Nina Froriep On Using Video Marketing To Increase Your Exposure And Advance Your Career

 

In this era of technology, there are more and more ways to advertise yourself not only to consumers but also to potential employers. Today, Elizabeth Bachman is joined by Nina Froriep, a Forward Thinker at Clock Wise Productions. They talk about how video marketing is becoming a tool for individuals to increase their exposure on social media to land dream jobs or positions and further their careers. Nina also shares tips on how you can get your start in video production, as well as meaningful advice on content creation.

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Nina Froriep On Using Video Marketing To Increase Your Exposure And Advance Your Career

My guest is Nina Froriep who is with Clockwise Productions, who is a video marketer, who’s going to tell us all about how you can use video marketing to position yourself as a thought leader and to improve your career. Nina Froriep enables business coaches to grow their businesses with consistent and easy-to-implement video content so they can attract their ideal clients. She also helps people in corporate life who need to position themselves as perhaps for the job they want to get. Nina has been in TV, film and video production all her life. She’s seen it all from the early days of independent features to big national TV commercials, corporate mega shows and documentary films where some of which have won Emmys, including one that she’s produced and directed called Abraham’s Children.

Along the journey, she had met many awesomely wonderful people and a few badasses. Nina has negotiated with teamsters, clients, actors, crew, children, police officers, a few dogs and one snake. All of them are worth great stories. She loves spending time outside especially in her home in the Swiss Alps, which is where she first came from. She owns a Dachshund-Yorkie mix called Tigger. Before we move on to the interview where she was talking about how video marketing is so good for positioning yourself, I’d like to remind you that if you’re curious how your presentation skills, where you are and how strong you are, you can take our four-minute quiz called SpeakForResultsQuiz.com. In four minutes, you can see where you are strong with your presentation skills and where perhaps a little support might help you get better results. Now, onto the interview with Nina Froriep.

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Nina Froriep, welcome to the show.

Thanks for having me.

I’m so excited. You interviewed me a little while ago and this is going to be broadcast. We’re going to be talking about why video marketing matters for your career program. Before I get to that, I wanted to ask you. If you had a dream interview, if you could interview somebody who’s no longer with us, who would it be? What would you ask them? Who should be listening?

It would be a three-way interview. It’s one of the regrets if we’re talking about history, in other words, talking about people who are no longer living. I would love to interview both of my grandfathers. My maternal grandfather I did meet but I was very young when he died. He was a cadet and then an officer in World War I and II in Germany. My other grandfather died very young from MS. He was an artist in the same era. He and my grandmother tingled back and forth between Paris, Dresden, Berlin, Munich and art hot spots. It’s a different experience. I would imagine the two of them together and for me a chance to get to meet my grandfather I never met, that would be fascinating.

Do they know each other?

I have only made this letter longer because I have not had the time to make it shorter. – Blaise Pascal Click To Tweet

No, they didn’t.

The one who died early never got to know that his kid got married?

No. My uncle was older. He was around for that wedding. My father had already met my mother but never had a chance to introduce my mother to his father. My grandfather died about a year before my parents got married.

I have a grandfather who died early of TB. He was 40 something but my mother was just eighteen. Maybe I’d bring my grandfather along and let all five of us have a good conversation.

There are questions that you don’t learn to even be interested and you’re not aware. The questions I would have asked my grandfather when I was twenty would be very different from what I’m asking him now because I have a completely different life experience and awareness. I would have loved to have a chance with all my grandparents to ask the questions I never ever did.

Tell us a little bit about your company Clockwise Productions. What is it that you’re doing?

What we do is help service-based small businesses tell their story with video marketing. We do so by enabling them to show up on video and to be able to focus on the content. I’m giving value to sharing their knowledge and their expertise. For us, it’s very important that people don’t get hung up on the technological aspect of video creation but have the luxury of learning what needs to be learned to be savvy enough to create a good-looking video. You’re representing your brand so you don’t want it to be sloppy but to also learn to focus on what is important so they can then be set free basically to show off their brilliance. No better medium to do so than video, in my humble opinion,.

 

One of the things that you and I have talked about is that this also works for women in the corporate field as a way of raising their visibility. A big part of what I do is help women show up and raise their visibility. How could someone who has a job still be able to use video marketing as a way of establishing herself as someone to be paid attention to?

For that, it would be very powerful. I have clients who have corporate jobs or either have a side hustle and/or are looking to position themselves for a very specific promotion, let’s say or a specific job, even at another company. They’re pre-auditioning for it by creating video content that supports that desire to or is an attention grabber. What video does so well is, first of all, not only is it a place for you to talk about what you’re passionate about, what you have knowledge about and what you know. It does it in a context of also humanizing you, making you approachable, accessible and a known entity. Especially if you’re doing video consistently, this is the one thing that I work hard on with my clients. Putting out a video here and there is better than not putting any video out.

The secret sauce of video marketing lies in consistency because people who see you repeatedly again and again create familiarity with you. They start feeling that they know you. If your content is crafted smartly, you will create a bingeable effect. People will come back for more and more. It works quite frankly very similar to how we get suckered into binge-watching some Netflix show where we can craft our message such that there’s always an interest for more. Be it because it’s educational, super timely or ideally also if there’s an entertainment factor too to the whole thing. It’s establishing yourself with video as someone to be reckoned with. You get to choose your area of expertise. I have a friend of mine. He happens to be male but we’ll forgive him for that. He’s going for a very specific job. His careers goal is a specific job at a Fortune 500 company. He’s creating all these video series that squarely put him into the path of the people who would be filling that position.

That’s exactly what I tell people to do with speaking. That’s what we do. How do you set up your visibility and make yourself recognized outside the company? If you’re trying to set yourself up to be exactly that, to be hired for the job you want, the job that you start positioning yourself as a chief marketing officer or a chief technical officer even though you aren’t one yet. You can position yourself.

It’s filling the shoes that you’re looking to fill, start trying them on for size. Knowing that is your area of expertise can be hard, a long haul or not everybody’s comfort zone to get to a TEDx Talk but doing 60-second video snippets on social media is very attainable and easy to do.

Getting it concise enough so that you can say something worth saying within 60 seconds, that’s not so easy. That’s a challenge.

It can be a challenge. That’s where we come in with our training with our clients. It’s the famous quote by Blaise Pascal who said, “Pardon me for writing a long letter. If I had more time, I would have written a shorter one.” The beauty with video is that you can create like Princeton series. If you have an idea, you have a thought, a succession, you can easily with video set it up. That’s where graphics can, for instance, help you where you say, “I have this idea. It’s too long for one minute video but I can make a series of 3 or 4.” It can be a very effective way to give nuggets, to give information and give continuity. People can go on a playlist on your YouTube Channel, for instance or your Vimeo. If they want to binge-watch, they can binge-watch all of the videos in the series.

The secret sauce of video marketing really lies in the consistency. Click To Tweet

This would be a way towards setting yourself up as a thought leader. My friends who specifically work in thought leadership are always telling me, “You can’t call yourself a thought leader.” The wonderful Denise Brosseau said, “If you’re out there talking about what you’re doing in your thoughts, your ideas, that’s a personal brand. If the ideas get taken over by somebody else, that’s thought leadership.” I feel that setting yourself up, aiming for thought leadership and sharing your expertise could get you to the point where you’re a thought leader. If your ideas take off and have a life of their own, that would be great.

It’s also a question of how we define thought leadership. If I share something and I’m trying to be helpful, I’m coming from a place of wanting to help. If I can help 2 or 3 people, I’m the thought leader to those 2 or 3 people. I don’t have to be a thought leader to millions or hundreds of thousands of people. It’s helpful to think in terms of, “Who is the next person I can help? Who are the next three people I can help?” Not that I want to be the next Gary Vee or the next Seth Godin. That can come with consistency. I would never call myself a thought leader but I might tell I call myself a forward thinker. There are ways to tee it up without calling it that. In the end, it’s all about doing and demonstrating that you are not saying that you are.

How is video marketing approaching it as marketing? How is that different from being online on Zoom, Teams or Google Meet all day, every day in meetings?

The primary difference would be that your Google Meet, Zoom, whatever are internal. They don’t go anywhere. The mechanics of delivery are the same. You’re shooting video basically but the outcome is drastically different. Marketing is what you do to tell the world out there that, “Here I am. I’m fantastic. You want to listen to me. You want to eventually buy from me. You want to promote me or hire me.” It’s a selling proposition. A Zoom call, I treat it as a very intimate affair unless I’m having a public workshop or something like that. It’s by invitation only. It’s the end of your sales cycle. With marketing, you are creating awareness that you maybe exist or you’re creating awareness that there is a problem that you can solve. With marketing, you are having people engage with you and come into your ecosystem. The idea is that you’re not just only putting video out, you’re also having people then engage with you to have a discussion about what it is that you say. That is a hallmark of thought leadership. That it’s not just a one-way street. It’s a two-way street. That’s why I always harp very much on what is your call to action at the end of every video. Thought leadership is a two-way road. Video at the end can and should help you to convert into the higher, the promotion or the sale.

Do you have any examples or suggestions of ways not to approach video marketing? What not to do?

What not to do is to use it as a verbal diarrhea platform where you go on and on. That’s one of the reasons why I’m not that big fan of Lives. Lives, be it on Facebook, YouTube or LinkedIn, have a very important place in the hierarchy of the media that are disposed to communicate with our communities but they have to be used with caution and with intent. What I always say is that if you have something to say, be concise about it. Don’t waste people’s time. A pre-produced video where you have the time to think about what you want to say, where you can shoot it again if you need to because you were babbling on forever. I find as a very good medium especially for people who are new to video. Anything that’s longer than two minutes, I don’t click on.

I have some very close friends of mine who do Lives every day on Facebook. It works well for them. When they tag me, I’m not going to sit there and watch the video of nine minutes. It’s not going to happen. I would say keep it super short. A 60-second or shorter video has over 65% higher chance of being watched until the end. You want people to watch until the end because that’s where your call to action is. You want to make sure that you show up as you. Imagine people are going to work with you whether it is that they hire you or are hiring you, be it for a staff position or to consult with you. You don’t want to be like the bad date that shows up on Parship, Match or whatever with the twenty-year-old photo and 50 pounds heavier when they show up. You want to make sure that you’re you, approachable and relatable.

 

Do you have any tips for people who get nervous in front of the camera? This is something I work with my clients on a lot but I’d be curious to hear what your techniques are for getting past that.

I’m sure in your line of work, it’s even much more important because people are live and they don’t get a redo if they screw something up. The beauty of shooting a video is that you get to do it over and over again. That can also be where you get trapped in a loop of perfectionism and not getting anything done. We’re all too familiar with that. I would say a quote from Nike, “Just do it,” and practice. That will be number one. Number two is I imagine the person I’m talking to. I’m not just talking into a green light on my computer or a black hole on my phone that I can’t even properly see. I make sure that at the other end of the line is my favorite client, whoever that is that this message is for. That helps a lot because it creates an image in your head that makes it less scary.

The beauty of it is if you’re recording it, you can redo it over and over again until you’re happy with it. That makes it a lot easier. I have my clients who do not script. I let them do bullet points. I always say, “You are the expert of you. You are the expert of what you do. Go off the cuff.” When you’re talking in a sales call with a client or when you are talking to someone and you’re sharing your expertise because they hired you, you’re not going to stick to your notes for every single word. You’re talking about what you’re passionate about and what you know. Video is no different. People can smell inauthenticity being over-rehearsed from a mile against the wind.

I’ve always thought that rule number one in any kind of presentation is to make it about them. If you’re nervous, you’re probably in your own head thinking, “They’re not going to like me.” It’s all the voices in the back of your head. If you make it about them and you’re talking to somebody, I have found that one to be very helpful to try to get me out of my head if I’m focusing on who’s listening.

If you come from a place of helping and service in general, not just when you’re doing video. For me, once I realized that, I had a seismic shift across all my platforms and that helped me with communication.

I do a lot of strategizing with my clients. When you’ve got someone who’s looking to get a video presence out there on the internet because that’s where you do it, how do you help them decide what to talk about?

Normally, that shows itself quickly in a very simple discovery, a series of discovery questions I have upfront. Often, when I do start working with people, there’s that initial fear that they’re not going to have enough content to put out videos consistently. I always tell them and it sounds dumb but it is so true. The more you do, the easier it gets. Maybe this is a little too conceptual but the moment you start putting out a video and you start engaging in a conversation with your community, whatever it may be, in that conversation a zillion opportunities open up for you. If you asked me to fill a content calendar for the next 365 days, I could get that done in one day. I have ideas up to freaking wazoo.

If your content is crafted smartly, you will create a bingeable effect. Click To Tweet

Film is a very wonderful topic because we’ve got the technical aspect to creative aspect to business aspect to strategy aspect until the cows come home. The moment you enter into that conversation on social media, even if it’s something a little staler and I love it for that, by the way, LinkedIn, you’re watching other people’s videos. People ask you questions about your content and if you keep a running list of ideas, you will never run out of ideas. Sometimes it gets people started with something simple as, “Do you have a lead magnet? Do you have the most frequently asked questions?” Take those, one question in one video, one tip in one video. Don’t cram it all into one video. If you keep up with that, you will never run out of content.

All of this is lovely but it seems like it takes a lot of time. I know you have a service for people for whom time is the most precious resource where you could interview them and then reuse the interview. Can you talk about that a little bit?

This is something that I’ve been doing with my existing clients for quite a while and it never even occurred to me to offer it as a service. We’ve started doing that. What it is is it’s beyond like, “Why didn’t I come up with that sooner?” We do a little prep session with you to make sure that you show up representative of yourself on camera and then I conduct an interview. It’s a little bit of prep time for me to get a sense of what the questions are I should be asking you, what you do want to talk about, what is important to get across. On Zoom, I interview you. I’ve been a documentary filmmaker for years so interviewing people is in my blood. We have a very casual, natural conversation, which allows you to show up at your best without being starstruck. It’s much like the conversation you and I are having now, Elizabeth. I take that whole interview. My editor and I worked some magic. I would say about a 40-minute interview can lead us anywhere from 6 to 10 clips, sometimes even more. With those little clips, we put a nice graphic on it. We make sure it looks snazzy. Your investment is 1.5 hours, let’s say, you can get ten videos out of it.

From using these ten videos, can you recycle them?

Yes. I’m a big fan of recycling. Sometimes there are videos that are not recyclable like, “Please join our masterclass tomorrow at XYZ.” You’re not recycling that but a lot of the content is recyclable. As for the frequency, which I’m assuming is going to be the next question, if you’re only posting videos once a week then you probably don’t want to recycle for 2 to 3 months. We are posting a video every single day so we shamelessly recycle after about two months. Let’s be honest. The people that follow you on social media, the likelihood that even if you were to recycle the same video in the same week every day, the likelihood that the same people are going to see the same video again is very small unless you’re super famous and a huge crowd of people is following you. For us normal pedestrian users of social media, you can recycle. You always have the opportunity to write a slightly different post that goes with the video.

I often think about people who will say, “What if I say the same thing over and over again or if I tell the same story over and over again?” I always think about Beyonce and Tina Turner who don’t change their song list. They change their audience. If people have heard you once and they like it, they’ll listen again because they’ll hear more things the next time around.

We are not at the level yet of Beyonce and Tina Turner so I think we’re fine. Some things bear repeating because if somebody has that pain point of, “I don’t have enough time to do video marketing,” if I can approach a topic from 3, 4 or 5 different angles, they might not hear me the first three times. By the fourth time they go like, “That makes a lot of sense.” I would not be afraid of repetition at all. If nothing else, it speaks to the consistency of your brand. For some people, that is very reassuring.

 

Nina Froriep, this has been so much fun to have you on here. I confess I wasn’t sure if video marketing would be useful for those with a corporate job or those who are looking for a better corporate job. You have educated me. I’m thrilled to find out that this is something that can be used. It’s marvelous. If we had one place to start, where would it be?

It’s by propping up your laptop, your iPhone or a smartphone, I should say. Shoot some video and get going with it. Even if you don’t post it, just shoot some videos. See how it fits. See how it feels. You might discover your inner ham. There are so many quick ways to get to a good-looking video. The technical aspect and the delivery mechanism should not be holding you back especially for also a little bit of a younger generation.

I must say this is one thing that the pandemic has done for us. We’re used to seeing ourselves on video. Often if I have a client who needs to review a video and analyze a video of themselves, I always say, “Go through it at least three times.” The first couple of times, you’re going to go, “Do I really do that thing with my mouth? Look at me. I didn’t comb my hair right.” All of that. Everybody does. You can’t be analytical and see what’s worth using and what isn’t until after you’ve been past that human stage of, “Is that what I look like?” That’s wonderful. Move ahead and start. That’s a wonderful thing.

Nina Froriep, it’s been a delight to have you as a guest. I hope we will have many more chances to talk about this. Nina is on Clockwise Productions. You can find her on LinkedIn all the time because she does videos every day. Let me remind you that if you’re curious about how your presentation skills are going, take our free four-minute assessment at SpeakForResultsQuiz.com. That’s where you can see where your presentation skills are strong and where maybe a little support could help you get better results. I’ll see you at the next one.

 

Important Links

• SpeakForResultsQuiz.com
• Clockwise Productions
• Nina Froriep – LinkedIn
• Nina Froriep – Facebook
• Nina Froriep – Instagram
• Nina Froriep – Youtube Channel

 

About Nina Froriep

Nina Froriep enables business coaches to grow their businesses with consistent and easy-to-implement video content so they can attract their ideal clients. Nina has been in TV, film, and video production her entire life. She’s seen it all from the early days on independent features, to big national TV commercials, corporate mega-shows, and (Emmy award-winning) documentary films, including one she produced and directed, called Abraham’s Children.

Along the journey, she met many awesomely wonderful people and a few badasses. Nina has negotiated with teamsters, clients, actors, crew, children, police officers, a few dogs, and one snake. All of them worth great stories. She loves spending time outside, especially in the Swiss alps where she’s from. Nina’s owner is a Dachshund-Yorkie-mix, called Tigger.