Of course, every tactic is dead depending on who you’re listening to.
But when it’s coming from Dustin Brohm, who’s in the trenches every day creating content on the Massive Agent Podcast, it carries more weight.
Non-Obvious Insights from our Conversation:
Agents aren’t engaging with talking head videos like they used to
“Talking head videos just suck. I posted one this morning, 20 minutes later, I'm like, ‘I shouldn't have even posted this.’ I didn't feel good about it because I don't think the format works.
The attention of not just real estate agents, but the attention of people in general, changes over time. Once a certain format or a certain trend is just overdone, people just start to glaze over and they just swipe to the next video.”
Talking head videos are about as basic, raw and authentic as it gets. Just you and a camera. So if that doesn’t catch attention, what does?
Test using visual gimmicks as the hook, not words and ideas
“I think it's much more visual than we give it credit for. The other day, my wife and I saw some other video where people did these pieces of bread with peanut butter on them and then you bounce ping pong balls to play tic-tac-toe.”
As a test, Dustin did something similar in his next 10 short videos, almost as a joke.
“And it did fairly well, I think, because visually people are like, ‘What is going on there? Why are they bouncing? What are the pieces of bread doing? Why do they have ping pong balls?’”
Clearly this is a sign of the apocalypse.
But in all seriousness. You CAN get away with this tactic, but it better be authentic to you.
Can you imagine Simon Sinek doing gimmicky hook videos?
Yeah, me neither.
“BUT, BUT…Gary Vee!” you say?
Gary Vee is genuinely obsessed with the question of “where is attention flowing right now?”
He monetized that obsession by selling social media packages to big, boring companies who hope he can make teenagers care about their big, boring company.
And if that’s your obsession, too, awesome!
Then visual gimmicks will probably work great for you.
For everyone else, it’s a trap.
It will be inauthentic, and the very people you’re trying to reach will be turned off by it.
Now for Dustin’s final insight on short-form video…
Create Your Long-Form Content with Short-Form in Mind
“I'm actually incorporating more of those short form attention grabbing tactics into my pod. Better hooks up front, getting right into it and start delivering the stuff.
I've been podcasting for seven and a half years now. When I started, I wasn't even recording video. It was just the audio. Now it's slowly progressed to where now I'm almost recording the pod, thinking about what the clips will look like.”
Even if you don’t dive into the world of YouTube Shorts and IG Reels, you can always have better hooks and less fluff.
That’s why there’s no big intro to the audio version of these conversations, no music. Just get into it. We’re entering a brave new world of UN-branding, and it’s going to make a lot of people uncomfortable. More on that in future newsletters.
Want to go deeper? Click on the audio file above to listen to the full chat, also available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Or Hit Reply and tell me why I’m wrong about Gary Vee:)
I had a whole chapter in the MicroFamous book where I broke down Gary Vee versus Simon Sinek. So I love the stark contrast in their styles.
Steal This:
Set up your phone next to your monitor to record you while you’re guesting on podcasts or recording long-form content.
Shorts and Reels recorded from an off angle are performing better right now.
Quick Links & Resources
Loved the conversation with Dustin, super open and transparent about what’s working and not. Connect with him, subscribe to Massive Agent, do all the things.
Talk soon!
-Matt
CEO - MicroFamous
Author - MicroFamous
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