TikTok’s, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts and other short-form video content is arguably the most important type of content to be posting in the current social media climate. Given the world’s population has a diminishing attention span, the need to capture the attention of your audience quickly and maintain retention is essential, and getting harder to achieve. But with the introduction and growth of short-form video content, capturing the attention of social media users worldwide is a more feasible concept, and we’d say it’s currently the most effective way to achieve this, as the videos are engaging, often catchy, and attract user interaction – boosting your online presence. 

For this reason, as a business it’s essential that you’re producing short-form videos and sharing them across a range of platforms. This, however, may be a daunting task. Creating such content is no small feat – it can be difficult to consistently come up with creative new ideas, you need to have an understanding of videography and video editing, and the knowledge of how algorithms work is really important, among other things. If you’re one of these people that feels overwhelmed by this then we’re here to help! 

Here at Foxy, Phoebe and Jake recently employed Sean – a full-time content creator whose role is to solely make short-form videos. Knowing the importance these videos have in growing our online presence, and thus increasing our client base, but recognising how time consuming they can be, they felt it was important to expand our team. In saying that, we know not everyone can afford to bring on an extra team member for the sole purpose of creating TikTok’s and Instagram Reels, so in this article we’re going to walk you through exactly how Sean creates our short-form videos, so you too can create this content yourself! 

From angles, to editing apps, the tools we use to film and how to shoot footage, here are Sean’s top tips to help you out with producing short-form video content:

The first thing to note here is that almost all of our short-form videos that you see on TikTok and Instagram are filmed using a mobile device. Of course, you can use a high-end camera to capture footage, but the point here is that you don’t need expensive camera equipment to produce a high quality video. iPhones, Androids and other modern mobile devices have fantastic in-body stabilisation, so there’s no need for fancy gimbals either – just a steady set of hands!

If you have a newer model iPhone or Android, Sean’s biggest tip is to film in wide angle mode (0.5x for iPhone users). As we’re a company that operates within the real estate industry, using a wide angle camera is far better and easier when it comes to filming footage in houses and units. If you’re not in real estate, using the wide angle mode often makes for better, more high-end looking footage. Of course, it’s not always needed (like if you’re wanting to film close-up footage) and definitely not essential if you don’t have this feature – you can still create an awesome video without it! But, if you do have it, Sean’s tip is to give it a go! 

Sean’s next tip is to continuously keep the camera moving, as movement = interesting and engaging footage, which will ultimately result in greater audience retention. Holding the phone steady with your hands, start moving in and around the objects or things you’re filming. Video the objects from all angles, including both up-close and far away, and also try filming things at varying speeds. For example, you might slowly approach an object to get a close-up, and then quickly walk around it to give a 180 degree view. You should aim to keep the video rolling for a while so as to capture everything you’re wanting to film in one clip. In our case, Sean films a continuous video for the entire house.

Check out this video below to see how Sean films his content.

This is such an important tip and something you’re going to thank yourself for later in the editing process. The more content you get the better, as this will make it easier for you to piece the video together so you can create a cohesive and seamless clip. This is especially relevant if you’re wanting to edit the clips together so they’re in sync with a particular song you have chosen. As Sean put it, there’s nothing worse than going to edit everything together and realising you don’t have enough footage to fully complete the video. So, always film as much as you possibly can. It’s always better to have too much than not enough!

So, you’ve got all your footage… now what? Next up you’re going to edit it all together in a phone application or computer program. There are so many options when it comes to editing programs, but here at Foxy we edit our short-form videos in the phone app called CapCut. We highly recommend this one as it’s free, very easy to use and is suitable for both beginners and highly-skilled video editors. 

Before you start editing, it’s always a good idea to choose a song or have some options in mind. We find this to be one of the trickiest parts in the production process, as business profiles on social media platforms are limited to copyright free music, which means you can’t typically use the catchy songs or trending sounds. However, we have found a way around this! Aside from finding generic copyright free music, once you’ve found a song you like on TikTok or Instagram, you can use the screen recording feature or save the video to your device before extracting the audio in CapCut. Unfortunately, after you’ve finalised your video you then have to upload it to the platforms without linking it to that song thread, but algorithms often have a way of making it work. Instagram also has a feature where songs are identified and automatically applied after you upload your video, so it’s like using the sound on the app anyway.

After finding a song, it’s time to piece everything together. As per the video below, here’s how to edit your video:

• Open CapCut and click ‘New project’.
• Select the videos you want to use and click ‘add’.
• Add audio. Using the screen recording or saved video I mentioned above, after clicking ‘Add audio’ you want to select ‘Extracted’ and then select that video. This will just add the song to the clips you’ve selected.
• From here, you start editing your footage to the music. Click play and then pause when you want to cut. 
• Once you pause, make sure the video is selected (do this by clicking on it in the timeline) and select ‘split’. Then delete the part of the video you no longer want (select it on the timeline and click ‘delete’). 
• Another way to edit the clips is to select the video you want to adjust and then hold and drag the edge of each clip to trim it to the length you want. This is how you can also trim the audio. 
• Continue that process for all clips/ the entire video until it’s exactly how you want it! 
• If you want you can also add effects. There’s plenty of effects and other features in the app, so once you feel comfortable have a play around. 

Once you’ve perfected your video, export it and upload it to all your platforms. We normally upload our short-form videos to TikTok, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts and Facebook. When uploading them, make sure to add a short, catchy caption and always include hashtags. Hashtags are incredibly important for many reasons, such as ensuring you reach your audience and to help other users filter information. Make sure these hashtags are relevant. Use your niche, keywords and mention what your video is about. For example, here at Foxy when we post a video showcasing a home, we might use #homestaging #brisbane #interiorstyling #coastaltheme and so on. 

Posting short-form videos often and consistently is really important to make sure you’re maximising reach, engagement and interaction. Here at Foxy, our current goal is to post 10 short-form videos a week on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube and Facebook, with the plan to increase this over time (there’s been talks of eventually posting 3 a day!). We’ve found that this has grown our following across all platforms, increased retention rates, and boosted our audience’s interaction. 

So there you have it, our biggest tips when it comes to creating short-form video content. We hope these have been helpful and you now feel prepared to conquer the creation of your own video content. If you would like a visual tutorial on everything we’ve discussed here, check out our recent Foxy TV episode titled ‘How to Make Real Estate TikTok Videos’, which is linked to the right.

Thanks for reading! If you have any questions feel free to reach out to us on Facebook or Instagram – we always love to hear from you!