My Biggest Headache In Doing Mixergy Interviews. And My Next Attempt At Solving It.
on May 22, 2009 - 12:42 AM PST
The hardest and least satisfying part of doing these (otherwise very intellectually stimulating interviews) is all the work it takes me to create those little video trailers that I make for each interview.
What are the trailers?
They’re the short, 2-4 minute clips from my interviews. I spend 1/2 a minute setting them up and another minute telling you why you might want to watch the full program after seeing the short clip.
They sometimes take me 1 – 2 hours to do. And unlike the research that goes into my interviews, doing these trailers doesn’t make me any smarter.
Why I make the trailers
- So people who don’t have time to watch the full interviews can learn something from the interviewee.
- To tell people why they should watch/listen to the full interviews.
- Because videos will help you connect with interviewees more than text will.
- Because everyone else does text. Video is what makes Mixergy stand out.
- Because it’s more powerful for me to show you what someone like Seth Godin said, than to tell you.
Why they’re a headache
- It takes me forever to find a clip that’s both short AND will teach you something valuable.
- It takes a long time to write an intro that does all this quickly: sets up the clip, tells you who the interviewee is, and gives you a reason to care about what’s being said.
- Sometimes I over-think what I need to say before and after the clip, so my intro + outro can take me an hour to record.
- Editing video takes a long time. (Though at least this part is mechanical, so it’s not nearly as big an issue as people think.)
My next attempt at solving this headache
Mixergy viewer Chris Overcash (AKA @overcash) — who has a passion for online video — got on the phone with me today to help me brainstorm a solution`.
We decided that — instead of searching for a soundbite within the interviews — when each interview is over, I’ll ask this question and use the answer as the trailer:
“If you could give people one piece of advice based on everything you told us today, what would it be?”
Why am I telling you this?
Because I sometimes like to see what goes on behind the scenes of sites I like — and I thought you might too.
And because every time I talk about the issues I’m going through on Mixergy, someone smarter than me comes up with a solution I never thought of.
Update: I got this feedback on Facebook
View Comments to “My Biggest Headache In Doing Mixergy Interviews. And My Next Attempt At Solving It.”
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May 22nd, 2009 at 5:14 pm
Wow.. it's crazy to see how such a simple solution can fix a headache issue.. Thanks for sharing.
You're the man!
May 22nd, 2009 at 5:17 pm
Hmm, I really like the trailer. I hate reading more than I have too (I read a ton everyday…)
May 22nd, 2009 at 5:21 pm
I like the simplicity of your solution. It's soft of like that unique “one question” you always ask idea we talked about…
I find that if I can remove any friction or barriers to repeated processes/tasks I immediately feel better about it.
BTW, I also don't watch the trailers anymore either.
Keep up the good work.
May 22nd, 2009 at 5:23 pm
Sometimes it is the most obvious solutions that we overlook. That's why it's great to ask an objective colleague for help! Brilliant.
May 22nd, 2009 at 5:38 pm
Thanks. I always thought of it as more valuable than the full interview
since it's quicker to watch.
But I'm not seeing that people are crazy about it. Hmmm.
Andrew Warner
Founder, Mixergy.com
May 22nd, 2009 at 5:38 pm
So I tried it today on 2 of my interviews.
Keith Ferrazzi gave me a 1.5-minute video that stands on it's own.
Matt Mickiewicz's response was good, but it was too short. Maybe 10-seconds.
May 22nd, 2009 at 5:39 pm
That's really what I think I need. A quick solution that solves this big
problem.
I don't mind spending all day working, but I want to put that time and
effort into something that will make me and you smarter. And this editing
isn't doing that.
May 22nd, 2009 at 5:39 pm
Thanks Lesley.
By the way, I clicked over to your site and I love the simplicity, beauty
and efficiency of your designs.
May 22nd, 2009 at 5:39 pm
I have to say, I agree with everyone. I have been recommending Mixergy all over the place, but I always feel like because of the preview at the top, I have to specify “It's not that thing at the top. You have to scroll way down”.
In fact, I just recommended it about a week ago on a forum, and I looked back at the discussion and I see exactly what I ended up saying:
“So his *full* interviews are not on iTunes yet and you just get the excerpts. Usually you have to scroll way down for the MP3 of the full interview.”
I will say that I *do* sometimes watch the trailers though and I *do* sometimes decided whether or not to watch based on that. More typically, I scroll down and look at the bolded text or bullet points in the summary/extract and decide on that.
May 22nd, 2009 at 5:44 pm
Hi Andrew,
I agree with the Facebook guys. I hardly watch the trailers now, or even read the transcripts. I just view the headline and then go straight to the full interview :)
Hope that helps alleviate your headache :)
All the best
Khuram
May 22nd, 2009 at 5:47 pm
Similar to other people i've been watching full interviews only. But your simple solution seems to be the way to go. One possibility is to summarize main learning from the video in text ( as you already do ) and not fret over selecting clips from video but just do your solution of answer to that very important question.
May 22nd, 2009 at 5:53 pm
Tom,
These comments took me completely by surprise. I'm so glad I asked.
Your response is very insightful. I had no clue.
May 22nd, 2009 at 5:55 pm
Thanks.
I need a new way to think of each post. Thank you Khuram.
May 22nd, 2009 at 5:59 pm
That would be ideal for me.
The text is something that I learn from writing up. Plus, I can outsource
that pretty easily. I already use Mechanical Turk to type up the excerpts.
Thanks. And thanks for the great feedback when I interviewed Matt from
99designs today. I saw how proud he was every time I read your comments. I'm
glad he got to see how helpful his site is.
May 22nd, 2009 at 6:22 pm
I love the trailers, it makes want me want to download the full interview.
Do you get significant traffic from the video sites where you post those trailers?
A quick A/B test should tell you if you're better off popping advil.
May 22nd, 2009 at 6:27 pm
I know you're not trying to make more work for yourself, but I'll throw this out. If you want to keep doing trailers of some sort,
- ask your question and see what you get. If it's good, append it to the front of the video as a hook (rather than a trailer) and post the whole video at the top. Then people who like what they see can just let the video keep rolling.
– post just that answer to YouTube as a trailer/teaser.
- When you don't get a good answer to your question, hang up Skype, turn on your webcam to record just you, close your eyes and think of three things you got out of the interview and then just blurt it out best you can. It will be less polished, but maybe more to the essence. Drop that in at the front of the video and use that as your intro. Then if you want a trailer for YouTube you'd be stuck, but maybe you don't need to have every interview have a trailer on YouTube.
I suppose the question is how many viewers you're getting by posting the trailers on YouTube and wherever. It it's a lot, that's the real value of the trailers I think. The people who are already on your site, regardless of how they got here, are probably just going to roll it.
May 22nd, 2009 at 6:41 pm
I get almost no traffic from the video sites. Maybe 1 or 2 hits a day. Maybe
less.
May 22nd, 2009 at 6:43 pm
Posting a summary or video at the top might be the answer. Though that might
be the same amount of work.
I think the interviewees want consistency or else they think I'm insulting
them by not showing their video when I show someone else's.
Hmmm. I think I need to get clear on the trailers' goals and then measure
how close they get me to those goals.
May 22nd, 2009 at 6:48 pm
I like the idea of appending the trailer to the beginning of the video
May 22nd, 2009 at 6:59 pm
I've never done interviews, so I'm just tossing out ideas because as we know – ideas are cheap; execution is the challenge!
>>interviewees want consistency
Well, I think the idea of putting it in their court as Chris Overcash suggested gives everyone equal treatment, but I wouldn't just spring the question.
I think of a time when I was asked this exact question at the end of a 30-minute interview and just came up completely blank and said something useless. 10 minutes later I had 3 great answers. Also, I didn't know whether the interviewer wanted a sound bite (which I what I gave him) or something longer. I sort of assumed he wanted an answer less than 10 seconds long, but maybe not. I have no idea.
So instead of springing the question as a surprise, tell them ahead of time that you ask each guest to summarize in 30 seconds to a minute the takeaways that they would really like tell everyone from their Mixergy soapbox and be sure to tell them you'll ask it at the end and be sure they know it's for the trailer that will run on YouTube.
If I were being interviewed about something I was passionate about, I would give some serious thought to nailing that question, so I bet you'll get a really high hit rate for your trailers.
As a side benefit, it also provides a focus in their mind for the interview.
Again, just brainstorming.
May 22nd, 2009 at 7:01 pm
Oh, I see. The question thing sounds great.
May 23rd, 2009 at 12:05 am
@Andrew
I think your interviews are great. Personally, I never watch the trailer. My modus operandi is scan the write up, see who the interviewee is and what the subject is. If it is something that is of interest to me – I will watch the interview.
Just my two cents. Cheers.
May 24th, 2009 at 10:05 pm
Most people are suggesting you remove the trailer. Why not just look at the hard data? Check the view count of each trailer and compare it to the unique Google analytics data for that page. My guess is that the trailer is more important than most people who comment here feel it is.
Compare traffic on both a popular post that has a lot of new users to Mixergy and one that has a lot of returning Mixergy users.
May 25th, 2009 at 7:14 pm
Andrew, same here…I just discovered that what I have been watching are the trailers!! Had no idea that I needed to scroll down to see the actual and full interviews!
May 25th, 2009 at 8:17 pm
That's very helpful.
Patrick, I so grateful to you for giving me your feedback. Thanks!
May 25th, 2009 at 8:18 pm
That's very helpful. I've done the same thing in interviews and then kicked
myself for not having better answers.
May 25th, 2009 at 8:20 pm
Thanks Alex. I really appreciate all the help you keep giving me with this
project.
May 25th, 2009 at 8:21 pm
Good idea.
The Owen Byrne interview page got 7,200 views. The trailer for the interview
got 1,650 views.
That means 23% of viewers watched the trailer.
May 25th, 2009 at 8:22 pm
Arggg. Thanks. I'm starting to see that others felt this way.
May 25th, 2009 at 8:28 pm
Thanks Michael.
May 25th, 2009 at 9:41 pm
One more thing you can check on is how many people watch the full interview.
23% is pretty high.
After taking into account all the feedback here, the 23% stat and my own personal opinion I suggest creating a *shorter* trailer based on a couple “post show sound bites” and put it at the start of the full interview at the top of the page.
May 31st, 2009 at 6:11 pm
Thanks Michael.
I think you're right. I'm going to start putting clips up so people can have
a sense of what's in the full program. But I won't do much production work
on them.
Details here:
http://mixergy.com/why-i-killed-mixergys-t…
May 31st, 2009 at 10:11 pm
Thanks Michael.
I think you're right. I'm going to start putting clips up so people can have
a sense of what's in the full program. But I won't do much production work
on them.
Details here:
http://blog.mixergy.com/why-i-killed-mixergys-t…