Creating Content – My Lightbulb Moment 💡

As an introvert, marketing myself on social media is an unnatural and daunting prospect. However, that is the key to success in this business.

In Dean Holland’s video about video content, he showed a clip of Gary Vaynerchuk, who is a very successful businessman, author, speaker, and internet personality. He was giving a presentation in Brazil. Gary said that a lot of people talk big game about how huge their company is going to be, but when he looks at their social media profile, they are not creating the content to match their statement. Today it is free to build a brand on social media, but most people do not produce enough content for how big the opportunity is for free attention. Attention will get you everything you want. 

While I understood everything they were saying and it made a lot of sense, it just didn’t connect with me. When I took a road trip to my hometown of Cedar Rapids, Iowa on September 23rd and was there for the week, out of the blue it finally hit me. Boom! I have a good product with this Blog, helping others just starting their affiliate marketing business to achieve success faster and with less headaches than I did. I’ve spent a lot of time creating the content here. However, it is absolutely useless and I will not achieve the success I desire if no one knows about it. I need to generate traffic in order to build an audience and the only way I will do that is by letting people know I am here and have something of incredible value to offer them. I have to market myself on social media, starting with my primary platform of Facebook, and secondary platform of YouTube.

Why did it take so long for this concept to finally sink in? I have no idea. Once I got back home on September 28 I finally overcame my hesitance and decided to get comfortable with being uncomfortable, as Dean says. Time to create video content for my Facebook page and creating my YouTube channel.

When I thought about it, my hesitancy was due to the fact I am not creative by nature, but analytical. I would often wonder – what am I going to create that people will like and how will I create content everyday that is engaging and enjoyable? I would then have negative thoughts that I’m not creative enough to do that and it would be boring. We are our own worst enemy. In the Beginners Advantage program, Ignite P&S Traffic (Part 3), Sophie had a great training segment on YouTube.

• The You in YouTube means to think of the viewer. Is it something they are interested in? Is it something they are searching for? Does it help them solve a problem?
• To hook your viewers in, focus on the ONE problem you will answer or ONE problem you will solve, and have a short intro and explanation.
• The thumbnail picture is very important and grabs their attention, and the title needs to create curiosity.
• You need a good SEO in your description because people initially find you mainly in a search.
• Good sound is also very important because people need to hear what you are saying.
• Sophie explained the difference between Shorts and Long Form videos and that I should publish 2-3 shorts per week and one Long Form a week.
• Success on YouTube is about publishing regularly and consistently.
• She noted you cannot be effective if you are on multiple platforms. If you are blogging, have a FB page, YouTube Channel and TikTok account, you will likely burn out if you try to post regular and consistent content on all those platforms.

That training was very helpful and supplemented Dean’s advice to start putting out regular content, then practice, practice, practice, and learn and develop your knowledge, understanding and ability. My videos will not be good at the beginning because I am just starting. With practice, though, I will get better and be more comfortable. I will also pace myself and try to avoid burnout. I have my established Blog and am being consistent. I just have to balance the content I create for my FB page and YouTube channel to drive traffic to my Blog. I want to get good on both platforms and have a following before I even try TikTok.

So on October 1st, I created my first YouTube channel and launched:

• I had to get a gmail address since that is required to create a channel. Fortunately jclousebusiness was available so that became my gmail.
• Next I went to YouTube and clicked “Sign In” and then created a YouTube account.
• After my business account was created I clicked on my profile picture, then Settings, and then clicked Add a Channel.
• I then followed the steps to create my channel. Unfortunately my name was already taken so I chose JordanClousetv.
• Now I had my channel. I added my LinkTree link in my introduction so people could easily connect to my blog.

That was the easy part. Now I had to create my first video.

• First, I needed equipment to record my videos.
  • As Sophie mentioned you do not need to have a studio or fancy equipment.
  • I used my iPhone 14 Pro to record.
  • I needed a stand and light for my iPhone. I had ordered a basic Sensyne 12″ ring light with 50″ extendable tripod stand with phone holder and remote device for my phone for $40.
  • I had also ordered a dual Wireless Lavalier Microphone for iPhone so I would have good sound on my videos since the stand would be away from me. The cost was $10.
  • That’s it. For $50, I had everything I needed to start creating videos.

• Second, I needed to decide what content I wanted to create.
  • I looked at other Beginners Advantage members’ videos for inspiration.
  • I thought about what I wanted to say and created an outline on Word that I could reference during my video to keep me on track in a logical order.
  • I rehearsed that outline multiple times until I felt comfortable.

• Third, time to record.
  • Rather than record in my cluttered office, I decided to use my spare room in the basement where it was quiet.
  • I was able to setup my iPhone on the stand with the ring light and remote clicker to start and stop the video recording, and attached the microphone to my shirt.
  • I then taped my outline next to my phone so I could look at the camera and then glance at the outline next to it to keep on track.
  • I then did a couple of short test videos to make sure my voice was loud enough and I was centered in the frame at the right distance.
  • Once I was satisfied, I recorded my first take. I made a couple of mistakes but kept going through the script to get comfortable in front of the lens.
  • I started a couple more times but messed up in the beginning so I started over, and over.
  • After a few false starts I finally recorded the video I would use.
  • While I still made a few mistakes in the final video, I left them in because this is me. I’m not trying to be perfect, just myself.

Now I had my video. While that was nice, as Dean said, I needed to start with a hook to get people’s attention and then keep their attention. I decided to edit my video with CapCut. CapCut is a free, user-friendly app for editing videos that is popular on social media. There is a free version with basic features, but I had upgraded to the Pro version for $89.99/year with a whole lot more features. There is a $9.99/month plan as well. I had Capcut for a while and had practiced editing videos early so I was familiar with the features, plus I watched a YouTube video on how to use CapCut. Imagine that – using YouTube to find something of value to you 🙂

Editing my video took longer than I thought. Part of that was due to my perfectionist nature. I wanted the effects to look good and be synched at the right time. I used an Intro effect to start the video with motion. It is definitely attention grabbing. Next, I added emojis throughout the video such as 😜💡✅✈️ 💵📣🌎 My hope is that they will make people smile or laugh and keep them engaged. During the video I mentioned I had a Blog and when I said the Internet address for it, I had text pop up at the same time that showed the URL.

After I finished editing, I watched the entire video and was happy with it. While it wasn’t perfect, it was me and conveyed what I wanted to say. I then logged in to my YouTube channel and uploaded the video. It took a while to upload and notified me that the video was pending while it went through a review to make sure it complied with YouTube policies.

After I created and posted my first video to YouTube, I created a shorter video to post on my Facebook page. After creating that video, I edited it with CapCut and then uploaded it to my page. Done. I did it. Now to start posting content on a regular basis. This is the start of traffic generation and I will be following Sophie’s advice for success on YouTube and her tips for channel growth. I will also be following Dean’s advice on the Hook, Buildup, Delivery and Call to Action.

I’ve just navigated through a very uncomfortable “barrier” for me to put myself out there and get noticed by being creative. Every journey begins with a first step and now I hope to build momentum and starting posting consistently, knowing my first videos will not be great, but I will get better with practice and time. Getting comfortable with being uncomfortable is not easy for me, but I know it will be worth it as I start to grow.

I look forward to you continuing my voyage with me we learn about the world of video content and marketing. If you have not joined my Voyager Newsletter for the latest information, you can join HERE. It is free. I will see you soon!