TikTok Aesthetic, AI Trends, & Content Repurposing [Jan 13, 2023]

Trends for TikTok that are actually insightful, tools for remote editing, and the future of AI and powerful video cameras.

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Transcript

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Welcome to Video Signals. Twice a week, we cover 5 links, 3 tools, and 1 tactic to level up your video marketing skills and stay informed of what's going on in the world of video and social media. I'm Joey Daoud. Let's jump into it. All right, let's start off with our 5 links. First link we've got in the newsletter, this one, another TikTok trends post. I was hesitant a bit to include another TikTok trends post. I've had a few of them in previous episodes. But this one is interesting because it's from Taylor Loren, who is extremely savvy. I follow her a lot. Extremely savvy on TikTok and Reels. She used to run Later, the social media scheduling platform website. She used to run their social media, blew it up really big, and then just went off on her own and started running courses and stuff on being a TikTok creator. So her stuff is interesting. And I thought it was worth highlighting. So some of the insights I found interesting from her post of trends for next year, number one, a bigger increase in storytelling and vlog-style videos on TikTok and less videos that have to rely on trending sounds. Not to say trending sounds aren't going anywhere, but that sort of was how TikTok started with dances and sounds that are trending, and you make a video about it. But now we're seeing videos where like the sound, there is no trending sound behind it. It's just an interesting, compelling short video. So more of that. And a continuation of the BeReal trends. BeReal was the app where it kind of blew up for a bit. You had to like take a photo within a certain amount of time of whatever you're doing. So it was kind of just like a less polished look. Just, hey, take a photo of something that's happening now. More real, more authentic. So the BeReal app, whether it survives or not, TikTok created a clone of that feature. That's irrelevant, but that idea of more things being authentic, less polished, less produced seems like it will continue. And also there's another article in this link that kind of talks about that a bit. And the third thing I found interesting was she is bullish on long-form video growing on TikTok. In some past editions, we've talked about some features that TikTok rolled out that encourages longer-form video, and I've always kind of been a bit like hesitant of, I don't think people are going to stick around and watch long-form video as much or want to turn their devices sideways and watch long-form video. But she believes that they will. So I kind of trust her opinion. So we'll see. I still don't think it's going to eat too much into YouTube and their share of longer-form video. All right, next link, this one is also kind of another trends link, but also I did find it pretty interesting, and I thought it was worth noting. So it is a roundup from a research report from Alibaba's research institute. So Alibaba, the Chinese sort of Amazon equivalent and also manufacturer of just like literally everything or more of a database of manufacturers to pretty much get literally anything made, they have research report on more of just like tech and like actual like processors and stuff that's coming out. Trends around that. So it's a bit more tech heavy, but some stuff is related to video. So the two things that stood out to me are, one, it predicts that in the next three years, generative AI will be on par with what humans can create today. So within the next three years, you can type out prompts. Stuff that we're kind of seeing now, but it's still very early times. Like right now, ChatGPT has blown up, and that's all text based. We've seen text-to-image and text-to-video creations. They take some polishing. And as far as video goes, it's like still definitely very primitive, but it's only going to get better. So in the next three years, you can just type something out, and it will be just as good as what humans can make. Now what kind of humans that is, is sort of subjective. Is it humans like if you just give someone a phone on the street and they record a video, is it going to be as good as that? Or is it going to be as good as like, hey, go create the Mandalorian, I'm just going to type it out in a text prompt and then get a like TV show back as a video. TBD. And the other thing that was interesting was that computational imaging will continue to improve. So that is where you have a camera with smaller sensors like this iPhone, and it uses computer processing, computational imaging to create better quality images out of the smaller sensor. So better quality images like portrait mode where it has fake depth of field, but it is using computational imaging to process the image and make it look like a higher quality sensor with that shallow depth of field. So it's saying that that's only going to increase. We're only going to be getting better of that quality video out of smaller sensors that rivals larger sensor cameras. So how much will that rival larger sensor cameras? And also, will we see that in devices outside of smartphones? Like, will we see that in mid-level prosumer DSLR or mirrorless cameras, maybe mirrorless cameras that use a Micro Four Thirds sensor? Will we see computational imaging using things to improve the quality out of cameras that are sort of mid-range to make them more competitive at a cheaper price point than full frame sensor cameras? That could be$3,000,$4,000,$10,000,$100,000. We'll see. I'm curious. Okay. This one's a bit more of just an interesting device that came out. So Beastgrip makes accessories for smartphones, iPhones to turn the iPhone into more of a functional video camera. So you can mount lenses, you can mount monitors, mount devices onto your phone and use it as a video camera. They just released a 1.7X telephoto lens. So I believe that is the longest, highest powered telephoto lens available for an iPhone. So obviously, going optics is way better than digitally zooming in with your camera. You can get much higher quality. So if you are doing something like nature photography or videography, or some sort of landscape distance type photography, and you need a very powerful telephoto lens, and you also are filming on your iPhone, check out this new lens from Beastgrip. Fourth link. Interesting article from the L.A. Times about TikTok's anti-aesthetic aesthetic. So if you think of the TikTok aesthetic, you've got rough cuts, you've got choppy green screen where the background is like not, you know, it's not like a perfectly matted green screen. The image is floating all over the place. You've got that robotic narration AI voice. You've got just very basic text popping up wherever. Stuff that if you're doing a professional video, you would like avoid that at all costs. It looks amateurish. But it's really redefined how videos are produced and what people are expecting to watch and what people find acceptable. And not just in TikTok but across social media in general. So, you know, we look at it as an aesthetic. It's real and unproduced. And kind of going back to what Taylor Loren noted as a trend of the BeReal-ification of everything where like just stuff that is more natural, more real, less produced, I have experiences firsthand where like when we have done videos on short platforms, anytime we do like professional videos that have graphics or like look better or like have better effects, they never do as well as the videos that look like they are more of a DIY video or shot one on the phone, or that the person in the video recorded it themselves. So, yeah, interesting article just about the aesthetic of TikTok and also just a couple other insights about its algorithm. And then last link. YouTube is testing out suggesting hashtags to use in short titles. So you upload a short video, it is testing out a feature where it will suggest hashtags to put in the short titles. I think that's interesting because not just the fact that they're testing the hashtags, but that does seem to be an indicator that, hey, you should put hashtags in your shorts titles because if they're suggesting that, that is some indicator that they use that for determining where to push the videos, and also to put them in the titles versus putting them in the description on the shorts videos, which hardly anyone knows how to actually see the description of your short videos unless you know where to click on it. So put the info in the title. Anyways, this is a beta thing that they're rolling out, or I don't even know beta's a fairer term. They're rolling out to a limited number of accounts. There's no way to actually opt into it. You might see it if you're a shorts creator on YouTube. And maybe they'll roll it out further or maybe they'll kill it, and this'll never see the light of day. All right, now, let's jump into our 3 tools. First tool, Postlab. So this is an extremely useful tool if you have a remote team of editors. It's a great way to collaborate on sharing and managing Premiere project files, Final Cut project files, or Avid project files, and also sharing your media files. I did a whole video about it. You could check it out over here, somewhere linked here or linked in the newsletter. It's a really powerful platform. We use it a lot. It just had one feature that made us get rid of it or not use it right now. They don't have PC support. They keep saying they're going to roll it out, they don't have it yet. And so we brought on some PC editors so we just couldn't use it anymore. But if they do roll out PC support, we'll be back on it because it was extremely helpful in managing project files. Second tool, SparkToro. So this one's really good for researching your audience and figuring out where your audience hangs out online. So like what social media accounts do they follow, what YouTube channels do they follow, what podcasts do they listen to. So it's really good in getting inside the mind of who your target audience is and where they hang out. So then you kind of either go advertise on those platforms. You can make content to try to get featured on those platforms so that you can get in front of your target audience. This is our first-stop platform that we use when we're developing new YouTube channels just to kind of figure out and get in the psyche of, hey, where's our target audience hanging out, what are they into so we can make sure we make stuff that resonates with them. And third tool is Play.ht. So it's a very basic, simple platform where you just type in text and choose from a bunch of AI voices to turn the text into AI voice narration. They do have this new feature that they're rolling out that they're calling ultra realistic voices. I tested around with it a bit. It's in beta, if you get their like top level monthly thing. They sound really good. Very realistic. So it's really cool to see because the stock voices they use are the regular voices you can get anywhere. They're from the voices that are through the Amazon or Microsoft API. So they're the same kind of robotic voices that you get on any platform. But these new voices, they're developing, really cool. Very interesting to check out. All right. And now our 1 tactic. Content repurposing. So content repurposing is more than just recycling. It can be a testing ground and a validator for content. So I see repurposing as having 2 directions. One is extracting. And this is sort of what I think a lot of people think about when they think of content repurposing, you take a big piece of content, a blog post, a long-form video, a guide, and then you pull out shorter pieces of content from that. So like tweets or short videos or quotes to post as Instagram graphics. But I think there's a second way to think about content repurposing, and that's expanding. So if we take shorter clips, and we use them as idea validators. So we take tweets, we post tweets out, we see what resonates. We post out short videos, see what resonates. Look at comments on our videos or comments on other videos or just anywhere, blog posts if you still have comments enabled. Putting out more smaller form content, seeing what resonates, using that as a testing ground, and then when you see what resonates, expanding on that into longer-form content. So I have a whole video already going into this a bit more. So it's linked in the newsletter. That video is actually repurposed from a WordCamp talk that I did about content repurposing. Now it's also repurposed again into a newsletter, and it's repurposed again here into this podcast YouTube video. So it's just a whole circle of content repurposing. All right, and that is the Signal for today, Friday the 13th, which also happens to be National Gluten-Free Day. Make sure you celebrate that this Sunday with a big old bagel because it is National Bagel Day on Sunday to counteract the gluten-free day that you enjoyed today. If you know anyone that would appreciate this video podcast newsletter, be sure to share it with them. And if you're watching this on YouTube or your podcast player, hit the subscribe button. Very much appreciated. Thank you for watching. I'll see you in the next Signal.