Creating Short Form Videos

I’ve decided –  with a push from my new video editor, Zach – to create short-form videos for episodes. This required me to do a couple of things.

The first is actually recording video. I’ve toyed with this in the past, and with other podcasts, but I’ve never done it consistently for How I Built It.

Part of it was that I never thought straight interviews were compelling videos. But the other part was I didn’t think the effort for short form was worth it.

It still might not be. But now I’m willing to try. More on that in a minute.

The other thing I needed to do was update my guest notes. I made it pretty clear in the notes that it was an audio-only podcast – so I updated that to say “Video will be recorded, but only for social media.”

This wasn’t crucial, but courteous, as some folks want to make sure they’re camera-ready.

So what’s my strategy?

Right now, I’m mostly testing. I’ll post 3-4 videos per week on TikTok, X (neé Twitter), Instagram, and YouTube Shorts and see what happens.

I also made a discovery about TikTok as it relates to podcasting. I’ve added a new video for members of the Foundry and will be more open about my experiments there.

For now, I’d love to know if you have a short-form video strategy. If so, respond to this email and let me know!