Adrian is the Creative Director of Dragonfruit Media
Dragonfruit Media’s mission statement is to make the absolute best content in the world to make the world a better place
He worked with the Peace Corps in the Dominican Republic for 2 years and lived in Botswana for 6 months.
He loves theater & acting, especially musicals.
He loves basketball & he’s a Blazers fan.
His favorite books are Setting Free the Bears by John Irving & Banjo by Claude Mckay.
His role models are John Cassavetes, John Coltrane, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
He believes that human behavior is deeply impacted by fear of the unknown.
Here’s what we covered on the episode:
The Creation of Dragonfruit Media + YouTube Benefits
- How Adrian sent me a creative pitch and is here to talk about video is the future of content and how design plays a role in that
- Adrian shares that he came back to the United States because of the pandemic after being in the Peace Corps in the Dominican Republic and always knew he wanted to do something in video production or visual storytelling
- After returning to The United States, Adrian began working with a friend from college making YouTube videos for businesses or other creators
- When they started seeing a lot of content about Search Engine Optimization (SEO), they thought about all the business surrounding outsourcing blog optimization and articles to build an organic audience and realized they could do that on YouTube
- The idea behind their agency was to use the organic promotion algorithm on YouTube to help businesses, brands, and creators really grow powerful, organic audiences on the YouTube platform through optimized video content
- There are many benefits to YouTube; Adrian shares that it is the second most used social media platform, and there are so many people on it that you can niche down and repurpose your YouTube content across all other platforms
- Adrian explains how organic promotion and discoverability is built into YouTube’s algorithm, which means the supercomputer behind Google and Youtube is more powerful than other platforms and actively takes your content and puts it in front of potentially millions of people and is trying out to see if people will engage with it
- If you are a small business owner, you have a brand or are trying to become an influencer or online creator, Adrian says YouTube is one of the best places you can go to get in front of people as quickly as possible
- One of the biggest benefits to YouTube is the brand value it has by creating an archive of content that communicates your brand position, unique value proposition, brand identity, and the voice of your business in a way that Adrian believes other mediums can’t
Content Creation + Retention
- Dragonfruit Media thinks of YouTube content in 3 different levels; discoverable-focused content, community-focused content, and conversion-focused content
- When you’re growing a YouTube channel, you want to start with the discoverable content, trying to reach as many people as possible, and as you move down the funnel, focusing more on speaking directly to your subscribers and then eventually showing features or tutorials of your offer
- If you are feeling overwhelmed by the video production process, Adrian says to start by systemizing your content creation as much as possible so it can be efficient as scalable
- One way to make content creation easier is by batching – Adrian explains this is where you block off 2-3 hours of your time and record multiple videos, so you have content to push out for the whole month instead of feeling like you have to record a new video each week
- At Dragonfruit media, they work with clients to identify their ideal target audience, leading into their value proposition which is where you think about how you want to help your audience, leading into content buckets and breaking up your valuable content into categories, and finally leading into video concepts
- Design in video content is super important for retention – you can use design in videos through B-roll footage, transitions, text effects, animations, stock footage, etc.
- Adrian shares one easy way to optimize for retention that anyone can do is through faster cutting or jump cuts, where you throw your video into any basic video editing system and cut out all the pauses as you’re talking
Dragonfruit Media Offers + Using Videos in Sales Funnels
- How Dragonfruit Media breaks its services up into two categories: production and analytics
- Adrian explains for their full production clients, they start with the initial ideation of video concepts, build out a long-term strategy and content plan, create titles and thumbnails, write the scripts, help with recording and production design and handle all the post-production like editing, sound design, color grading and finally manage the publication and monitor the analytics
- The analytic side of Dragonfruit Media is for people who are already producing and editing their videos but want someone to deep dive into their data and take a look at what’s working, what’s not and suggest adjustments
- When you’re starting to use videos for your business and sales funnel, Adrian says step 1 is to build your organic audience on YouTube and focus on discoverable content that delivers free value
- Once you have built your organic audience, Adrian says step 2 is where you can start directing people off-platform and start promoting your newsletter, for example, or you can create more community-oriented videos about what you do and tie it back to the discoverable videos you’ve been making
- Step 3 is to create conversion-focused content where you break down exactly what your offer is to really convey your service or product in a way that is more compelling, colorful, and convincing than a normal landing page or blog post
- Adrian gives an example of a client who wasn’t necessarily trying to make sales on YouTube but saw they could build authority and become a thought leader in their niche on YouTube through video content to convey their brand value
Creating Brand Value
- Dragonfruit Media is all about longevity when it comes to YouTube and focuses on building the right audience and building brand value
- Adrian explains that revenue is important, but it also can be hard to track how on YouTube, so he says your mindset when investing in your YouTube channel should be more focused on getting in front of more people, increasing the value of your brand, and growing your business
- If you are investing in your YouTube channel for six months and your profits are stalling, maybe it’s not the best time to be investing in a channel, Adrian says, but if you have the cash flow to put towards your channel, you’re receiving a positive response and your business is growing, you know you’re doing something right
- The best way to see your immediate ROI is to look at the comment section, see how many likes you’re getting, see if people are sharing your videos, and look at the overall feedback
- When you’re thinking about what kind of videos to create, Adrian says it comes down to what your ideal audience wants to see, how much time you have, and the resources you have to put into it
- Adrian reiterates the fact that YouTube doesn’t have to be scary, and says with just a couple extra hours a week, pretty much anyone can build a trusting, significant subscriber base on YouTube who will have the highest probability of investing in you
- Go check out the landing page Dragonfruit Media created for The Design Business Show listeners at dragonfruitmedia.co/melissa to get some freebies, including a YouTube guide and an optimized checklist of video best practices
Links mentioned:
The Design Business Show Freebies
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