In this episode, Eric breaks down 6 underrated short form video strategies that help brands cut through the noise, earn attention, and actually drive results—no trend-chasing require.
I’m breaking down 7 short form video strategies that no one is really talking about—but every brand should be using. These are the moves we’re using inside Maverick to build real momentum, not just rack up views. From shifting out of “content for content’s sake” to building repeatable systems that actually grow brand equity, this is the kind of episode I wish I had when I was running social for major brands.
If you’re tired of chasing trends and ready to make short form work smarter, not louder—this one’s for you.
What you will hear:
Speaker 1 0:00
Short form video today is the whole game on today's pod, we give you the real strategies no one is talking about.
Speaker 1 0:19
Hey everybody, welcome back to radical content. Episode 19, excited to be back weekly, every single week. And there is so much going on right now in the world of social, in the world of content, and so I'm pumped for today's show. We've got content of the week. We're starting it out. Duolingo, breaking news, breaking the internet. So that's gonna be first. Our feature today is all gonna be about short form video. So you got to stick around. We're going to go really, really deep. And we're going to try to not just give the tips that everybody knows. We're going to try to go a little bit deeper into why short form video and how short form video. And the last one is, we're going to rerun it LinkedIn. Reactions. Social media managers are freaking out about a new thing that's happening with Instagram, and we're going to hit it all. Here we go. All right.
Unknown Speaker 1:06
Welcome to the content of the week. Sometimes it'll be 123,
Unknown Speaker 1:10
today, we're going with one, and
Speaker 1 1:13
it's the news of the day is Duolingo. You know the news of the past couple months is Duolingo. In the world of social media, Duolingo has been shared by every social media manager and director for the past two years. Zarya and her team up there, we had a chance to even meet Sarah Whittle who's also on that team. Now, they continue to crush it when it comes to taking a brand, making it stand out. And so the content of the week is it's pretty easy. If you didn't see this, just take a look at these three seconds of this clip, and you'll know what we're talking about. I took over
Speaker 2 1:47
a year off and cut you bitches and slack. Tell a friend to tell a friend.
Speaker 1 1:52
So Duolingo died, and apparently he's back. We all knew he was gonna be back, but he's back. So I think you all know who Duolingo is to app where you can learn how to speak different languages. It's really fun and very kind of game and and funny. And they've got a mascot named duo he's an owl, and kind of leading up to the Super Bowl during the Super Bowl. And ever since, there's been this whole, uh, whole campaign going on that's been very social, very viral, and it's all been about Duolingo dying. Now, I'm not going to be the one that's going to explain this thing to you, because it's really kind of absurd and and just, frankly, a little bit weird. But sometimes that's what makes great content, and that's why this is content of the week. They literally have Duolingo, you know, being raised from the dead on Instagram, they've got a blog where he goes behind the scenes of why he had to do all of this. And there's this one video on on Instagram that's got 2.4 million views. And there's one thing that it said at the end that I thought was so, so good. If you know this app, it will send you alerts to tell you to do your lesson, and it will kind of shame you when you're not doing your lesson. And so after this whole thing, when it said it came back, it just kind of had this line, and it said, Just do your lesson like, in essence, like they're creating all this attention, but they're still doing it around something that's really important to their business. What's important their business is that you go in, you take these lessons, you learn this language. And so I love a brand that can do something fun, entertaining, creative, super unique, but the brand is embedded in it. Like, if you look at anything that Duolingo is doing, it's not just absurd for absurd sake. It's really, really different. A couple of the things I'd call out because also want to, always want to talk about content of the week is like, Why did I like this? Or what was so special about it. First thing was, they killed off their mascot. They created so much conversation. There's articles that have been written about how they dominated the Super Bowl. From an advertising standpoint, they didn't spend $1 on a commercial at the Super Bowl because they created something that was a spectacle. They tied in with a bunch of things that will create more virality. So they tied in to, I think, one of the videos that talked about the joke, if he wants to now wants to meet dua lipo, which my team can tell me who that is. Who is that? That's an artist. They're looking at. They're judging me. It's a musician. It's a singer, they tell me. And they're, I'm guessing, by their their disdain, that it's a very popular singer that I, I would. I do know that it's some sort of singer, so I'm playing it up a little bit. But they've built fandom, right? Like this idea of building content and storytelling and engaging and building audiences. When you build the audience, then you can do crazy stuff and you can really have fun, because you've got true, passionate brand advocates that are out there. So kudos to Zaria and to the entire team. This has been fun to watch. We've been kind of waiting for it to end, and this week it is ending. So this podcast is going to come out in a few days. So this won't be quite as you know, like breaking news relevant as when we're recording this, but if you're not following Duolingo and social media, go do it. Go do it. They're really doing some amazing stuff. You. Uh, earlier this week, I was able to go to a conference, and the talk, the talk that they were doing this panel on was the power of short form video. I was only able to get to like, three or four questions in this in this panel that we did at this conference, and I thought, You know what, let's do a little featured segment called short form video leftovers. And I want to go through some of the things that we were planning on talking about, because I thought there was some really, really interesting things. And look, I know that. We all know the things right vertical is important. Right thumbnails matter. Title and descriptions are game changers. And so we're not going to talk a lot about hooks, really a visual hook or a or a verbal hook. So we're not going to talk about that. We know that you should know that, hopefully you know that what I wanted to do is kind of go a layer deeper to maybe talk about the things that aren't talked about as much, and how that might change our short form or short form video strategy. But short form is a big deal right now, right? Like Tiktok changed the world with their for you page and with their short form video now, Instagram has changed, and as we might talk about here in a minute, it might sound like it's continuing to change, to really go against what the the power of Tiktok. Tiktok is literally the fastest growing social platform we've ever seen. And even, even with some of what's happened here domestically in the US, we got, you know, taken out of the app store for a little while, it is still a hyper, hyper used platform, and many brands today are still trying to figure out, should we get on it? I don't know, should we, should we not? And the answer is, always been, it's always been Yes. And so if you're not there and you're not learning what it means to have, you know, Tiktok content. It's such a powerful thing. So then now all platforms are pushing the importance of video right, whether it's meta, and Facebook or Instagram, even LinkedIn is testing out this. And so, I mean, there's a reason why we are investing in content for Maverick, is because we believe the way to reach people is through this one to one connection. We believe video is is kind of the future of how social really is going to work. It doesn't mean that design and carousels aren't things we're playing around with, but you really have to understand that short form video is where you get reach. So when you start thinking about awareness, consideration, education and kind of into brand loyalty, the short form is where these videos are being sent out to people to grow your audience. And so to me, you got to think about the medium and the channel and what the purpose is. So we think about short form video as things that can be niche, viral. We're trying to think about a word for that. We call it breakout. So breakout video content that is going to be something that's going to get pushed out to get pushed out to other networks. And so I wanted to just spend a couple minutes talking there about the strategy of it all. Why do we do short form? Why are the platforms right now pushing short form on people? And why is it really important? And so understand those two things as we kind of go through some of these, some of these takes. So the first thing is, Tiktok created something called the for you page, right? So that's what you guys use mainly when you're just kind of scrolling. Back in the day, social platforms used to fill up your feed based on who you followed. They would literally ask you like, Who do you like? Who do you want to like? Who do you like on Facebook? And that's literally how they would craft your news feed. So it knew well, today's world with AI and a lot of different technology, the algorithm, really at Tiktok, is what changed the game. Is Tiktok, said, and
Speaker 1 8:30
I stole this from a from another interview that I'm not giving credit to, because I can't find his name. Or, wait, no, I know Jack, contrary, the Patreon CEO. So he was on Samir and Collins podcast recently, and he was actually talking a little bit about this. What, what Jack said was, is that tick tock, based on their algorithm, believes that they can do a better job of serving you what you want in your news feed and your for you page than you can by just giving them who you like and who you follow. And it and it worked, right? There's a reason why that giant innovation of the for you page on Tiktok is now what everyone is trying to steal. So the reason why this matters is because followers used to be the thing you mean literally. I'm having conversations with clients as of last week where they're like, Should follower be the thing that I'm tracking? Should that be the number one thing? And I'm not going to say it's not important. Follower count is going to feed the algorithm for Tiktok, but it's no longer the number one thing that brands are trying to do. Brands should be trying to again, using short form content as a way to reach people. Brands should be trying to really optimize for the content, because it's being pushed out to entire new networks. Literally, when I do posts on LinkedIn, 60% of it is to new followers versus this. So no longer are you literally reaching your followers. You're reaching some of your followers. But if you create really banger content, I don't feel like I can say banger, and people take it seriously. But if you do that, it's gonna reach a whole new level of an audience. And so that's. Important because now our content has to change. How we create short form content now is created with the intent of reaching audiences, going going beyond kind of your followers, and then the metrics at which we're kind of telling whether it's successful or not, has to be changed. Now you're talking about views as being kind of number one on some of these platforms. Watch time being number one on these platforms, versus followers. So that's the big shift that I think I would just kind of mention to start. The other one is one to one micro shares. So back in the day, people used to share a video brand would share video on social media and hope that people would share it with with their networks, right? Like I would share something and then Britani, my producer, might share it out to her network, right? That's what it was. But that's not where the world is today. Now, sharing is one to one, and what I mean by that is it's shared in its shared in direct messages, or direct messages into groups. So shares are now much more predominantly one to one. Matter of fact, Instagram has said multiple times now that shares are one of the most predominant way to decide whether content is successful now, and so we've got to now optimize for shares. It's why you see videos that say things like, share this with a friend, right? They're literally giving you a call to action, because they know that thing is important to the to the algorithm. This is a new one that I just learned. I'm going to try to bring a lot of things to this talk that that I just learned. And this one's quick, but I learned of a brand recently that is literally creating reels or tiktoks. They have three different hooks for the video. They create the same video with three different hooks. They post those same three videos to Tiktok literally, back to back to back, and they let the Tiktok algorithm decide what's best, literally. And they will take that post and they will put that on Instagram. Instagram is their biggest audience, so they're using Tiktok as it as kind of a testing field for what's the best hook, and then they'll take that video and they'll put that on Instagram, and most of the time they're seeing a really great, a really great return on kind of that testing. And so man, when I heard that, I was just like, man, there's some there's some legwork in there, but that's a really powerful tool. So yes, it's about hooks, but it's also about using data to decide what's going to be the best piece of content that's going to engage with this audience, short form video search. This is a crazy one. And look, you know, not all things are going to be for me, but Tiktok today, over 50 to 60% of the time, people the generation super behind me, right? They're using Tiktok as search. They're literally they want to go to restaurant. There's they're searching that restaurant before they go. They're not going to Google. They're wanting to see other people's food. They're wanting to see the location. They're wanting to understand how they should be dressed to go to a tennis so again, how do we change our content strategy if people are using Tiktok, short form video as search. So that's one I feel like we could spend a whole 10 or 15 minutes on brainstorming different ways, but I think that's one that we've got to all kind of keep top of mind that I was going to share in this conference and never got a chance
Speaker 1 12:56
to create formats that are repeatable. This is probably like a no duh. But I also think that we don't do it enough. There's so many efficiencies when it comes to creating repeatable format. So why do you create repeatable formats? Well, you know, production gets easier. You might be able to batch create and do you know we're doing two podcasts today, today that would be a repeatable format. You might sit down and do 10 talking head videos in one production shoot. But you gotta do it around things that you know work. I remember one time someone asked me, What are we gonna stop doing these throwback Thursdays? This is like 15 years ago, when those when those worked, and my answer was, we're gonna stop doing them when they stop working at the end of the day, our jobs as social and brand marketers to create content that connects with our audience, and when you can find something that really, really works, a great idea, and turn that into a repeatable format that you can do over and over again, man, that is like content gold. You want those moments, and when you find them, you double down until they don't work anymore. You must hire people that understand the channels. I've had this conversation with my friend who used to be the Chief Content Officer at Bleacher Report, and his take was, you've got to hire people that so know these platforms. So when you hire a movie trailer editor and you're like, hey, come help me create some Tiktok videos, it's not that there's not transferable skills. That person can shoot, that person can edit that probably that person also understands the emotion around creating content. But does that person know what's happening on the platform? Does he know he or she know what's trending and what's interesting? When you put someone that's passionate and interesting about a platform and has a dominant skill of creating and you're like, help us be great. That's why we talk at Maverick a lot about giving people ownership over channels and let them be the best at that platform. And so when you're trying to figure out, how do we create short form content, you've got to go bring people in that know how to create short form content. Again, it might sound like a no duh, but talent is is the game in this world of. Content and creation, and it's the reason why creators, honestly, are so successful in Tiktok and brands are are struggling. I've told my my brother, whose wife is a comedian, I'm like, man, if brands could just hire a bunch of comedians or hire a bunch of Tiktok creators, that their Tiktok account would go through the roof, because they're gonna be naturally focused on what works in the channel, what's creative, what's interesting, what's compelling, what's gonna what is a great hook. But we often don't do that, and so we got to continue to challenge ourselves, to to hire the people that understand these platforms, that are passionate about it and really want to get into it. All right, ladies and gentlemen, welcome into LinkedIn reactions. This is just kind of a chance to sit back and Eric to kind of scroll his LinkedIn feed and my team and kind of just see what are people talking about in this world, what's on your mind. And I just kind of want to react to some of the things that are going on. And so my producer, Britani has sent over a couple of things for me to react to. This gentleman says, As a marketer, I think what Duolingo does is cool and very innovative. But sometimes I wonder if non marketers even care. Hmm. Hot sports opinion there, sir. The top comments on every post are other brands. The whole thing just feels corporate coded. Go ahead and roast me. By the way, this is a great league. Did post like you got a ton of action, and that's the goal, is to get reach. He did it. So, great job. And I think his point is interesting. First off, not judging Duolingo ever. They are awesome. We all should be taking lessons from them on how to do social media. But this idea of brands engaging with brands on Twitter is an interesting topic, and I also might get roasted for my for my take here, but I go back in time to 10 or 12 years ago, universal parks and resorts responded, interacted with Wendy's, and then Wendy's responded to us, everybody. We were freaking out. We thought we had somehow made it that Wendy's this amazing, hilarious Twitter accounts now interacting with Universal. Universal felt like we were now a brand that was on the map. We sold zero more tickets to universal parks and resorts for that but it felt cool to us. And you know what? At that time, I think it was cool. I think it reached more people. I think it's made us a little bit more viral. And if nothing else, it made us feel cool in those four walls. And that mattered. I don't know if that's today. It is starting to feel a little cringy. I don't know it's feeling let's feel a little weird for me, social media world. Nothing wrong with it if you're a brand out there and you're interacting with other brands, but it does start to just feel like the social media managers behind this brand are talking to the Social Media Manager around this brand, but they're doing it through billion dollar businesses and giant brands, and I don't know it feels a little icky today, so no judgment, maybe a little but I'm kind of getting out of this game. I don't think this is kind of a space. It was a space that we did, we had some fun with, but I'm kind of with you, sir. I think it is a little bit weird, but no judgment. To Duolingo, let's go to the second one word on the street. I love the start. Instagram reels might become a separate app. So again, if you're watching this in a couple weeks, this is you might already actually know if this is true or not. You're in the future, but right now, what we're seeing is a bunch of social media and content people that are sharing this rightfully so. It's interesting to their industry. Some of them are, like, pumped about it. Some of them are thinking, it's a little weird. Got some questions. Some of you guys are freaking out and you're getting a little worried. And I asked my team. I was like, Well, why are they freaking out? And it's like, it's another channel for social media marketers to have to publish on. And I was like, Oh, I got it. Now I get what's going on here and, and I respect it. You know, I've definitely been a part of this. I I've known people that have literally managed hundreds of social pages back in the day and and gone through the exercise of whittling that down to like 10 or 15, but look, there is a lot of pressure to be everywhere and to be great everywhere. And I actually talked about this in the talk that I did this past week. And there are very different opinions. Some people, the other guy on the panel was like, I think you should be everywhere, because you never know when that platform is going to go away. So if you're not building an audience everywhere, that's gonna be difficult for you. I get that. But have we really seen a lot of platforms fully disappear? Has Facebook gone anywhere? Has Instagram gone anywhere? Like Tiktok was gone for like, I don't know, like a hot second. We haven't really seen much changes in any of these things. So I don't think that's gonna happen. And what I always focus in is, how do you be best in class? Where can you be best, and how does that change the game for your business, if you go be mediocre on eight channels, okay, I don't know if that's super value, but if you go build a giant audience on Tiktok, that's really impacting your business. So I get I get the freak out. I get that a lot of that comes from pressures and leadership and expectations that you can't always control, and that's our job. Our job is to educate to leaders and to others about why it's important for us to be great here before we move on to this other platform we used to and one of my old gigs have people all the time that come to us like they probably come to you and be like we need to start. On a Facebook page about x right? Has that happened? Carly? Has that happened to you? We, kind of, we, I think we need a Facebook channel for this audience and for this thing and for this event and for this product, and we had a document that we would have them fill out. And sure, it was a document that grounded us in, kind of the strategy of it all and kind of the why of it all, but it was also just, it's really easy for people to put something at the top of your list to do work, and then when you give them a little bit of work back, all of a sudden that thing became not as important, or they had to fill out a form. And so it saved us from launching launching dozens and dozens of channels. So hopefully that will help. But you know, I'd say social media managers, let's not freak out until we know what's happening. And regardless, let's not freak out at all. Let's just go be best in class at one or two channels and do what we really need to do, radical content. Episode 19 in the books again, we're gonna continue to optimize and have some fun. We've got some more segments that we've thought of. We've got a new segment that we've thought of. I've got a segment that's like what I'm learning, but we need a funny name. So if you're interested in telling us a funny name for what am I learning, segment that we can bring to the table, but lots of really cool stuff coming on, radical content. Appreciate you guys sticking through, listening through, and we do these for you, right? So if you know other people that this would be valuable to please share this with them. Obviously, do the subscribe so it can kind of show up in your news feed. But yeah, appreciate it radical content in the books. See, you guys, you.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai