It feels like yesterday that we were doing the Month 1 Retrospective but my guess is that is because I was mostly hands-off when it came to the video challenge. I’m sure my team very much felt how I did at the end of last month with a “omg that was a lot”.
As a refresher, the original challenge was two short-form videos a week to be distributed via IG Reels, Tiktok, and LinkedIn. This QUICKLY changed when we realized that the original content for the videos was too long so we ended up posting closer to 3 or 4 times per week.
The takeaways.
Creating multiple edited videos per week forced us to create a process.
Going into this challenge, videos were exactly 0% of the content we created. This means that we had no process for brainstorming or whiteboard or outlining a video. We also had no idea what kind of content would actually be popular. Not only was this the first time we were actually investing in creating short-form content, but this was also the first time we ever committed any time to TikTok as content creators.
And that brings us to our second takeaway.
TikTok is a completely different beast.
For anyone who has spent any time on the app, this comes as no surprise. But the videos that do well on Tiktok are NOT the videos we set out to make with this challenge. Our goal was to create curated, educational videos that walk through complex concepts with examples and voice-overs. TikTok wants 15-second snippets that utilize trends and humor with a punchy point. Moving forward we are excited to incorporate these sorts of videos into our flow but that’s not exactly something that you plan or strategize concepts weeks in advance.
As we switched our focus from LinkedIn to other platforms that we are not familiar with, we saw a decrease in overall numbers.
We had slightly more engagement on our Instagram with 14% more accounts reached but that did not lead to increased accounts engagement nor did it lead to increased total followers. Our website numbers are largely down with a 44% decrease in website site sessions and this is largely due to a drop in LinkedIn and Direct traffic.
Videos are fun.
One of the big questions we’ve been asking ourselves with this marketing challenge is, do we enjoy the process? Because as a team of 3, if we aren’t enjoying the process it’s almost impossible that we are going to be able to invest the amount of time required to make it work.
The first question at the core of this month’s challenge was: will short-form videos increase our website and social media engagement? The answer for us in our current video form is a resounding no. The second question was: Do we even enjoy making short-form videos? And this was a surprising, heck yes. We now have some really amazing content albeit, not really being seen by anyone, that I’m excited to be able to continue sharing.
We have a lot more tinkering to do with how videos fit into our overall strategy.
I think the biggest takeaway I had was that we really need to hone in on what the are the goals of our videos. Who is our target audience and what kind of content do they want to be seeing? We tried to do a little bit of it all this month and that clearly is not the solution. But I think for us, this is just going to take time and a lot of trial and error. While the numbers do not pan out in favor of continuing to create short-form content, the fact that most of the world is going that way tells me it’s more of an us problem, for now.
TL;DR Takeaways
Creating this many videos on top of our busiest month to date means we created a process, FAST.
TikTok does play by the same rules as the other social media platforms. This means a whole new strategy is required.
We are not Tiktok famous and our videos did not increase our social media or website engagement at all.
Videos are fun.
We have a lot of learning to do but we are excited to keep making videos.
Up Next! Email Marketing!
I wish I was exaggerating when I say I have been looking forward to this challenge since the beginning. We started using Beehiiv as our newsletter tool about 6 months ago and it’s made the process of sending out newsletters, dare I say, fun.
So we are off to see if we can create an actual pipeline to get folks to sign up for our newsletter as well as define what the actual goal of our newsletter is (right now it’s mostly just sending cool shit to folks).
And if you haven’t signed up for our newsletter yet, what are you waiting for?!
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Interested in learning more about brand & marketing strategies? We promise we won't assign you Daily Blogs but we may help you make some fun TikToks.
Schedule a discovery meeting or contact us at hello@underbelly.io.
About The Author
Olivia Wisden is the Founder + CEO of UnderBelly Creative. She has worked with dozens of brands over the years ranging from city initiatives to product launches and beyond. When she’s not fan-girling over the design team’s illustrations she can probably be found reading a novel or attending a boxing class.
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