Where SEO & Video Strategy Intersect w/ Alex Minor

This transcript was machine generated and has not been edited for errors.

[00:00:00]

[00:00:31] Crystal Waddell: Hey hey everybody.

[00:00:32] Crystal Waddell: Welcome back to the Simple and Smart SEO Show podcast. We are here with a fantastic guest.

[00:00:41] Crystal Waddell: The one, the only, Alex Minor. Thank you for being with us today.

[00:00:46] Alex Minor: That is my pleasure.

[00:00:49] Crystal Waddell: Okay, so you know one thing that stood out to me on your form,

[00:00:53] Brittany Herzberg: I hope it was the same thing

[00:00:54] Crystal Waddell: that stood out to me.

[00:00:55] Alex Minor: What?

[00:00:56] Crystal Waddell: That you used to be a professional freestyle rapper. [00:01:00]

[00:01:00] Brittany Herzberg: Please talk to us about this.

[00:01:01] Alex Minor: My dream back in the day and still a dream was to be a rapper.

[00:01:06] Alex Minor: And this led me to form friendships with people in my community where one of them was a group of guys who ended up taking their rap careers in the direction of comedy.

[00:01:16] Alex Minor: Oh, and so they eventually, first they landed a deal with Disney doing a street show down at what's now called Disney Springs. Used to be Pleasure Island.

[00:01:26] Alex Minor: And then from doing that, they also landed another street show at Universal Studios. And for that one they were able to bring on more people because they, it was, More shows they couldn't do it all themselves.

[00:01:40] Alex Minor: And I'm decent freestyler, or I used to be, I'm a little rusty right now, and they reached out to the homie and was like, Hey man, you wanna rap? I'm like, and they're like, you can actually get paid.

[00:01:50] Brittany Herzberg: Yes, I am in.

[00:01:53] Crystal Waddell: That is awesome. So now that's cool. Now you are. A creative director and lead [00:02:00] strategist.

[00:02:00] Crystal Waddell: So how did you make your way into video?

[00:02:04] Crystal Waddell: And like you're gonna be talking to us today about YouTube seo, but how did you make your way into video and just understanding so much about YouTube and video?

[00:02:13] Alex Minor: Part of it was failing as a rapper.

[00:02:15] Crystal Waddell: Oh.

[00:02:16] Brittany Herzberg: Yeah.

[00:02:16] Alex Minor: Not understanding what I should have been doing to market myself, brand myself, promote myself as a rapper and producer Taught me a lot of lessons.

[00:02:28] Alex Minor: And what not to do, basically. And then, after I wasn't really chasing rap, super stardom as much, and I could look back objectively looking at the things I did wrong and then seeing what other influencers and even other rappers and creatives were doing, taught me a lot about what I should have done.

[00:02:46] Alex Minor: So that was really the beginning of my mindset, approaching social media, approaching video, approaching the whole internet. And then I fell in love with video through my journeys. I used to work in television news, [00:03:00] doing audio. That's what I went to school for was audio.

[00:03:03] Alex Minor: And then from that I went into corporate events, which is where I first started doing camera work seriously.

[00:03:10] Alex Minor: But when I bought my own gear and thought, oh, maybe I'll help the homie shoot some music videos or something like that's when I really fell in love with videography. And started going down the YouTube University rabbit Hole, learning everything I could about lighting, composition, storytelling, all the technical stuff, right?

[00:03:26] Alex Minor: And that eventually led me to say, yo, I don't wanna do this corporate stuff anymore. I wanna shoot for a living. And then, through doing some independent film work and things like that, I'm like I think this is a fast way to be broke.

[00:03:39] Alex Minor: Yeah, we all learned those. How can I use my camera and actually make money?

[00:03:43] Alex Minor: Yeah. And somewhere along the journey of asking those questions is when the concept of videos for business came on my radar. And I fell in love with that. And once again, just dove in headfirst learning everything that I possibly.

[00:03:58] Brittany Herzberg: I love that. All right. One [00:04:00] question that I love asking all of our guests, and there's no wrong answer, is how do you define SEO?

[00:04:05] Brittany Herzberg: Or what do you think of when you think of seo?

[00:04:07] Alex Minor: Okay. When it comes to SEO there's two levels of s e o that I think of. There is surface level, s e o the more organic s e. Is, things like, your blog articles, your content, your keywords things like that. Things that, that most folks with a little bit of study can actually understand.

[00:04:27] Alex Minor: And then there's technical seo. Yeah. This is a deep, dark hole filled with nerds in people, way smarter than you and me. Guess who likes it? Crystal Waddell. I, and I didn't realize how much I didn't know about technical SEO until a friend of mine who runs a multimillion dollar technical s e o agency in New York City, who's also.

[00:04:54] Alex Minor: I don't wanna call him a failed rapper, but we didn't, neither one of us got rich, although he did a lot better than I did. But [00:05:00] his, he hired me to do sound on a. S e o film he produced for one of the conferences he was speaking at virtually and just listening to them talk in this, s e o superhero movie that he made, just showed me that I ain't know squat.

[00:05:21] Alex Minor: I'm like, what the heck is the Serps? What are canonicals?

[00:05:26] Brittany Herzberg: I actually asked that question just a couple weeks ago.

[00:05:28] Alex Minor: What? What? What the what? And they're like having full blown conversations and I'm just like, all right, I just forfeit my nerd card. Like I don't

[00:05:37] Brittany Herzberg: here take it. It's fine. Yeah.

[00:05:38] Alex Minor: He's yeah I can't keep up with y'all just here.

[00:05:41] Brittany Herzberg: That's awesome. That is such a great way to talk about it and to express it. And I couldn't agree with you more cuz some half the time, like Crystal Waddell's saying stuff and I'm like, I think I follow, like I'm with you.

[00:05:51] Crystal Waddell: Yeah.

[00:05:52] Crystal Waddell: That's awesome. I am the nerd of the duo, that's for sure.

[00:05:55] Crystal Waddell: I just, I don't know. I love to learn. I know B does too, and I just have to keep [00:06:00] asking that question. Why?

[00:06:01] Alex Minor: And I love to learn too, but at a certain point I just realized my desire to learn outweighs the time that I have in my life.

[00:06:07] Brittany Herzberg: Exactly.

[00:06:08] Alex Minor: And that's when you have to learn to just start paying people to do stuff.

[00:06:11] Alex Minor: Yeah.

[00:06:12] Brittany Herzberg: Find some friends who wanna geek out on Yeah, for sure. Oh, that's great. Okay, so we are going to get into all of the video things, all of the YouTube things, all of that plus seo. So I don't know, we could take this in so many different directions, but I wanna make sure that we talk about the one thing that actually inspired us to get you on the show, which was Tube buddy, and I know Crystal Waddell had some thoughts about that.

[00:06:33] Brittany Herzberg: Crystal Waddell, what questions are percolating?

[00:06:36] Crystal Waddell: I think YouTube is one of those things that I haven't explored as fully as I want to. For years people have been saying Use video. Use video.

[00:06:45] Crystal Waddell: But when I started playing around with YouTube, and I'll be honest with you, my main holdup is. The actual video part of it, because I like everything about YouTube except actually being on video.

[00:06:56] Alex Minor: That, that might be a hindrance, but actually you can actually do YouTube without getting on [00:07:00] camera and outta my

[00:07:01] Crystal Waddell (2): so then maybe we could talk about that.

[00:07:03] Crystal Waddell: But I did wanna sing when I found YouTube, I was like, or YouTube buddy. I was like, oh my gosh, this is another great SEO resource that you. It, it transcends like just using it for YouTube.

[00:07:14] Alex Minor: I have two buddy. I don't use it that much. And the reason that I don't use it that much is because I also have Vid IQ and just the way that it's laid out and the information that it gives me at a glance, I prefer Vid iq.

[00:07:30] Alex Minor: Caveat. So warning VI IQ is way more expensive than Tube buddy. You can get started on two Buddy for $5. Yeah, Alex Minor is over here with 50. Got

[00:07:41] Brittany Herzberg: some differences. You've got we've got this high end thing and then we have this affordable option. I like that. I like that we can have

[00:07:46] Alex Minor: options. Yeah. Vi IQ starts at $50 a month and.

[00:07:50] Alex Minor: I am not even doing YouTube that seriously right now, or I haven't been for like the last two years. So I've put a lot of money into the hole. But the both tools are useful. [00:08:00] Even when looking at some of my client's stuff. Cuz the ways that'll let you see keywords on videos when you're doing research the way that it can tell you like how many it has different ways of grading the keywords as to.

[00:08:12] Alex Minor: You know how much in use they are and things like that. So definitely a very helpful tool, both of them.

[00:08:20] Crystal Waddell: Okay, so another question I have is like comparing YouTube long videos, and YouTube short.

[00:08:29] Alex Minor: Okay, so the short answer, ha, is that shorts are the answer. So if you're getting on YouTube today, if you're starting from ground zero and you want to grow your channel organically and quickly as possible, YouTube shorts are what you need to spend most of your time on.

[00:08:46] Alex Minor: Now, that's not saying that you shouldn't be producing any longform content. You should, because when people. Get hooked in by the shorts and they get a taste and then they're feigning for more. Especially if you're some sort of expert that's got a lot [00:09:00] of knowledge and value to, to communicate, you want to have those longer resources there for them to dive into.

[00:09:06] Alex Minor: One, because the monetization is higher on those long form videos. And then also because that's a library of searchable content. Easily searchable content. Not that you can't search shorts, but it's harder to find exactly what you want when you're searching shorts.

[00:09:22] Alex Minor: But you are building a library of searchable.

[00:09:24] Alex Minor: Content that will hang around for a long time. Pretty much longer than any other platform, like stuff on YouTube can have legs. Compared to an Instagram, compared to a TikTok. I've got videos that are four or five years old that still get views. What other platform do you have that on?

[00:09:41] Alex Minor: Tell me that. Tell me like, you're not getting an Instagram post from five years ago. That's still getting traffic.

[00:09:47] Brittany Herzberg: I know what Crystal Waddell's gonna.

[00:09:50] Crystal Waddell: Let's say it on 3 1 2 3: p,

[00:09:54] Alex Minor: but yeah. Ok. You wanna go down the Pinterest conversation? Let's go down the Pinterest conversation. I was reading an [00:10:00] article yesterday in preparation for a video that I'm gonna make soon, where the c e O of Pinterest said at least 10% of their engagement right now comes from short form video content.

[00:10:13] Alex Minor: And then he also said that 30% of their revenue comes from short form video content. So if you want to get the most legs outta your short form video content, you want it to live longer, then yes, Pinterest is a strategy that you might want to be looking into.

[00:10:28] Brittany Herzberg: I've got a question while we're here and while we brought in another platform, talk to us about repurposing because I feel like I've.

[00:10:34] Brittany Herzberg: Mixed things when it comes to repurposing content from, for example, you take TikTok, put it on Instagram, we take Instagram, we put it on Pinterest. Talk to us about that. Best practices.

[00:10:44] Alex Minor: Okay. The purpose of your content should be to be repurposed. So you should be going into things creating with a thought of where else can I use this?

[00:10:53] Alex Minor: How else can I use this? Get the most bang for your buck. Get the most mileage out of it. You know what I'm saying? A lot of people [00:11:00] think that content is one and done. It's like there's what's his name? There's this dude on, there's this dude on LinkedIn who his motto is, create once, distribute Forever.

[00:11:09] Alex Minor: And so that's really the way that you should be going into your content creation. So when it comes to short form video in particular, we are in a very unique time where, There is a war going on between the platforms, like there's always been a war going on between the platforms, but the platforms have had such big differences that you really had to choose one and go all in on it and become an expert at that particular type of content.

[00:11:35] Alex Minor: With short form video really dominating the landscape right now, it puts us in a unique position where the exact same content. From a video standpoint can be deployed in the exact same format. On multiple platforms. Now, the copy that goes along with it, maybe the thumbnail, if the platform lets you produce a thumbnail, might be a little bit different.

[00:11:58] Alex Minor: But the actual content itself [00:12:00] can be the exact same. And that means that you can deploy on multiple platforms faster, better, stronger, more consistently, and that really should be the game right now. If you're producing short form video content where, what platforms are your audiences? Do you want to build on?

[00:12:19] Alex Minor: And then just take that content and keep deploying it on all those platforms.

[00:12:23] Alex Minor: Now, I will say that, and there are people who are of two minds on this. I don't like putting the same video on all the platforms on the same day.

[00:12:33] Alex Minor: Which is why I also think it's important to build up a library of these content, to batch produce, to have more than one video at a time.

[00:12:40] Alex Minor: Just in case you do get a super fan who wants to follow you on all those platforms, they're not syncing the same stuff all the time. Right now. The super fans are unique. They're unusual, they're the odd man out.

[00:12:51] Alex Minor: You mostly are going to get a fan or a follower who only follows you on one platform. In the grand scheme of things, it doesn't really matter if you put all the [00:13:00] same content on all the platforms on the same day, cuz most people who are following you on YouTube are not following you on TikTok.

[00:13:05] Alex Minor: People who are following you on Instagram aren't following you on Facebook for the most part. Superfan will,

[00:13:12] Brittany Herzberg: I feel like I'm the weird one.

[00:13:14] Alex Minor: So super fans to keep your super fans happy, I would mix it up, make sure you're not putting the same videos on the sa, on all the platforms on the same day, but that's just me.

[00:13:22] Alex Minor: You don't have to do what.

[00:13:23] Brittany Herzberg: What about ideating? I know we were talking a little bit about Vid IQ and TubeBuddy, but do you have any like regular practices for how you ideate content that you're gonna go film?

[00:13:32] Alex Minor: Do it often.

[00:13:33] Alex Minor: Cuz here's why people. Struggle to come up with ideas because they're not coming up with ideas often enough.

[00:13:40] Alex Minor: I'll take it back to my rap roots. So the artists that I know who are successful, and this is something that I only figured out after I realized that I wasn't gonna cut it is, and this is one of the reasons why I wasn't gonna cut it, is that all the artists that I knew who were successful [00:14:00] did it every day.

[00:14:01] Alex Minor: It wasn't, I'm gonna wait till inspiration hits me. I'm gonna wait until I find the most fire beat on Earth from this producer.

[00:14:09] Alex Minor: It was, nah dude, the studio is my office. It's 9:00 AM let's go. Or whatever time that you regularly go to the studio, like these. But that's the type of work that these dudes who are able to make a living off of being a rap artist.

[00:14:23] Alex Minor: They lived in the studio. It was their office, it was their job, and they treated it as such.

[00:14:29] Alex Minor: The ones who didn't make it were the artist artists who, oh, I gotta be inspired. Mm-hmm. I gotta get the right vibe.

[00:14:35] Alex Minor: No, I go to the studio, I write every single day. It doesn't matter whether I'm feeling it or not, put a beat on.

[00:14:42] Alex Minor: Let's go, because those artists are prepared. To do the job in any situation, someone comes up you know how it is when you you probably had this when you were younger, if you had friends and you find out one of 'em raps, oh, go ahead, bust a rap. And they'd be like, ah, nah man, I'm not f Those are the artists.

[00:14:59] Alex Minor: [00:15:00] Artists. They're not doing it as a job. They're not looking at it as a career. That's a hobby.

[00:15:03] Brittany Herzberg: Oh gosh, that makes me re remember. Middle school like that happened, every single day. Somebody was always like, okay, you go, okay, you do this. And it didn't matter if it was rap, if it was dance, if it was like poetry spoken word.

[00:15:14] Brittany Herzberg: It was like every single day there was something. And we always knew, okay, that kid's gonna, have something great to say, that kid's gonna be like, dancing, doing something really beautiful. Yeah.

[00:15:23] Alex Minor: Cause the ones who are all in, they're ready to do it at a moment's notice. The ones playing.

[00:15:28] Alex Minor: They're the ones, ah, I'm not feeling it right now. Man. I hate when people just be asking, me, like right now, the ones who, who live and breathe this, they'll drop everything and bust it out.

[00:15:39] Brittany Herzberg: I feel like that makes me wanna take a whole different energy into my work. Yes. So I love hearing that because I've been in like a weird funk and hearing that, I'm like, I do love what I do, but I haven't been treating it.

[00:15:50] Brittany Herzberg: It's 9:00 AM we're doing this. It's, that's great. Thanks for saying.

[00:15:53] Crystal Waddell: Yeah,

[00:15:54] Alex Minor: no problem.

[00:15:54] Crystal Waddell: Yeah, for sure. I feel inspired as well, because even just recently I was listening to a list [00:16:00] building class and the person was talking about how you need to be dropping your lead magnet all the time.

[00:16:05] Crystal Waddell: Like you need to be list building all the time. You need to be talking about your lead magnet all the time. And I thought to myself, I was like, I have this amazing 47 point checklist for Shopify store owners and their seo.

[00:16:19] Crystal Waddell: This is the first time, I think I've talked about it on the podcast. And we have, what, 44 episodes?

[00:16:23] Brittany Herzberg: We have a few. Yep.

[00:16:25] Crystal Waddell: And I should be talking, that's the stuff I should be dropping every day at 9:00 AM Have you grabbed it yet?

[00:16:31] Brittany Herzberg: I'm making a note of it, just so you know.

[00:16:32] Alex Minor: And,

[00:16:33] Alex Minor: And here's the thing and that leads me to one of my other favorite sayings. You have to be a broken.

[00:16:39] Crystal Waddell: Yeah.

[00:16:39] Brittany Herzberg: Yes.

[00:16:39] Alex Minor: When it comes to your brand, when it comes to your business, when it comes to your content, you should be a broken record.

[00:16:47] Alex Minor: Somebody shouldn't see you 10 times and hear you say 10 different things or be on 10 different subjects. And when I say that, I'm not saying that you have to make the exact

[00:16:56] Alex Minor: same video, that you gotta write the exact same post, but [00:17:00] it should all be under the same umbrella. If somebody sees, so for instance let's see if you're a speaker, right?

[00:17:06] Alex Minor: Or that's part of your content strategy is doing content with the goal of becoming a speaker.

[00:17:11] Alex Minor: When you get these gigs and you're actually up on stage, if somebody sees you five times, they should have seen you talk about the same crap five times. The title of the talk may be a little bit different.

[00:17:22] Alex Minor: The spin on it might be a little bit different, but the meat, the foundation of what you talk about and why people value you, that should be the same. It can evolve over time. But if somebody sees you five times, you should be on the same crap five times. Like it shouldn't be the first time I see you.

[00:17:44] Alex Minor: You're talking about seo and the next time I see you, you're talking about golf.

[00:17:50] Alex Minor: Like the two things don't necessarily match up unless you're talking about golf. SEO O. Yeah, like now. Now then you got a different spin on it and it makes.

[00:17:59] Brittany Herzberg: [00:18:00] Yep.

[00:18:00] Alex Minor: Or if you're comparing SEO to golf I don't know how you would do that.

[00:18:03] Alex Minor: I don't know enough about SEO to make that analogy work, but I'm sure there's a way,

[00:18:08] Brittany Herzberg: I feel like I don't know enough about golf to make that happen, but I'm like, I'm sure somebody out there could do it. It took me a very long time to get that into my head because I felt like I had to create something new and fresh every single time.

[00:18:18] Alex Minor: I, and that's the mistake, and that's the mistake, that mistake that a lot of people make when it comes to making content.

[00:18:22] Brittany Herzberg: Yeah.

[00:18:23] Alex Minor: They think they have to reinvent the wheel every time. No, you like, I had a world class speaker, trainer, coach as my client for a solid two years during the pandemic. Do you want to know how many times I heard the same story?

[00:18:39] Alex Minor: You made Tons of videos. I produced 50 episodes of a series for this man that was licensed to cable television. Tons of virtual talks. I heard about the same five to 10 stories like a hundred times.

[00:18:56] Brittany Herzberg: You know what that made me think of? My dad tells the same stories [00:19:00] over and over, and we need to be like our dads.

[00:19:03] Alex Minor: But that's why the great storytellers are great storytellers. Yeah. They tell the same stories and they get really good at it. I never realized that people come up with a great brand message or get so good at being off the cuff. It's because they're not really off the cuff. They're talking about the stuff that they know cold.

[00:19:18] Alex Minor: And when you're creating your content, you should know whatever you're talking about, cold. But if you don't know what you're talking about, cold, if it's something new, if it's something that you're learning, if it's something that you wanna build in public, say that. Yeah. Yeah. You don't have to be the guru, you don't have to know the end.

[00:19:38] Alex Minor: You don't have to have the end all, be all of the information. Perfect example, rich Cardona had a chart topping podcast a couple years ago. They stopped it which was sad cuz it was busting up the charts. They only did a, they stopped after a hundred episodes. It was called NFTs for newbies.

[00:19:56] Alex Minor: He was building in public. He wasn't saying, we know [00:20:00] everything about NFTs. The whole premise of the podcast is we don't know crap about NFTs and we want to talk to people who can help us learn.

[00:20:10] Crystal Waddell: Oh, I love that.

[00:20:11] Alex Minor: And by them having those conversations and talking to experts and people who was knee deep in web three so that they could learn.

[00:20:19] Alex Minor: And also sharing, their experiments, their trials, their tribulations, the things that they was into, the projects they bought into, the ones that didn't work out. They were helping other people who were in the exact same position as them. Yeah. Wanting to learn.

[00:20:33] Alex Minor: So there's value in not being the expert.

[00:20:35] Alex Minor: And sometimes, and there wasn't, nobody would've listened to their podcast.

[00:20:38] Brittany Herzberg: And sometimes I feel like that actually. It establishes trust and it builds your following in a very unique way because I feel like we're all, and part of the reason why I feel like case studies are so good and why I like focusing on them is because there's transparency and there's honesty and there's authenticity there.

[00:20:54] Brittany Herzberg: And so many of us, especially after the last handful of years, are really craving that. So if you can build in [00:21:00] public, I think that's a wonderful way to go.

[00:21:01] Crystal Waddell: Yeah.

[00:21:02] Alex Minor: Yeah. And we were, we've been talking about YouTube. We would talk about the seo. There are so many YouTube channels that have built massive followings by building in public, by starting off with the premise of, I'm trying to do this thing.

[00:21:15] Alex Minor: I don't know how to do this thing yet. But I'm gonna try to learn. Why don't y'all come along on my journey? That's why you get the whole document. Don't create movement that, like people like Gary V promote heavily. Because it's, you don't have to have all the answers.

[00:21:29] Alex Minor: Sometimes just looking for the answers and showing people how you are looking for the answers is valuable because it can show them how to look for the answers.

[00:21:37] Alex Minor: A lot of people don't know things because they don't know how to find them.

[00:21:42] Brittany Herzberg: Yeah. We're doing.

[00:21:43] Crystal Waddell: Yeah. No, that's what I was thinking too. I was like we were discovering SEO when we are like looking at each other going. Other people need to hear our conversations. That's exactly what B said.

[00:21:54] Crystal Waddell: She was like, as we're bouncing ideas off of each other, we're thinking, wow, if we [00:22:00] have been doing this for a few years now, because B had her own massage practice for years. I had been, moonlighting on Etsy and my own Shopify store, whatever, for a few years. And we were just learning about seo.

[00:22:12] Crystal Waddell: We were just learning about how the internet worked. We're like, if we've been in it for this long and we're just now learning about, first we bonded over the fact that we needed an email list, it was like 2017 probably. Yeah. It was like, oh my gosh.

[00:22:28] Crystal Waddell: Okay, so let's do that together. And so we've just of went on this journey together.

[00:22:32] Crystal Waddell: And then our growth has been so great.

[00:22:34] Brittany Herzberg: Yeah.

[00:22:34] Crystal Waddell: Together, because I think we just like sharpen each other and give each other ideas and then help each other and encourage each other.

[00:22:40] Crystal Waddell: That's why we created this podcast. So we could also do that for other people who may not have a B or a Crystal Waddell in their life.

[00:22:47] Crystal Waddell: And that's why we invite Alex Minor to come on and these things that you're saying, Like they are knowledge bombs.

[00:22:53] Crystal Waddell: They are quote cards, just getting ready to happen.

[00:22:56] Crystal Waddell: Because you were saying about our dads, like my uncles, [00:23:00] they tell the same stories over and you write, and sometimes it changes just a little bit.

[00:23:04] Crystal Waddell: And I've heard 'em so many times, I can say, Hey, that's not how it goes. Because, I've heard it before.

[00:23:09] Crystal Waddell: And then we're all requesting our favorite stories.

[00:23:12] Crystal Waddell: There's this one story where one of my uncles was drowning in a. Sandbar trap or something. It was like a water hole where, they're filled with sand and water or something. I don't know.

[00:23:21] Crystal Waddell: One of 'em fell out of the boat, couldn't swim. And so my other uncle jumps in to save him, but the uncle that couldn't swim jumps on his neck, and so now he's drowning both of them.

[00:23:31] Crystal Waddell: My all-time favorite story, and then my uncle that went in to save my other uncle turns around and punches the other uncle in the face and knocks him out, and then takes him back to the boat.

[00:23:39] Crystal Waddell: I always love hearing those stories. I'm like, tell me about the time that so-and-so was drowning in the sandbar.

[00:23:45] Alex Minor: But it was a really good story because he told it all the time. He practice.

[00:23:49] Brittany Herzberg: Yeah. Yes. Gosh, I didn't realize that. This is incredible. All right. Yeah. How are we gonna bring this back to video?

[00:23:56] Crystal Waddell: Okay. Okay, so here's. Here's a question. So we're [00:24:00] doing the same things over and over or whatever. Not reinventing the wheel, but how do you make it feel fresh? Because if you're going to somebody's YouTube channel, they're always talking about the same thing. How do you keep your viewers interest?

[00:24:13] Alex Minor: You gotta realize one thing. Nobody's gonna see it all. Nobody's gonna see it all. Maybe the super fan, but you -

[00:24:23] Brittany Herzberg: I was gonna say not even the super fan.

[00:24:25] Alex Minor: Not usually. Not even them. Not unless like they're super duper fan, like dedicated.

[00:24:31] Brittany Herzberg: I believe we called those stalkers.

[00:24:34] Alex Minor: I didn't wanna go there, but

[00:24:36] Brittany Herzberg: I took it there.

[00:24:38] Alex Minor: But yeah, nobody's gonna see everything like one, we ain't got time to see everything. Yeah. Like we busy, we living lives, we running here, we running there.

[00:24:48] Alex Minor: If the person watching your content is another business owner, or if they got kids, if they got a life in general, like they're not gonna see everything, even if they want to.

[00:24:58] Alex Minor: That's why you gotta have all these [00:25:00] different methods of promoting your stuff. That's why you gotta be on the social media. That's why you gotta have the email list. That's why you gotta post on the network. It's cuz nobody's gonna see everything. But you, but if you give them 50 chances to see some content, don't you think it's more likely than if you give them five?

[00:25:17] Brittany Herzberg: Yep. That's a good. Man, you're just like drop, like she said, knowledge bombs all over the place. This is great.

[00:25:25] Alex Minor: I was a rapper. I, every now and then I got a one-liner.

[00:25:28] Brittany Herzberg: You got quite a few. I've made some notes. This is great.

[00:25:31] Crystal Waddell: Okay, so when somebody works with you do they come with, come to you with a strategy and say, Hey, I wanna be known for this, and then you come up with the video strategy.

[00:25:41] Crystal Waddell: Or, how do you work to break it down, break down that message in video?

[00:25:46] Alex Minor: It depends. Some people come in knowing exactly what they want. Those are the rare ones. And usually those are more one-off video projects, we're filming for an event or there's a specific need, [00:26:00] if people are coming in.

[00:26:02] Alex Minor: Wanting more of a holistic marketing strategy that involves video or trying to incorporate video into their existing marketing strategy. That's my happy place and where we can give the most value because the difference between us and other video companies is we are not just videographers.

[00:26:21] Alex Minor: Like videographers tend to be the guy with the camera. They come in, you tell 'em what you want, or they ask you, what do you want, you tell 'em. They say, oh yeah, we can film that.

[00:26:33] Alex Minor: And they do some form of that. Hand you the video and they walk away.

[00:26:37] Alex Minor: I love working with people where we're really collaborators and I get to be a detective.

[00:26:42] Alex Minor: I get to ask you tons of questions about, where you are in your business right now, where it is that you're trying to go, the type of vision that you have. What are, how are you selling the products and services? How are you marketing yourself right now? What, how do you feel about your brand?

[00:26:56] Alex Minor: How do your people feel about your brand, your clients?

[00:26:59] Alex Minor: And that kind of [00:27:00] gives me a fertile ground to plant ideas in and we can come up with those ideas together. And figure out the direction that's right for the goals that you have because it's really predicated on what the goal is.

[00:27:13] Alex Minor: And that's why a lot of content doesn't work for people, is they don't know what they want the content to do because you don't really want the content. You don't really want a video, you want a result. Yeah. And if, and you're not gonna get a result if you're just taking random shots at the side of the barn.

[00:27:29] Alex Minor: You need a target.

[00:27:30] Crystal Waddell: So I do have another follow up question because one of my main SEO strategies is similar to something B talks about, like showing up as the answer to a Googled question.

[00:27:40] Crystal Waddell: So I always like to answer the people also ask questions on Google for, part of any article that I write.

[00:27:49] Crystal Waddell: Thanks. I'm proud of that one. But one thing that they were talking about with this lady on TikTok is she was essentially doing that. And every single one of her TikTok videos was [00:28:00] her answering a question related to real estate.

[00:28:04] Crystal Waddell: And so she just had her take on, these common real estate questions and so she just take a day and film all of those. And I just thought that's genius. is That the type of thing that you're talking about in terms of, having a goal and making content that kind of makes sense?

[00:28:20] Alex Minor: It can be. And when it comes to short form video, that's what that's what we focus on with a lot of our clients is making those type of informational educational videos. Now there's room for other stuff. There's room for entertainment, there's room for, getting into trendy stuff if that's what you want.

[00:28:36] Alex Minor: But you don't necessarily have to, because. People aren't really following you for trends, they're following you for value. They're following you for information, right? Yeah. Or they're following you because they like you.

[00:28:47] Alex Minor: And so creating content that's heavy on the education, but also gives people a chance to get to know your vibe, to get to know who you are as a person, to feel your energy, see how you operate.[00:29:00]

[00:29:00] Alex Minor: That's the priority to me.

[00:29:01] Alex Minor: Like we can have fun, we can record the fun stuff, we can figure. Quirky ways to use like B-roll to make extra content and do things that, like you can't necessarily be in the classroom all the time. know, You might have to take it to the street a couple times.

[00:29:14] Alex Minor: And there are different ways to do that and different approaches. It really just depends on you your particular flavor, how you want to be seen, and the kind of brand that you're trying to build. There, there's so many different ways to approach building a brand, but when it comes to video content, I and.

[00:29:32] Alex Minor: Putting out content on social media specifically to help build that brand. I go for education first.

[00:29:38] Alex Minor: If you can entertain, if you've got the personality for it. Cause everybody don't have the personality to be entertainer.

[00:29:44] Alex Minor: There's very few of us that have the right mix of qualities to. To, grow that star power, like you can learn some of it.

[00:29:51] Alex Minor: There are elements of charisma and performance that you can learn. There's techniques and there's mindsets, and there's processes that you can go [00:30:00] through to make better content, to show up better on camera.

[00:30:03] Alex Minor: But a lot of it's really just practice, bro. You gotta do the reps, you gotta build the muscles.

[00:30:07] Alex Minor: This is, creativity is a muscle. Being good on camera is a muscle. Coming up with ideas is a muscle. So if you're not doing it consistently, you're never going to get really good at it.

[00:30:18] Alex Minor: If you want to get really good at it, you gotta do it a lot, way more than you think you do.

[00:30:24] Alex Minor: Just

[00:30:24] Brittany Herzberg: to throw something in there, like even recording like this, I no joke.

[00:30:28] Brittany Herzberg: I used to feel like I would black out. Just being on a Zoom call.

[00:30:32] Brittany Herzberg: It was like terrifying to me. Like eight year old me would have crapped my pants thinking that I was doing this. I totally agree with you. At some point last year I remember texting Crystal Waddell and I'm like, I'm good now. Like I feel okay.

[00:30:43] Brittany Herzberg: And even up until that point, I had been doing reels. I had been showing up on other podcasts. I had been, I'd been doing a whole bunch of things, but it took those reps, it took for me getting comfortable with it and, Figuring out what is my, like star power? What is it that I can show up?

[00:30:57] Brittany Herzberg: And what do people like and what do I like doing and what feels good? [00:31:00] Yeah, like it's possible.

[00:31:01] Alex Minor: And I'll say, this is another one that I don't think a lot of people realize. Podcasts are a cheat code to getting good on camera.

[00:31:07] Brittany Herzberg: Yep.

[00:31:08] Crystal Waddell: Oh,

[00:31:08] Alex Minor: if you want to get good at, if you want to get good on camera or comfortable being in front of a camera, Do more podcasts because like we're doing right now, most people these days, even if they're doing audio-only podcasts, if they're not only interviewing people locally, they're doing most of their podcasts On Zoom.

[00:31:25] Alex Minor: Yeah. On Riverside. On Stream Yard. Something with a video component, which is why it blows my mind that only about 17, 18% according to the stats that I could find of podcasts, publish videos.

[00:31:40] Crystal Waddell: Okay, so that's something I wanna follow up on really fast. Okay. Two things. Where do you publish your podcast video?

[00:31:47] Crystal Waddell: And then number two, where do you look? Because you look like you're looking at the camera. And I don't know if you've noticed, but I look like I'm looking everywhere, which I am, but I don't know where to look. And sometimes it feels I'm looking down to the [00:32:00] side, like if someone were to watch this video, it's like

[00:32:02] Alex Minor: straight down the all seeing eye, the camera lens.

[00:32:06] Brittany Herzberg: I also have a hack where I put like Alex Minor's face for me is right under my camera lens.

[00:32:11] Alex Minor: Yeah. Like y'all's face is right behind my camera.

[00:32:13] Brittany Herzberg: But yeah that's what I.

[00:32:15] Alex Minor: So I'm happy to, and you're using a webcam or something, one, one hack that you can do is find where the little hole is for the webcam, and then get like a post-it note or a little sticky, draw an arrow on it and put it right above there so you know exactly where to look cause it's made to blend in. so a lot of times you're gonna forget where it is and where to look if you don't have something that's telling you. So if you want to be able to do that, like just put a little post it note, little sticky, something with a arrow saying right here, this is where you're supposed to be looking.

[00:32:44] Alex Minor: And you can do that with your phone too.

[00:32:46] Crystal Waddell: It feels weird not to be able to look directly at you guys.

[00:32:48] Alex Minor: It does. It's something that you gotta get used to.

[00:32:51] Alex Minor: Okay.

[00:32:51] Crystal Waddell: So that's normal. Okay,

[00:32:53] Alex Minor: that's good.

[00:32:53] Crystal Waddell: Yeah. Okay. I think these are so many little skills I don't know if you'd call 'em soft skills or hard skills that people just need to learn, [00:33:00] myself included, is just get in a room, or even if it's on Zoom by yourself and practice looking at the green dot, or practice looking. At the camera because like you said, it's a muscle and you'll get used to it if you do it over and over, but it's hard for me to get used to it.

[00:33:16] Crystal Waddell: With other people in the room.

[00:33:17] Alex Minor: And even when you're filming like selfie style videos with your phone, it's something that you need to practice. Cuz most people look at the picture of themselves on the screen when they should be looking at the little camera.

[00:33:28] Brittany Herzberg: Yeah. That's the one that I'm able to do.

[00:33:31] Brittany Herzberg: And to your point, Crystal Waddell, I'm able to do that because I'm not looking at you. Like when you're, when there's other people in the room, I'm looking to see your body language like that. For me, that's half the, that's 90% of the benefit of recording with people in the room. It's I get to see you.

[00:33:43] Brittany Herzberg: But it's much easier to look at the little pinhole if it's just me by myself. So recording, of course, doing selfies, doing any of the real videos, like it's so much easier for me. Yeah.

[00:33:51] Alex Minor: And the reason why you want to focus on doing that, making sure you're looking at the camera as if it was somebody's face is, like you said on the other side, [00:34:00] it does look like I'm looking you in the eyes.

[00:34:01] Alex Minor: It does look like I'm looking you in the face, and that creates that sense of connection. And the reason that video works so well. For branding, for advertising, for all of these things is our brains can't tell the difference between what we see on the screen and what we see in person if we're actually seeing people.

[00:34:19] Alex Minor: So that's why video works so well, is because to our brains, it's the same. So that's why you get people feeling like they know celebrities, like they know all these folks via social media. It's because our brains are telling us that we do. Our brains are telling us we're familiar with them cuz we see them all the time.

[00:34:37] Alex Minor: We see their content, we see their face, we see their mannerisms, we think we know them.

[00:34:41] Brittany Herzberg: Sure. Do.

[00:34:42] Crystal Waddell: I also have that self-consciousness of not being able to look at myself, it's like, oh, what kind of face am I look making right now? So that's the other weird part about it. We're like doing this meta. Analysis right now, but that's what it feels like. It's oh, I can't look at myself. And [00:35:00] that feels weird as well.

[00:35:02] Brittany Herzberg: I'm good with that. I'd rather look at you.

[00:35:06] Alex Minor: It's a, it's just a habit that you gotta break.

[00:35:08] Alex Minor: And like y'all were saying, like there's no reason why you can't go film a bunch of videos by yourself to practice or, phone a friend.

[00:35:16] Alex Minor: Do like you and Brittany Herzberg do and hop on Zoom and have conversations that are just practice for creating content. And you never know. You should hit the record button. You might come out with something brilliant. That could be

[00:35:26] Brittany Herzberg: like a podcast.

[00:35:27] Alex Minor: Yeah, that too.

[00:35:30] Crystal Waddell: So earlier in the conversation I mentioned not wanting to be on video because a lot of times I just like to roll outta bed and start working, you should have seen what was going on with my hair before you jumped on here.

[00:35:40] Brittany Herzberg: It's super attractive. I'm talking about,

[00:35:44] Crystal Waddell: but so what are some ways that you can use YouTube if you're just like, no way, I can't get on camera or I don't want to. What are some ways that people are doing that successfully?

[00:35:52] Alex Minor: So I like to hear the sound of thunderstorms when I go to sleep. Search thunderstorms, sleep sounds on YouTube. [00:36:00] You'll be amazed at the different videos that come up that have millions of views and the channels are huge, those people are making gangs of money.

[00:36:09] Crystal Waddell: Okay. So my son loves to watch two types of videos. One is what he calls satisfy. I'm like, he's 10. And he'll tell me like, oh, that's so satisfying. I'm like, that's so weird. Don't say that. So he either watches satisfying videos or he likes to watch people doing their jobs.

[00:36:26] Brittany Herzberg: The ones that are coming to mind for me where it doesn't have a person's face or a voice, I don't know which of my friends introduced me to this, but I've become obsessed with all things tiny and they're like knitted. Stop action.

[00:36:37] Brittany Herzberg: And it'll be like someone cooking dinner on this like tiny knitted stove. It's like the weirdest thing ever. But no face.

[00:36:43] Alex Minor: a lot of these channels have millions of views, millions of followers. Because they're feeling a need. People want to know how to cook. They're showing 'em how to cook. They don't gotta be on screen to do that. They use the words, they show the actions and they show the end result.

[00:36:58] Alex Minor: There you go. That is awesome. Wow. So [00:37:00] process videos are a big one. There's lots of those. And that's not the only one. I watch videos on forgery. Not money forgery. Medieval forgery

[00:37:08] Brittany Herzberg: that.

[00:37:09] Alex Minor: People like forging weapons, swords, knives. I follow several maker channels is what they call 'em a lot. I prefer the ones where you actually get to hear the people talk through the process and tell you what they're doing.

[00:37:20] Alex Minor: Because I didn't know anything about forgery when I first stumbled onto these channels. But then I found a couple where instead of just showing them banging on the metal and doing the things, cuz there would be stuff, I'd be sitting there like, why are they doing that? Why are they dipping it in that thing?

[00:37:34] Alex Minor: Is that oil? What does that do? And then I found a couple of channels where the guys actually narrate and be like, all right, this is what I did next. This is why we do this. And I'm like, oh, okay. Now I understand that's what you're doing.

[00:37:46] Brittany Herzberg: You needed context. Yeah. Context.

[00:37:50] Alex Minor: And those channels have tons and tons of followers.

[00:37:53] Crystal Waddell: Okay, so before we go, I have to ask a question because I always love to get, as much free advice as I can from every [00:38:00] expert that we have.

[00:38:00] Crystal Waddell: Come on here.

[00:38:01] Brittany Herzberg: We love it.

[00:38:01] Crystal Waddell: But let's say I wanna create a YouTube channel where I am exploring my journey with UX because that's my thing. I just love everything about UX design, but I'm learning as I.

[00:38:13] Crystal Waddell: How do you make the videos where you're sharing your screen that might have like sensitive information without showing the sensitive information, like the back end of my Shopify store and that type of thing. Do you have any tips?

[00:38:25] Alex Minor: Yeah. There, if you're, so I would, so if you're doing something that complex And you're doing your screen recordings and things in post-production, you can easily blur out those sections of the screen.

[00:38:37] Alex Minor: There're there are like plugins in your editing programs, premier Final Cut pro, Da Vinci Resolve. If you're using one of those and probably even some of the more basic video editing programs where you can go in and you can say, and you can say, I want a blur effect. And, but you can section it to just part of the screen.

[00:38:55] Brittany Herzberg: That's cool.

[00:38:56] Alex Minor: Or even simpler. You can just have a black square [00:39:00] graphic that you keep as a resource and when you need to blank something out, you just drag that graphic onto the screen and stretch it to fit whatever it is that you need to cover up.

[00:39:11] Brittany Herzberg: That's good advice.

[00:39:12] Brittany Herzberg: Now that we have grabbed every bit of information that we possibly can out of you, there's probably, thank you, Alex Minor.

[00:39:18] Brittany Herzberg: Thank you. No problem. Where can people connect with you, follow you, find you give us all the information?

[00:39:24] Alex Minor: All right, so the easiest place to connect with me if you wanna have an actual conversation is probably on LinkedIn search for Alex Minor Minor. I'm pretty sure I. Active Alex Minor Minor and we'll come up at the top of your searches.

[00:39:35] Alex Minor: There's a lot more Alex Minor minors out there than I thought there are. But I should probably be the one that comes up at the top of your search. If you can also follow me on Instagram at v the Alex Minor Minor, @theAlex Minorminor.

[00:39:47] Alex Minor: I'm also starting to be on TikTok Alex Minor.Minor and you could try to follow me on Facebook, but why would you do that?

[00:39:55] Crystal Waddell: A stalker,

[00:39:56] Brittany Herzberg: For your super fan.

[00:39:57] Alex Minor: And I'm also on, I'm also on [00:40:00] YouTube at, /Alex Minorminor.

[00:40:03] Brittany Herzberg: Love it. Thanks for being here.

[00:40:04] Brittany Herzberg: This is awesome. Yes.

[00:40:06] Alex Minor: We try to do our best.

[00:40:07] Brittany Herzberg: We try. Yeah, you do a great job. We just show up.

[00:40:10] Alex Minor: Isn't it the best? That's why podcasts work. It's like you don't have to create all the content, bring on somebody, let em talk.

[00:40:17] Brittany Herzberg: Bring on the other experts that We do love doing that though, because we get to show off our friends and showcase their expertise and we have a blast doing.

[00:40:25] Alex Minor: Yeah. And that's why I like personally in my business working with subject matter experts, coaches other creators and influencers, it's cuz I get to learn from them. While doing it

[00:40:34] Brittany Herzberg: right, it's like the best thing ever. I think all three of us do that. I love that. Thank you so much.

[00:40:38] Alex Minor: No problem. Glad to do it.

[00:40:40] Crystal Waddell: Bye guys.

[00:40:41] Brittany Herzberg: Bye.