There is a Difference featuring Paulo Simoes, Video Producer Extraordinaire

 

Summer is a great time to produce these videos since there are typically numerous job site options to showcase products in use and the days are long with the sun shining. This is why we want you to meet Paulo Simoes, video producer extraordinaire. His experience brings your message to life in a story well told. Friends, meet Paulo Simoes.

I’m Paulo Simoes, I own Brios Media. We’re a video production company. We’re based in Raleigh, and I have been involved in media creation for the last 25 plus years.

I’m originally from Brazil and I came to the US when I was in my junior year in high school and went to college, got a communications degree, worked in video production back when cameras were huge, and they had tubes in them. They weighed a ton, they had cables, and all of that has changed. I worked for about 20 years in the movie industry, the bulk of that with Sony Pictures. I was overseas, I was in Puerto Rico, Spain, and 10 years in Italy working, releasing films in the movie theaters, essentially creating marketing campaigns, and actually had the privilege of working on over 400 marketing campaigns, releasing films in theater. So that was really exciting. I got to work with some amazing people, some of the smartest people I’ve ever met, especially because when you think of movies, you have such a short window for you to release that product.

You have two to three weeks, so you have to be laser sharp, making sure that you attract your audience and you are targeting people in the right places. So learning a lot of that and use a lot of that to create my own business now, which is video production. So I would say what we do different than most people in my industry is the fact that we have that marketing background. We understand where people are coming from. So we’re actually creating videos that will meet the needs of our clients with the very focused attention in their marketing needs and who their audience is and all that.

Why invest in videos?

 

I think most people won’t argue with you that video is the best tool for you to engage with audiences. In fact, 92% of all marketers agree that that video is crucial through their strategies. There are so many statistics that I could share, but I’ll just keep to this one. 92% of them believe that videos are the best tool. Video is more engaging than text, than images combined. So if you look at even the younger generations that grew up watching videos and communicating with their friends through videos, these are the people that are now buying houses. They’re buying goods, they’re moving the economy. And so they were wired with video a lot more than people my age or even a little bit younger.

There’s something magical about video where you can actually see somebody, you can hear somebody, and it helps you establish credibility. YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world, and it’s video based. If I want to know, learn how to change a battery, and some machine that I bought, I’m going to go to YouTube and look at it. So people use YouTube for different things, even podcasts. People want to watch podcasts if it has a video component to it. So video is and can be the tool, and I’ll qualify that by saying that it can be a great tool if you know how to use it. So to me, it’s really not a matter of convincing people that video is the right tool.

I think where people shy away from video creation is the fact that they don’t really understand what videos they should be creating or how to do that, because it takes skill into using video to tell stories about who you are, your business and so forth. So to me, it’s a lot more about helping people understand how they can use video to their advantage versus videos right, or video’s better than other formats.

How do you overcome a cost objection to video?

 

I think people understand that video has a lot of potential. So it’s the same thing. Nobody will argue that traveling by plane is probably faster and better than traveling by car. But not everybody can hop on a plane and pay the ticket or even be a pilot. And so people have to make a decision. Some businesses are too small to afford professional video when I say that. And the people that have perhaps access to creating video, and you can actually create video with your phone. How do you create video? Well, what do you do with that? Where do you post? And so the objection to video, it’s more whether you can afford or not in your bottom line. But if you have a choice, if you have money, you have a marketing budget, and you’re already investing in marketing, there should not be a question whether you should invest in video because video is better, is more effective.

You just have to make sure that you are either capable of using video properly or hiring somebody or a team that will help you create the videos that are actually going to work for you. Videos that tell your story, videos that can reach your audience, videos that will be distributed where your audience is. So these are the things that go into making video successful for you. So that’s how I can explain the healthy way of looking at video as an option for your marketing strategies.

What are the emerging trends in video?

 

Well, as far as the trends, obviously the first one is probably TikTok. Everybody hears about it. But the question, whether it’s for you or not, depends if your audience is on TikTok. It doesn’t make a sense for you to want to be in a place where your audience is not. So that’s one. LinkedIn is a platform that is growing by leaps and bounds when it comes to videos, especially if you want to share knowledge of who you are, what you do, short videos in general. I would say that’s a trend. Sometimes even videos that are really short, people sharing knowledge, filming in vertical with their phones, that’s another trend, especially for social media stories in Instagram. Those are also popular nowadays. I mentioned already before, people that are doing podcasts, they’re having more success if they have the video element to it. I do that even when I go to the gym in the morning.

I’m listening to something, but I put my phone in front of me. I’d rather see people talking. And also, probably the biggest one that I see in the future is interactive video. And by that I mean if you’re watching a video, you’re probably going to have options where you can click on the screen and depending on your choices, sort of A/B testing, you move through this side of the story, or that one. If you’re shopping, you see something, you’re going to have a box, man, woman, and you can click and then you can select your size. So we’re going to start seeing more of these things in the future. As far as interactive video goes.

Which do you prefer, long form or short form video?

 

Well, my answer is going to be, it depends. And what I mean by that is this long video or short video, what’s the definition of long video? Is it Gandhi? Like three hour movie or 10 minutes? In our industry, when we think about length of video, short format is anywhere around up to two or three minutes. So that’s usually what most people are doing. But within that, you have short videos that are 15 or 30 seconds when you compare to the two minutes. The tendency nowadays is for videos to be shorter and shorter. And I remember even seven, eight years ago when we started helping clients, we were doing About Us videos, the videos that tell the story of who you are. And those were about three, three and a half minutes long. And nowadays we do those videos in about two minutes, two and a half the most.

But to me, if I can give some advice on this, you got to think of video in terms of how much time do you need to tell your story or to accomplish whatever goal you have. It’s like going to the movies. Sometimes you watch a movie and you say, “This was perfect.” I didn’t see time go by. This is perfect. Right? And sometimes you go and you feel like this movie should have been over half hour ago, so it’s too long. So it’s the same thing with video as far as using videos for your business. How long do you need to tell your story? Perhaps your business, you’re helping people with service. So it takes a little bit more time to explain. What you do is complicated, it’s complex, and sometimes the message you have is very simple, so get to the point as quickly as you can. So think of video as a tool and use that tool to your advantage. The size of it should be really depending on how are you going to use it, who you’re trying to reach, and especially what your message is.

What is a trick of the trade most people do not know?

 

I was thinking about this question, and I don’t know that I’m going to reveal anything sort of like a secret that nobody knows, but I would like to be very practical, and I would like to share five tips that to me actually can help anyone create videos that actually work. And the first one is, videos will work if you create them based on the three W’s. And I focus a lot on the three W’s, who you are, what you do, and what makes you unique. If you think about it, if you base those three things, videos on those three things, you’re going to be fine. The second thing is be authentic video is a great tool because people can watch you, they can see your eyes, they can hear the tone, the inflection of your voice. So there’s beauty into that.

But people can smell phony. If you’re pretending something you’re not, that’s going to come across on video as well. So you have to be authentic. The third tip I have is this. Focus on one single message at a time. If you want to say three or four things, create three or four videos. Each video should have one single message with one single call to action.

The fourth tip I have is whenever you create videos, speak to your customer’s needs. Sometimes we focus too much on what we think and not what our audience wants. I was just reading a post now on LinkedIn and I thought it was very interesting. They’re talking about how Peloton, the bicycle maker, they’re going to change their business model because they’re struggling to sell their product. So they’re listening to their customers and they’re going to become more like a health fitness program with tier pricing. So they’re listening to their audience, they’re customers, and they’re speaking to their needs. And that’s what you have to do when you create videos. So make sure that you’re speaking to your customer needs. And the last thing, it might sound simple and obvious, but a lot of people make this mistake.

They don’t know where their audience is. I mentioned TikTok earlier. Just because it’s a trend doesn’t mean that you have to be there. If your audience is not on TikTok, then why waste your time? You have to speak to your audience and find where they are and speak to them in a way that you’re going to relate to them. So that’s my fifth tip.

Hispanic workers make up 30% of the construction workforce. Can you produce bilingual video in Spanish and English?

 

Yeah. We’re doing that right now. We’re creating public service announcements for a water meter company as we speak today. Right now, my editor’s working on the Spanish version of that. Yeah, it’s a big need.

Take a look –

 

 

Thank you, Paulo.

 

Watch the full interview on the Draper DNA YouTube Channel by clicking HERE!

Please let us know if you would like to see a portfolio of the incredible videos Paulo and his team have produced including the award-winning video for our client Henry Company. We would love to bring your story and products to life through video.