Videographer and podcaster Tyler Herrinton shares how to use video to elevate your brand.
Find it Quickly:
- 2:36 – How Tyler got into video.
- 7:48 – When Ashley, his wife, joined him in the business.
- 13:56 – Why there is suddenly such a demand for video from business owners.
- 19:08 – Why everyone should incorporate video into their marketing strategy on some level.
- 20:22 – Where to get started with video.
- 24:21 – How video can build trust with your audience.
- 26:31 – The opportunity available on YouTube (and why people can forgive video quality if it’s not 100%).
- 33:46 – The one thing that people CANNOT forgive when it comes to video.
- 36:27 – Where to get started with audio equipment.
- 44:15 – Why there’s value in hiring a professional to put together a promotional film.
- 50:46 – Video and social media
More about Tyler:
Tyler is one half of the husband and wife videography duo, The Herrintons. Ty’s gift for storytelling began as just a young kid with a camcorder filming skits of his siblings in their day-to-day life. He can often be found browsing recent tech reviews, Apple products, or latest industry trends; he’s a sharp dresser, quick thinker, and an avid explorer. Ty is also the host of the podcast Ty’s Tech Line.
Website | Instagram | Facebook | Vimeo
Resources Mentioned in the Episode:
Tyler’s YouTube and vlogging equipment recommendations.
The transcript…
A note about the transcript: The interviews are transcribed by an online app, and there may be errors in the transcription. While we do our best to correct errors—especially those that may change the meaning of what a speaker was trying to say—we do not catch every error. Thus we ask that people refer back to the audio/video for quotes. Also, please refer back to the audio/video if something is not clear in transcript; however, if you are hearing impaired, feel free to email us for clarifications.
(Intro)
Tyler: 00:06 Our generation has become, well our B.S. meters are really high. We know when people are like too polished or too clean. Like “you didn’t write this. Somebody wrote this for you.” Right? That kind of thing. And we want the authenticity. We want that person. As much as we want what they have to offer, we want the person even more.
Davey: 00:29 Welcome to the brands that book show where we help create businesses, find more clients and build their brands. I’m your host Davey Jones. Today’s guest, these Tyler Harrinton. Tyler is a videographer based in Richmond, Virginia and along with his wife Ashley, they specialize in wedding in brand films, and he’s also become a go to resource for tech related advice and recommendations. Today we’re discussing how do we incorporate video into a brand. Be sure to also check out ty’s tech line, a podcast that Tyler hosts about the impact of technology on our everyday lives.
(End Intro)
Davey: 01:12 So we’re going to spend this interview. We’re going to be talking about how you can effectively use video to enhance or promote your brand. So I’m excited to dig into that with you because of just how important video has become. I know that some of my listeners know this, but you were actually the person that helped me initially get this podcast set up and one of the reasons that I went to you for podcast help you because you are while you’re ties tech line, right? So you help with, you help us make a lot of our technology decisions. And I know that there’s a lot of people in the industry, Katelyn James being one of them, that you also help with all their technical needs. Your podcast setup far surpasses mine. I think what you’re using the same mic that, like Michael Jackson used to record his albums.
Tyler: 02:03 That’s right! He used this mic to record the entire thriller album. So not this exact mic, but this brand and this model of microphone.
Davey: 02:12 So now all of a sudden, I was perfectly happy with my mic and now all of a sudden I’m experiencing all this mic envy, but anyways, enough about that. We want to dig into talking about video and how you can utilize video in your brand. But first, as we do with everybody, I want to hear about how you got started in video. Was that something that you studied in school? How’d you become a videographer?
Tyler: 02:36 Yeah. So it’s funny to actually have a very, uh, I would say kind of abnormal path into the world of video because I actually started in the road of photography, which, um, is becoming something that less and less people know about us, which I think is kind of funny. But I started doing photography and I was in high school, you know, I took photography classes all through high school. I was on the yearbook for a little bit during my senior year as a yearbook photographer, stuff like that. So I always was super, super into photography and when I got ready to go to college, I didn’t really excel in any subjects in school. I was a very straight B student so I, I’ll just very average at everything. I wasn’t very passionate about any subject except for really photography. So I got to college, I decided to give photo journalism a try. So long story short, it didn’t really pan out, ended up switching over to graphic design, actually ended up graduating with a graphic design degree, but took a bunch of photography classes as part of the art school as part of the art degree. So I was doing photography all through college and like a lot of people at our friend who was getting married, you know how it goes they say, “Hey, I can’t afford a professional photographer. I know that you have a dslr condition. Can you shoot my wedding?” You know, the kind of the standard story that I feel like a lot of people have when they get started in the photography world or whatever. So I said, sure. I researched the heck out of it like I do with everything else in my life and I just put a lot of time and effort into that. Ended up actually buying a 60 D to go shoot a wedding I upgraded to some gear, you got a 50 mil, the nifty 50, all that sort of stuff. Like my, my tech researching brain background, kind of goes back all the way to that. Anyway, I shot this one wedding and it was just a perfect storm. I was the perfect age. I a lot of friends who are older than me who were graduating. A lot of friends in my circle that we’re all graduating and getting married and all that sort of stuff, so from there it just sort of stemmed and kind of grew. As far as photography goes, as far as video goes, I’ve actually never taken a formal video class of any kind. I don’t have any formal video training. Everything that I know about video I learned online, but the way I got into that was I had a same kind of thing in college. A friend was like, “Hey, can you DJ my wedding?” And can you like set up the sound system and just run a playlist off of an Ipod and I had just gotten this brand new cannon 60 d that shot video. So I went to the rehearsal dinner to set up all the sound system and while I was there I just shot a couple of clips, kind of was just like mess around. I’d never done video before on a dslr or anything like that. And I went home that night, kind of through those babies in imovie slapped some “explosions in the sky” on that sucker, threw it up on facebook just for the bride and groom, just sort of for fun. I didn’t think anything of it. And then somebody’s mom from back home actually saw it, reached out to me and was like, “Hey, my daughter’s getting married next summer.” So this was maybe like, by the time she reached out to me and they were like eight months later would be this wedding, “would you be interested in filming”. I was like, well, I photograph weddings. I’ve never filmed any weddings. I was like, but it’s fine. At that point, I had started to accumulate some gear for photography stuff. So I said sure. So again, I spent eight months just researching and learning everything I could about video, showed up for this wedding, did the best job that I could. It ended up being pretty good. I mean all things considered for like your first wedding. But looking back at it now, there’s a lot of things obviously that aren’t perfect, but it is all things considered because I had the photography background and I was able to understand the triangle and all that stuff. Video came very naturally to me. So that ended up being pretty good and then it just sort of went from there. So then I sort of did half photo half video from then on until last year.
Davey: 06:12 And I think that story resonates with so many people who get started in really anything that they do. When they start out studying something in college and it leads to a hobby, which leads to something else and so on and so forth. But one thing that I’ve been talking about with people a lot recently is that people’s background, there is almost nothing wasted about it. Like your graphic design degree for instance. How grateful are you for that graphic design degree within what you’re doing right now.
Tyler: 06:38 See, it’s funny because it sort of seems silly because obviously I’m not a graphic designer. I’m not necessarily making money off of graphic design, but I think that graphic design taught me a lot about problem solving and the creative process and how to think through things. There were a lot of advantages to that and we could do a whole podcast on is college good? Should you go to college? Yes or no? Like all those types of things. But there’s so many things I learned in college that weren’t, book things that weren’t necessarily things I’ve learned in classes, but just learning how to operate and run a business and build connections and make relationships and manage your time. Like there’s lots of things that you get from college beyond just like academics and stuff like that. But yeah, I mean I use the graphic design degree for a lot of things when it comes to understanding type and color theory and photoshop and then there was lots of advantages to having the design degree, even if I’m not necessarily directly using it.
Davey: 07:32 Oh yeah. I mean you can create so much collateral on your own, but I think it seems that there’s no wasted space in anybody’s past, uh, and that certainly seems to be true of you. So eventually Ash decided to join you in this business.
Tyler: 07:48 Yeah. So when we got married, we got married in June 2013 and I had already been doing the business for almost a year kind of like officially. And I had a number of weddings under my belt and I had, I think maybe 10 for that summer after we got married, booked. The first one, right after I got married was actually in the Bahamas. So Ash was like, well, you can’t go to the Bahamas without me. We’ve been married five weeks. You’re not leaving me to go into the country to the Bahamas by yourself. So I said, all right, fine, so if you want to come you might as well shoot. Right? She had a little bit of a background in photography, nothing like not really as many classes or anything like that, but she had a dslr and she had some experience. So I was like, if you’re going to come you might as well pick up a camera and shoot.
Davey: 07:48 Might as well help!
Tyler: 08:29 Haha Yeah, it was like at that point…
Davey: 08:30 You’ve got to pay your way through the Bahamas
Tyler: 08:36 Haha exactly. Uh, so at that point we sort of started realizing the Ash had certain skill sets when it came to interacting with the family, interacting with the bride and groom and things like that on the wedding day that were really beneficial. And then of course it’s always good to have a second camera, a second shooter, a second angle for certain things throughout the day. So that was when we kind of started realizing, hey, this is something we should consider doing together because up until that point we had never really talked about it for whatever reason. It was always this sort of this thing that I did on the side to save money for an engagement ring and it was kind of becoming and growing bigger than I ever anticipated and we never talked about it. But I realized that I was trying to emulate like Katelyn James, you know, haha like trying to blog like Katelyn James as this 22 year old dude and it was just so outside of what was natural for me that it was coming across very disingenuous and it just wasn’t really working. But Ash, that was very genuine for her. She had just gotten married and she was recently a bride. She could connect with people. She brought a whole another skillset to the table and we were both busy at the time. I knew, I mean I was working full time. She was going to Grad school. It was a whole bunch of stuff. So being able to split some of the load of emails and stuff like that just seemed like it made perfect sense. So that’s when we kind of joined forces and have been doing it together ever since. And for four years we did half of our weddings every year, more or less were photo half weddings every year were video up until last year. And last year we finally made the official switch where we dropped photography, we stopped offering that as a service and we moved into just doing video and along the way we’ve also started incorporating a lot more of other types of video work into our business as well that we’re able to kind of compensate for not having photography and stuff like that. So we do a lot of promo films for creatives. We help with a lot of educational materials for creatives, creating courses, things like that. And then for ourselves as well. And I started a youtube channel doing education for other filmmakers. We’ve done webinars and we have a couple of courses of our own. So we kind of have shifted from this sort of hybrid photo video team into just doing video but also adding in that other element as well.
Davey: 10:45 And that’s really what I want to spend a lot of time talking about today is the kind of video work that you do for other businesses and how that benefits and impacts their business. But first, just a little insight into why you decided to make the switch from photo and video to just video, uh, and maybe the impact that that has on your business. And I know we have a little bit of insight into that because we helped with your web redesign when you decided to go– well actually way back in the day too, Krista did your website– but then also when you decided to go just to videography as well. So what went into that decision?
Tyler: 11:22 It was a tough decision. I’ll be really honest with you because like I said, I started doing photography back in high school and it kind of became part of my identity. So for me to just completely dropped photography, which from a like personal egos or from just like a personal identity standpoint, that was really hard for me because like I’m Tyler Harrington, I’m a photographer. That was just kind of who I was, you know, and it started becoming, we started slowly easing into it, but that was a big part of it. And also for weddings, every year half of our income was from photography. And the idea of kind of dropping that for a long time really really scared me, but what ultimately kind of like pushed us over the edge was that we just knew we needed to specialize and we heard a lot of different people talk about niching down and specialization and things like that. And we sort of did just get honest with ourselves and said we liked photography and I like the technical side of photography, but there’s a lot of parts of photography that we don’t really like. Honestly, we don’t think we stand out that much. We’re not bad at photography, but we’re not so great that we’re standing out. Whereas in the video world, there’s a lot less competition as far as wedding filmmakers just in our area, it’s just a fact and we feel like we enjoyed it a lot more and it’s something I feel like that we kind of stand out and sort of excel at as opposed to being just good enough. So it’s kind of all these sorts of factors and enough people kind of whispering in our ear over time that kind of eventually persuaded us to do it. And it, it was rough at first. It was just a rough booking season that first off season after we made the switch, we probably just didn’t time it quite as well as we could have and didn’t go about it and maybe the best way possible. But looking back at it now and now that we are a year, year and a half into it or whatever, it definitely was one of the best things that we could have done. It’s just allowed us to really focus in on, on video allowed us to really focus in on being the best at one specific thing. And even from a year perspective, it’s so much easier because we can focus our investments on that. There’s a lot of good, good things that came from it, but those are kind of like the main–that’s sort of the main process of how it ended up happening.
Davey: 13:24 And do you feel like your video work excelled that much more after you decided just to focus on videography?
Tyler: 13:31 Oh yeah. I mean I think that, yeah, I think that it allowed us to really hone in and find our style really kind of niche on since that was the only thing we had to focus on. And I mean our goal always, no matter anything we do is to continue to get better and grow year after year in film after film and always trying to constantly be getting better. But I think that by just doing video, it allowed us to accelerate that growth process because it was the only thing we had to focus on.
Davey: 13:56 Yeah, that makes sense. So what you found over the course of at least the last year, and maybe it’s been longer than that, is that there’s been more of a demand for video work from other businesses. Why do you think that’s the case? Why do you think all of a sudden you have this whole other source of income that maybe you didn’t expect as much of at the beginning in terms of a video brand work?
Tyler: 14:20 Yeah. It’s honestly something that we kind of stumbled our way into and we have to attribute a lot of that to our friend you mentioned Katelyn James. I have a really fun story with that which I feel like I have to tell because it’s a huge part of our story with Katelyn and that honestly is really what sparked this whole educational brand film making side of our business. When we first moved to Richmond I didn’t know anybody. I went to WVU, Ash went to George Mason and Richmond was just sort of place that we randomly ended up because of the job that I got. We didn’t know anybody. But we met Katelyn. We went to a photography meetup and met her and I read Caitlin’s blog for years and years and years. So I always joke that I’m a, I’m a recovering Kj fan girl. Right. And it’s funny now because we’re like really, really good friends with them. But at the time it was like a really big deal to meet Kaitlyn. And I remember when I was working at my nine to five job, I watched a lot of creative live and I was watching creative live and some guy was talking about like, “if you want to make opportunities for yourself, if you want to grow, you need to be just bold. Like reach out to people, show them the value that you can offer them and don’t just like say I want to pick your brain or like what you can get from them, but like what you can offer to them.” So I spent probably two or three hours like crafting this email to Katelyn and I was like, all right, it’s got to be perfect. I don’t want to be too, like fan girly, but I also want to show that I want to help work with her and I would love to help them out or whatever. So I wrote this whole email to Katelyn basically saying like, “Hey, I think that video content is really, really important. I’ve been following your blog for years and years and years and she did two like video blog posts over the course of the time I was following her and I remember watching those in feeling like it was a whole new level in which I knew her because I got to hear her voice, see her talk and all this stuff. And after reading her blog for all this time, I finally feel like I connected with her through those videos in a different way. Because I got to hear her voice and all that stuff. And I thought that was really powerful and I knew that if it was powerful for me that it’d be super powerful for the rest of her audience, for everybody else. So I sent her this email, kind of explaining that whole thing and then I was like, “if you ever are interested in getting back into video stuff or if you have any video of projects you need to be working on, you know, we live in Richmond and we’d love to help in any way we could”. So I send her this email, I was like kind of nervous. I felt like I was being a little forward maybe, you know, reaching out to Katelyn James about trying to help her or whatever. And she didn’t respond for like two weeks. So I was like freaking out for two weeks like, oh my gosh. I was like I ruined this and any chance of ever like being friends with them, like I just came off as weird or whatever. But she’s just busy and hadn’t gotten to her email. So she emailed me back two weeks later and it’s like, Hey, yeah, we’re actually, we’re speaking at WPPI. We need like an intro video, blah, blah, blah, whatever, so I went over to their house shot this video and that was kind of how it started and then it kind of snowballed from there. But that concept of video being like adding this extra level of this extra connection point that people can really latch onto and, and connect with I think is saying that Katelyn recognized really early and we were able to do a lot of really great stuff together, her and I. And since then it’s really exploded and I think that people are starting to see that more and more and more so I think that that’s a really great story that kind of exemplifies why video is really important and also how we got into it.
Davey: 17:33 One thing that I realized is that I’ve heard you tell that story a number of times now and I’ve never heard it from Katelyn. Katelyn is going to be on here at some point and I’m going to ask her about her side of the story and I can’t wait to hear about it. Um, but anyways.
Tyler: 17:50 You should also ask her about how I named Bokeh on twitter. You can also ask you about that.
Davey: 17:53 Haha, I remember Michael telling me about that. Um, but yes, just to clear that up, it was actually Tyler that came up with Bokeh names.
Tyler: 17:59 So if you know subconsciously or whatever it was, I’m just saying I tweeted it to her like seven years ago …
Davey: 18:05 and I think you have visual proof of it, right? Like you have the record. But anyways, hahaha, moving back to video and this was, what year was that when you did that for Katelyn?
Tyler: 18:17 hmmm 2013 or 20 14. It was pretty soon after we moved here.
Davey: 18:19 And so I would say that that’s before video had become as prevalent as it is today with instagram stories. And of course, we give instagram stories all the credit, but really it’s snapchat, right? So now facebook stories, but video is just one of the ways that you– or something that you have to deal with as a business owner, but it is an incredibly effective way to market and communicate with people and build a brand and if you advertise on facebook, generally facebook videos do a little bit better or perform a little bit better one because facebook wants to prioritize video so they’re more likely to get in front of people. So how should people go about creating videos for their brand and one, do you think it’s necessary?
Tyler: 19:08 Yeah, I definitely think that using video as a key part of your marketing strategy, especially in service based businesses, right? Which is like the primary focus of this podcast and just sort of in general, I think that there’s so much value to using video and I think that like you talked about a couple of different camps that you can fall into. There’s certain things that I think that video just in general is just a good thing that you need to have worked into your marketing strategy in some way, shape, or form. Now there’s the content that you can create yourself, like just talked about with things like facebook live, instagram stories, instagram live, those types of things that allow your personality come through in a very genuine and authentic way and there’s also areas where like with Katelyn, with courses and maybe promo films and things where it’s worth the investment to invest in a proper, proper film or have someone professionally make you some some type of video, but yeah, I think that everybody should be using video in some some shape or form within the marketing strategy. Again, especially for service based businesses because you’re really selling yourself and you’re selling your personality and you’re selling what you have to offer them and that can just shine through so much more quickly in video and on such a deeper level. Then it can just through images or words or anything else.
Davey: 20:22 Yeah. I think it’s becoming more and more apparent that that’s just the, I mean, it’s just kind of the medium of the future, right? It’s a medium that people prefer to consume. So even if you don’t want to use it now, sure you can get by without using any video in your marketing right now, but I think as time goes on it’s going to become more and more important. And I always say this, that I don’t feel super comfortable on video, especially on something like his stories and I’ve just forced myself to do it. And at the end of the day, I think that’s one of the best ways that you can become better at something and be more comfortable with something. It’s just forcing yourself to do it. But what I want to talk to you about is, so if somebody wants to start utilizing video in their business, what first steps do you recommend them taking? Should they start with something like a promo film?
Tyler: 21:13 I think that there’s benefits to both. I think that instastories honestly, it’s kind of like the easiest place to start because like you said, being comfortable in front of a camera is not easy and I think that’s people’s biggest hindrance to doing more video. I think people generally understand that video’s important and kind of the reasons why they should be using it. You know, like I talked about people being able to hear your voice and see you speaking and hear your voice and hear your tone, inherent inflection. There’s a lot of power to that. I mean we kind of take it for granted. I think in our like very like digital world, especially people our generation who grew up with like texting and aim and all these sorts of mediums, which I think obviously there’s power to that and right off, I guess I just kind of like a side-note– I don’t think there’s anything wrong with like written word or photos or blog posts or there’s nothing wrong with those things. I think that you can’t write those off completely, but I think that if you’re not using video, you’re missing out on a big opportunity, not only from like an SEO exposure standpoint, but you’re also missing out on this extra level of connection, but if you’re just getting started and you want to say like, how can I start incorporating video into, into my brand? I think instastories is a great place to start because it’s sort of like a good testing ground because it goes away after 24 hours, right? It’s not this permanent thing. It kind of allows you to experiment. It sort of allows you to kind of just find your voice and find your style. This is the thing I love about instastories is that different people, lots of people have very different styles when it comes to instagram stories and how they use them and how they use the base on the personality. This would be really interesting, like a social experiment, like how your personality relates to how you do something like instagram stories, right? And what that correlation might be, but I think that it allows you to get in front of the camera, like you said. If you go back on my youtube channel, Davey and you look at some of the older videos or like even like last year, like two years ago, three years ago, they’re pretty rough. Like some of them are really bad and the only way to get better at speaking and talking to a camera is just to do it over and over and over again.
Davey: 23:15 I think anybody would say that of any work they create. I know Katelyn says that of her work. I’ve heard Jasmine Star say that of her work, but anybody’s going to say that. I mean, if anybody’s work looked exactly the same as it did the very first time they picked up a camera or the very first time they started doing what they’re doing, that’s not a good thing. It means that they haven’t progressed. But the great thing about the stories that I want to mention and people already know this of course, is that the videos go away so you can go on there and even if you feel like you’ve made a fool out of yourself, only made a fool out of yourself for 24 hours and people aren’t going to remember that right? And the fraction of people who see that it’s, it’s always, uh, I feel like a lot less people are watching than what we think, especially when we’re nervous about something. So I would agree that something like insta stories is a great place to start and that’s really how I’ve become more comfortable with videos. Just forcing myself at least a couple of times a week to get on instastories and not just post like graphics or something like that. But post a picture of me speaking at the camera, no matter how much it hurts.
Tyler: 24:21 Right. Yeah. And I think that there’s value in that because it really builds this trust with your audience and it kind of builds this level of authenticity, especially if it’s not perfect. Right? I think that if it’s too perfect, people have a hard time relating with that. And I think that especially in service based businesses also, if people are trusting you to perform some sort of a task, to perform some sort of a service for them and there’s this big interaction, this big a transaction of trust, right? They are trusting you that you can do whatever it is you say you’re going to do. Right? And yes, there’s some tangible things that you can kind of show them, but the end of the day, there’s a big level of trust there. I think that having an authenticity and sort of breaking down the veil of these like perfectly crafted websites and the perfect drafted copy and the, you know, the perfect instagram post and perfect feed, like all these things. I think instastory is giving you that chance to show them the real you, the behind the scenes to show them that I’m a real person. This is a real business, This is what I do. This is the work that goes into it. There’s so many opportunities for instagram stories to be really powerful as far as marketing goes without feeling like you’re marketing to people. So that’s one thing that people, I think in our generation our BS meters are really high. Like we know when people are like too polished or too clean or like, okay, you didn’t write this, somebody wrote this for you right? That kind of thing and we want the authenticity. We want that person. We as much as we want what they have to offer, we want the person even more.
Davey: 25:45 So taking one step further that you know, youtube is another great resource. And it’s not so much I think whether you use youtube or vimeo or another video platform. The great thing about Youtube, I will say is that youtube videos probably have a higher chance of ranking showing up in a google search result than some other video platform. So that’s, that’s one of the biggest reasons that we use youtube and it’s versatile. I mean it can do whatever you want it to do and you can hide videos and making them private and all of that on youtube as well. So somebody who wants to start utilizing youtube, maybe taking it a step up right from something like instagram stories that disappears in 60 seconds and go to something like youtube where you can always take the video down, but it lives a little bit longer it’s generally created for a specific reason either to teach something or to show how to do something. Where would you recommend people starting? I mean, do they really just need iphone or a smart phone to do that? Or do you recommend certain gear?
Tyler: 26:51 Yeah, what I say especially with youtube is that content is the most important thing. Like what you’re saying, how you’re saying that the content that you’re actually getting across is way more important. People can forgive, bad video. People can forgive if the quality is not 100 percent. I think people get so focused on having to look so cinematic or so beautiful or so this or so that or 4k or whatever that they lose sight of what’s really important. I mean there’s plenty of videos on youtube that have millions of views that were shot with like a Webcam like this and somebody just talking to a camera, right? So I would say don’t get held up on the tech and we can talk about that in just a minute. Like some things that you can do to maybe take it to the next level, but I think you can definitely have a successful youtube channel and even a great youtube channel with an iphone with honestly, any camera that you get your hands on today is going to be good enough quality wise for Youtube. And as far as content that you’re creating. I think honestly, again, if you’re thinking about it in terms of–youtube is the second largest search engine on the internet behind Google, right?
Davey: 26:51 And it’s owned by Google
Tyler: 27:55 Right. So essentially it’s almost the same thing, so there’s a huge opportunity for discovery on on Youtube, but I would say if you go back, if you have a blog you’ve had for years, you could pick almost any blog topic that you have done and you can that into a youtube video, right? With a little bit of planning, a little bit of sort of strategy and how you want to convey this information. Especially for somebody like us who’s in a very visually dominated industry. The things that we do are very visual. It’s hard to write a blog post. Like for you Davey, like how to go into the back end and change something in show-it or whatever. You can write. You can write a blog post, you can do screenshots. There’s ways that you can do it, but being able to show it on video– there’s so much power to that. So I think that if you just start thinking in that way, thinking about how you can utilize video, you’ll start to come up with a bunch of really great ideas for how you can start incorporating that into a youtube channel and even if all you’re doing is essentially just talking through your main points of your blog post. They’re still huge value to that because again, it’s your personality and you’re putting your face out there. You’re building that extra level of trust. Even if the information is very similar. It’s just another way for it to be discovered and then you start combining that with a written blog post and with the power of the SEO from the written word and the all the advantages we talked about with video. Now you’re starting to really have this like dynamic creation that you’re starting to really be able to push out there and really starting to get even more exposure and even more of a connection.
Davey: 29:22 And I know for us, I have a video on how to use show-it SEO settings and that video is also embedded into a blog post where I’ve written out essentially what I’ve shown in video and both of those things, at least last time I checked show up on the first page of the Google search results when you search for show-it SEO settings or show it SEO and so some people might just see the video and prefer to actually be walked through it and other people might prefer looking at what’s basically the transcript of the video, but walk them through the written word and doing it as they read. So I think there’s definitely greater visibility when you can include both video formats and written formats or you know, as we’re going to talk about in another episode podcasting as well. What about when it comes to editing? Like do you need–even when you shoot with a video, what would you edit that video on?
Tyler: 30:13 Yeah, I mean honestly, most people–well I just assume this, I don’t know why but most people are probably on a Mac computer listening to this.
Davey: 30:19 At least in the creative industry. That seems to be the case in a lot of people have macs.
Tyler: 30:23 Yeah. So I mean imovie honestly is a great way to do it. You can do imovie on your phone and you can post it. I mean honestly just getting it out there. And again, the whole thing is that yes, there’s a slight barrier to entry when it comes to video as far as like you have to do the editing. Not talking about instastories or whatever, but like for Youtube and things like that but for the others you have to do the editing. But if you’re willing to put in that work that other people aren’t, that is what gives you that ability to show up. And with youtube there are tons and tons of videos that are out there, but there’s a good chance that if you google something– like I just did this yesterday– I googled a wedding stationary comma Virginia and I looked it up on youtube. I looked it up on Google and on youtube it showed up like 315 results and they’re all, you know, like actual people who were doing had videos about stationary that somehow they, whatever they did, they’d get them tagged as Virginia, whatever showed up and search the same thing on Google into us over. It was over a million results that showed up. I had to scroll up like an entire page and a half to get over the ads, the map, the places where you can go shop stationary, like all these different things. And then on that whole first page there were two people that are actually like humans, right? Everybody else was like the knot and wedding wire and Michael’s and yelp or whatever. So you can get on that top page of Google and that’s obviously the power to that and Davey you obviously know a lot more about SEO than I do. But there’s a lot of work that goes into that and it takes a long time. There’s no instant way to do that, but if you make one youtube video that is very strategically tagged and directed towards people searching for however you’re trying to reach them and if you can reverse engineer that and you start thinking of the ideas first and what your ideal client is going to be searching for on Youtube and you can create a video that speaks directly to that. If you get into the youtube algorithm, the reach of those videos can have is just insane, right? When I first got onto youtube, I made a video about a camera that I had bought or whatever and I didn’t think anything of it. I think I had like 500 subscribers on youtube at the time and that video got like over 80,000 views within a few months because it got into the algorithm, started getting real service to other people and it can just pop off like crazy.
Davey: 32:39 And not to mention there’s less competition because less people are doing video, which is a reason to take advantage of it now getting there. Take your bumps and bruises now and when it is mass adopted, you’ll have already gone through the learning pains of getting on a new platform. And all that dimension to those youtube videos they can show up in the actual google search results page, right? So you have the added bonus not only showing up within a youtube search results page, but then also on a google search results page. So let’s say people are listening in and say, okay this video stuff is definitely for me, I’ve done the iphone thing but now I want to put together something that maybe is a little bit more polished. That is a little bit more meant for consumption on like youtube. What kind of gear should they start out with and let’s assume that they’re not a photographer because a lot of photographers are going to have a camera that can do video, so that would be the obvious choice for them because they wouldn’t have to spend any more money on additional gear. But what about for somebody who doesn’t have a camera that does video, where should they start?
Tyler: 33:46 So is it going to actually going to be counter to what a lot of people would probably think, but the first place you want to start when you’re buying any gear to do any sort of video stuff is with your audio. Because audio is honestly the most important thing. If I click on a video and its on a Webcam, it may not be like the greatest quality, but if they sound good and I can hear what they’re saying or whatever, I’ll stick around. Especially if what they’re saying is good. But if I get on there and it can be crystal clear, four K, high def, whatever, and you can’t understand what they’re saying or it sounds really muffled or just sounds like it’s peaking or whenever I’m gone, like I’m sorry, like I cannot stick around for that. People will be very forgiving of low quality video. They will be very unforgiving for poor quality audio. So the first thing I would say to invest in is some sort of audio that’s probably going to be better than the in camera or on phone microphone. So a few suggestions for those types of things. If you do have a camera, um, they have what’s called a shotgun microphone. Essentially it’s a little microphone goes on top of your camera the same place where your flash would go, plugs into the side and that is going to greatly increase the quality of your audio. Essentially what it does is it blocks out audio coming from the sides and on the back it kind of focuses the audio of more directionally. And uh, having it pointed towards you, I’m the number one rule when it comes to audio that everyone needs to know. If everyone listening to this walks, we have just one thing, this is the one thing I want you to know is that when it comes to audio, the closer the audio source is to the microphone, the better it’s going to sound. If you can understand that principle and kind of harness it across anything that you’re doing, you’re always going to sound good. It was always will be better. So the problem with a camera is that you set the camera up, you sit down and you maybe five feet away to have a good framing or whatever, depending on what things you have. The problem is now the audio source, your mouth, is now five feet away from the microphone, right?
Davey: 35:37 This is why you always telling me that I need to speak much closer to my mic
Tyler: 35:37 Right exactly.
Davey: 35:44 Tyler is always telling me this but it’s just uncomfortable for me. So I’m trying to get better at it.
Tyler: 35:47 So right now in this podcast, if you’re listening to this and um, it sounds like I’m right inside of your ear, The audio sounds really great and that’s because I’m literally speaking two or three inches away from this microphone. When it comes to video, the same principle applies no matter what. So what I would say about that is even if you get that shotgun microphone and you put the camera all the way across the room, it’s still not going to sound very good. So what you want to do is maybe shoot a wider lens depending on, again, what your options are, bringing the camera closer to you sitting physically closer to the camera. Because if you’re three feet from the camera, that’s going to sound a heck of a lot better than if you’re eight feet from the camera.
Davey: 36:20 So what camera, like what shotgun mic should somebody start with?
Tyler: 36:27 I’m going to send you a link, Davey to put it in the show notes of this. So people can go and they can look because there’s like a bunch of options. It’s all gonna depend really on your budget. So Rode is sort of the king I think of when it comes to the shotgun microphones. So there’s the Rode video mic pro, which is going to be kind of like the most expensive, the most high featured. Um, and then there’s the video mic go in the video micro now. Any of those are going to be great. Again, much better than, than nothing. The pro has extra features and some extra things. It’s made better for dslrs. If you’re shooting with a canon dslr or something like that, the pro may be a really good option if you have something like a Sony mirrorless or some other types of cameras that have better, hm, basically the better internal audio, they’re pushing a louder signal. It doesn’t really matter. All that technical Mumbo jumbo. Those ones are also a good option, but either one of those is going to be significantly better than your in camera microphone. Okay. So that’s the first thing. The problem with a shotgun microphone is that some cameras don’t have a microphone Jack, like the rx 100, which is the camera that I mentioned that I had suggested that you buy. Unlike your phone, obviously it doesn’t necessarily have a jack where you can plug in a microphone. So the next best thing and what I think that would be another great option and just involves a little bit more work, is something that’s called the rode smartlav. Essentially what this is, it’s a lavelier microphone, which for anybody who unfamiliar, it’s just the microphone that you clip on and you where. And you’ll see these if you watch Jimmy Fallon, he always used the little microphone that’s clipped onto his jacket. That’s a lavelier microphone. And what this microphone does–the smart lab– is designed for your iphone. So all you have to do is you buy this smart lab, I think it’s about $65 somewhere around there. And it plugs into your phone and it records directly into your phone with an APP. But the beauty of this is that A. it’s pretty cheap, as far as investment goes, as far as audio stuff goes. But the beauty of it is that the distance to your mouth is very, very close. So again, the closer it is to your mouth, the better it’s going to sound. So in that case, you’re free to put the camera wherever you want. It can be all the way across the room. If you want to shoot with the 70 and 200 and have that nice compression, you know, make herself look extra thin right? You can do that because your audio is going to sound the exact same [inaudible] that Mike is right up on you. The only thing that you’d have to do with that is sync it and post. So the trick for that is all you have to do is clap right whenever you touch highly movies and they put the little clapper board and then they snap, snap it down. It’s not just for visual, that’s actually for the audio. Because what you do is you clap and what you’re gonna end up with is a spike in your audio. If you’re looking at the waveform, a little peek in your video, audio on the camera audio, and in the audio that you recorded onto your phone. All I have to do is when you pull them into your editor, find those two spikes, lined them up, and then you’re, you mute the audio from the camera audio and you’ll have that beautiful crystal clear audio coming from that microphone that matches up perfectly with your mouth, from the video, from the camera.
Davey: 39:22 So if you’re new to video, a lot of that’s probably a little bit overwhelming to you. Tyler is just a great resource. So if you need to clarify something, or if you have a clarifying question.
Tyler: 39:22 Send it my way!
Davey: 39:37 I would definitely send them your way. But just to recap there, the Sony Rx 100 is a pretty popular vlogging camera that you actually recommended me that I bought. I wouldn’t say it’s cheap, it’s about a thousand dollars. Right. But if you’re doing more video, especially if you’re doing video on the go, I think that’s a great option. Um, I don’t remember you recommending this little smartphone lav mic, but it sounds awesome. But again, what Tyler saying here is if you use that mic, you just have to sync the audio and the video in whatever you’re using, whether it be imovie or premier or final cut pro or whatever you’re using to edit and that’s why you clap at the beginning so that you can see that soundwave and both the audio and then also that spike in the video and so you know, where that they line up some of the more advanced softwares also have a way to kind of automatically sync it. Right?
Tyler: 40:31 Yeah, it does essentially the same thing. It’s just analyzing the waveforms and lining them up based off of that. But it’s easier for the computer to do that then for us. But if you’re using imovie, it doesn’t really do that– it won’t have that feature. So the clapping is going to be the best way and real quickly I do want to talk about the camera thing. So again, like I said, I think you can totally use your phone, especially the way that phones are going as far as quality goes and things like that. Your phone is going to be really great. So I would suggest, here’s my thesis on buying cameras to do video. There’s three kinds of camps and if you want to pick one of these three, I wouldn’t try and go somewhere else. So like you talked about if you already own a dslr or maybe you have one just to take photos of your kids, check and see if it shoots video. You can find a used one, something like a Canon t3i or some of these maybe older models that still shoot video that you can get for a couple hundred bucks. That would be one option. Or even like the Sony mirrorless, any of those types of cameras wouldn’t be a good option. Again, you’re going to be looking at investing over thousand dollars in some of these unless you’re getting older model. Then there’s going to be the kind of the middle of the ground option if you don’t want to deal with like the different lenses and all that sort of stuff. If all that sort of intimidate you then the rx 100 is what I consider like a professional point and shoot. That’s again around a thousand dollars. It’s not cheap but it has a fixed lens. It’s kind of all in one. It fas a flip up screen. It’s just very portable–fits right in your pocket. You don’t have to worry about the bulk and the size of the Dslr. There’s that sort of option and then anything less than that, honestly I would just stick with your phone. So like I wouldn’t go to best buy and get like a $300 point and shoot that has a video function or whatever. Your phone is going to have better quality and it’ll be easier for you to use and it’s gonna save you 300 bucks. Spend that 300 bucks on audio stuff for on something else, right? I don’t think it’s worth it to buy like a cheap video camera or something like that or even like a Gopro or whatever. It’s just not going to be the look and the aesthetic that you want. So I would stick with one of those three, your phone, something like a professional point and shoot rx 100 or the DSLR muralists camp. Pick one of those three camps and just learn how to use it and focus more on the content.
Davey: 42:44 Yeah, and if you’re not a photographer, don’t feel like you have to go out and buy professional videography gear to do this. Like Tyler said, you can make a great video and I use the Sony rx 100. I don’t have any special audio that goes with that and granted I haven’t made as much use of it as I intended to, but I do plan on doing that this year and I think the important part and what we want to emphasize here is just getting out and doing it because there’s a time and place where something that’s really, really well done and more cinematic and by really well done what I mean is more cinematic or more professionally put together by somebody like you– a videographer and we’re going to talk about that here in a second. But that other stuff like Tyler mentioned early in the in the interview people don’t want necessarily polished all the time, which is why something like instagram stories and snapchat stories, it is why those things are so popular. So you can get on there, keep the focus on the content and focus on offering value and when you possible, if you know, like Tyler said, that golden rule: Make sure that people can hear you and it makes sense that, you know, go with that. Now, real quick, before we end here, I want to talk about creating a more professionally done brand video. Are there any things that people should think about? Like would you say that this is a must have for a brand, something like a promo film or behind the scenes footage that’s more professionally done? Would you say this is kind of a nice to have maybe after you get started? What do you think?
Tyler: 44:15 I think that there’s huge value to having professionally created video. But you need to be strategic with it and I think that picking someone who knows how to do that strategically well is important. So I think the common thing you see with a lot of like photographer promo films and if your promo film was like this, I’m sorry, I’m not trying to bash you, I really am not. But like it’s, for example, “hi, I’m so and so, I’m a photographer” and it shows you clicking the shutter and it just like you taking photos and then that’s the whole thing. But I don’t think that that’s necessarily utilizing the power of video. Again, the whole point of the video– people can go to your website and they’re going to read about you and you’re going to read about your dog and about whatever, like all the information that you have on there, you want the video to be a way that connects with people on a different level, give them some something extra to connect to. So when they walk away from that video, they feel like, they know who you are. They feel they know what’s unique about you. And they walk away saying “oh my gosh, like I want that person to perform the service or whatever it is that you do a, I want this person to do that for me”. And I think that if you do that well in a professionally made video that it can really just enhance your brand. I think that, again, if you just have a kind of a generic ho-hum sort of video that’s not going to have as much of an impact.
Davey: 44:15 It will just slow your site down.
Tyler: 45:36 Yeah. It all kind of has to go hand in hand together. Right? So I think that if you just have a really great video but you have an awful website that’s not good either. If you have a really great website and it’s an awful video, like that’s obviously not going to work out super well, so you’ve gotta kind of figure it like this melding between the two and figure out how they’re going to work together and somebody who knows what they’re doing can help guide you through that in the same way that Krista does a great job with websites. Obviously Krista can just get on and you can just code people’s websites if she wanted to. But what Krista really brings to the table. What you guys bring to the table as a unit is being able to really help people go beyond just like the surface level stuff and figure out who they are and I think the same sort of principles apply to video. Then if you’re able to combine the aesthetic that matches your brand and this really deep sort of like getting to know you sort of strategy and like having a really good concept behind the video. I think that when you bring those two things together, that’s when it really starts to become powerful. Combining that with –once they fall in love with you– and then they go to your instagram stories and they get to see that every day side of you and whatever. There’s value to that. So it also has to do with your personal brand. You know, if you have a, a really high end, very professional like black and white, very chic brand, you’d want your video to reflect that. If you have a really fun, bubbly, whatever you want, you want those two things to kind of match and having someone professional will help you get to that point.
Davey: 47:02 One thing that I would say about the advantage of having something professionally done is that that footage goes beyond just the actual video you put together. You can make more use of it then just slapping that video up on your website. You can cut out parts of it and throw them on Instagram like actually in your feed, you can use it as a background video in different parts of your site or maybe you have some sort of promotion going on, but you can just take bits and pieces of that and you can use it in different places. I think it really does go a long way just beyond getting a promotion film, which is great to begin with.
Tyler: 47:38 There’s something, again, I’m not saying after listening to this podcast you can be like, “I’m a professional videographer, like I know everything I need to know” No, Right. And that’s not the goal. And If you think about something like strengthfinders the whole concept behind strengthfinders is that you should focus more on figuring out what your strengths are so you can focus on those things instead of always trying to improve your weaknesses. It’s more valuable to take yourself from something that you’re an eight to a nine than it is to go from something you were to at two or three or four. Focus all your energy on becoming really, really great at the things you’re good at. So when it comes to video, yes, I think it’s important to let your personality shine through and to use instastories and things like that in ways that it can be natural, organic, and just with a little bit of practice you can get better at, but trying to create this emotional very connected video that’s set up wherever, like you could spend your whole life trying to do that and it may never end up looking right
Davey: 48:29 Or what you want it to be instead you could save yourself probably a bunch of time, the headaches and the pain by just going through a videographer who specializes in something like this.
Tyler: 48:43 Right. And especially for something like education. Right? So when we make courses and things like that, that’s one of those things where, yeah, you could try and do it on your own. I know people who have tried to do that themselves. But again, you’re gonna spend so much time and effort and energy trying to learn all these new things and do something that you’re not really skilled to do and you don’t have the equipment or the knowledge or like any of these things to do. And sure you could maybe figure it out and it would look fine, but if you want it to look exceptional and great and something you can charge a lot of money for, it’s well worth it to invest in somebody like us who have done this a bunch of times, knows all the pitfalls, has the right equipment, has all the fail safes, and is going to make sure that we’re saving everything so you can focus on just creating the best content possible as opposed to having to also worry about like all the problems that can go wrong with recording and this and that or whatever. Especially if you’re new to it. But then I think that there’s still the investment in video will be worth it no matter what, whether that’s a monetary investment or a time investment. I think that everybody should be investing in video in some shape or form.
Davey: 49:43 yeah and I think that things are just gonna continue to go in that direction even more so than they have today. And like you said also earlier–I love writing, you know, I don’t think the written blog posts or that kind of stuff is going away. Right. And I think that there’s still value to writing blog posts and all of that. I also think that video is going to become more and more prevalent even moreso than it is today. And so I think it’s well worth it to learn it today so that when it is the norm and people could argue that it actually is the norm already…
Tyler: 50:20 But is becoming more and more important. It’s definitely becoming more and more integral. I mean, I know, like I said, I learned everything I know about video from other videos on the Internet. Right. It’s just it kind of just the way that it goes.
Davey: 50:34 Yeah sure, and facebook and instagram have gone that way and they seem like those platforms are looking for more and more ways to make video more prevalent and video more of the centerpiece of those platforms than they are already.
Tyler: 50:46 Oh yeah, for sure. I mean facebook algorithm, highly, highly favors video. Youtube. Again, because it’s google, it’s going to pop up in Google and pop up on Youtube, like it has all that sort of stuff. If you can get a video trending on youtube or you can kind of like get it to be suggested by youtube. You can just kind of grow and grow and grow, but then the thing is that it’s not the end all be all. It’s just another arm. It’s just another line in the water to bring people in. And then this brings us back to you guys. What you guys do, which is why it’s so important and all comes back to your website. So because with instastories and all these other things, the whole idea is you’re just trying to grow this connection and get people and keep them invested in you and keep them knowing about you, helping people discover you so that when they decided that they need your service, they want your service, you’re at the top of their mind and then they instantly go to the website and connect with you and whatever. But if you build this great connection on Youtube and they go to your website and it doesn’t line up with anything that you’re doing, right, that’s not gonna work either. So it’s really important that like, again, that all these things all kind of come together. And I think that it’s a great supplement to whatever it is that you are already doing.
Davey: 51:59 Absolutely. Well, Tyler, thank you for joining us today. I have a feeling that you’re going to be a relatively regular guest. I mean, it already feels like it already feels like you kind of have been, but just behind the scenes, right? Just because we talk a lot about this. And like I said, Tyler, I think for so many people you’re there, Go-to Tech Guy. If they have a question, especially when it comes to different options and they’re stuck between a couple of cameras or whatever it is. I know for me, I’ll send you a text and say, “Hey, listen, I’m stuck between these two things” and then you’ll, you’ll your weigh in. And I almost always go with your recommendation. Tyler though, if you want to follow him, Tyler, where should, people will follow along?
Tyler: 52:42 Head over to Ty’s tech line. You can find it on itunes. All those different places. You can listen to Davey’s episode. It’s on there and in it we just kind of riff about podcasting in general and his thoughts going into the whole podcasting thing. I think it was like the day or two before you launched this whole endeavor.
Davey: 52:56 So what’s interesting about that is if you listen to that episode, I had recorded a bunch of episodes at that point, like we had recorded or 10 to 12 episodes before we ever launched. So it was interesting looking back when I recorded that episode, I’m reflecting on the interviews I’ve already done but haven’t launched yet
Tyler: 53:15 So this is without any feedback, without any response, without knowing how it’s going to go.
Davey: 53:18 Yeah. So if you’re interested in kind of this entire process, that would be an interesting episode to listen to you before the next one where we dive into…
Tyler: 53:26 Yeah and see how things have changed now that it’s been out in the wild and you’ve been in it.
Davey: 53:31 I might have to go back and listen to that one just to remember, you know exactly how I felt going into it. But where else can people find you?
Tyler: 53:40 Yeah you can me @tylerherrinton and you can find my wife Ashley. She is a huge part of our business. She’s at AshleyHarrinton on Instagram. We’re just the Harrintons.com. You can find us on youtube, youtube.com/theHarrinton’s. The best place to go honestly is to go to instagram and then go to the link in the bio and there are links from there to go everywhere else.
Davey: 53:59 And of course there’ll be show-notes that will be associated with this and we’ll have links to them and a few resources in there as well, so thank you for joining me, Tyler.
Tyler: 53:59 Yeah man thanks for having me.
Davey: 54:11 Thanks for listening to the podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing to the podcast on itunes and leaving a review so that others are more likely to find it. For show notes and other resources visit daveyandkrista.com
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