Housekeeping - We've Started to Crosspost...But...

There is always a but.

I like to think I'm a smart guy. However, I'm smart enough to know that I don't know everything.

I really thought I understood video production and cross posts across different social media channels.

HA!

We are cross posting right now on YouTube and Facebook. We haven't started on Instagram.

There are two challenges we are facing right now.

1) Framing for a video that is horizontal (traditional 16:9) is very different from vertical framing (TikTok). You really can't orient and frame a camera to do both at the same time and have it look normal. You can do either and go 1:1 (square) for Instagram and Twitter. We've tried a lot of solutions in the studio to "record once, edit many" to no avail. This is what I mean by "go slow so we can move fast."

2) We want to be able to do a single video shoot to edit an under 60 second version that is TikTok AI friendly and can be posted on YouTube shorts and Instagram. We want to be able to take the same video (which is recorded longer) and create a longer version that is for YouTube and Facebook that doesn't have to dance around TikTok AI. That requires scripts, which requires a teleprompter. We have a lot of options here - however - the problem goes back to number one and the framing issue. Additionally, the phone based teleprompter option we almost settled on doesn't permit us to add images in post-production. No maps.

To say that I am shocked that there isn't a solution to address some of these issues (BigVu is close) would be an understatement. We're meeting with someone smarter than me on August 9 to discuss and determine what our options are and what we may be overlooking.

I believe this isn't a "we need to buy this piece of hardware" issue at this point. Between all the equipment from the marketing side of the house, we've got this covered like a wet blanket. This is either here is what I need to know or - what you want to do isn't possible.

I've been very reluctant to let go of the video editing because - I love it. My nuerodivergent brain loves it. The reality is I may have to let it go (cough, cough, anyone interested in editing videos, cough, cough) and let someone else deal with post-production and publishing so I can spend more time running the show.

TikTok is a frustrating platform because of the Orwellian content requirements and the use of newspeak - even if "left the chat" is funny versus killed in combat. Oh my, can't say killed because negative - I digress.

YouTube is by far a much better platform for this but 3K followers versus almost 240K. Welcome to my world. Long housekeeping update to let you know:

1) We are cross posting videos as of Friday

2) It isn't optimized and we still can't do shoot once edit many

3) Any video editors in the house with a good fat internet connection and can be on almost 24/7 call because the news cycle doesn't care?