536

November 14th, 2022 × #Video Content#Web Development#Programming

Short Form Content with Tiktok, Reels, Shorts, Tweets

Wes and Scott discuss creating short-form video content for platforms like TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts. They cover repurposing existing content, making custom videos, platform algorithms, tips for capturing viewers' attention quickly, challenges of showing code, and using text-based editing tools.

or
Topic 0 00:00

Transcript

Announcer

Monday. Monday. Monday.

Announcer

Open wide dev fans, get ready to stuff your face with JavaScript, CSS, node modules, barbecue tips, get workflows, breakdancing, soft skill, web development, the hastiest, the craziest, the tastiest web development treats coming again hot. Here is Wes Barracuda Boss and Scott

Scott Tolinski

CSD. Welcome to Syntax.

Topic 1 00:28

Talking about short form content

Scott Tolinski

On this Monday, hasty treat, we're gonna be talking about a short form content, TikToks, and Instagrams, and YouTube shorts, and all of these new vertical video a short form content platforms and a little bit about our creation ideas, how we're making things for this type of medium, but also what works and what Doesn't. My name is Scott Tolinski. I'm a developer from Denver. With me as always is Wes Bos.

Wes Bos

Hey, everybody.

Wes Bos

Excited to to talk about this. It's kinda Scott and I kinda just got into it at the exact same time, and it's been fun to sort of figure out. It's really been funny because

Scott Tolinski

I think it was just about the exact same day you were, like, just started your short form content idea plan. And I was like, We just had a conversation just yesterday, with me and our marketing person, Caitlin, and just like, let's Let's come up with a plan. And we just sat down and came up with a plan for it. And then literally the next day, we we talked, and Shockingly, we have very similar plans, which I don't know if that's to be expected or not, but, yeah, here we are. It. This episode is sponsored by 2 amazing companies, Century and FreshBooks.

Topic 2 01:44

Century sponsors web development podcasts

Scott Tolinski

Century is the best place to see all your errors and exceptions. Let's say You watch some TikTok video and a YouTube coder says, hey. Do this thing with React Hooks. And next thing you know, you have bugs in your site because it. You're trying to learn from a TikTok.

Scott Tolinski

And, well, that's a good way to have bugs in your site. And, well, maybe you might I know about those bugs unless you're using a service like Sentry to log and categorize and catalog all of the bugs that you might have in your site, your code base, the front end, the back end, anything.

Scott Tolinski

Century has you covered. It puts all of your errors in a, lovely table. You could see how many people this is affecting, who's it's affecting, what's it affecting? You can get even get the performance metrics for your site per route. You can get a user misery score on each route. It's fantastic.

Scott Tolinski

So if you want to go ahead and get that kind of amazing error and exception handling services in your applications that you're building head on over to century dot it. I o. Use the coupon code tasty treat, all lowercase, all one word. That is tasty

Wes Bos

treat. Thank you so much to Century. FreshBooks, Cloud accounting. Let's talk about their customer service. It's fantastic.

Topic 3 02:50

Freshbooks provides good customer support

Wes Bos

I had something the other day. I was doing my, My HST, expenses the other day, and, I hit a little issue. And I said, hey. Like, FreshBooks. Sometimes when I run into issue, I'm like, well, I know they're gonna reply very quickly, and they have fantastic top notch support. I think one time somebody told me that FreshBooks, Their support is just like people who work in the company and everybody takes a turn.

Wes Bos

I don't know if that's that's still true, but it feels like it because the People that always answer me in FreshBooks support know what's going on. They actually understand my issue. They're not trying to, Like, make me filter through some knowledge base of, like, article. Do you know you get that? You're like, of course, it's not in your knowledge base. Like, I'm not like, I wish there was a button that you could click. Like, I'm not an idiot. You know? Like Yeah. It's like the the Ron Swanson I know more than you card thing. Like,

Scott Tolinski

I wish I I wish anytime I would get sent to a knowledge base that I could just push a I know more than you button and let me get past that knowledge base.

Wes Bos

Yeah. It's so true. Anyways, FreshBooks support is fantastic.

Wes Bos

They help you out really quickly. They have like, they'll pick up the phone if you want or you send them a quick email and they'll get back to you. You do it asynchronously. It's fantastic. Check it out. Freshbooks.comforward/ syntax for a 30 day free trial.

Wes Bos

Alright.

Topic 4 04:09

Popularity of short form video content

Wes Bos

Short form content. Let's talk about it. So we Are sort of being swept by short form content in the last couple of years. I've been consuming a lot of it, and That is content that goes on TikTok, Instagram reels. YouTube shorts is really getting in the game and and Twitter. And I've been Sort of holding off on making short form content for a long time because I thought for the longest time or maybe it was, is that TikTok, As as I enjoy them, a lot of it is just like like funny things or memes or you do something to a specific sound and whatnot. But as I've consumed more TikToks over the years, I found, like, the stuff that I like is just handy little tips. And I thought, well, I've been posting, like, if you go to westboss.comforward/tips, I've been posting hot tips to Twitter For probably 8 years now, I have well over 300 that I've posted. I said, I've already created all of this content. Like, I I am constantly creating it, but I've always been posting it as, like, screenshots.

Topic 5 05:15

Repurposing existing content for short videos

Wes Bos

What if I just post the same kind of content and it's nice? It's as as actual just like short form video, you get 60 seconds or whatever to actually get something across. And So that's sort of what I've been diving into in the last little bit. Yeah. And likewise, you know, my whole bread and butter has always been video,

Scott Tolinski

for YouTube Where YouTube, they want different things on YouTube. So for YouTube, it it's it's kind of changed over time, but, Really, what they want is, like, an 11 what YouTube wants when I say they. They want, like, an 11 minute video or so it.

Scott Tolinski

They can then because if it's short, if it's shorter than 6 minutes, if it's shorter than 10 minutes even, you get crushed on ad revenue. So you you don't, like, make hardly any ad revenue about that, and that's fine. But if you're trying to make a a living off of doing YouTube, which I was, it. Then you want to, like, really fit into YouTube's specific window of what they want because most of my videos prior it. To YouTube's changes were about 6 minutes long. Once they slashed revenue for 6 minute long videos, my my channel's income took a huge dive, which is one of the That's why I I decided to get off of trying to, like, totally make a living off of YouTube because I didn't have control over the platform. Right? They could just make a arbitrary change in your revenue. It would be done in quickly. So, you know, I I'm used to creating short content.

Topic 6 06:42

Creating custom short videos from scratch

Scott Tolinski

But what I wasn't used to was creating 1 vertical content, which is it. Surprisingly difficult when your computer screens are all landscape. And 2, YouTube shorts, which we'll get into, needs to be less than a minute. So, like, Trying to shove everything into 60 seconds is tough. I mean Yeah. So I I can go from 6 minutes to 3 minutes. No problem. Trim that it. That sucker up and, just really, you know, tease out some some good morsels from it, but it is tough to get it shorter and shorter and shorter.

Wes Bos

That's been a major challenge for me, I think. Yeah. Yeah. Let's let's talk about that before we get into, like, how we create is like the good and the bad. A lot of people think like, oh, TikTok, it's for Gen And the short attention span, you literally have to get something across in in less than a minute. Otherwise, no one's going to watch it. And I don't think that's necessarily true. I think you just think that that's the type of content that works well. Because on the flip side, you see people watching 3 hour Twitch livestream of somebody just us. Dicking around on some code with no actual, like, urgency to to getting through that type of stuff. So it's just The specific type of content, and I think it's a great medium to get, like I said, short little tips across. I'm I'm not going anywhere. It's my longer form videos and obviously this podcast because you can't get anything. You can't get the breadths and the The gotchas across in it.

Topic 7 08:08

TikTok algorithm surfaces varied content

Wes Bos

Another thing I really like about it is that, like, anybody can do it, meaning that, like, especially TikTok, and I see this as well with with Instagram reels as well. Their algorithm surfaces things from literally anybody. So it's not like you have to gain the algorithm or create a con or have a take a course on, like, the top 10 tips to TikTok or something like that. A lot of the stuff that I see is just some guy flips on his, like, a Android 1 phone and starts recording something, and it's poor quality. It's not edited at all, but it's just showing how to Fix a lawnmower or something like that and has 6,000,000 views, you know? And I love that because there's less of A gate to,

Scott Tolinski

becoming a content creator. Literally, anybody can share something that they they know about. Yeah. There's less barrier to entry. Yeah. Yeah. I I totally agree that you don't need all of that stuff. And, you know, I I read books on how to get my YouTube account Yeah. To grow And, like, you know, ways to it is one of the reasons why you get those, like, idiotic thumbnail trends where people are just like, oh my god in the thumbnail because that's what works. And, like, it stinks to have to to really fit into those that tight little mold of whatever YouTube wants or even Instagram.

Topic 8 09:31

Avoid manipulating algorithms with low quality content

Scott Tolinski

And I have I've noticed the same thing. Like, I have some TikToks that will sit with, like, You know, no views because I I have a new channel on TikTok, and then other ones that just blow up out of nowhere.

Scott Tolinski

Same kind of content, same quality, but it's just like once something gets, you know, shared with and engaged, it is kind of like we'll continue to put it in front of people. Yeah. Yeah. Just out of nowhere. So I had

Wes Bos

I talked earlier. I had 1 on a dual battery that I fixed, and it got to, like, 1,800,000 views now. And then I posted another one. It's crazy. I posted another one on, like, a kindling splitter that I picked a while ago and, like, it just kinda sat there, and then, like, 2 weeks later, out of nowhere, just get all these kindling experts come in. And, like, Before you know it, there's 200,000 views on it, which is bonkers. And it's kind of interesting to see that that's how the algorithm works. And it. I much prefer that over the opposite, which is people trying to figure out what is the algorithm

Scott Tolinski

Yes. And

Wes Bos

trying to game it Because we're starting to see that on Twitter now that Twitter is leaning a little bit more on the algorithm. And there's just a lot of grifting, a lot of garbage on there when some of the good stuff, if you look on like I was talking this morning, if you go to Twitter and something like JavaScript is trending on their page. You click on it. There's literally nobody posting anything of value, and there's nobody that I know. Oh, yeah. I follow Everybody that is somebody in JavaScript. And, like, not to say that these people aren't somebody. Do you hear that, folks? If Wes doesn't follow you.

Wes Bos

Well, You know what I mean? I follow people who know what's going on in JavaScript, and there was no question for any of them.

Wes Bos

And I hate that

Scott Tolinski

The n algorithm can be gained like that. Yeah. Totally. And it it does lead to, like you said, just grift opportunities, people, you know, posting.

Scott Tolinski

You know, I saw somebody said they just muted the, like, the thread emoji and, like, that was, like, reducing grifters on their timeline.

Scott Tolinski

But you see it a lot in Instagram too where, like, the quality is totally bottom of the barrel in terms of what gets surfaced where, You know, it's just some guy pointing at, like, here are 5 places to learn React. React documentation.

Scott Tolinski

Okay.

Scott Tolinski

Like yeah. Okay.

Wes Bos

Sure. I'm seeing less and less of that as as I get into it. And I think that's because, like, I as soon as I see I see something like that. I swipe right by it, and I know that the algorithm is learning that. Like, I'm not into that sort of guy. And, like, maybe it's the opposite. Like, sometimes have you ever gone on, Don't do this. Go to the Facebook video tab.

Topic 9 12:10

Fake content performs well on platforms like Facebook

Wes Bos

No. And I've never been There's just, like, people make these, like, us. Awful videos that are clearly fake. Like like a fake police officer pulls someone over, and he gives them a like, Their dog is dying, and it gives them a cup of water. And it's clearly fake because there's no, like, actual police. Like, it's just like a fake police uniform. And people this a 70,000,000 views, and people are being like, faith in humanity

Scott Tolinski

restored. Dude, dude. Can you can you people not see through that? It's so ob and, like, so many times, you could debunk them just by saying, who's the cameraman in this situation? What where where's the cameraman position? Why are they filming? Like, you know what? It's the same tricks that people don't even get from actual reality TV. Like, they'll do reality TV, And they'll they'll have, like, a, live like, a camera crew walking up on somebody, but they have multiple angles. And they have an angle inside of the house, and everything's lit, and people Mike, like, yeah. How did you get in the house? This is definitely staged and definitely fake entirely. It's it's actually very scary When you think about how how people cannot recognize that stuff. Yeah.

Scott Tolinski

But yeah. No. I totally agree. I found I found, like, once People can gain the algorithm.

Scott Tolinski

The worst kind of content can be really pushed in front of people because they're just there To sell their thing or, you know, who's that? Tai Lopez was that that guy who is just like, I have a I have a bunch of cars and whatever from reading your thoughts.

Wes Bos

And and what's crazy about that guy is he made so much money being a grifter that he's like, he's actually an investor now. Like, I I, like, was Whatever happened to that, like, YouTube guy? And I looked at that. I've been like, he figured it out. Right. And I never see anything from him pop up anymore. And it's probably because The algorithm gets updated to stop people like that. But anyways, so that's the bad.

Wes Bos

But I think I think it's awesome because why? Because I figured out, like, if you share genuinely useful tips Exactly. And good content that is explaining something, then it will be service to the people that like that type of thing.

Topic 10 14:06

Share genuinely useful tips and explanations

Wes Bos

And I'm 12 videos in. So I've been doing this for almost 2 weeks, just posting a little tip every single day.

Wes Bos

And I've had a couple of them couple of them pop. Like, I posted 1 this this weekend, and it has almost 600,000 listens or plays.

Scott Tolinski

Webin related?

Wes Bos

Yeah. Yeah. It was, one of your TypeScript ones? Oh, sorry. Not Not 600,000, 400,000.

Wes Bos

Yeah. It was a That's 400,000

Scott Tolinski

a ton.

Wes Bos

Yeah. And it's it's nuts. Like, You posted a couple. It's like a 1000, 2000, 3000.

Wes Bos

And then all of a sudden, I don't know where it pops. So what I did is I went back In my all my tips from over the years, I said, like, what's one of the best ones that I've ever done? And that was making a style tag Editable and display block. So you get live updates right on the page.

Wes Bos

And I was like, this one will pop for sure. So let's try it. And I did it and I posted it both to Twitter and I posted to every platform.

Wes Bos

And it popped both on TikTok and on Twitter, which Shows that, like, it was it was interesting, good content, and, like, it just shows that it wasn't the specific algorithm. It was actually People were interested in it, and both of them sort of went wild. Interesting.

Scott Tolinski

I you know, I I've only done 3 videos so far, but I did one, Every single day of the week, and and my my biggest one is only at 1500. So I'm I'm not in the 400,000 range, but, I I just, Like, really just started TikTok ing. So what I'm doing is I I'm taking, the same kind of approach and just Re adapting and rerecording content for me that works really well on YouTube, but it's also, again, just super helpful. And, again, just keeping things in, like, in the entire perspective of, like, what is content that people have found helpful on my YouTube channel And what is content that is easy to do in a short form way where it's not, you know, teaching someone how to build a web app from scratch. So, I'm I'm doing my, like, what is series right now on TikTok, on level up tots where it's just basically, what is this thing? And, you know, I've done maybe, like, 30, 40 of those videos on YouTube. So besides just rereleasing the ones that I did on it. I'm going to, like, start recording all new ones. And what I found I don't know if you found this, but in my editing process, I found that I can record a video And then using editing software, create multiple versions of it where I have one for, landscape, one for portrait, and I can Cut it down. I can create a version that's 3 minutes long for TikTok or 2 minutes long for TikTok and then another version that's 60 seconds and much more for YouTube shorts And maybe one that's even not necessarily longer, but more more horizontal video for for YouTube as well. So Yeah. That's what I was gonna ask you, like, what what are your thoughts on, like, repurposing

Wes Bos

versus, like, custom content? Because, yeah, like, you've got millions of videos. I've got lots of videos. Even this podcast, if we recorded like, that's huge on TikTok as well. It's just clips from a larger piece of content.

Topic 11 17:18

Discussion on repurposing vs custom content

Wes Bos

So is is that what you're doing? You are repurposing

Scott Tolinski

some of the stuff or a totally rerecord it? I'm I'm not I'm rerecording everything. The only thing I would repurpose would be something that I would record from scratch right now.

Wes Bos

So I see. Yeah.

Scott Tolinski

Yeah. I I have to do some things to keep in mind of the the medium while I'm recording it. But, I think I could work with just about anything if I had the the straight up video files, but everything I'm doing right now is definitely done from scratch. I'm gonna try to do a whole bunch more this week, actually, it. See if I can keep this streak going. I I woke up this morning, and I so I posted,

Wes Bos

I made, like, 7 last week, And I I ran out on the weekend. I I thought, I'm not gonna post on the weekend. Nobody's on Twitter. And I posted that one, and it it freaking blew up. So I was, maybe know what?

Scott Tolinski

Yeah. My 2nd highest one was posted on Saturday, so, like yeah. Maybe

Wes Bos

but, like, it makes sense. People who are trying to learn to code or maybe switch Over. They're doing stuff like just because I'm busy on Saturday doesn't mean everybody else is or or I'm not on a computer doesn't mean everybody else is not on it. So So let's talk about content. Obviously, tips work really well. That's kind of where I'm doubling down on introducing something like explaining how something might not Somebody might not know, like, that's what's causing what is esbuild.

Scott Tolinski

That's super helpful as well. Yeah. You can always do Clips. Yeah. You could basically take a clip from a larger piece of work, something poignant.

Scott Tolinski

You know, Wes and I are always saying really insightful things, like, constantly.

Scott Tolinski

So you could just you do just clip anything, like when Wes is talking about, like, big data dumps or something and then just put that on TikTok.

Wes Bos

Other things that work specifically well, is things that rile people up.

Wes Bos

Unfortunately, I don't specifically like this, but I it happens. So if I post anything related to TypeScript or JavaScript or CSS or literally anything. I always get the dragons of that subject matter come out And start to critique what I've posted because they know literally everything about it. Or if you if you do something incorrect or or if you intentionally do something incorrectly, On one of mine, I used Comic Sans as an example, and that, oh, that set people off, man. And I was like, I didn't even think. Like, I just I was just being funny, but, like, There was, like, a 100 comments of people being like, oh, my god. Seriously? So, like, I guess if you intentionally did something to get people riled up, That would work well.

Scott Tolinski

But again, that I think that's a game gaming it rather than providing real content. Totally. And it's actually really depressing for me Specifically right now because in the if you go to my YouTube stats, in the last 90 days, My 2 most popular videos are videos I just recently made, and both of them are drama videos or videos at which people get riled up. One of them is Is Figma dead, which obviously major clickbait title? Yeah. Figma was acquired. It's not going anywhere.

Scott Tolinski

But that tie that video Blew up, and then another one is fleet, the v s code killer, another major clickbait.

Scott Tolinski

And, people are just arguing about JetBrains. And I'm thinking to myself, this is not, like, helpful. It's not I mean, it's I guess it's interesting content, and people wanna talk about it. It's It's it's pertinent, whatever. It's relevant to the industry. But at the same time, I'm like, man, I'm a little depressed that, drama drama stuff gets that much more views and clicks.

Wes Bos

Yeah. Than, like, actually helpful. Well, it's not that your stuff isn't actually helpful, but yeah. But yeah, then then the the intentionally helpful content. Yeah. Let's talk about some tips for actually making them. This is just things I've collected from Watching and creating it, getting right into it. So there's this thing called I laugh when I heard this is called the millennial pause, Which is, and now you notice it when you watch watch a video is that somebody pauses for the 1st 2 seconds of the video to make sure that it's actually recording.

Topic 12 21:37

Get right into the content, no intro

Wes Bos

You got to get right into it.

Wes Bos

Yeah. There's no intro. There's no hello. What's up? It's just got to be like, boom. Like, all of mine is, I said, like, one of my ones that did well is I use intl dot number format and explain how to use that to format money. And so you had to start off with this as you don't need a library to format money. So within the 1st 2nd, otherwise, the people are going to keep on scrolling.

Wes Bos

So you got to get right on into it in the front as well as, like, having some text in whatever on the screen in the 1st couple of seconds because that's where the thumbnail is created on a lot of the platforms.

Wes Bos

TikTok, you can upload your own thumbnail, but It's helpful just to do it all in the front. So all of the platforms get the same thumbnail.

Topic 13 22:20

Use on-screen text for thumbnails

Scott Tolinski

Yeah.

Scott Tolinski

I I never heard about the millennial pause before, And I totally agree. The what do you think about thumbnail

Wes Bos

stuff? Yeah. I haven't I haven't made, like, a custom thumbnail for anything, because I think it's just oh, maybe it's Instagram as well. I think it's just TikTok where you can upload a custom thumbnail.

Scott Tolinski

Yeah. I you know what I've been doing is just, like, making sure the point of the video or the title of the video It's kind of visible from the grid. I don't know if that's actually

Wes Bos

Yeah. Yeah. You got it. Because if you're scrolling, you gotta be Able to see it from the video. Nobody's reading the captions underneath every single

Scott Tolinski

Just make it big and bold. Here's what this thing is. Yeah. So you can quickly scan. And

Wes Bos

TikTok also allows you to add text over top of each one as well, which is really nice. Yeah. What about music? Are you using music at all? Not at all.

Topic 14 23:14

Avoid unnecessary music

Wes Bos

Maybe I don't think I should be. I find it annoying. I often see TikToks where someone says, can you repost it without the annoying music? Maybe if it was like me doing something, I will put music in the background, but I don't think that it adds anything To the understanding.

Scott Tolinski

Yeah. You're right. Because you want it to surface in the right communities. And I think sometimes that, like, TikTok Or these places they they want because they're getting paid from their record labels.

Scott Tolinski

Actually, no. Like, that's not probably not true. They're not getting paid from the record. I was just thinking, like, maybe If it's if it's featuring a song that is hot on TikTok, they might be giving you more views intentionally from it. I haven't done it myself, but yeah, I know people do it. They have the audio and they just put the audio to 0. So maybe,

Wes Bos

again, that's a tactic that people do. And I've done that for my dance videos. Yeah. Very scared that to do any of these tricks because I feel like TikTok would just throw a band hammer at you with any of the stuff or shadow ban you because you're you're doing any of the tricks.

Wes Bos

So I I don't know. I haven't haven't got into that. Interesting.

Wes Bos

Limitations. Alright. Let's talk about it. Freaking vertical video and horizontal code is so hard To show, especially because so I have this little overlay when I'm editing my videos that shows you where all of the description, All the buttons, all of the, like, search bar.

Wes Bos

There's so much stuff on the on the thing. You need to make sure that none of that is covering The actual code.

Topic 15 24:38

Challenges of vertical video for code

Wes Bos

So I find it very frustrating, and that's why I'm sort of creating custom examples as I need to create examples that are short and not not necessarily short vertically, but but short horizontally.

Wes Bos

Yeah.

Wes Bos

Because in editing, you can zoom around the screen and zoom in and Scale up and and and go around as you're doing. Like, I would say, oh, there's an error, and we'll we'll pan over to the error. That's fine. But it's just about, like, if somebody is is trying to grok the code that you're talking about, they need to be able to see that piece of code all at once. So that has been very frustrating,

Scott Tolinski

but I I feel like I got a pretty good pretty good, handle on it now. I'm definitely keeping that in mind, the the vertical thing. I've been making gratuitous use of Zooming in automations and animations within my video frame. So I'll record everything at a full res landscape.

Scott Tolinski

And then I'm currently using ScreenFlow even though I don't love it to, zoom in on the thing that I'm saying. Alright. I'm clicking on the file menu. You. I'm zooming on the file menu. I'm doing zip, zap, zap, zap, zap, zap. And if I need to show a lot of stuff, I'm making my own head nice and tiny in the bottom all all in a little circle or something.

Topic 16 25:52

Strategies for showing code on small screens

Scott Tolinski

So it really depends. But, you know, I am taking my screen recording straight up and editing it in ScreenFlow to make these. Yeah. Yeah. Me me as well.

Wes Bos

Because a TikTok has a video editor, but when you export something from TikTok, it's compressed and it has the TikTok Logo over top, and, I don't want to upload that to other platforms. So I edit it all in ScreenFlow. I always wonder, does TikTok Favor content that was made right inside of their own editor because it's not posted elsewhere.

Wes Bos

So that's I don't know if it does or not, but, some of my most popular videos were made inside of the TikTok editor.

Scott Tolinski

That's interesting. One of my maybe my most popular one was as well. That's an interesting hypothesis.

Wes Bos

Yeah.

Wes Bos

It's also another limitation as it's very hard to get stuff across in 1 minute.

Wes Bos

Because I the thing it. I hate most about posting content online is the well actuallys that you get from people.

Topic 17 26:48

Difficulty explaining details in 1 minute

Wes Bos

Why didn't you show this? What about this? That's Another way, what's the difference between this? Why are you doing it this way? And it's just like, well, I don't have half an hour to explain everything. Literally, you have, about a minute. What's frustrating is that all the platforms allow you to go over a minute except for YouTube.

Wes Bos

So if you also wanna post it to YouTube shorts, then you have to make it under a minute. What I've been doing is I've just posting the ones that go over a minute as regular videos, And hopefully YouTube will get that sorted. Yeah. The hard part is that shorts really like or YouTube really likes right now surfacing shorts.

Scott Tolinski

Yeah. So, like, you they, like, really want you to do shorts, and they're pushing that on people. So it's like, oh, you can get in on that, but you're really beholden to the 60 seconds. And the the worst comments that I got, I got a lot of this on Twitter. It's like, well, why not make all the content 60 seconds? It's like and some stuff's, like, really hard to get across in 60 seconds. 60 There's no time whatsoever, and I'm not being, like, overly verbose. I'm not talking about something too much. But but you're absolutely You're right. You you leave out some things that people are gonna say, why don't you why don't you say this thing, or why don't what about this, or what about that? So Yeah. It is hard. Yeah. 60 seconds is a hard time, I mean. So, yeah, I've been finding even when I really try, like, 2 minutes, minute 30 is, like, way more attainable than 60 straight up. Totally. Totally.

Wes Bos

And sometimes I have to record mine 2 or 3 times just to get it in. Because if I if I start going off on a tangent or if I even put one little,

Topic 18 28:16

YouTube Shorts limited to 60 seconds

Scott Tolinski

this is handy. Sometimes I use it here. Like, oh, no. That was 12 seconds. I can't afford that. Dude, I find myself just, like, creating a trimmed down version for YouTube shorts that is, like, less useful Oh, but exists, which isn't great. But still I bet YouTube shorts will

Wes Bos

change that limit pretty soon because, honestly, YouTube Shorts is the only one that pays in Canada, at least right now. TikTok has pays in the US as from the creator fund, Which is great because, like, I don't know, you can make some money off of some of these, but like they're they're popping the least On YouTube, despite me having 150,000 people on YouTube, and it's frustrating that it's only 1 minute. So I think YouTube Is going to really double down on these shorts in the next couple of months, both in terms of tools to publish them as well as increasing the limits because They got to be shaking in their boots. They're seeing all everybody like, I I spend less time on YouTube. I I still watch lots of YouTube videos, but I think I spend less time on YouTube now that I I scroll TikTok for an hour every night or whatever.

Scott Tolinski

I don't. I spend More time than ever on YouTube, to be honest. And you But I'm watching a bunch of random stuff. You know? Oh, yeah.

Wes Bos

What about are you are you watching shorts? So that's another thing is when I go to my YouTube homepage I'm not watching shorts. It shows me, like, the same shorts from, like Yeah. 2 months ago. And it's like And all Super not relevant. Here's something that you don't care about from just some you know, it's like

Scott Tolinski

Joe Rogan or some other popular content creator that, like, I'm not Following, I don't have any intention of following, but they're like, oh, you might like the short from,

Wes Bos

you know, so and so. And it's like, yeah. Here's here's one that's been here's a Bob Saget one is why was the show called Full House? Who cares? It's obvious why the show is called Full House. Why would I watch that? Yeah. It's it's true. Like, come on. Like, YouTube, you have 15 years of my interest of me watching a video. I have never once. What's this guy that goes on the podcast and talks about he's got curly hair and he talks about science all the time.

Wes Bos

Neil DeGrasse Tyson.

Wes Bos

Oh, yeah. Never once in my life have I ever watched a video with him. And it's like, that's my number one. I like a Neil DeGrasse Tyson in my it. Oh, I like that. And like, what else is in here? 17 year old pilot, 40,000,000 views. Like, this is the kind of stuff that Facebook tries to show me. And it's like, no, I don't want to watch So I I hope they they get get on it with the algorithm because, like, they've obviously figured it out for regular videos. Yeah. The shorts shorts algorithm is awful. Yeah. What is this?

Scott Tolinski

Some some I got a thing about a clown, something about Mark Hamill. Don't care. Something about the world's rarest firearm. Don't care.

Scott Tolinski

Yeah. None of this stuff. It's all disposable.

Wes Bos

Yeah. And, like, it's trying to show me one from Casey Neistat for, Like, probably 3 weeks now. And I've seen that clips on another platform, so I'm not gonna watch it again. That's another thing is that I sometimes follow people on Instagram and on TikTok.

Wes Bos

And then I see their stuff twice. So I just flick right through it when I've, like, I've seen this one. And then I'm like, oh, it's probably Hurting their algorithm because I it looks like I'm not interested in it, but little do they know I loved it. I just don't wanna watch it twice.

Wes Bos

They don't know that I loved it. Yeah. Well, I think that's good enough for now. 1 more one more thing I want to say. I know we're getting a little long here is the script.

Topic 19 31:55

Moving to text-based video editor Descript

Wes Bos

I've been looking at moving over from ScreenFlow to Descript for a long, long time.

Wes Bos

It's like an editor that is more it's text based. This this podcast is edited with it from Chris, And this looks like such a cool editor. It's just the video on it and this rerecording has always been lacking, but it looks like they're gonna put out a new version pretty soon that Hopefully solves a lot of those grapes because I really want to move my editing workflow, especially when you put, like, text on the screen As you're talking, it will automate that. And

Scott Tolinski

it just was the one that Chris, recommended to us other Chris.

Scott Tolinski

Oh, wait. Not sorry.

Scott Tolinski

Not Chris.

Scott Tolinski

Chantastic recommended it to us. Let's see here.

Wes Bos

I really like this strip because it it automatically takes out the umms and ahs.

Wes Bos

That's it just it just silences them, and That that's very nice because I already edit a lot. If I have, like, a big, in my video, I'll cut that out or just silent silent it if I'm typing at the same time, and it just sounds a lot better. It's called detail.co.

Scott Tolinski

Yeah. There's another one, detail.co.

Scott Tolinski

And I I wanna give this one a try because, you know, these companies, they they're they're not sitting back, like, with

Wes Bos

ScreenFlow is just sort of like, we're sitting back. We made this thing a while ago. We're gonna it. Push out little tiny updates. They have a they're going in the opposite direction as every single time they roll a new feature out, I'm like, this is for babies.

Scott Tolinski

This is stinks. Yeah. Yeah. And and it doesn't it's not modern at all. Like, if you look at these tools, like, detail or descriptor, they're really thinking about

Wes Bos

Modern video content. It's true. So I am pretty excited about that. I was just having major issues with the quality. I, like, I got On a call with the CEO of Descript, who's the Groupon guy.

Wes Bos

Really? Yeah.

Wes Bos

I was, like, tweeting, like, this looks like garbage.

Wes Bos

I didn't say that, but I was like, how come this, like, a little quality? And he's like, jump on a call. And I showed him. He's like, Yeah, that's that shouldn't be that. So apparently I found a bug. He was like, What if I give you a coupon

Scott Tolinski

that you can use Google.

Wes Bos

So I'm I'm very excited about Descript. It's been one of those things where I wish I could use it Sooner. It just hasn't been there yet, and I I'm hoping they're putting out, like, a whole new designed version, that sort of rethinks how you edit the video, in terms of, like, scenes and it auto transcribes it. So you cut the video based on words, which is Perfect for me because I want to cut it from where I started saying, okay, let's start coding and I want to cut it there. I can just Put a cut in on the text. I don't have to listen to it and try to perfectly cut it. So

Scott Tolinski

I really hope it works because it seems pretty sweet. Yeah. It does seem sweet. Cool. Well, that's it for vertical video.

Scott Tolinski

Hope you found this entertaining. If you're not already, follow us on TikTok. I do my TikTok at level up.

Scott Tolinski

Wait. You're gonna you're gonna pitch yours. I I, I do mine on level up tuts and TikTok, level up t u t s, And, that's where we do all of our educational ones. I do breakdancing ones on s Telinski. So if you're in the mood for that, you can do them on my As Talinsky as well, but, obviously, if you're here for the dev stuff, level up cuts.

Wes Bos

I am at west boss on TikTok, on Instagram. Actually, funny thing is I started posting coding stuff on Instagram, which I never do. I post, like, house stuff and cooking and. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And I lost over the weekend. I lost 380 followers and gained, like, 400. What? It's because it's so much different people that followed me for the, like, a small engine repair. And what are you doing? Talking about coding.

Wes Bos

What? So I'm at West Boston everywhere. Give it a follow. Give it a like. It really helps. I think I'm going to like I think my goal is to post it like a 100 or 50 or something like that and then sort of, like, sit back and reevaluate. Like, was that worth my time

Scott Tolinski

creating all of this stuff? I think it will be, but we'll see. Yeah. I'm 100% with you, and I'm going to it. Just take experiments. Keep going. Keep grinding on it. See if I can, like you said, do, like, a 100 of them and see where we can get. Alright. Well, maybe we'll do an update in the near. Maybe we shall. It. Peace. Peace.

Scott Tolinski

Head on over to syntax.fm for a full archive of all of our shows.

Scott Tolinski

And don't forget to subscribe in your podcast player or drop a review if you like this show.

Share