Earning Attention Through Human-Centred Video Storytelling

Webinar Transcript: Earning Attention Through Human-Centred Video Storytelling

Mohamed Hamad: Good morning everybody. Welcome back to another session of the Third Wunder Webinar or with Wunder Webinar. Today is going to be talking about creating content and earning attention with video marketing. I’ve got our special guest here.

Mohamed: Kevin Safulko. And Kevin is founder of Fulko films. He’s got about 10 years of video production and industry experience. He’s worked on content for web for television.

Mohamed: Across different industries including tech, real estate, travel, wedding and commercial projects. Welcome to the program Kevin.

Kevin Safulko: Thank you for having me. Thank you for having me. Very excited to dive into the topics we’re going to have.

Mohamed: It’s going to be a fun one. Yeah. So video marketing is on everybody’s mind these days. More so than ever. In the last five years I guess video marketing has become a staple. It used to be a luxury but in the last something that everybody needs.

Kevin: I truly witnessed the evolution over 10 years. Especially coming from you know at first I was more in the content space and when I first started it was all about photography and video really being a second. Second place kind of need. And as I grew in the space I saw video evolve and take over kind of the photo space.

Kevin: Before it would be clients always call me go can you do like photo and then maybe a little bit of video. Now it’s the complete opposite. It’s like video is the primary source that everybody wants because that is what everybody is watching nowadays. And photo is just a secondary most of the time when we’re getting any client tasks.

Mohamed: I mean you know the explosion of TikTok in the last five years and then we got YouTube shorts out of it. Reels on Instagram. But also long form. Short form content. That multimodality across the web. Internet speeds are faster. Mobile phones are getting much better. Being able to record that stuff. Whether it’s you know UGC content or it’s professionally created.

Mohamed: To bring it back to what is the core video production and its distribution? Getting the video out there is something that’s really important for most people. Especially on the different platforms. And one thing that is really pushing that to a new level is all the social platforms.

Mohamed: Can you tell me a little bit about how you tell stories on the different mediums and how you get that distribution out there?

Kevin: Yeah, absolutely. I think that every social platform has its own audience and you really have to adapt as to what you want to do and what you want to achieve. The goal of creating any type of story creating any type of video is really, who is this intended for? What is our primary goal with these videos? Who is the audience we’re trying to actually you know, deliver this content to?

Kevin: And I think for social media videos anytime you’re looking at like obviously a TikTok versus an Instagram reel. There again. It’s two different types of video. But again, still retaining story at the core. And I think that with any type of social media video you always want to focus on those first five seconds. Your hook is always going to be the most important thing for short form at least that is gonna retain your audience.

Kevin: And what I always tell when we’re working with clients is short form is the means to get to long form. You wanna be able to kind of suck in your audience through short form. And then once they kind of get tidbits and you keep giving them a little bit more every time, they eventually want more.

Kevin: And that’s when you can now deliver them to more long form content which is where you’re gonna be getting most of your audience on YouTube. A little longer formats on LinkedIn. But I would say social media and the TikToks, Instagram reels of the world are very much a funnel towards your long format, formatted videos. Which would be on YouTube. On LinkedIn. That’s always the secret formula behind that.

Mohamed: Okay. Because short form is you know, it’s short, it’s quick, it’s snappy. But at the same time. Is there a difference between producing short form versus long form? Like is the amount and effort there? Like, I see a lot of people trying to pump out a lot of short form content. And using things like AI to get those stories out there. And sometimes they just don’t hit.

Kevin: Absolutely. I think again. When you’re, when you’re developing short form content there’s a structure and a formula to short form. Whereas it won’t necessarily translate to long form video. So you really got to know exactly what is your goal here with these short form. And extracting short form just from a long form piece is not necessarily going to be your best format in terms of, you know, really getting the attention of viewers.

Kevin: It’s gonna, you know, because when you’re basically creating a long form video and you’re taking snippets you’re not necessarily giving full context to the viewer and you know that you might just, you might be taking a sliver of you know, a piece of your full pie which is, you know, people are clicking to see the full pie. They’re not clicking to see the necessarily the piece.

Kevin: Whenever we’re creating short form content, we always try to again stick to a format that will be specific towards that short form. And again if the goal of the short form is to lead to the long form there’s a way of doing that. But you really want to be understanding of, okay, what is the best way, how can we certainly kind of format our short form to then lead to the long form? That is always the most important.

Kevin: And it doesn’t necessarily translate from taking short form out of the long form. I would say we always try to whenever we’re working we always try to say to our clients, let’s create short forms with the ideas very much put in place. And this is always going to be done in the pre production space. Really kind of getting all the ideation out for what each form of what each short form content will look like and then what are long form? And then, you know. Those will be complimentary to one another, but not necessarily extracted from long form.

Mohamed: So how do you develop the storytelling for short versus long form? Like what is your secret sauce of creating that connective material? Because you said, you know, the first five seconds are the most important. How do you develop that?

Kevin: With a long form. I always like to split it up in five different categories. And you know, with our, we would always start with a setup. So where are you, what’s going on? Like show us the moment your story begins, the situation you’re in. What’s happening around you and how you’re feeling. Then after that, you know, we’re gonna, we’re gonna have our desire. What, what do you hope for? What do you want?

Kevin: Then once you, you’ve kind of established that what is the conflict that we’re kind of showcasing here on long form? You know, we always want to try and maintain a very specific format because there needs to be a problem. And when you’re deliberate, when you’re basically showcasing that problem, what is the solution now to your problem? So what, what is getting in the way? What is that conflict?

Kevin: And, and again, what is going to be. There’s going to be a change. So what action is going to shift the story? What is going to basically help us find that resolution to that conflict that we’re establishing, therefore giving us our result and giving us, you know, a very clear solution to the problem.

Kevin: So that’s, you know our long form there’s so many details or so many ways we can kind of flesh that out. However, when we’re going into short form. Now we’re looking at more of a you know, hook style premise. What is it that’s going to capture the attention as soon as someone kind of scrolls or is going through you know, multiple videos?

Kevin: Because tell yourself in a long form type of video, you’re you’re in a different mindset than going into it with short form. And with short form you’re very much scrolling and you’re, you’re seeing hundreds of videos within a such a short amount of span. So the key term in this is very much attention. How can we capture attention as quick as possible?

Kevin: And I think the best way is you want to have a very good hook within your first five seconds that is going to make show exactly what are we offering here, what is, what is to come. And then we basically, you know, we can go from there and we can start leading them more to what is the opportunity that we’re presenting, the problem the solution in a very much concise, short form to short form version.

Mohamed: So when it comes to creating those story narratives, and not every product, not every service, not every solution has a very easy way to develop that story and narrative. And sometimes, you work, you’ve worked with a lot of tech companies. And sometimes their product or their solution is not exactly the easiest to understand. Especially for alignment. How do you work with your clients to develop that narrative and to simplify things so that in a video whether it’s short form or long form you have the hook or you have that that narrative arc that really takes the watcher into a journey?

Kevin: Yeah, no, for sure. And I think that the most important thing again is establishing what do you want out of this video? What is the outcome that you want your audience to either feel or that you want yourself to have? And, whenever we’re developing content especially short form content, there’s so many different avenues that we can take.

Kevin: One obviously being the main one being stories, example, breaking down your topic into specific stories, case studies, anything that can, you know, showcase a level of value to your audience is always great. If not, you can use like metaphors, analogies, you know, comparison. Visual examples to really make the topic more understandable.

Kevin: Another one that I really like is just showcasing mistakes and misconceptions again, things that are out of the ordinary. But still grab the attention of your audience to really give them that clear understanding of what they’re about to receive. So talking about the common mistakes or misconceptions that people have about, you know the specific topic you’re offering and how you have a unique approach that bypasses the common problem that you or others may face.

Kevin: And then another one could be like, you know, realization, insights. Talking about personal realizations, or that you’ve had as it relates to the topic that you’re putting out. And then another one would be questions, concerns, something again, that leads your audience to always be like, oh, I want more, I want to know more. Because at the end of the day, one of the most important things whenever you’re developing content is very much retaining your audience from A to Z. It’s, you know, we once, as soon as they’re into that video, how can I retain their attention from beginning to end? That is the key to developing any successful piece of content. In this industry for sure.

Mohamed: That’s interesting you say that. Because it seems to me like video is not just a standalone thing. It’s not devoid of all the other content that surrounds it. So it really is part of the ecosystem and part of the strategy of marketing a product. So you talked about case studies. You talked about, you know, question answers/FAQs, pain points. So where do you fit yourself in when you’re working with clients within a marketing team or within your own team to develop that, you know, that overarching message and narrative and video as part of it? Whether it’s long, short, what you call explainer videos tutorials, whatever it is how does that all come together? And what’s your process to work with the team to really create that ecosystem of attention?

Kevin: Yeah, no, for sure. And I would say the main thing is everything happens in pre-production. You don’t want to just, again, you don’t want to just start filming and be like, oh, we’ll figure it out in post. The magic and the secret sauce really happens all before we start filming. And that’s where we’re going to sit down with, you know, any clients and we’re going to really see you know, outline what is it we’re trying to promote here? We trying to promote a product? Are we trying to showcase testimonials? Are we trying to, you know, showcase what is the service that is provided? Every different, promotion has a different avenue that you can take and it really all stems to what is the outcome that we want from this and how, what is the best way of getting to this.

Kevin: Whether that be short form. Whether that be long form. Whether that be, marketing stunts. You know, with video there’s so many different ways and each kind of category has its own, purpose and its own, you know, solution. So I think it’s really figuring out the best avenue given the problem at stake.

Mohamed: Amazing. Just, wanted to let our guests and viewers to know that if they have any questions or comments to leave them in the chat. We’re going to take some we’re going to have a QA session at the end of this, if you have anything that you want to throw at Kevin about content marketing in general. But also at the same time if you want to connect with Kevin on LinkedIn, his LinkedIn bio and profile is right there. He’s always looking to connect with people who are interested in video production. Absolutely. So still talking about the end product of a video.

Mohamed: Once you’ve gone off and you’ve done all of this work, you’ve created all of this beautiful material. How do you get that distribution out there? There is the use of AI to create snippets and repurpose. Do you ever use AI to help you out in your video production at all?

Kevin: So again, there’s a way of using AI to really help you with your workflow. I don’t think AI should necessarily be editing your content just yet. I do see definitely in five, 10 years where I will get to a level where it can, you know, have a creative brain on its own. And actually, you can have a certain level, certain level of conversation to kind of really have AI kind of fulfill your vision.

Kevin: However, right now I think AI serves more as a purpose or it gives you tools to really optimize your workflow. Work faster, work better than we were like just you know, two years, three years ago. There’s, you can go so much faster with what we were able to do two, three years ago in terms of just the proper tools for editing, the proper tools for pre-production understanding what is the market like given, you know, the certain industry that we’re exploring. And so I definitely think that you know, AI shouldn’t be used as a crutch necessarily, but more as a tool to really enhance and optimize your overall workflow and the quality of your work.

Mohamed: Okay. Yeah, I mean, we obviously use AI in a lot of spaces and we’ve always been interested in how it can help us with our workflow. And how it can speed things up. I’m just looking at the volume to attention strategy. The idea that you should have all your content all over the place at every given moment. And in your perspective what do you think of being omnipresent in all your channels? And do you think it enhances your message through video or does it detract from it? Does it connect with people?

Kevin: I definitely think that you know again, AI being used as a tool to help you publish and help you kind of get your brand, get your personal brand out there is exactly, you know, is, is definitely where you want to be using it. However I, at the end of the day, again, attention is the most important thing. And that human aspect you know, where we’re really connecting, you know, because of AI and all of the content it’s producing there’s a lack of authenticity that’s been created in the digital world nowadays.

Kevin: And the most important thing is that you retain that human level connection with your audience. That is the most important thing that you can do and that AI can’t necessarily replicate. It’s the, you know, the emotional side of a human. It’s the human error. It’s that authenticity that really putting yourself in front of a camera and not having an AI avatar kind of promote your services promote your products, that is the difference and where humans will thrive in the environment or in the era of AI.

Mohamed: Okay. In your perspective, what is, what is the most engaging or connective types of video? I mean there’s we’ve seen the evolution of all of the different types of social content. You know, from the, TikTok style of get ready with me to the you know like what, what in your perspective from like let’s say from a B2C or B2B marketing perspective if you’re, selling a product. What do you think is the most popular or the most fun way to engage?

Kevin: Yeah. So again, it’s really comes down to the question of how can you make this relatable? Because I’ve worked with so many tech companies especially tech products in which these companies, they go on and they just really want to showcase the benefits, the tech jargon. They want to kind of just show like oh wow, our product is very much better than the rest. And people are not necessarily interested in that.

Kevin: They’re all you know, tell yourself the internet is a medium to kind of sell. That is constantly trying to sell in any way possible. So you have to find a different way to connect with your audience. And that really involves kind of humanizing almost the product. So getting actual people to engage with the product to you know, showcase reactions of the product. That is again pushing that authentic level.

Kevin: That raw reaction of you know, like you have, you have a very interesting product that’s no one is seeing. Okay, let, let us see different types of people react to it and then that’ll kind of your subliminally giving a message that, oh wow they’re reacting in a very strong fashion. Maybe, maybe this is actually worth looking more into and seeing beyond just beyond what like the jargon and all, everything that, all this information that you know, products are trying to throw. That is what is going to really get you to connect is that human engagement with your product, with your service. And those are really the best ways of connecting with an audience.

Mohamed: Yeah, yeah. I mean reaction videos online are all over the place. But also getting that genuineness in reactions. Authenticity. The, the biggest key in today’s AI era. I’m telling you. Right. There’s also that conversation of polished videos versus raw and off the cuff videos. That got popularized with you know social platforms like Instagram and TikTok. How do you fit that in within your creative your creative production?

Kevin: So I like, I like to see Instagram as a more polished version. Where as TikTok is more of your raw you know, like where I kind of see I always like to say I like the client to kind of take care of TikTok and be like here, talk with your audience. You know, give them like the day to day and then we will take the more the polished content and promote that on Instagram. Where as both sets of content I think are very complementary to one another. Because it’s giving you a different look and different feel for two different types of content. So I think that again those kind of interweave within one another and it really kind of gives a seamless blend to best capture your audience’s attention.

Mohamed: Okay, interesting because you know sometimes you see that cross pollination from TikTok over to Instagram and not always the other way around.

Kevin: Exactly. No for sure. But I definitely think again having, having both sides is the way of going nowadays. Nobody really wants to see a very too much polished content. It’s you know, again with AI obviously you’re, you’re able to kind of achieve that level and that that again, is taking away from the human aspect of it. So being able to kind of have both nowadays is so important because you’re you’re really able to showcase the rawness behind the brand and then also showcase the professionalism of the brand. And I think that there’s a way of complementing both together to kind of be the most effective possible.

Mohamed: Yeah, we’ve got a couple of questions out from the audience over here. I’m going to throw them out. Yes. First one here is from Marissa. For a small team that doesn’t have a dedicated video person slash team what would you suggest is a good starting point to get the ball rolling?

Kevin: That’s a great question, Marissa. I would say again your best bet is you have a phone. You don’t need necessarily a dedicated video team to be creating your content. I think that nowadays there are so many ways that you can get the ball rolling yourself in terms of just having a phone and having any type of device that films video. You just need to figure out what exactly do you want these videos to you know produce as an outcome.

Kevin: And once you’ve kind of figured that out then you just, you just I would say just go just pretty much there’s nothing stopping you like between you and the actual video production. It’s literally just going figuring out a bit of your ideas and just let get the ball rolling. Like there’s, I think it’s better for you to start than just wait for like oh, I want to wait for my brand to achieve a certain level before I can actually get a video team.

Kevin: I don’t recommend that. I think that as soon as you can like get the ball rolling with on your own. And then eventually when you can upscale and your time is going to be needed more for obviously being for your company for your team, then that’s when you start, you come delegating to an actual video team to kind of help you with the process.

Mohamed: So piggybacking on that because you had some great advice on just using your phone and getting started and get the ball rolling. Marissa also asks, what kinds of ideally free tools would you recommend for someone getting into trying to do more consistent video?

Kevin: So I think that obviously Capcut. You know anything that is an editing software tool is fantastic just to kind of give you very much the basics to edit videos. And again nowadays there’s you know, just have the subtitles. Like Subtitles is its own game in terms of you know, producing a story and really helping the audience kind of connect with the person behind the camera. So I mean in front of the camera. So I definitely think that editing softwares are fantastic. Obviously utilizing AI to potentially help you with your ideation and with your pre production concepts will also kind of help you align yourself with what your end goal is to have with video.

Mohamed: Okay, question from Tara. Do you think there is room on LinkedIn for Instagram or TikTok style content? We don’t use Instagram because it doesn’t make sense for our our brand audience. But LinkedIn.

Kevin: So again I think LinkedIn is fantastic. You just have to, again you have to understand who your audience is on LinkedIn. LinkedIn tends to have very much a lot of professionals. That are in the, you know, within your industry or outside of your industry. But you, this is, this is your audience that you’re talking to. You’re talking to a bunch of professionals.

Kevin: So obviously there is a certain level level of rawness that you can have but you don’t want to be too raw to the style of TikTok per se because again that’s not necessarily what your audience on LinkedIn might be looking for. You really got to try and gauge as to who, who it is you’re speaking to. And so I think that for LinkedIn there’s a kind of a you’re in a more middle ground where you don’t want it, you don’t necessarily need it to be too polished, but you also don’t want it to be too raw. It’s a in between. However, I do think LinkedIn is a great tool, great social media to promote. I think it’s like it is, it is climbing up the ranks. It’s not necessarily where Instagram or TikTok is. However, in the next five years I believe that LinkedIn will be huge in terms of promoting your personal brand and your actual professional brands as well.

Mohamed: Okay, we’ve got a, we’ve got one here. Piggybacking on that and following up on that specific topic from Elizabeth. If you’re working with a limited budget, where is the line between looking professional and being so authentic it looks amateur?

Kevin: This is an interesting one. I would say that you know you want to, there’s so many ways of looking professional and it really comes down to how are you able, how good are you at capturing your audience? Your audience’s attention? And it doesn’t, you don’t necessarily need like there are videos that I’ve seen out there that are not necessarily professional looking but convey their message so well that you, it automatically gives it the appearance that it is professional and that’s why I think having a good understanding the basics of storytelling and understanding and how to convey your message properly.

Kevin: And what is it, what are the results you’re looking to come out of your videos are the most important thing for the core of any video. That, that is what you need to figure out beforehand. And that is going to be the different, the differentiator between something looking authentic and looking professional rather than being amateur. You don’t, you don’t need necessarily the professional gear the professional setup. It really comes down to the message that’s being conveyed. Are you, are you delivering value? Are you delivering some form of knowledge? What are you deliver? Why, why is someone going to watch your video? And if you can kind of figure out that story, that process then you’ve nailed it down. That’s, that’s the core video itself.

Mohamed: Amazing. Okay, we’ve got one question from Jorge here. For musicians, is it a good idea to share the same video in different social networks or probably generate different videos based on the social network?

Kevin: I think that again, every social network has its own purpose. Based the fact that you’re a musician. I think there’s a different type of story that you can tell on each platform. Again, TikTok being a more raw. So you know, maybe showcasing the behind the scenes, showcasing what it is, you know, to kind of create music. Then Instagram being more of a platform to actually show your music, to show show them the actual art that you’re producing.

Kevin: Whereas LinkedIn, if you want to let’s say go on the LinkedIn route as well then there’s a way of, you know, showcasing how you want to make this, what is your plan, you know, how do you want to build your artist career? What is your, you know, where like there’s a different angle there. So each, each social media has its own purpose and if you can figure out an angle for each, I think that they can all be complementary with one another. And then there’s obviously ways of creating content that can, you can post on multiple platforms. You don’t necessarily need to put a different type of video on each platform.

Mohamed: You mentioned that you mentioned that there is, you have a, formula or a format that you help out, your clients develop their ideas. Absolutely. Tell us a little bit about that because we’re going to be sharing it on the email follow up for this, this video.

Kevin: So I will basically be sharing the different types of, or the different steps to how to build your story, how to craft a story, kind of what I explained before. And then another thing that I really think is valuable is pillars. Every brand or every personal brand should have content pillars in which they’re producing. So this, this document will really kind of explore the different, the different pillars in which each each type of content can go.

Kevin: And will kind of help you craft or really help you align vision, envision what you, where you want to go with your story. So this will be a perfect kind of PDF to use as a stepping stone, hopefully to organize your thoughts and understand. Okay, what is the message we want to convey and how are we going to convey that through these different pillars and through these steps of storytelling.

Mohamed: Amazing. We are going to link that in the show notes and also in the recap email. Thank you so much for that. The final question back again from Marissa. And this brings it back to you. What are the types of things we should look out for when trying to find a video partner?

Kevin: You want to, I mean before finding any video partner, you always want to make sure that when you watch their content, are you moved? First of all, first and foremost. Because why, why would you be hiring someone if their own videos or their own creation doesn’t move you? That is I think the biggest first step and then after that is you want to make sure that you can both align on visions.

Kevin: Obviously a video partner will help you kind of craft and help you really sort through your, the ideation process. But I think that aligning on the vision and obviously having respect for the video partners work because you want to, you want to be able to see value. Where’s the value that the video partner is going to be providing you is going to be the most important step.

Mohamed: Excellent. That’s great because, yeah in general going to someone, a content creator, a video production company, anybody that if you can’t connect with, with the work that they do, then they’re probably not going to deliver the work that you think you have in your head or want to what you call it, express your brand with.

Kevin: Exactly. There’s a ton of video partners out there. So it’s, you know, it’s very it could be, it could be a difficult process to say the least. But obviously each, each video partner has its own qualities and that’s what you need to find. What, what resonates with you?

Mohamed: Yeah, if people wanted to connect with you, where can they find you? Obviously we’ve got your website, FulkoFilms.com.

Kevin: Yeah, absolutely. And I would say the best way to connect would just be on LinkedIn. We connect with so many of our clients through LinkedIn, so if you guys reach out, we can definitely set a meeting. We can chat. I would love to. And see what, we can create together potentially.

Mohamed: Amazing. That was a very insightful session. Lots to think about when it comes to video production and this is video distribution, how to create engaging content online with video. Thanks so much for joining us today, Kevin. For everybody that joined us today thank you so much for joining us and taking the time. Looking forward to the next session and hopefully to have you back again soon. Kevin.

Kevin: Absolutely. Thank you for having me, Mohamed. It was a pleasure talking with you and, I’ll always be happy to come back.

Mohamed: Absolutely. Amazing. Thank you so much. And see you in the next one.