//Widening Your Impact Through Video Marketing And Live Online Platforms With Nina Froriep

Widening Your Impact Through Video Marketing And Live Online Platforms With Nina Froriep

PRP 185 | Video Marketing

 

As an entrepreneur, you want to grow your business. But to do that, you have to equip yourself with proven marketing strategies that establish deeper connections with your customers. Nina Froriep, a filmmaker, producer, and director with 30 years of experience in the film and video production industry, shares with us the importance of creating video content that you can share with your audience to widen your readership, influence, and business. Nina wanted to help people grow their business and influence through video marketing and offer one-on-one coaching or peer learning. This can also be in the form of having live sessions, enabling you to have more interaction with people and help you connect with your readers, viewers, and followers. With this strategy, they start to have the feeling that they can actually get to know you.

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Widening Your Impact Through Video Marketing And Live Online Platforms With Nina Froriep

We have another great guest for authors. We have got some important stuff to say about video and a platform where you should be promoting if you are an expert and you are not. Before we get started, I want to remind you to go over to Breakthrough Author Magazine. You can find it at www.BreakthroughAuthorMagazine.com and get your free subscription.

You are going to get tips and tricks. I shared something on another show that probably most of you don’t know about the publishing world. Be sure you go get your copy of it. Go over and follow us on YouTube. If you go look for the show over on Rumble, we are starting to put our information over there as well.

My guest is a repeat but she is going to talk about something new in this episode. Her name is Nina Froriep. She enables mission-driven entrepreneurs to grow their businesses with consistent and easy-to-implement video marketing through one-on-one coaching or peer learning. She was a filmmaker, producer, and director with over 30 years of experience and a small business owner for years. She is like me. We are about the same age. Only she is younger and prettier.

She has seen it all from the early days of independent features to big national TV commercials, corporate mega shows, and many documentary films, including the one that she wrote, directed, and produced about Muslim kids in New York called Abraham’s Children. In short, there is no film and video production scenario that she has not taken care of.

I would love to hear some stories sometimes because I have stories too from my celebrity real estate days. They are a crew unto themselves. Along the journey, she has met many awesome, wonderful people and a few badasses. All of them are worth a few great stories. She has worked with Sophia Loren, John Malkovich, Wynton Marsalis and has interviewed Fortune 500 CEOs.

She has also worked on Emmy-winning and Emmy-nominated documentaries and produced hundreds of videos for Uber corporate shows. She has negotiated with teamsters, clients, cruises, children, police officers, a few dogs, and one snake. On a personal note, she is into sports that go outdoors every moment possible. Central Park is her backyard. She knows every inch of it. She is also a certified citizen pruner, which affords her the privilege to prune, take care of and advocate for the city trees of New York. She has lived in Harlem for years, and since April 2011, she is a proud owner of an American passport.

Welcome, Nina pruner. First of all, what is a certified pruner? I have a degree in Horticulture but nobody ever certified me to prune anything.

It is very simple. New York City has lousy budgets. Somebody has to take care of the trees in the streets. The Parks Department doesn’t have the resources. They came up with a pretty rigorous and I didn’t know how rigorous it was. I don’t think I would have signed up had I known. It is a course that you take. You learn how to identify trees and what makes trees happy, especially New York City trees. They give you a little pass. With that pass, you are allowed to walk around with a saw this size and with clippers that can clip someone’s arm off. You go around and take care of trees in your neighborhood. It is the coolest thing ever.

PRP 185 | Video Marketing

Video Marketing: Just create some videos where you can really talk about or expand on what it is that you’re writing about and what your expertise is.

 

There are a lot of crimes in New York City. Are you ever mistaken for a thug?

We were all told, in no uncertain terms, that we are not to be seen outside with a saw. I have two big saws. We have a little laminated card. Anybody with halfway decent Photoshop skills could copy at any given moment. I always make sure I buy myself one of those worker vests, the fluorescent things in orange and yellow. If I wear that, nobody bothers me. If I don’t wear them, people come up.

The last time you were here, you talked about video. Talk to us a little bit about how that video relates to thought leadership.

We are talking about authors so people feel most comfortable with the written word and in print. I also think that there is a space for that same thought leadership in the video. When I say video, I’m not talking about highly produced, super expensive to create videos. I’m talking about essentially what the two of us are doing. A Zoom call or in the privacy of you, your home and your phone, to create some videos where you can talk about or expand on what you are writing about, what your expertise is, why is it your expertise, and what lights you up about it.

It gives a great opportunity for you to connect with your readership, essentially, who I assume will be your clients down the road in a way that is much more approachable and relatable. In the end, video works for you 24/7. It is the assistant that keeps selling while you are sleeping, writing, enjoying a good book of your own, or whatever else it is that makes your life go round.

Most authors are comfortable with the written word but video scares the hell out of them because they are not polished in front of it. It is not about that. It is about getting comfortable and being authentic. Can you give us some tips on how do you do that because I’m like most people where I record a video that I look at and pick it apart?

No, there is no picking apart. There are two kinds of videos. There are many different but for the sake of this argument, you have the super-polished videos and then the do-it-yourself videos. We are talking about do-it-yourself videos here. You don’t want those to be too perfect or trying too hard with a teleprompter that you are reading while you are talking. Some bedsheets were hanging up behind you that was all cranky and looking awful. It is about you and your environment showing up. The focus is on what you are saying.

I have had a career entirely behind the camera. If somebody had told me that after the age of 50 I was going to find myself in front of the camera, I would have called them crazy, told them to go, and take a hike. I was not happy at all being in front of the camera. I started years ago with this. I learned that it is not about me and how I look, young, old or skinny, pimply or how big my nose is or not. It is about people being able to relate to me, finding me simpatico, wanting to bet on a call with me to talk further, and finding out whether working together is a good idea or they would want to pick my brain. That is fine too.

You must be clear on what lights you up. It gives a great opportunity for you to connect. Click To Tweet

It allows people to consume content and get to know you in a way that they otherwise would not. The relatability that you are creating, I like to call that brand affinity. It is not somebody who is attached to a brand because they liked the brand and its brand recognition. You are known for writing books about XYZ. That is why so many people want to do TED Talks because once they have been out in the audience, on that stage, and people have related to them, their book sales go through the roof.

They have a completely different standing within the community and ecosystem of their readership and viewership. Not all of us can do a TEDx Talk or have the time to plan for one and get in. Creating videos like this is the next best thing, if not even better because you can keep creating the videos. I call them to show videos that I create videos because I did one and done. I have an idea or a thought I want to share.

I have learned something new that I want to share with my people. I create a quick video and put it on social media. If I’m lucky, a couple of hundred people see it and then it goes into an archive on YouTube when we are done, and I create the next video. If I’m talking about something similar, I would rather create a new video, go and dig out the old one and show the date. It needs to change the date. It is faster and quicker to create a new video. Getting used to seeing yourself is in the doing of it.

I’m going to dive into something a little different here, which is not all about you on video. I’m going to share when COVID started. I would not say I’m a packrat because I’m not but I’m one of those that had production boards. Nina was the first one that said, “May I revamped what is going on back here?” Hence, the painting and stuff. Something that we don’t necessarily think about either is that the board was me. I save golf stuff. My knickknack area is back there. There is a little more to it than what is in your background as well.

I’m going to tell you before we jump into LinkedIn Live what I love most about Nina. In Nina’s emails, when we have something at the end of the show where you can opt-in, you need to go opt-in. I opt out of everybody’s emails at the end of the year and I don’t ever opt out of hers. They are funny. They are like talking to her and she always has an image in them.

You are going to have to go see it for yourself. They always catch my eye. I didn’t unsubscribe her in 2022. That is a privileged Nina. What we are going to talk about is when you are an authority and an expert, you need to be on LinkedIn. LinkedIn’s newest thing, which has been rolling out forever, but most people have it, is LinkedIn Live. Tell us a little bit about that. How can people use it? Why do they need to use it?

On the data-driven side of it, Live trumps everything else. Live trumps video, PDFs, JPEGs, or a written word in terms of posting. If you go Live on LinkedIn, the algorithm goes like, “Something is happening.” It puts that content in front of more people than it would with a regular post. Our bread-and-butter is not Live. Our bread-and-butter is pre-produced videos but the beauty of Live is that once you go, you go. That can be intimidating but it can also be a great way of not having to deal with production and editing afterward, but you still can. I would tell you to do so in a second.

It allows you to take advantage of what video is so good for. It takes away a little bit of that whole setup. It makes it a little bit more spontaneous. In terms of production value, lighting, and the whole setup, the expectations are yet even lower. You can get away with stuff on LinkedIn Live that you might not be able to get away with on a pre-produced video. There is a huge element that is the interactive element.

PRP 185 | Video Marketing

Video Marketing: Video works for you 24/7 because it’s sort of the assistant that keeps selling while you’re sleeping, writing, enjoying a good book of your own, or whatever else it is that makes your life go round.

 

While you are on a Live and when you don’t have that many followers yet in the beginning, I would make sure that you have a couple of people who know that you are going Live and when you are going Live, they can come over, start asking you questions and interact with you. The beauty of Live is you do have that live interaction with your audience where they can ask questions, give you feedback or talk back to you. It creates an even further layer of relate-ability and authenticity than with a pre-produced video, especially with deep fakes around and everything else that this is the real thing right then and there.

Differentiate that a little bit because one of the things that I ran into was somebody following me. I was like, “What is the difference between that and subscribing or connecting?”

It is a little bit outside of my area of expertise but the way I understand that is that when you switch your account from being a regular show to being a creator in creator mode, people don’t connect with you first and foremost. They follow you. Follow you means a click of a button and they follow you. They don’t have to send you a connection request, which you then approve. They still can do that but it is the three dots and under more. They have to scroll down and then click on connect. If I want to be connected with somebody or bring somebody into my ecosystem, I make sure I don’t just follow them. I also connect with them.

What seems to have happened is for years, when you wanted LinkedIn Live, you had to apply. It was a form that you needed to fill out and they asked you one million questions. The first three times I applied, I got denied. I wrote a whole book on why I was worthy of LinkedIn Live. By the fourth time, I was like F this. I got it but it seems that everybody who has put their profile into creator mode automatically got LinkedIn Live.

From what you and I were talking about, it sounds like if you had things going on there, you might have been put in creator mode. I don’t remember putting myself in but I always have videos on there. I’m assuming that they probably took all their applications, you four times and then F-you and put you in it.

I still am one of the early adopters so I got the permission years ago. I had six weeks to go Live for the first time. Otherwise, they would take it away from you again. Those are all past times. I even got permission to do Lives on my company profile and I never submitted that. I didn’t even know how I got that.

What is optimal with LinkedIn Lives? It used to be that they didn’t want you to upload a video that was any longer than ten minutes. What about with the Live? Is it the same thing?

No. With Lives, you could go forever. I would imagine a cutoff but it is a couple of hours in. The number in my head is six hours but I would be making that up. LinkedIn Lives is as long as you want them to be. I have been doing one every other week for years. They have all been in the range between 30 minutes and 60 minutes, depending on how many the guests are. I don’t do Lives by myself. I’m still chickening out on that when I do Live on LinkedIn. You have been a guest. Those can go pretty much as long as you want.

In videos, people can see you talk about your passion because that passion doesn't come out in a quick little press release. Click To Tweet

What you need to know is that you can’t go Live directly like you can on Facebook. You have to do it through a host. Most people use StreamYard. What I love about StreamYard is there are not a lot of buttons to press. I’m the person who would press every button to see what is behind it. Before I know it, it is 3 days later and I have lost 3 days of my life. I will never get back again. StreamYard has very few avenues to explore. I’m very thankful for that. It is a very easy-to-navigate software and you can multi-stream. I stream when I stream. I do Facebook and YouTube as well. Not because I’m active on those channels. It is more like because I can.

The quality of what you do on LinkedIn is a lot different, too, now that you have brought up Facebook. We have all been on those. I used to do Facebook Lives all the time, where I jump on after running and do a message. I was trying to be authentic. It meant and showered.

LinkedIn is a different ball game. Interestingly, you bring that up because I was so mortified. I’m in a couple of LinkedIn pods, which are communities where you all come together, post at the same time, and then all interact with each other’s content to get the algorithm juices. I invited this woman into this very serious pod I’m in. It is a freebie pod but very well run. The first post she posted was about showing off your zest. She had a video. The video was like, “If you want to show how great you are.” I was like, “This might be okay content from Facebook but for LinkedIn, it is inappropriate for this group.”

You want to be authentic but you also want to be professional. I do see people complaining about people are treating LinkedIn like Facebook. That is content police. If you don’t like it, don’t watch it and scroll to the next thing. There was a young woman who posted something. She got married or something and she was apologizing for putting that on LinkedIn. I’m like, “No, that is human.” That is a huge thing in your life and you want to share that. You want to be seen the way you want your clients to see you or, in this case, your readership to see you.

I tell my clients to pick between 3 and 5 things that they want to talk about that are not working and then stick to them. What it does is you then know what you are going to talk about and you are not going to start oversharing. For those who are very shy, it does the reverse. It gives you a couple of topics to latch on to that you can feel okay with. It also gives your readership, viewers, and followers a feeling that they get to know you.

In my case, everybody knows that I split my time between Switzerland and New York. They know I have a dog who rules my life and I have started artwork. I love the great outdoors and the occasional glass of wine. I try to stick with that, not because I don’t want people to not know about my life. It is more that I don’t want to overwhelm people. These are great topics. Between artwork, dog, and the great outdoors, you can go for a couple of decades without running out of content.

You would bring up a bigger point which is having platform-appropriate content because one thing that used to drive me crazy was I had an author several years ago who had a business in California. I’m not going to mention who, what, where, and how but she would post her ex-husband drama on Facebook. I would see it over on LinkedIn. My first thought was, “Why would I ever hire her to sell my home with that much drama going on? Would she be able to give me personal attention?” You do have to be careful what you post over in that area.

We are going to switch gears a little bit because we were going to also talk about the press releases that we have been doing with the company that we use for press releases for the authors and a video. When we use video on that, we get a higher click rate. Everybody knows a book trailer but you could also do Live 30 to 90-second video as well. What kinds of things would that look like for someone that has put a book together?

PRP 185 | Video Marketing

Video Marketing: The beauty of live videos is that you have that live interaction with your audience, where they can ask questions and give you feedback.

 

I would want to make sure that we are clear on our nomenclature. I would never do Live like in the Live from a Facebook or Instagram that is 90 seconds because on Live, you need people to find you show up and be there for you, but you can create a video that you shoot with your phone. If you don’t know how to set up your phone, you can shoot it by yourself on Zoom and download it afterward. Zoom has a lovely filter that makes you look a lot younger than you are. If you go command comma while you are in Zoom and the settings on there, even general on the video, there is a slider under the video thing that says, “Enhance your appearance.” You don’t want to go all the way to the right because then you are totally out of focus but it does take a little bit over the edge off.

It is the same thing. If you are going to go through the pain of creating a press release, writing the whole thing, and I assume you are talking about Shannon, who helped you with that, you put together all the reasons why you are the most fantastic person ever, your book is the best book ever, and why people have to read it, recommend it, and share it with all their friends, colleagues and family. You might as well create a small video that has people see you talk about what your passion is. That passion doesn’t come out in a quick little press release but it can come out on video.

That is where you can bring so much more content and sub-content to the table with a video. The other thing is if I am the person in a newspaper or any news outlet tasked with finding interesting stuff on all the different media outlets that are there, if something has a video to it, I will click on that over reading twenty paragraphs of words. I have done press releases with and without video. I find that the ones without video, I get no traction or whatsoever. The ones with video, I have always gotten amazing traction. We are talking not even double or triple. We are talking 100 folds.

When we use video, we get picked up between 500 and 600 outlets. It is much higher.

If you are nervous, do something like we are doing. Ask a friend to interview you. Ask a couple of questions. Ask Juliet to interview you for ten minutes on Zoom, give it to an editor to cut it up, and create a couple of little snippets. It does not have to be something super complicated.

We always have it hosted over on YouTube or Vimeo. Every time you get that click, too, that is another hit over there that hits the algorithm. It is a win-win and a couple of ways with all of that. I know that you have what you call cohorts. I call them courses because you are much more sophisticated than I am. When is your next cohort? Where can we find you if we want to get in on some of this training and be super good on it?

I don’t talk about filters in the cohort. Probably I should. The beauty of the cohort is it is no longer in the launch format but in open enrollment. Whenever you are ready, we are ready. The cohort is a hybrid learning experience where there are one-on-one calls with me. There is a cohort group experience and then the online platform. All three together create this hybrid learning experience that is cool.

We did this back in 2018 or 2019 with ours and it is super helpful, especially for what Nina’s doing because Nina is going to tell you how to do something. The one thing with video is you have to be comfortable doing it. When you have more experienced people mixed in with you starting, sometimes they can give you some workarounds to get going. Me telling you to do something may not feel as comfortable to you as someone giving you a little workaround to baby step you into comfortable. I find that with my own. I have ideas but my ideas can be implemented in different ways. How do we sign up for that cohort? How do we find you and get going?

Sometimes, people also are just much better off in the one-on-one experience. Click To Tweet

The cohort is by invitation only, which means you have a call with me first because I want to make sure you are ready and a good fit. If you are not quite ready yet, I might give you a little homework to get you ready. Sometimes people also are much better off in the one-on-one experience. The easiest, best way is to go to our ClockwiseProductions.com website. Our lead magnet, interestingly enough, is a quiz that was done by the lovely Juliet. Do the quiz. It is a great way to see where you are benchmarking yourself with your video production or where you are not. That will automatically put you into our ecosystem.

If you want to talk to me directly because you know that you are interested, my email is Nina@ClockwiseProductions.com or look me up on LinkedIn. I’m the only Nina Froriep there. We do as we preach. We post daily on LinkedIn, Monday through Friday. We do a video a minimum of 3 times a week, if not 5. You get a real sense if you scroll through my LinkedIn profile. You get a real good sense of what kinds of videos we will help you create.

Nina, it has been fun. Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Nina is going to be our feature in April 2022 Breakthrough Author Magazine. Be sure you go to www.BreakthroughAuthorMagazine.com and get your subscription. You can find out a little bit more there.

 

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About Nina Froriep

I enable mission-driven entrepreneurs to grow their business with consistent and easy-to-implement video marketing through one-on-one coaching or peer-learning. I’m a filmmaker, producer and director with 30 years experience and a small business owner of 23 years. I’ve seen it all from the early days on independent features, to big national TV commercials, corporate mega-shows and many documentary films, including one I wrote, directed, and produced about Muslim kids in New York, called Abraham’s Children. In short, there’s no film- and video- production scenario I haven’t taken care of.

Along the journey, I’ve met many, many awesomely wonderful people and a few bad-asses. All of them worth great stories. I’ve worked with stars like Sophia Loren, John Malkovich, and Wynton Marsalis, I’ve interviewed Fortune 500 CEO’s, I’ve worked on Emmy award-winning and Emmy-nominated documentaries, and produced hundreds of videos for ubercorporate shows. I’ve negotiated with teamsters, clients (big and small), actors, 1 crew, children, police officers, a few dogs, and one snake.

On a personal note, I’m a sports-nut – the kind that goes outdoors every moment possible. Central Park is my backyard and I know (nearly) every inch of it. I’m also a certified citizen pruner which affords me the privilege to prune, take care of, and advocate for the city trees of New York. I’ve lived in Harlem for close to 20 years, and since April 2011 I’m a proud owner of an American passport.

By | 2023-07-25T14:59:58+00:00 February 22nd, 2022|Podcasts|0 Comments

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