AP 0218: How Did You Create Your Tutorials?

AskPat 218 Episode Transcript

Pat: What’s up, everybody? Pat Flynn here, and welcome to Episode 218 of AskPat. Thank you so much for joining me. We have a great question today from Doug. But before we get to that, I do want to thank today's sponsor, which is FreshBooks.com.

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Awesome. Now, let's get to today's question from Doug.

Doug: Hi, Pat. My name is Doug Hastings. I'm on LinkedIn, at Doug Hastings. Thinking of launching—not thinking of it—taking steps to launch a blog on coaching lawyers in business development and other aspects. Searching around on the internet, I came across your tutorials on setting up a blog. Fantastic. Really great information. You're getting so many comments on that page.

I'm thinking of an audio only blog, but I originally started with the concept of a video blog, that would allow for showing tutorials, showing step by steps, etc. I see how you did those, or I see the product of how you put together those tutorials on launching a podcast, and I'm watching that thinking, “That's exactly what I want to do.” The video introduction that then switches into audio with graphics, that flipbook you have for tips, the ability to scroll through screens and show websites, all of that is fantastic.

I thought, “Is there a way to ask Pat how that's put together? Is there a single program?” I imagine not. I imagine it's a whole suite of things that you use to make that happen. Anyway, it just looks gorgeous. It's very functional, very easy to consume, and I wanted to see if you had some thoughts on how you put those tutorials together. Thank you so much.

Pat Flynn: Hey, Doug. Thank you so much for the question. I really appreciate it. I appreciate the kind words about the tutorials that I do. I honestly haven't done as many as I should. I really love putting them together, and I'm going to tell you exactly how I do that in just a second.

For those of you who are wondering where you can find those tutorials and get an example of what they might look like, really easy. You just head on over to PodcastingTutorial.com, and you'll see the videos I put together and that whole epic post that has been shared thousands of times. Hundreds of people have used it to create their own podcasts. Like Doug was saying, I feel it was put together in a way that's very easy to consume, which is what you want for the people who are going to go through those tutorials that you're creating. I said I wish I had done more.

I've been lacking in the video department in 2014, but that's going to change next year and there will be more videos and tutorials, made up of multiple videos, like in that particular tutorial. I've done many other tutorials in the past from everything from keyword research to setting up your domain and hosting account, and things like that. Plenty more things to take care of. Doug, you and everybody else out there are going to see much more from me. This is how I'm going to go about it.

There's a lot of different components, especially in those podcasting tutorials. With the podcast, specifically, there's a lot of different components. I didn't want to put all those into one single video. I put them and broke those down into many . . . in several different videos. For example, you have to find out what equipment to use, and that's one particular video. The second video, okay, is all about how you record an episode. The third video it's about how to edit it, and all that stuff.

You want to break down whatever you are trying to teach. Break it down into bite-sized consumable videos. You could have one giant long video, but a lot of people will appreciate the fact that there's a stopping point in between each of those different segments. Think about what you're going to do first.

I think before we get into equipment and software and things of that nature, I do want to say that, if you're going to create a tutorial, think about what the main goal is for your audience who's going to go through this tutorial. What do you want to happen to their lives after they go through it? How is their life going to be transformed? What are they going to know? What are they going to get out of it? As long as you know what that is, it's going to help drive all your decisions moving forward when you create this tutorial.

Beyond that, I would recommend that you storyboard it out. Much like a group of people will do when they're creating a movie. You want to do the same thing with your tutorials as well. You don't have to get super intricate. You don't even have to . . . I wouldn't even recommend actually drawing out where people are standing and what objects are in the screen. You don't need to go that far. Just actually have it to a point where you know what shots need to be created, how things are going to fit together, and overall sort of a bird’s eye view at the end what it's going to look like when people go through it.

Script out what you're going to say. Outline it at least. You don't necessarily need to say every word, but at least know what you're going to say in each particular segment of the video. What's cool is, especially in that particular podcasting tutorial, none of the videos are just one shot. They are all multiple shots, so it gives me an opportunity as I create them to just focus on one shot, getting that part right, and then moving on to the next.

For example, when you start one of those videos, it's just a talking head of me saying, “Hey, welcome. This is Video 1 of the podcasting tutorial, by the end of this you're going to have your very own podcast up on iTunes. Let's get started.” Then I turn my head and then it fades into an intro.

Let's take this piece by piece. That talking head shot, that was taken with DSLR camera. You don't necessarily need to have a DSLR camera, but that is what's going to give you that really clean, crisp result. If you want to get that blurry background effect, you can use a lens like a 1.4 aperture 50mm lens, which is truly the blurred background like you see in a lot of professional videos. That's all because of the lens is being used, not necessarily the camera.

Now, you don't need to get that fancy. As long as you have a great camera, you can even use your phone, but make sure you have it set up, and it's focused, and you look at it. You just do a couple takes, look and see what they look like and then you can go from there. I'll tell you the software you can use to plop that video in later to help edit everything. It's really simple and easy to use.

But, let's move forward. You got that talking head video, and then next you see this sort of branded animation of my logo, and it popping through, and all that stuff. That was created with a service from Splasheo.com. This is the service by Gideon Shalwick, who's one of my good friends. I've spoken with him on stage before. He's the YouTube and video expert out there. He has a company at Splasheo, which helps people create these amazing, fancy, eye catching, branded video intros, splash intros, and outros, and transitions, if you have that in your videos as well. I recommend you check that out. If you go through AskPat.com/splasheo, that will be an affiliate link and I do get credit if you do go through that particular link.

Anyway, that's going to help you create that branded intro. You don't necessarily need that. It doesn't need to be long and fancy, but just some sort of transition in between that video of you and your face, and then the next component, sort of priming people, getting them ready for what's to come. Of course, it's always good to brand your stuff, to sort of drill your brand into people's heads, and have it be connected to your particular branded business.

After that, then you get into the videos. Depending on what kind of video it is, there's different tools to use. If you are doing more talking head videos after that, you can just use the same camera as you did in the intro, but a lot of that tutorial is made up of screen recordings of what's on my computer. That takes you through how to use different types of software, and how to do this and how to do that to set up your podcast.

That's done using a particular piece of software called ScreenFlow, which is a screen capture recording software. That's the one I would recommend if you own a Mac. If you own a PC, you can use Camtasia Studios. Both do the exact same thing, and they are great, but not only great for just recording what's on your screen, they are great for editing as well.

Even if I don't capture something on my computer, that I'm going to use in a particular video. Even if I record it on my phone or a DSLR camera, I plop it into ScreenFlow. Because it makes it incredibly easy to edit, slice, dice, move things around, and add cool effects like a fade in. Perhaps, when you're starting a new video or segment, or if you have two different clips that you want to try and blend together, or move from one segment to the next, just use a quick transition and do a dissolve transition to merge those two. It makes it really professional.

It's very easy to use, especially with this particular piece of software, and you can add text and call outs, and things like that on top of those screen recordings as well. Even on top of your DSLR face videos, if you need to do that. Highlighting the important parts of what you're saying, you can even zoom in and out in particular spots, to make sure that people are seeing the things they should be seeing on the screen. Again, ScreenFlow, that's been probably the most used software besides Garage Band on my particular computer, and PhotoShop, because I'm in love with PhotoShop, and I use it quite a bit. ScreenFlow for Mac users, Camtasia Studio for PC.

Now, beyond that you also need to make sure you have great audio. You don't want to use default audio that's coming from your phone, although that's actually not bad, depending on what kind of phone you have now. The build in microphone on your computer, probably not so good. You're going to want to get a good, decent microphone to help you with the audio to go along with your video, because your tutorials, people—if they're great videos, but they have terrible audio, they're still going to be considered terrible tutorials—people aren't going to listen.

Here's a cheap mic that you're can get. It's in my podcasting tutorial actually, and a lot of people have picked this up. You can use it for videos as well. It's the Audio-Technica ATR 2100. Just type in ATR 2100 on Amazon, and you'll see it there. It's fairly cheap, I think it's around $60, and it plugs directly into your USB, which is great and handy, because we all have USB connections for our computers or laptops. Again, that's the Audio-Technica ATR 2100.

You could also use it if you're using your smartphone as a camera. You can, instead of recording audio and video separately, which you can do and merge those together in ScreenFlow if you'd like. You can record audio directly on your camera phone, if you are also recording video on your phone. What you can do is use a Lavalier mic, which is a plugin that looks like a headphone jack, but it's actually an audio in. That headphone is called the Smartlav, and I think it's by Rode.

Just look up Smartlav on Amazon, and that is a tool mic that you can plug into your Android phone, or into your iPhone to create a really good sounding mic for you and what you need to do. You may need an extension if you're going to be standing further than, maybe, three feet away. Keep that in mind.

Then I use . . . after I capture all I need to capture based on the storyboard, making sure the audio is good, making sure I do whatever I need to do to teach somebody something. I put them all together in ScreenFlow, and then I export it. You can export directly to YouTube if you wish to do that. You can do that if you want, or you can export it as a file that you can then upload to something like Wistia, if you're going to be using a non-YouTube tool to host your video files as well, which I would recommend. I would never recommend uploading your videos directly to your web server, because it's going to take a ton of bandwidth, it's going to be slow, and you want the experience for people going through those tutorials to be great, smooth, and seamless.

Doug, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. I hope these tools, resources, and tips help you as you move forward with your tutorials. I wish you all the best of luck. Thank you, and an AskPat t-shirt is headed your way for having your question featured on the show. My assistant will email you very soon to get your information.

For those of you listening, if you have a question you'd like potentially featured here on this show, and potentially get an AskPat t-shirt as well, you can head on over to AskPat.com and ask right there using the SpeakPipe widget, which is awesome. I have to thank the people of that SpeakPipe who featured me in the recent newsletter to all of their customers about how I use the tool. It's been amazing. SpeakPipe.com. Check it out. Or go through my affiliate link AskPat.com/speakpipe. I do get a little bit of credit for people who go through that link. Thank you for that.

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As always, I'd like to end it with a quote, and today's quote is from Jeffrey Zeldman. He says, “Don't worry about people stealing your design work. Worry about the days they stop.”

Cheers, take care, and I'll see you all in the next episode of AskPat.