Kelli S. Burns, Ph.D.

I attended a workshop today hosted by the Working Women of Tampa Bay networking organization called “Boost your Brand Online” presented by Lisa Demmi. This is the first of three workshops in the Digital Marketing Series this summer.

We spent some time in this workshop contemplating what kind of content to create for the web and social media. The women in attendance were professionals from a range of industries, and many run their own businesses. Lisa suggested thinking about 10 questions that a person in your industry typically gets. For example, a real estate agent is often asked about whether it’s the right time to sell, how to stage a house, etc. That’s a good place to start for creating content.

The most interesting part of the workshop was definitely when we started talking about creating video content. Lisa suggested apps like Videoshop, which offers the capabilities of adding music, text, and voiceover to your videos. She suggested shooting from your phone’s videocam (instead of through the app) so that you can import the content to Videoshop or other apps. She also recommended Intro Designer to easily create the intro and outro for your videos using templates. Storeo is used to cut video into 15-second chunks perfect for Instagram. Unfold was also mentioned as a helpful tool for creating beautiful stories foe Instagram, Snapchat, and Facebook. Repost allows you to repost the photos or videos of an Instagrammer on your own profile while giving credit to the creator. There is no end to apps out there that can help you manage your social media presence!

We also discussed Live Video on Facebook. Because Facebook prioritizes Live Video, these videos will appear higher in News Feeds and therefore get more engagement. For your followers, you can set up a reminder that you will be live during a certain time and those who register for the reminder will get a notification when you are live. Users might also consider boosting an announcement about going live at a certain time and then also boosting the live video.

Two tips for videos: 1) Keep them short (less than 2-3 minutes) and 2) Shoot them horizontal and use a tool to crop for vertical (for posting on Instagram and Snap).

People are also interested in how to use the new IGTV so that’s something else to explore.

I haven’t done much with video but it’s certainly a skill I would like to develop.

If you are interested in attending the other two workshops by Lisa Demmi or other events hosted by Working Women of Tampa Bay, you can visit their Events page.