A packed-out PPA Independent Publishers Conference took place in London on Friday, along with the association’s annual independent awards ceremony. One of the sessions that lit up the stage was an in-depth look at modern video production, and the nuances that need to be considered when creating content for different platforms…
The session was hosted by the Big Issue Digital Editor, Alastair Reid, who at the outset spoke candidly about the changes the publication had been through as a result of lockdown.
“The pandemic nearly ended The Big Issue basically,” said Reid. “It was predominantly print focussed and when people couldn’t sell it on the street, that not only impacted our bottom line, but also the ability of the sellers to make a direct living. Partly through that necessity, we have now launched a successful subscriptions business and ramped up our digital offering.”
One of the key components in monetising digital today is video, and Alastair was joined on-stage by two speakers with a strong footing in this area. Ben Powell-Jones is the Creative Director for LADstudios, part of the LADbible Group, and produces video content across multiple formats.
Influencer & Content Creator, Krystal Lake, focusses mainly on the production of educational content for TikTok, and for many publishers it is in this area that much of the mystique around modern day video production still lies:
“Basically I help people to discover themselves, and the world around them, in a very fun and interesting way,” said Lake. “The approach comes from being a teacher and having a bunch of 15yr olds in a classroom who are like, “Give me the funny stuff NOW!” And when I was a student I didn’t really have that, I didn’t have the ability to learn about queer/black/women’s history. So learning those lessons helped me to realise how society actually is, and how I fit into it, and to begin with I really just wanted to spread the love and the knowledge as far and wide as I could.”
An altruistic outlook perhaps, but one that has led to more than half a million TikTok followers, and as a result alongside… a deep understanding of how the platform works.
“TikTok is its own unique entity. For example, the follow button is very different on Instagram vs TikTok. On the former, you’re telling the algorithm like I wanna see this person all the time. But TikTok what you’re saying is I like this sort of content and THAT is what I want to see more of. This can be tough to accept, because you want to show up on people’s feeds, but it’s also a double-edged sword… because TikTok is a meritocracy and if you keep making great, relevant TikToks they will begin to show up on people’s feeds more.”
Comedy and entertainment remain by the far the most popular forms of content on TikTok, and Lake says that brands such as Old Spice have lent into that well, without attempting to reinvent themselves too much. There are influencers out there of all shapes and sizes, and for brands it’s all about working with different creators who can help to successfully convey your messaging.
At the Conference, she also gave us some of her top tips for achieving TikTok success.
“The algorithm is one of TikTok’s greatest strengths – it actually knows you a little better than you know yourself sometimes! So when beginning your journey, it’s useful to ask questions like, What are similar brands doing? What do you think your target audience would like? What would make you stop and watch a video?”
“Also everything is so fast paced, so you have to make sure that the first two seconds of a video are going to catch somebody’s eye. There are also little tricks for new creators like effectively leveraging the effects section. If I saw a face filter crop up for example that makes me look like Shrek, then I’m sure that would make my video that much more interesting at first glance, while more traditional tools like the green screen mean that you can almost be a professional video editor on there without formal training.”
Of course, creating TikTok content is all well and good, but it may not be the first platform of choice for you audiences, particularly if those demographics skew towards the slightly older generations.
For LADstudios’ Ben Powell-Jones, context is everything. Videos will work if you create them specifically for the platforms they are intended to be viewed on, and don’t try to game the system by adapting existing content for others.
“Original video is something that we can directly control,” says Powell-Jones. “When it comes to news & current affairs for example, you are inevitably working within the parameters of the day’s events. Whereas when it comes to our own unique, entertainment content, we go out and film that from the beginning, creating original video for all relevant platforms.”
“A lot of people will try to make an initial YouTube version of a video, and then repurpose it for different platforms. But what that ends up meaning is that one deliverable is perfect, while all of the others aren’t quite right. So we don’t reversion – we preversion – and that means having a working understanding of exactly what you are intending to create platform by platform in advance.”
“So for example, if we have an interview with a Cold War spy coming up, we’ll sit down with the TikTok producers prior and ask them what their key questions to the guests would be. That way you know that you’re going to be considering all platforms at all times from the outset as you’re producing content.”
And it’s not just different platforms that the company takes into consideration when creating video content. The temptation in the industry right now is to look at the analytics, identify well performing videos, and simply decide to make more of the same types of content. But for Powell-Jones, you need to be a little bit careful in attempting to apply such simplistic reasoning to what can be quite complex creative.
“If you make a piece of content with a gangster, and it does amazing on TikTok and just ok everywhere else, it’s easy to come away thinking well ok TikTok loves gangsters, let’s do more of that on there. But do you really know that? It could just be a flip, and for me identifying consistency in trends is the most important thing. One video might do amazingly well one week, another poorly the next, but if you’re seeing trends where a particular type of content is constantly hitting say around the 500,000 views mark, then that is where you want to be aiming.”
“Another example here is if we have say a regular video interview feature, and then a specific guest one week ends up doing really well, there is a temptation there to say ok well the subject matter they spoke about is popular, let’s do a spinoff series purely about that. But again, partly why that video has done well is because it sits within the context of your wider series, and everything else that goes into that, so you want to see consistency before you start ramping up and expanding out specific things.”
When it comes to TikTok, the Creative Director is very clear about giving the platform the respect it deserves within the wider online ecosystem.
“If you try and make a TikTok video purely as a trailer to your YouTube video, to try and migrate audiences across there, it’s just not going to work. It’s understandable that brands attempt this, because you often see that direct monetisation when the eyeballs land on the latter. But if you’re going out on TikTok, you need to provide that audience with your absolute best bits within the parameters of that shorter video, and then hope that the quality is enough to more deeply engage them. The value exchange needs to be high for the user on every platform.”
It was a fabulous session – arguably the best I’ve seen so far post-pandemic – and was representative of a PPA Independent Conference brimming with energy, enthusiasm, and new ideas. We’ve looked many times in recent weeks and months at just how important the indie scene has become, particularly to the publishing side of the industry. When comes to newer platforms such as TikTok, it’s great to see them being adopted with such dedication by the mainstream.
[Main image adapted from: Shutterstock.com/Ascannio]