Latest / How To Protect The Ocean / Short-Form Content for Ocean Awareness: What Actually Works

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Short-Form Content for Ocean Awareness: What Actually Works · How To Protect The Ocean

1:05
Today we're gonna be talking about short-form content and how it
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could help spread ocean awareness.
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Now, I have to admit, one of the things that I have trouble
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with is doing short-form content Doing short-form content that
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is not a clip from the podcast.
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If you look at my Instagram, TikTok, YouTube Shorts, they're
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pretty much clips from this podcast.
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I videotape myself, I'm looking right in my camera right now.
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I videotape myself, and then my editor will take clips from the episode and
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post them up, usually two clips per episode, and post them up on TikTok,
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on Instagram, and on YouTube Shorts.
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And they kinda give people a perspective of what we're doing on
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these podcasts, and I think it's fun.
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It's a great thing to do.
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It's a lot of fun to be able to take part in this kind of stuff, and to get video
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out there to show people what I do here on the How to Protect the Ocean podcast.
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However, one of the things that gets difficult is when I'm trying
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to create original content in short-form content, especially video.
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That's a difficult thing for me.
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I have trouble doing that because when I do it, I talk too long, 'cause I'm so
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used to talking on a podcast, like a, long-form video where the three minutes,
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it's very difficult to fit the information you want in three minutes the way I talk.
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So I have to figure out different ways to do things, but I have some ideas on
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what I wanna do for short-form content.
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I've been watching the gurus, and the social media people and
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everything, and what people can do to help grow your content or
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help grow your following on this.
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And you know, I think what's interesting is we are getting into
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a period where followers, and this is all, all across all platforms,
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followers and subscribers are not as important as views and as watch time.
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So making sure people watch your video or look at your posts for as
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long as possible, and making sure that they stay on the platform.
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I think that's something that's always been an interesting thing
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that social media companies want you to do in the different platforms.
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They want you to stay on the platform 'cause, like, you know,
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something like, a platform like YouTube, they're gonna show ads.
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So they want you to stay on the platform for as long as possible.
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Even with Instagram, they're gonna show ads, and TikTok, they're gonna show ads.
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They don't want you to go off platform.
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They don't want you to see a creator and the creator's like, "Hey, go to
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my link in the bio," and then go out there and get that kind of stuff.
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They want you to watch the video, and so that means your video or your content
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has to be watchable from start to finish.
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So if you're doing three minutes of content, you want it to be interesting
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for three minutes of content.
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Whereas, like, a long form, although they want you to stay on as long as
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possible, they want you to stay on after the video or after they're listening.
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So I think that's really interesting to see.
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Podcasting is a little bit different, but we're gonna be talking about
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short-form content, 'cause I feel like this is where I have trouble.
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This is where the trouble really begins for me, is because doing any
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piece of content, and usually it's video, a short-form video, in between,
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like, 60 and 90 seconds is is not easy to do, especially for someone
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who likes to talk as much as I do.
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And so you, what you need, you need a couple of different things.
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You need it to be built for vertical viewing, so you're
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probably recording on your phone.
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You're having maybe one of those little microphones, like
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I have a RODE, a wireless mic.
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You're probably looking, like, the sound has to be on.
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It has to be, like, a fast hook, 'cause people can scroll really, really quickly
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if they don't like what they see or they don't like what you're doing.
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It has to be something that's interesting to them.
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And it's not really a mini version of the long-term content.
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Like, my clips do okay, but they're not really built for that mini
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version or that timeline, right?
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Of the 30 to 60 to 90 seconds or even three minutes.
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And so it has its own format, and it has its own rules in this short-form content.
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And I think it's something that's really interesting.
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And a lot of people who do podcasts don't do short form,
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and short form don't do podcasts.
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And I think the two can really meld together because you're
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reaching a different audience.
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Just like when you go from podcasting on audio platforms and then bring
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it to a video platform like YouTube, you're looking at expanding that
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audience to a different audience.
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Because people who watch YouTube podcast-listening people, which may
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not be short-form listening people.
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So they're all different types of audiences.
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So if you want to build a brand or in this case, if you want to spread
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ocean awareness, ocean science, ocean conservation, you will want to hit
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every different platform differently.
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You may not want to spread it out as I do, as repurposing.
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It used to be like, "Hey, just repurpose it.
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It's great." I don't think I'll ever stop posting those clips because they're
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so easy to post, but I gotta create something new in this kind of situation.
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I think if you are looking at doing short-form content, which I know
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a lot of people, like my daughter wants to get into short-form content.
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She gets into science communication, because she wants to be a wildlife
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biologist, because that's where the platform where she lives in,
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Instagram, TikTok, that's where she is.
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She doesn't listen to podcasts.
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She doesn't really watch YouTube as much as she used to when she was a kid.
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And so now being, you know, 18, 19 years old, she is going to be going into this
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type of content, like short-form content.
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Now, the one thing is, is you're gonna be hitting a different audience, right?
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It's a different target audience.
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And the thing is it's a low commitment for the viewer, which means it's a low
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barrier of entry for that first exposure.
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The way TikTok works, even now, a lot of other platforms, whether it be
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LinkedIn or Instagram or YouTube Shorts.
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The barrier to be exposed to something new is really low because the algorithm
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is just like, you know, you have the FYP page, the For You page on TikTok,
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where it's basically serving up content, like it's testing out content
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all the time in front of the user.
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So I'll get content every once in a while that has nothing to do with what
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I like or what I've liked in the past.
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They throw something that's different.
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I'm like, "No, I don't need to know that." And then they'll give
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me something else, and then it continues to give me something.
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Then they'll give me stuff that I may not follow the person, but I
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continually get that video back.
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It's changed the way algorithms work across social media because the
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virality can increase so much because it's constantly showing your video in
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front of people that it thinks might like it, and it might be experimenting
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with people who may not like it.
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So your fringe becomes big.
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Like, you have your core audience, then you have your fringe audience
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that might pull in some things.
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So they may not like my podcast clips, but they may like a series that I'm
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going to do on conservation or a series I'm gonna do on education.
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It really just depends on what they do, but they're gonna get those
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videos every once in a while, so I can get picked up by anybody.
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So it's not just going to my followers if I have like three or four followers.
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It's going to everybody.
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And then it kinda narrows it down based on what they've liked before.
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So if somebody likes a nature video or somebody likes an education video
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on something science-y or something wildlife, they might get one of my videos
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on conservation or on ocean conservation because that's in their wheelhouse
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and the algorithm figures that out, which I think is really interesting.
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So I think it's not a subscriber-driven algorithm, it's a video.
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It looks at what can go viral or what can do it, it makes things go viral.
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I had a video recently on TikTok that hit 107,000 views in, like, two
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days, and that was incredible, right?
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And I was like, wow, this didn't really have anything to do…
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It had to do with ghost nets, and it was a clip from my podcast, and
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it just all of a sudden it went.
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All my other clips on TikTok were getting two, maybe 300, maybe 500
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every once in a while, but two to 300 views, which is phenomenal to me.
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Like, I know that's not, like, influencer status or content creation
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status, like, where I can get money, 'cause in Canada you can't get money
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on the program from what I understand.
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But it's kinda cool to see that, you know, every once in a while something
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pops off that you don't expect.
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And so I think this kinda really works well in the way of posting and being seen,
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like, oh, this can go viral at any moment.
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Not that I'm looking to go viral or you should be looking to go viral.
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And by the way, when I say me, this is what I'm gonna do, I think this is
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something that you should consider doing.
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If you're a scientist, a wildlife biologist, you're interested in
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science, or you're interested in nature, interested in the ocean, you should be
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posting on talking about things that you know, that you love to even find out.
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And I think, this is a great way of correcting misinformation.
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How megalodon myths or shark attack fear or viral animal videos, you can kinda
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take a look of what's the right thing to do ethically, what's not the right
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thing to do, what's real, what's not.
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It's a really good way to stitch something or get in on something
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and be able to talk about it.
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I think it's kinda cool to see.
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Now, two people I'm gonna be referring to throughout the week is Kristian Parton,
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who owns Shark Bytes on YouTube, and Kay Passionate, she owns a YouTube channel,
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but she also is on Twitch, she's also on TikTok, and she's also on Instagram.
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They have big followings, right?
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Especially Kay Passionate.
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Kay Pass- has a very big following on a lot of these different platforms.
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And so it goes to show that you can talk about animals in a cool and fun
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kinda way, even just quote-unquote yapping type of way, which is, like, a
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new trend we'll talk about in a second on short form video and still be able
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to produce, like, really good content.
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It takes time, and we'll talk about that workflow in a second,
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but that's something that you can take a look at or do really well.
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Let's talk about what works.
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I'm not gonna talk about, like, yet about the video itself, but
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I wanna talk about what to post.
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You can go in and you can post random sort of ideas.
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You can do like education episodes, like taking animals, like we're gonna talk
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about the bullfrog, or we're gonna talk about the Humboldt squid, or we're gonna
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talk about the great white shark today.
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Or, you know, I'm gonna comment on the latest Shark Week episode
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that I thought was either good or bad or for whatever reason.
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You could do like narratives or editorial-type posts.
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And so I think when you start to hone in on stuff and see what works and
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what doesn't, experiment, by all means.
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But I think at the beginning it's really important to figure out what you're
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going to talk about on a regular basis.
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What do you enjoy to talk about on a regular basis?
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Do you enjoy talking about just pure education?
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Do you enjoy talking about conservation projects that are happening?
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Do you enjoy doing like reaction videos, busting myth videos?
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I think doing it randomly is okay.
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I think you'll do okay if you do it consistently.
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You should come up with a plan of doing some type of series.
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It seems that the follow me series on a journey will do better because
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people are invested in that journey.
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So there are a lot, you can see it in fitness.
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So there's a number of people online who are saying, "Follow my fitness journey.
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I'm trying to lose weight, I'm trying to gain muscle, I'm trying to lose
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my dad bod," all this kind of stuff.
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And you can say, "This is day one of me trying to lose or get into a dad bod with
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a kettlebell exercise thing." I've seen that from a guy that I kind of follow.
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I'm like, "Oh, that's kind of interesting."
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Like, these are really easy to do workouts at home and you kind of do it.
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It's kind of fun if you think, "Oh, I can't get to the gym today," or, "I'm
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recovering from something, maybe I can do this quick workout and do it that way."
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There's one woman who's on TikTok that I see, I'm sure she's on Instagram too,
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and she has quite the following, where she is learning something new every day.
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And so she has a notebook that she writes down every day of something
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she learned that's new to her.
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And I think that's fun.
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That's a fun way of like watching something that's not detrimental
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to your psyche in terms and your mental health, but you're learning
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something new along with her.
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And then she actually sells her notebooks with all the stuff that she's
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learned and what you can learn and how you can follow the journey with her.
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I think it's really cool.
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So you can do a lot of these types of series where it's like these follow
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along journey series where you're trying to figure out something new
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or you're trying to talk to somebody and educate somebody and I think
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those seem to work really well.
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Now, the structure of the video has to be focused.
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And it takes a while to craft these.
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This is where I think is the most frustrating aspect of it because there
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are some people who will get on and they'll do this form that's yapping.
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Yapping is just you're basically talking into your phone.
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You may have a microphone, you may not.
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It's very casual, and you're talking about one idea.
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And you have that idea, and you say it for, you know, anywhere between 60
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seconds and three minutes, and then you just kinda go and that's your video.
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It doesn't have to be highly edited, it could just be casual, but
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you still have to hook people in.
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So the hook in the first one to three seconds is huge.
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Like, if you don't earn that next second, the algorithm will move on.
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It's not gonna push it out.
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So having something that is a strong statement and saying, "Hey, you know
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what? You need to capture me or I'm gonna continue to scroll. So it could
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be, like looking at sharks, like, " Have you seen the shark video that attacked
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the surfer?" Which you don't really wanna say that because that's kinda
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bad, but that catches people's eyes.
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Or, "You're never gonna believe what happened in the waters of Monterey
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Bay with this great white shark." And then you can talk about what happened.
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You have to earn the viewer.
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If you're gonna do this science communication stuff, you have
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to look at how they're scrolling past and easy it's scrolling past.
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Having that first image, whether it be you or whether it be a picture of
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what you're talking about, and then that hook to say, "Hey, I need to
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hook you in. I need to bring you in on this episode. Follow me through this
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episode." I think that's important.
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And then of course, only introduce one idea per video.
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Like, not a summary of everything you know about that topic, but just one idea that
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can, you can say in one to three minutes.
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This is where I struggle, is the content itself, which is very
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important, and I think that's why I don't do it as much as I want to do it.
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You have to just stick to one thing and realize that you have to put the
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information between one and three minutes.
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I think, you know, a lot of people talk about repurposing, and I just talked about
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it, like doing clips and things like that.
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I still think there's a style in each platform that you can do, and
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if you're able and have time to do those videos for each platform.
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I think short form video, if you're just filming it on your phone and not
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within an app like TikTok or Instagram, I think it's easier to cross-promote,
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like to go on Instagram and on TikTok.
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But something that works in Instagram may not work in TikTok, and vice versa.
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So don't expect the same kinda thing.
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So, I think you're looking at, like it's might be better to do
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like a native platform style over like a polished production too.
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It's like keep it casual.
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So overly produced content often underperforms, like raw,
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direct-to-camera style type of videos.
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Which I said before, like yapping tends to be the big thing right now.
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It used to be highly produced video, now it's like, no, no, where you can just have
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a little chitchat in one to three minutes.
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And of course captions matter.
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A lot of people will watch videos where they're just reading the captions.
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They don't have sound on.
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They might be at work, they might be somewhere where they don't
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want the sound to be on, and they can just read those captions.
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So having clear, easily read captions are always great, just in
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case they're watching it with the sound off, which most viewers do.
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And then of course, you can start using trending audio and formats.
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One thing that Dave Ebert does on Instagram is he'll use pictures to
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promote our Beyond Jaws podcast, but he'll put some trending audio or put
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audio that he thinks that is trending, and he'll put it on, and it does pretty
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well, which is interesting to see.
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So those always help.
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And then of course the big thing about when you're filming it.
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Filming one is an easy feat.
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Filming 10 is harder because you're always coming up with that creative aspect.
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Having consistency over, like, commentary formats or over,
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like, perfection is huge.
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Consistency over perfection is the biggest thing.
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It doesn't have to be crazy produced.
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All it has to do is get the point across, especially with short-form video.
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You capture the people for, like, less than three minutes.
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You wanna make sure you get your stuff across.
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That's really important.
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And then of course, like any kind of react and commentary format does really well,
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especially for science communicators.
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So reacting to a viral animal videos or any kind of news events is
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really, you can do that really well.
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You can use like a green screen behind you.
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You can edit it after if you really want to quickly so that people
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can see what you're referring to.
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It's always great.
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Now, all this work, it takes time.
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It could take a significant amount of time, especially at the beginning.
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Doing your first like seven, posts where you're doing it once a day.
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You know, you're trying to create all that.
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That can be difficult.
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A workflow helps to organize everything, and do know that it
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gets easier as you continue along.
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So your first seven posts may not be that great, but then the next seven
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will be better than the first seven, and then the next seven will be better
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than those, and then you're gonna continue to get better and better.
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Your hooks are gonna get better.
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Your ability to speak between one and three minutes is going to get better.
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All that is gonna get better as you go along, but the consistency is
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what helps you build your following.
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It's not just gonna be an exponential thing.
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It will be, but that beginning part is gonna rise slowly, and then as
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people start to catch on, you'll start to get bigger and bigger
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and get that hockey stick feeling in the graph, but be patient.
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The way I always look at it from a science perspective, from a conservation
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perspective is like if I wanna grow this, it's not about going viral, it's
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not about having the most followers.
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It's about how much information could I spread to the people
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who really wanna see it.
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The bigger you are, that's great, but you're gonna get
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a lot of haters out of that.
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So that comes with consequences.
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But when you just sit there and you can do it consistently, whether it's
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one day a week or every weekday or once a week or whatever, the more
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you post the better, and you'll get better and better and you'll
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probably start to like it a lot more.
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So I think that's important.
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Let's quickly touch on monetization.
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Because it takes so much time, because you're working at it, I do think that
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there's ways to get money out of it.
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And if you're spending that much time and you're becoming a content creator,
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not an influencer, but a content creator, that's a really important part.
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But with these short-form platforms, they don't really pay like crazy like,
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something else, like another platform that we'll talk about this week.
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They're pretty small compared to long-form like YouTube.
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The partner program is pretty big.
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It's worth being up front with you that the amount you're gonna get
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is gonna be piddles compared to what you're gonna get on something
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like YouTube or somewhere else.
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And even then you need a lot of views.
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You don't necessarily need a lot of subscribers, you need a lot of views.
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So for instance, like the TikTok Creator Rewards program replaced the old creator
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fund, pays roughly 40 cents to a dollar per thousand qualified views, and it
17:38
requires at least 10,000 followers and 100,000 views in the past 30 days, and
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only videos over one minute qualify.
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So they're trying to get people to do a little more long-form content on TikTok.
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You still need a ton of followers.
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You need those 10,000 followers and 100,000 views in the past
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30 days to continue to be able to build on this type of money.
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And I think it's only available in certain countries.
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I don't think it's available in Canada at this point.
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Now YouTube Shorts monetization's a little bit different.
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The RPM is much lower than TikTok, roughly about a cent
18:09
to 10 cents per thousand views.
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But the sheer volume of views on Shorts can still add up, so there's still ways
18:16
that you can actually build on that.
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Instagram Reels, the lowest direct payout of the three.
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It's comparable to YouTube Shorts, roughly one cent to three cents per
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thousand views through reels and bonuses.
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Now, with Instagram, and I don't know if this is the same with TikTok.
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With Instagram, there are ways where you can sell
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subscriptions to specific content.
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So you can almost sell, like, a membership to specific content so that people
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can gain more about what you're doing.
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So the people who really believe in you and they're followers on Instagram,
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they wanna pay for that, they can subscribe monthly, and you can put
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out specific videos, you can go live for just them, and that kind of stuff.
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Typically, it takes a lot of followers to get that.
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That's why they always say over 10,000 followers.
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It takes a while to get there, but it's kind of interesting.
18:56
Now, direct ad share payouts - it's really a volume game.
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And it's not usually a primary income of a lot of creators,
19:03
especially with short-form content.
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The real money comes from indirect, like brand sponsorships, affiliate
19:08
codes, product placement, and using clips as a funnel to monetize a long-form
19:13
platform or a Patreon-style support.
19:15
So Patreon is for creators.
19:16
It's a fund where people can pay to get, like, certain member benefits, which is
19:21
like early release of episodes, or you could have, like, lives, or you can have
19:26
groups similar to what I do on my Patreon.
19:28
So you can work that for anything.
19:30
TikTok Shop and affiliate programs it's become a bigger piece of
19:33
the pie for creators as well.
19:35
So yeah.
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So I think, like, the big thing to realize with all of this, Monetization
19:39
for short-form is really difficult.
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Brand sponsorships and things like that that people get, that's great,
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but then you're beholden to that brand, so be careful of who you're
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willing to have, what type of brand you're willing to have on your TikTok,
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Instagram, and your short-form content platforms, because that will matter.
19:52
People are gonna hold you to it, and you wanna make sure that, especially if
19:54
you're talking about science, that it's science-related or conservation-related.
19:57
So make sure it's gonna do well for your actual piece.
20:01
So miniseries does really well.
20:03
You know, short-form is a great entry point.
20:05
It's not the destination.
20:07
You want to make sure that you have some kind of journey or follow-along video
20:10
where you can just talk about one piece at a time, even it's at each and every
20:14
day that's nice and quick and casual.
20:15
You don't have to be overly produced.
20:17
That's a benefit if you're starting out.
20:19
And I think it's really important.
20:20
I think it's really important to spread awareness.
20:22
It's kind of interesting that if you've ever found a video where you
20:25
have seen something, and say it's like a wildlife thing, and all of
20:28
a sudden you look at it and you're like, " Oh yeah, this is really cool.
20:31
I'm gonna go down this rabbit hole and I'm gonna follow this thing," that's where
20:34
short-form really gets the awareness, and I think that's really important to do.
20:38
So that's the episode.
20:40
If you have any questions about short-form content, feel free to reach
20:43
out on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook.
20:45
links are in the show notes.
20:46
Really appreciate if you have any questions, I can answer them however
20:49
I can just based on my experience.
20:50
I will be creating my own follow-along journey on short-form, like a couple
20:55
of things, and I think you'll be seeing me talking about this type of stuff.
20:59
So yeah.
20:59
So it'll be a lot of fun to try this out, and I think it's gonna be a lot of fun.
21:03
Tomorrow, we're gonna be going into something I'm really familiar, uh,
21:06
with, is podcasting and how podcasting has helped me and sort of the
21:09
workflow that I've come up with to get to this many episodes, and we're
21:13
gonna talk about that on Wednesday.
21:14
So, stay tuned.
21:15
Hit that follow button if you don't wanna miss any of the episodes, and of
21:18
course, we're gonna be talking to Amy Weldon, who is in charge of the Blue
21:22
Collar White Coat podcast, and she's releasing her second season on Friday.
21:26
You'll get to hear all about it on Friday's episode.
21:29
I wanna thank you so much for joining me on today's episode of the
21:31
How to Protect the Ocean podcast.
21:32
Have a great day.
21:33
We'll talk to you next time, and happy conservation.