The focus of #Smallbizchat is to end small business failure by helping participants succeed as your own boss.
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How to Create Great Videos
Letitia Crippen is an award-winning creative strategist and video producer. As CEO at Touch Management, LLC, she had more than 20 years of experience producing and directing programming for television, streaming platforms, and corporate conferences. Letitia also works with business owners to craft relevant content creation strategies for sales and marketing efforts. She is committed to developing the next generation of storytellers and media leaders. Letitia leads digital ministry volunteers, teaches community access media courses, and mentors marketing and film students. For more information: www.touchmgmt.com
SmallBizLady: What makes a great video?
Letitia Crippen: A great video hinges on high-quality sound and timing, which are crucial for maintaining viewer engagement. You must look good, sound good, and do it quickly in today’s day and age. A concise and clear message ensures your audience understands and connects with your content. Always aim for professional visuals and audio, even on a budget, to enhance your credibility. There are so many scammers out here, you do not want to be mistaken for one of them.
SmallBizLady: How to make great videos with little to no experience?
Letitia Crippen: Focus on storytelling by highlighting what makes your business unique and addressing your customers’ needs and desires. Your message should be about what matters to them, not you. Hire a director to coach you through your content creation process, they help boost confidence and make sure you stay aligned with the brand and message. Authenticity and passion in your delivery will resonate more than flashy production.
SmallBizLady: How to make your small business stand out in a saturated market on social media?
Letitia Crippen: Start by testing different types of content to see what resonates most with your audience. Analyze engagement metrics to understand what sticks and refine your strategy accordingly. Consistently provide value and engage with your audience to build a loyal community. Don’t overthink it, get started and your voice will emerge, and your followers will appreciate watching you grow in real time.
How to Build a Strong Brand
After 30 years as an ad agency creative executive – straddling the heyday of traditional and digital marketing – Reid Holmes had an epiphany, we’re being interrupted more often in more places than ever – companies are wasting billions chasing transactions – leaving consumers saturated with messaging while creating brand indifference and higher price sensitivity to the very products being promoted. Branding in the digital era is about proving you care. Whether you’re a B2C or B2B marketer, everything today must be B2H. We’re all human. Reid has a plan to help you live your values so you can attract, engage and keep like-minded consumers via what Reid calls “Reverse Targeting.” He’s the author of the new book, “Appreciated Branding. For more information www.appreciatedbranding.com
SmallBizLady: What is Appreciated Branding?
Reid Holmes: My definition, as I’ve written in the book, is: “It’s a brand that earns appreciation in what it says, does, or solves to the immediate meaningful benefit of the people the brand is trying to attract, getting it more noticed, more wanted, and more valued.” The idea emerged from a mistake I’ve seen marketers make time and time again: they think people will care about their product, their message or their interruption. When the interruption model of advertising took root in the 1950’s, with the Soap Opera, life had a pace where humans could abide and process an interruption to their content from a “sponsor.” It was a grand, win-win bargain. Today, there are 10,000 messages a day headed at each of us everywhere. A brand using the tools of the last century to get people to care about their product – using what Rosser Reeves 100 years ago called “The Unique Selling Proposition” – ain’t gonna cut it in today’s saturated marketing hellscape. In this distraction economy, you have to provide what I call a Unique Emotional Solution. This is something that earns appreciation, not distraction, because you’re proactively solving a problem for people that they’ll appreciate.
SmallBizLady: What should small business owners try to accomplish with their brands?
Reid Holmes: What does a “logo” trigger in the minds of your customers? Is it trust, frustration, care, coolness? Every brand needs to decide what they stand for and be living it it in the following 3 ways What you SAY, what you DO, and what you SOLVE. … or it’ll be decided for you by the marketplace.
SmallBizLady: What are the common mistakes that small business makes in branding?
Reid Holmes: The biggest mistake is when small business owners think their logo is a brand. A logo is what signals meaning for a brand. But brands exist only in the minds of those who know you and know what your business stands for, – what you as a company, business or solopreneur stand for. The name SmallBizLady without the things you bring to it, your values, personality, solutions, and way of speaking- is only a name on a page. Your brand brings to mind an expectation of a result.
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