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10 Ways to Improve Your Short-Form Content Game
10 tips to instantly increase views, sales and affinity.
Roberto Nickson
June 13, 2024
Welcome back to The Signal, a weekly letter where I share stories, trends, strategies and insights to help you level up as a creator and win on the internet.
Today’s topics:
Guaranteed Ways to Improve Your Short-Form Video Game
Things I’m Loving Lately & Personal Updates
The Sauce: 10 Ways to Instantly Improve Your Short-Form Video Game
Any avid readers or followers of mine know that there’s no gatekeeping around here. I experiment a lot with short-form video – and I will be sharing everything I learn – what works, what doesn’t, and everything in between – with you.
Tip 1: No more boring B-roll
Stop using b-roll if at all possible in your videos. It’s generally sterile, boring and ineffective.
Instead, augment your content with popular movie scenes, cultural moments and memes. Using cultural references are a much stronger way to entertain and evoke emotion from an audience.
If you’re looking for the highest quality movie scenes, you could start building a collection of torrents (not saying I do this… *cough) – but there are a lot of other resources available that I recommend.
Of course, YouTube is a great resource – and I use Downie to download videos from there and across the internet (highly recommend!)
Playphrase is another fantastic resource. I pay around $3 a month for premium access. You can find and download scenes from movies that use a specific word or phrase. It’s how my friend Maximise creates these types of videos.
A few other resources I recommend to find these are Yarn, Vlipsy, Tenor, Giphy and iGreenScreenThings on TikTok.
Tip 2: Use comments to your advantage
People don’t realize how powerful a comment section is.
Especially when a video starts performing well. Comments become just as much a part of the game as the actual piece of content.
The savviest creators use this to their advantage:
Obviously, a pinned organic comment is best.
The above example had his own girlfriend comment and pinned that post – and more accounts than you think are leveraging this method to encourage people to follow and other call-to-actions.
You’ll often find a pinned comment on a viral reel that indicates why following said user is a good idea:
“I’m so happy I found your page, I’ve learned so much from you”
“Shout out to @handle - probably my favorite creator on Instagram. Never misses.”
“This is brilliant (as always!) – by the way I just bought your latest product, I use it every day. So good.”
Etc.
Tip 3: Non-verbal hooks
When it comes to a hook, most people think about the verbal component. What you are going to say to capture someone’s attention.
I’d argue that a visual hook is even more effective.
Maybe it’s an unexpected or beautiful background, or a unique camera angle.
Perhaps it’s something you’re doing with your hands. Maybe you’re in a full-on sprint.
Stop the scroll with a visual hook. And of course, if you pair this with a strong verbal hook, story and payoff – you have a winner on your hands.
Tip 4: Don’t forget to repost
This one is so simple, yet many ignore it.
Wait 6-12 months, and repost your best performing content.
Chances are, the great majority of your followers did not see it.
Almost none of your new followers haven’t seen it.
And another 3 billion people or so with a chance to see it, haven’t seen it.
Tweak it if you’d like. But repost it.
I will be reposting this video in the next month. Most likely, it will perform really well again. Stay tuned to see this strategy come to life.
Tip 5: Front-run search volume
A few months back, I made this video on TikTok to practice storytelling techniques. It’s about the heist that crowned the Mona Lisa.
Initially, the video didn’t perform very well, sitting at around 10,000 views a couple months after it was posted.
All of a sudden - it erupted, and today it sits at 1.5 million views.
Why did this happen?
Well, a few protesters threw soup at the Mona Lisa, and it had one of the highest search volumes on the platform that week, leading to the discovery of my video.
So I realized that this could be used strategically.
You can hijack the search popularity of an upcoming event, and when it happens, you have pole position to front-run.
As an example, it looks like the Boston Celtics are about to win the NBA championship (sigh, I had my money on the Mavs)…
If you’re a B2B creator, you could have a video ready with the following hook:
“Now the Celtics have been crowned champion, let’s talk about the new mega deal the NBA is negotiating, and how it can change sports forever…”
Tip 6: Trending audio (and how to find it)
This is anecdotal, and I don’t have specific data, but it is very clear to me that using trending audio on Instagram & TikTok results in an increase in views.
The platforms themselves have alluded to this as well.
For my storytelling content, I generally use my own audio for better production value. But for my breaking news content and less-produced stuff, I am now exporting without audio, and adding trending audio direct from platform.
To find trending audio on Instagra, go to your professional dashboard, then tap on trending audio:
Tip 7: Study outliers and reverse engineer
Tip 8: Targeted hooks
A great way to increase the performance of your short-form video content is through targeted hooks.
If you’re trying to reach a specific audience, define them:
“If you’re a ____, you need to ____”
“If you’ve gone ____ in the last few months, you might need a _____”
You can also use targeted hooks to leverage someone else’s popularity and let the algorithm pair you with their fans:
“If Drake knew about this site, he wouldn’t have gone after Kendrick…”
“Did you see what Taylor Swift did in her last concert? This is why it’s important?”
Tip 9: Don’t forget your captions
It’s easy to forget that 40% of people watch videos without sound.
I create my captions in Premiere, but my favorite web-based tool to easily add captions to your videos is Submagic. I highly recommend it.
Tip 10: Manychat Automation
If you use Instagram for any business purpose – you need to be using Manychat.
If you want to significantly increase conversion rates on your stories, posts, reels, etc. – I can’t stress it enough. You have to set up Manychat automations.
Why?
Well, if you add a link to your story – you will notice that the conversion will be very low. I also think Instagram (like most other platforms) de-ranks stories with links in them.
If there is a CTA to reply to your story to receive a link, conversions will skyrocket – and so will the story views because replies are picked up as a positive signal by the algorithm.
Here is another example of me using Manychat integration to drive conversion to my latest app, Cinelight.
This reel resulted in around 2,800 downloads (most from the DM automation) with around 400 converting to a sale or subscription - resulting in an extra $1.75K or so MRR. The conversion rate would have been much, much lower without the Manychat automation.
Keep in mind - you want to use this tastefully.
We are going to go deep into best practices and the how-to here during an Unsigned call in the coming weeks.
Bonus Tip: ‘Add Yours’ Templates on IG Stories
I get around 20K views on my Instagram stories.
Recently, every time I use an “add yours template,” I am getting around 50K views.
That’s a 150% increase.
Instagram is definitely weighing these a little heavier right now in the algorithm.
Use this to your advantage. It’ll result in more views from your follow-up stories.
Personal Updates
‣ I’m headed to Cannes this Friday for the Creativity Festival to sit on various panels. If you’re there let me know! I’ll be meeting a ton of creators as well as advertising and marketing executives. I’ll report back here with everything I learn.
‣ I was on the Next Wave podcast and had a great conversation with the boys! If you watched/listened – I would love to hear your feedback.
‣ I just created a new LLC (Nickson Labs) as my personal holding company. I used Doola to incorporate and thought it was a great product – if you’re thinking of starting a new business – I highly recommend it.
‣ We’ve rebooted Unsigned. It’s a community I’ve started with Digital Jeff and Mr. Grateful. More on this in a future edition of the newsletter – but our mission is to work with creators to get them to $10k per month in 12 months.
Things I’m Loving Lately
This section includes products, services, creators and more that I'm loving lately. Everything below is organic and non-sponsored unless indicated.
‣ I love the pen and pad. I have just never been able to get into digital note-taking and to-do lists. There’s just something inherent to analog that makes me more productive. Well, I was recently gifted a Remarkable 2 from LinkedIn – and I love it. It gives the same tactile feeling of taking notes with a pencil on a piece of paper, but they can also be converted digitally. Great experience.
‣ YouTube just announced that they are rolling out A/B testing for thumbnails to all creators. You can now test up to 3 different thumbnails to pick a winner.
Quick Hits
This section includes things I have found interesting and helpful this week.
‣ Luma just dropped Dream Machine - beating Sora to the punch. Try their new video generation model here for free.
‣ Colin and Samir just hosted a very interesting conversation with Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri. It’s a great listen for anyone who uses Instagram professionally.
‣ MKBHD uploaded a short conversation with Tim Cook where he asked some great questions.
I love the trend of tech CEOs chatting with creators more than traditional media. As you know I was fortunate enough to ‘break the ceiling’ so to speak with Mark Zuckerberg. And there are other exciting conversations that I’m hosting later this year :)
