How to Build a Loyal Following Using Short Form Video

Austin Falter [00:00:00]:
So what do I use hashtags for? It’s not to push the virality. It’s actually if the video does well, it’s to rank for certain things. So I use it backwards. Instead of using my hashtag to help the video, I use the video to help the hashtag. 

Jeffro [00:00:20]:
Welcome back to Digital Dominance. Over the past couple of years, short form video has made a big impact. A lot of brands and creators have taken advantage of this and have grown huge followings, and there’s a huge opportunity to monetize that following once you have it. The question is, how do you build that following? Are the platforms too crowded now? Is it too late to be part of the trend? How do I get more views? And on and on, it goes all the way down the rabbit hole. If you’re someone who wants to leverage today’s social media for growing your business, then this is the episode for you. My guest today is Austin Falter, the owner of Falter Media. Austin and his agency help experts build personal brands through short form video on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. They offer free trainings, in-depth Consulting and even full service video marketing.

Jeffro [00:01:04]:
His agency has done over 300,000,000 organic views for clients and millions more with their video ads. Austin, I’m honored to have you here. Welcome to the show.

Austin Falter [00:01:12]:
Awesome. Thanks for having me. This will be fun.

Jeffro [00:01:14]:
Yeah. I’m excited too. And, you know, social media is a tricky thing. On the surface, it looks easy. We see people go viral or someone appears out of nowhere with millions of subscribers, and we watch that video clip and think to ourselves, I could do that. But then you start trying and posting videos that go absolutely nowhere, and it becomes clear that maybe it’s not as easy as it looks.

Austin Falter [00:01:34]:
Yeah. Absolutely. It’s it’s almost like the the easier they make it look, the harder it probably is. Right? I was watching, an interview with, one of the biggest YouTubers for a long time, and then she quit. She just was done. But they were interviewing her, like, a year later after she kind of started her channel back up again. And people always said that her comedy was just so seamless. Like, it just it’s it looked like she never had to try.

Austin Falter [00:02:02]:
And she talked about for the 1st time in this interview, All the stuff that actually went into it and how these jokes weren’t actually spontaneous. She would go weeks ahead of time to whatever store she was gonna do a video at and think of the jokes. And It just goes to show even the even the, you know, most spontaneous humor, even the the phone handheld videos, a lot of these Probably have some some genius behind, the camera thinking about strategy.

Jeffro [00:02:27]:
Yeah. And I think it’s easy for us to recognize that when it Comes to physical capabilities. Right? If we see someone doing a backflip or something like, wow. That was so smooth. Like, okay. We understand. They probably practiced for a long time, but We don’t make that connection when it’s something like a video online. But the good news is there there is a method to the madness to a certain Dent.

Jeffro [00:02:48]:
Right? That’s something that you’re able to help your clients with. So, let’s get into that a little bit. But can we start by explaining the state of social media in 2024?

Austin Falter [00:02:57]:
Yeah. No. That’s a great question. And I’m excited. I’m still excited to get some reports on this. Right? Beginning of the year as a marketer, I’m always excited to see some of these Massive agencies who interview all of us, the the small businesses and kind of see who what are people using? What did you make money from last year? So the data is still kind of being, figured out. I think next next month is when a lot of these reports come out, and I’m going to a few vets, and I’m excited to see. But from where I’m standing as a video marketer, I see a few trends happening.

Austin Falter [00:03:29]:
1st is that Shortform is now everywhere. It’s on every platform. That’s because TikTok did so well for so many years that everyone copied them. And normally, you know, they’ll copy them and they’ll say, okay. But you have to do video, but it’s a square. You know? Or you have to do video, but it’s horizontal. And they try to change something to be unique. But this time, they’re like, no.

Austin Falter [00:03:46]:
TikTok has done so well and stolen so much of our traffic that we need to just allow TikTok videos to be up on our channel and and, you know, nothing don’t change anything. You can make 1 video and they’ll post it everywhere. So for a marketer, that’s really awesome. And and, obviously, some platforms have a different context, but, your audience might be the same across across several platforms. So 1 piece of content can stretch pretty far now, which is great. That’s actually good news we haven’t had, on social media for a while. The second thing I see is now TikTok is trying to compete with these other social medias to steal more traffic. So they’re trying to do more long form videos, which I don’t know if that’s gonna work for

Austin Falter [00:04:28]:
them or not. They’re trying to do shop to you know, like like, Instagram did a shop. They’re trying to do a shop right now. Who knows if that’s gonna

Austin Falter [00:04:28]:
work for them? Instagram did a shop. They’re trying to do a shop right now. Who knows if that’s gonna work for them? So they’re they’re trying to figure out what they’re into now as well as they get bigger. And overall, though, what we’re seeing is that those who are doing shorts, there’s gonna be a lot more traffic or a lot more, watch time on shorts this year than there was last year, and that’s a trend that that’s gonna continue. But also that long form is not going away anytime soon because the people doing long form content like the podcasts or, you know, YouTube videos. Those are the ones who have a very loyal following, a high conversion following. And that’s why TikTok wants to compete. So, short form is stay is here to stay and so is long form.

Austin Falter [00:05:13]:
And I think people using the 2 together are really the biggest winners.

Jeffro [00:05:17]:
Yeah. It’ll be interesting to see how that shakes out with the changes to TikTok and, you know, all the platforms are constantly changing their algorithms and adding new features and tweaking stuff. And it can be annoying on the one hand, but it also gives you options as a creator to try new things. So over time, I think it will They will figure it out and kind of settle into something that works. But what about when you’re making video content? Is it worth hopping on the latest Viral video trends because, you know, there’s always you start seeing repeats and patterns. So should you hop on those, or should you just stick with your own consistent strategy?

Austin Falter [00:05:52]:
That’s a great question. I think most of my brands don’t actually hop on new trends. And part of that is because you gotta find a system that works for you unless You’ve got some, you know, young gen z people on your team who are constantly scrolling TikTok and know what’s funny that week, Then great. You know? Send them out and and give them creative, freedom, and and that’s a great way to do it. But I think for most of us, we’re here trying to build a brand around the personality. And and you gotta do talking head content. You don’t need to be shaking your booty or lip synching all the I’m I definitely don’t do that with most of my brands. And so I think you can do it either way, but most of my brands aren’t doing trends.

Austin Falter [00:06:33]:
They really aren’t. They’re getting out there and sharing valuable info in their niche. Maybe they’re using some tricks that they learned from what has done well on on TikTok before, on Instagram Reels before. But they’re really finding their own style that works for them and and moving forward that with a large quantity and consistency.

Jeffro [00:06:53]:
Right. And that makes sense because if you do start doing these things, you’re gonna be attracting the wrong viewers. They’re not gonna be in your target market anyways.

Austin Falter [00:06:59]:
Totally. People might like a trend because they like the trend, not because they like your niche. And so if you if you apply your niche to a trend, It it is a little bit confusing. Now that being said, sometimes it is great to branch out and try new things to see what’s working or what’s fun and and duplicable for your brand. So I’m all about testing, but I don’t think you need to chase every new trend.

Jeffro [00:07:20]:
So how do you help clients achieve that consistency that they need to actually grow a following?

Austin Falter [00:07:26]:
That’s a great question. And I think this is where most people get it wrong. Most people think that they need to make a high quality video. And so they think, okay. What’s my next post? And they make that video. And then they’re thinking, oh, what’s my next post? And there’s no process to it. And while quality, it usually, you know, trumps quantity in in most cases, I think when it comes to a social media strategy, if you don’t have a system that works, that can get you content out there all the time, I think you’re starting out on the wrong foot. And so for my brands, the first thing that we fix is their system.

Austin Falter [00:08:01]:
We want them to be able to sit down in 1 week and film a week’s worth of content or sit down with my clients, we do 1 month at a time. And in 1 film day, we can knock out 30, 60, 90 videos. Whatever quantity you need for that month, we can knock it all out in 1 film day and make sure that you have a process that’s gonna allow you to do a large quantity. If you can do a large quantity every day, then the next month, you can tweak something to Test out a new style or you can, you know, improve the quality some way. But I I think quality, People film on their phones, and people film on their cameras, and it like, quality doesn’t mean so much on TikTok. If you can have a good system to be learning and to be consistent, that’s gonna get you a lot further.

Jeffro [00:08:47]:
And let me kind of say back what I’m hearing too as a takeaway. I think that, you know, You know, obviously, quality matters. You can’t just throw it out the window. But rather than trying to aim for 99 or a 100% Quality on every video that maybe comes out every 3 weeks, 2 weeks, and it’s, you know, inconsistent. Aim for just you know, if you can get a process and do 80% quality And do it consistently, daily, or however you frequently post, that’s probably better in the short form world. Because with the long form world, it is kind of More spread out. Right? And so maybe you can aim for a higher quality level. Is that accurate?

Austin Falter [00:09:23]:
I think that’s 100% accurate. That’s exactly what I’m saying here. I use shorts as as daily touch points. Right? These are the things that I want to be there every day on every platform to remind people of a brand, to test out what topics are working. Right? There’s a lot we can do with just the script to make it high quality without having to do anything else. And so I want I want to be there every day. If I’m not there every day, I need to switch something in my system. Maybe I’m spending too much time on this on this thing over here For too much time on this thing over there, whatever I need to do to get back to 1 a day, I think is a great starting place.

Austin Falter [00:10:02]:
And once you’re at that 1 a day and you can start posting every day, then, again, you can work on long form content. You can work on other things. But you’ve gotta you’ve gotta have a good consistent Posting schedule first.

Austin Falter [00:10:14]:
Okay.

Jeffro [00:10:14]:
So start with consistency, then move into improving quality. Can you talk about some of those tips for improving the quality of your videos?

Austin Falter [00:10:20]:
Yeah. I think, where a lot of people struggle is, in there’s a lot of rambling going on, especially with, you know, us who aren’t, The millennial pause, you might hear that term being used on TikTok. What that means is when you start a video and you say, or okay. So today, we’re gonna talk about whatever. You know? Just dive right into the topic. Just 1 sentence at a time, just dive into the topic. And then in your in your edit, chop out any pauses. I think that’s a great way to start with shorts.

Austin Falter [00:10:51]:
If you take a podcast and try to chop it up and just post it as a short, a lot of times it doesn’t work very well. You’ve gotta really take every millisecond out of that that edit that you can in order to make it engaging. So tighten up the edit is what we call that. And then another one is captions. You know, a lot of people are watching this on silent. And if you make some engaging captions, maybe some animated captions, Stuff moving around or emphasizing what you’re saying, that can be a great way to start.

Jeffro [00:11:18]:
Do you think that some of those little, you know, fancy caption stuff make up for a lower quality Script.

Austin Falter [00:11:24]:
Maybe not in the lower quality script. I certainly think it can help with video quality. Right? If you don’t have fancy lights, you’re just filming on your phone, people are used to that, and and they don’t get bothered by that. So I I don’t think that’s holding you back. When I say quality, there’s a lot of things we talk about there. Right? But with script, you do have to have an important, or a a thought out script, I think, especially for brands, because People don’t wanna get be sold to, and people might not be interested in listening to your spiel or your sales pitch every day. So you’ve gotta give them value, or entertainment or or something of that nature. And so I think if you put time into anything, preproduction, It’s your script.

Austin Falter [00:12:06]:
Before you film thought in anything, don’t think about what outfit you’re wearing. Don’t worry about, like unless you’re doing some sort of Comedy video or specific thing. Just think about your script, and I think you’ll go a lot farther.

Jeffro [00:12:17]:
Yeah. So spend the most time on the script. And then when editing it, Trim it down so you don’t have the dead space. That way, it’s as potent as possible. Right? You don’t want it diluted with all the extra fluff. Can you share a case study of one of your clients and kinda walk us through how you help them transform and grow their channel?

Austin Falter [00:12:35]:
100%. Well, I have a client right now who does both short form and long form. And they might be a good example here because Shorts is the top of the funnel. Right? That’s what gets people to to see their content every day, but that’s not what’s making them money. And so I I wanna I wanna illustrate it. So So, essentially, what we do is every month, we’ll go in and, we come with a list of ideas, and we don’t write out full scripts. When I’m working with an expert, A lot of your listeners are experts in what they do. They can talk all day about what they do.

Austin Falter [00:13:05]:
Right? And if you give them a really good hook, Really good one liner as a hook, they can probably come up with 60 seconds to fill. Right? And so that’s what I when I say Come up with a script. Unless you you’ve got, you know, a launch video or something that needs to be very specific, come up with just a bunch of hooks and then just film them 1 after another. Just film all your your videos all in one sitting. That’s gonna be a great way to get your process up and going and started. So that’s what we do. We make a list of of video hooks. If we come up with more ideas on the spot while we’re filming, great.

Austin Falter [00:13:39]:
We do, depending on the niche. Sometimes I recommend having the lights and the the audio and all that set up. But most important is usually the audio, the lens, and the lighting. So you don’t need a fancy camera. The lens would just be your you know, If you have a camera, use a a a nice lens that gets you the blur in the background, something like that. Or if you have a phone, use the back camera. And then your lighting is generally you want it to be well lit, a little lighter than it is here, generally. You can just learn all of that just as you go.

Austin Falter [00:14:10]:
Just start to get better Lens, lighting, and, lapel would be the third one that I talked about. And that’s that’s gonna be your audio. I like to use lapel mics because they’re just closer to your voice. It’s gonna be more clear. And then once we film all those videos, we pass it off to the editing team. And I like to edit in batches. When you edit in a batch, you can Get 30 videos done a lot quicker than if you edit them 1 at a time. And so that’s what allows us to show up every day and not take up all of our team’s time is by doing it in a batch.

Austin Falter [00:14:40]:
And we’re adding captions. We’re tightening up the edit like I talked about. A lot of times, we add b roll. We add a lot of b roll, which is just anything that’s gonna illustrate your point as you’re talking or anything funny if you’re an engaging channel. Then we post it everywhere. We already talked about how These videos can go on every platform now. So we learned a little bit about hashtag strategy or whatever, posting strategy for each of these platforms. It doesn’t have to be crazy.

Austin Falter [00:15:06]:
The biggest thing is get the piece of content out there on every platform. And now every day, he’s showing up to his audience on every platform. And And these short form videos, a lot of times have to do with what he’s talking about on his long form videos. The 62nd videos Lead them to listen to the 1 hour podcast. When they listen to the 1 hour podcast, they become converted to kind of, Whatever he’s talking about, they they become more loyal, and that’s usually when they click the link is after those longer. And so this is top of the funnel. Short form Leads them to long form, leads them to finally your links and becoming a customer.

Jeffro [00:15:41]:
Awesome. That was a great breakdown, so thank you for going through that. There’s a couple things in there that I wanna kind of follow-up on. So you You mentioned a hashtag strategy. There’s always debate about do hashtags matter, how do you pick good ones. Can you talk about that a little bit?

Austin Falter [00:15:54]:
Yeah. I think when in doubt, they don’t actually matter. And so, when I say hashtag strategy, it’s probably misleading. On Twitter, You can use 1 if you want. On Instagram, you can use them if you want, but it’s not going to help all that much. They just change their algorithm on that to help have them help even less. So it might help categorize something, but I don’t think it’s gonna be the reason a video go viral. And on TikTok, it helps categorize things, to an audience that is specific to, you know, those interests, I think it really does help on TikTok is what I’ve noticed.

Austin Falter [00:16:28]:
But, again, it’s not the reason it goes viral. So what do I use hashtags for? It’s not to push the virality. It’s actually if the video does well, it’s to rank for certain things. So I use it backwards. Instead of using my hashtag to help the video, I use the video to help the hashtag. What do I mean by that? That’s kinda crazy. Well, when someone search searches in in, TikTok TikTok marketing, I’d love for my channel to come up. Right? So in all my videos, I actually put TikTok marketing.

Austin Falter [00:16:55]:
And so that’s not necessarily to, again, to to help my videos go more viral, but it’s because when one does go viral and people search, then they can Find me.

Jeffro [00:17:03]:
You’re using it as a keyword so that it gets indexed when people are looking for it. Yeah.

Austin Falter [00:17:07]:
Yep. I use it as a keyword, and there’s not there’s not a ton to it. Now if you’re searching for a very specific niche and your videos are not general at all, it’s like you’re a doctor who helps this one condition, That’s where I think they can be really helpful just to make sure it reaches those right people. But apart from that, I don’t think hashtags matter all that much, on most platforms now.

Jeffro [00:17:29]:
That’s awesome. Good to know. I like that idea of categorizing it and doing it backwards. That I think that helps people wrap their head around. Instead of making them feel like it’s Some magic thing. If you just do it right, you’re gonna go viral. It’s like, no. No.

Jeffro [00:17:39]:
It’s it’s a tool, and it’s there to help you. So here’s another thing I wanted to pull out from your case study. So you talked about you come up with a bunch of hooks. Right. And then you have the expert kind of talk about those things. How do you know if your hook is going to be good? Because that obviously is the starting point. Right?

Austin Falter [00:17:54]:
Well, here’s I’m gonna go back to quantity. Right? If you have a process that allows you to film a bunch of videos every month, Then how do you know your hook’s gonna be good? It’s because you did this last month, and you did 30 videos, and you learned from 30 pieces of data. And then the next month, you learn from another 30. So if you don’t have a good process, you’re never gonna know. You’re just gonna always be guessing. And that’s why it’s so important to just put everything out there, do get quantity done first. So where do I learn, if my hooks are good? A, from other creators. Right? I’m constantly seeing other creators that do well.

Austin Falter [00:18:24]:
I was like, oh, that’s a good hook. I’ll write it down. Doesn’t have to be in the same niche. It can be a completely different niche. I can tweak it to to match the niche I need. You can go on TikTok. TikTok is probably the best search engine for this. You go on TikTok.

Austin Falter [00:18:35]:
And in the filters, you can say the last 3 months. Find out what videos were trending in your niche in the last 3 months. And you can write down some of those hooks for ideas. And then the next thing I would do is probably go to depends on your video. If you’re talking about news, go to Google. Find out, you know, New York Times articles. What are what are their hooks? And you just learn from all these things that are, anything that captures attention, anything that’s relevant to the person that you’re talking to, to the audience. Those are the the hooks that seem to perform well.

Austin Falter [00:19:03]:
You write down a big giant list and no hook is a bad hook. Just film it because you need to get you need to learn. You know? You have to learn the skill of how to write a good hook. Pretty soon, you’ll be like, oh, these 10 worked. These 10 didn’t. Those are off the list. Now we’re gonna do 10 more like this one that worked. Once you have ones that work, you throw them in a chat He can get even more ideas.

Austin Falter [00:19:22]:
Just say, hey. These are the winners. Make me more winners. You know? I don’t wanna just get random ideas. I just want to input the winners. So there’s tons of ideas on how to get a good hook, but, you want it to be relevant. You want it to be catchy and probably based in some truth of a good hook that you’ve already seen.

Jeffro [00:19:37]:
That makes sense. So here’s another question. Let’s say we’ve done all this. Right? You’ve kind of started figuring out your camera setup. You’ve got your hooks. You’re making videos. What time frame is even reasonable to I know every industry is different, but let’s say you’re doing these things. How long does it take to start getting traction and building that following as you’re learning as you go?

Austin Falter [00:20:00]:
That’s a great question. There’s a couple things in there. A lot of people are like, oh, how long does it take To earn the following, what they really wanna know is how long is it gonna take to make money for my business. And if you have business, owner audiences, I do wanna answer that question first because You’re not gonna invest any time in social media if it’s not gonna make you money. And what I’ve seen is people who figure out how to get it to work for them like, actually, they’re getting more views this month than they did last month. They have a process. If they do that for 6 months, they’re usually making money in their business from social media. The 1 client I shared with you, he’s a doctor, and he now makes $75,000 a month from organic, only organic, after 8 months of social media.

Austin Falter [00:20:41]:
So that’s very quick to get that much results. It’s insanely quick. But he didn’t make it in the 1st 3 months. He he didn’t make that much. 4 months, 5 months. It it took about 6 months before it started to just explode. And I see that for a lot of people. It takes about 6 months, and that’s with short form and long form.

Austin Falter [00:20:58]:
Again, it’s gonna depend on the industry. It’s gonna depend on your funnel. But you gotta kinda commit to it. You gotta commit to it. It’ll take some time. As far as views and followers go, I’ve had accounts get to a 100,000 followers on TikTok in in 3 months, you know, or 2 months. I’ve had, clients get to 10,000 in 6 months. I think it totally depends on your strategy whether you’re going for a niche or a more general audience on how much followers you’re gonna get.

Austin Falter [00:21:25]:
But as far as views go, you can expect it from week 1. If you make a video that is viral, viral worthy, that is so good that it that it should go viral, On TikTok, especially, it will go viral week 1. If it doesn’t go viral, then you gotta look at your content and say, okay. What can we improve here? Because really, it’s it’s almost instantaneous. You have accounts. Their 1st post gets millions of views. Right? And and TikTok actually I think it gives it a little boost or at least it used to on on some of those 1st posts. So you really can see from week 1 if it’s gonna work or not.

Austin Falter [00:21:59]:
So if it’s not working, then then fix something, change something. You know? Keep testing. And if you’re posting every day, you can test way faster.

Jeffro [00:22:06]:
Right. And, I like Setting that realistic expectation of, it’s not gonna happen overnight. Even if you start getting views, that might be great for your ego. Right? But and that might be a Point of feedback that’s letting you know, hey. Your content is pretty good, so keep doing this. And then if you’re not making money from that, okay, now you’ve got the video part figured out. Now figure out your funnel or the back end To offer or something in order to actually monetize that following.

Austin Falter [00:22:30]:
It’s either a it’s either a traffic problem or it’s a convergence problem. And You’ll never know if it’s a conversions problem until you get the traffic. And so usually, people are trying to figure out the views and followers first. But then when they get it and they’re like, oh, this isn’t converting, well, that’s because you gotta Fix your funnel. Like you said, you know, there’s there’s 2 parts to it. But, yeah, I I think as far as how long it usually takes to even gain the traffic, You can know week 1, but it’s gonna take you some time to get used to it, usually around 3 months. If you’ve given it, your all for 3 months and it’s not working, I think that’s a fair shot. And and if you’re not able to improve in those 3 months, then maybe you’ve tried a different platform for you or you try a different channel.

Austin Falter [00:23:09]:
Like, I don’t want people to just be spending all their budget or all their time in their in their business on social media just because they know it’ll pay off long term. It doesn’t work for everyone. And if it’s not gonna work for you, you’ll probably know in in in a few months, especially with short form. With long form, obviously, it’s gonna take longer. But with Short form content on somewhere like TikTok, where you can just get a lot more views a lot quicker, I would say, yeah. Give it give it your all for 3 months, And maybe it’s not gonna be your best marketing channel or maybe it will be, but you’ll you’ll probably get an idea of that in the 1st few months.

Jeffro [00:23:40]:
Yeah. And if you’re feeling stuck, go Talk to somebody like Austin, say, hey. Get give me your outside perspective, your experience. Help me out. What’s what am I doing wrong here? But I think, Austin, I I love all the information you’ve given and how you’ve broken this down so clearly. I think it’s really helpful for people to understand what it takes to do well With short form video and apply that to a business. So I wanna say thanks for joining me today. It it’s fascinating when we think about social media from the content creator’s perspective, and it’s not just the scrolling side, right, as the the one consuming it.

Jeffro [00:24:10]:
So, for those of you listening guys, go to falter.media to learn more about Austin’s video agency. He has a freebie you can download called 7 viral video types for brands, which is great. So go check it out. Austin, do you have any final thoughts before we wrap up?

Austin Falter [00:24:24]:
I just say, here’s the 4 pillars to short form success. Quality, make a good video. And and if you make a better video every day, great. Quantity, you want to put out content on a regular basis. If you can do every day, great. Consistency, You want to have a rate of posting that is not gonna burn you out. Find a process that’s not gonna burn you out. Consistency.

Austin Falter [00:24:48]:
And then the final would be niche. Don’t forget about your niche. A lot of people just wanna go viral, and then it doesn’t help their business. I don’t think that’s the right strategy. In fact, the people I I work with that make the most money are those who have a strong, very small, tight knit niche, and they grow that organically rather than achieving those high numbers.

Jeffro [00:25:05]:
That’s awesome. There you go, guys. Write that down. Thanks again for being here, Austin, and thanks to all of you for listening. I appreciate you guys. I’m rooting for you to dominate your niche, and I’ll see you next time.