebook is like 0.5%. It's just terrible. And so get off of Facebook. Unless you're going to do Facebook advertising, move over to LinkedIn and start posting there. At the moment, it's a really great, great place to be making and engaging video with your audience. If you're just getting started with video, the thing that you want to be thinking about is, first of all, who are the people that I want to be engaging with? And what is the top of mind, you know, pain point that they have? I mean, this is the big mistake that I see, is people treat video as a broadcast. And you don't want to just talk at people. What you really want to do when you first enter the marketplace is start asking questions and find out what's most important to the people that you're talking to. What would they like to learn from you? What are the things that they're challenged by, you know, this week or next week or whatever? And they'll respond. They'll respond in real time. And you can just, you know, as people are asking you questions, as people are responding to the questions that you have, each one of those responses can be turned into a new video. And you can just keep going. Like, this is something that is a perpetual motion machine. You know, as your audience engages with you and talks with you, you can keep carrying on that conversation, and they will help you and literally lead you where they would like to go. And the more you show that you understand them and you are showing up for them and you are showing up as a human being who cares, and if you can actually go one step further and create some kind of emotional content, the best way to do that is to tell stories. So if you're telling stories and there's an emotional content in that story, the people listening to the story, they feel the same emotion. It's the way our brains work. And it's the way we work with stories. And so if you make people feel something, if they feel excited or if they feel afraid, like, oh, no, if I don't do this, I might die, like, whatever that is, that emotional content, this is where you really start bonding with the audience that you're talking to. And so you come to the marketplace, you ask a question, it's call and response. It's like church on Sunday. I say, video is awesome, and you sing, hallelujah. And it goes back and forth like that. And when they start feeling the emotion and they start getting into the feeling of what we're doing together, then you can just keep going. It just keeps rolling. It keeps building. And they'll, you know, you'll start creating super fans. And they'll start doing and following and singing your praises and showing up at your next event and doing whatever, you know, doing the whole thing with you. and raising people'sれ