I'm Shannon and I like to ramble. So I'm going to give you tips to getting right to the point when it comes to your web and social media videos. All right. I've been perfecting this over the last two years and I've been told that when I get on Instagram stories, I tend to be a little lengthy. And so, I have this new rule that if I go on Instagram stories, I can't go more than four of the little slides, so that's about a minute. So I have put that into practice for these videos and I'm going to kind of walk through how I developed short web and social videos. All right. Step number one, plan ahead. Set aside time to brainstorm all your topics, all the talking points for your topics and I keep a notebook of what people ask me in my purse at all times, so if I'm out and somebody asks me a question about web online marketing videos, I write it down and I keep track of those.
So I can have content for Tip Tuesday videos but if you're just starting out and nobody's really asking you anything, just ask. Go on Facebook, go on Instagram, go on LinkedIn, go to networking events and ask people what is keeping you from doing X, Y, and Z and that will help you develop content. All right, so the other thing to do is to create an outline. All right, so I write out an outline. I write it out in a word document and then I read it out on a handy dandy piece of paper. Why do I do this? Well that kills two birds with one stone.
I tape this to my, you can't see, I tape it to my camera right where you're supposed to look at so it reminds me to look every time at you guys because otherwise it'd be off in space looking everywhere, but it also is great because I also use this to write the caption for social media, so I already killed two birds with one stone. All right, what else do you need to do? I also make sure that I introduce myself. I used to do the same 5 to 10 second elevator pitch every time and then now I'm kind of switching it up, but in the beginning maybe just stick to that 5 to 10 second elevator pitch, all right? And you always want to end your videos with a call to action or an actionable step because that gets people coming back.
Like you tell them to do X, Y, and Z and then they go do it and then they tag you or get ahold of you on social media or through your websites saying, oh my God, you helped me. What other tips do you have for X, Y and Z or what services do you offer? It's a great way to get people to get to know you and possibly hire you.