Unleash Online Potential: Video & Websites with Chris Colton, founder of SeeSee
An epic YouTube Live session with Chris Colton, the founder of See See — a one stop shop for creative services that include Website Design, Video, Photography & Drone Services.
We're diving into the game-changing power of video and websites, and how they can transform your online presence.
Transcript below!
You can connect with Chris Colton here:
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0:00
Hello hello welcome back everyone to the unlocking website
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success series I'm really excited to be joined today by Chris Colton who is a fellow website geek and it's fellow
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Squarespace person but he does a range of other things as well including
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being a video expert and he does some really cool drone work and a lot of other video stuff for businesses uh far
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and wide and I'm excited to talk to him about where's two passions meet websites and videos
0:32
welcome again Chris do you want to talk a little bit about um you your business and how you got
0:37
here yeah sure so hello everybody my name is Chris and I run a business
0:43
called CC I am based here in Northern Ireland down in a little town called Uma
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um my journey kind of started in probably around 2017 uh when I moved back home after 11
0:57
over in England um I was working for Apple at the time
1:03
in Cardiff and then I came home and I just kind of was a little bit fed up
1:09
with working for other people and I just wanted to be on that kind of self-employed Lane and do what I want
1:15
when I want kind of thing um and basically High ice first started out was with websites
1:23
um with Squarespace um same as Ellie um and basically
1:30
before before even Apple I'd own a music course um and my dream job was to be like a
1:35
music supervisor so like back in the music for movies and videos and TV shows
1:42
I didn't know that that's really cool so I actually had a company called uh CC
1:47
supervision it was called so um the CC which you can kind of see behind me here my logo
1:54
um it's just my initials so C and C and the reason behind the name is that you
2:01
can we see the world with through eyes through glasses
2:06
um and yeah it's just my initials as well so that's kind of how it came up but um I originally designed a website
2:12
actually using Wordpress with the help of a guy that I worked with and I was
2:18
basically sharing like a song of the day um every single day on Twitter on on the
2:24
website um and then when I when it was common to update on the website I found out really
2:30
hard to do with WordPress WordPress is amazing but you have to be very technical when it comes to it so I
2:38
decided to move over to Squarespace and then I was doing kind of the same same thing
2:44
and then when I move back home I was kind of like what am I going to do with my life right now and I actually quite
2:51
liked doing the Squarespace websites and I managed to get like my first website
2:57
for like it was for a local musician here in Uma and I charged like 300 pound
3:03
for the website like and I was like oh my God I might be able to do this and as things kind of started
3:10
to go along with the website stuff I always kind of had an interest in videos
3:16
and um making videos um I kind of when I was working with
3:22
apple what I've been taking a lot of photos and stuff like that and what I kind of started to realize that when I
3:27
was doing the websites at the start was that people were like oh do you know anybody that does video
3:34
or does photography we need a person so I kind
3:39
of got thinking this is something I could do as a package show do website design but then also do your photography
3:45
and your videos um so my first kind of Step In was actually buying a drone so yeah I went
3:51
in like quite at a different level some people buy a camera straight away whereas I just bought a drone and
3:58
kind of jumped under it from there and yeah the Drone stuff kind of took off
4:04
um no pun intended and um that's kind of where I started to get
4:10
my passion in for video um and then bought a camera and what I
4:15
kind of quickly realized is that people do need more than just a website they need your videos they need your pictures
4:21
because as you all know yourself there's nothing worse that if somebody comes to you
4:28
and they're like yeah I took some pictures on my phone and then you upload them to the website then they're a
4:33
little bit blurry um or if they're like like if they send you a video and it's been recorded on
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like a 33 tan like Nokia looks like quite awful
4:45
um sometimes it'll work sometimes it'll not but I kind of my passion then for everybody who started to grow probably a
4:52
lot more than my passion for website design I just find it a little bit more
4:57
like ABS get more of a buzz off that rather than doing the website stuff so I'm kind of starting to lean more in the
5:03
video now um but yeah that was kind of how I've started to get in the video more so
5:10
started website design and start doing drone stuff and then I more so on the ground camera video stuff so that was a
5:18
very long-winded and true uh yeah that's how we got there no worries I just yeah I think that
5:24
that's really really interesting because like you said it when you're a website designer there's so many pieces of the
5:30
puzzle which is why I'm having this whole series right there's so many pieces that make your website go from like basic to like incredible and one of
5:38
those really really key pieces is really good graphics and um images videos and so we do have a
5:45
talk coming later with Karen flowers um all about that because she does such incredible branding photography and
5:52
videos I've never seen anything like it but she's out from London sad day for me
5:58
um but but anyway um because it's a lot of times you'll
6:04
get videos or um images from a client and they're like even if they're really high quality
6:10
they're not taken with a website in mind and I think even sometimes if you have
6:15
like a maybe a photographer friend who's used to shooting things like weddings or portraits and then they're being done
6:23
again for a website they're not having that idea of like okay this is being used for Branding so
6:28
it's gonna probably be put in canva with things layered over it or it's gonna be on a website where then you're going to
6:33
be putting it on a big banner and so everyone's centered yeah yeah it's the bane of my existence yes yes I want
6:40
things like if I love a good Banner image so like when an image is using a banner drone
6:46
pictures work really well but if it's say pictures of people and it's and it
6:51
like stretches them especially when it comes to mobile um it just goes like straight and then
6:56
there's like people's faces are centered like it's yeah yeah you've got to be really really conscious of your subject
7:03
when you're going to be using on a website in a different way there needs to be a lot more space around
7:09
um subjects yeah one one thing that I've definitely noticed with likes of video
7:14
um on in terms of websites is that I don't know you you potentially come across this as that sometimes clients
7:20
will send you over like um and about like a paragraph of about but it's loads of text and people just
7:28
don't have the attention span anymore to read those attacks so that's why I
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always kind of say can you explain this in a video about what you do um and people watch a video quicker than
7:40
they will read a long bit of tax because it's a little bit more engaging um bit more interest and it's a good way
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of getting over like complex ideas as well so if you do you need to describe what you do
7:53
um it's it's definitely an easier way to explain to people and people will definitely watch a video quicker yeah
7:59
like and I need to read and do this for my updated website but I used to have
8:04
video asks on both of my service pages and that's a tool that allows you to have like a little pop-up in the corner
8:09
and people can watch a video and you can chat to them for about two minutes and they really do cut you off for too much
8:14
which is good okay down to that attention span thing and then um people can chat back to you so it'll
8:21
send you an email somebody comments or has a question or something like that and I need to get that back I have some
8:27
updates to my site again that's the whole thing about being especially website designer you're constantly doing them
8:33
um but would that very nicely brings me to my next question which is how do you see
8:39
like what are good ways to use video across your website
8:45
definitely I think so for the likes of an e-commerce website
8:51
say you're selling something um let's just use makeup for an example
8:57
um a good way you could use video there is that you could have a video of the best way to put it on wear it style it
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um somewhere with I don't know like the likes of Asos and places like that use video to show like with clothing the the
9:13
fit I call it fats if it's a tight fitting outfit or if it's baggy
9:19
um stuff like that can be really useful um it's engaging as well
9:25
um because you can see a picture and a picture doesn't show everything whereas a video
9:31
can show you quite a lot other ways for service based businesses
9:37
for example just basically talking about what you do sometimes you can go onto your website and you'll see a Services
9:43
list but you maybe you might not know if they still do that service or how they
9:48
do it or you want to know how they do it sorry um it can be a good way to show what you do show the quality of your work for
9:56
example if you were to do car graphics you could do a video of
10:02
um recent projects that you've done um but it's definitely a better way of
10:07
having a showcasing your work to people um but definitely with the likes of how
10:13
to's as well showing how do you do this how you use this prod product or
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whatever you're you're buying you know um it can be a great way to show off
10:24
that there and I think a lot of my clients I've seen in the past they've done things like maybe they have a
10:30
soundless video that they have as a banner and it makes a good backdrop for that first thing when people see you the
10:35
thing is is you can have now we're going to talk about this in all these videos but you should have a lot of pictures or
10:41
videos of you across your site whether you sell products or Services because people are buying from you right
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especially with small businesses they're going to you for a reason rather than Primark right like they so that so you
10:55
should have a lot of those types of things but and while video or sorry well images are really really good for
11:02
helping build that trust and relationship a video does it even better right a video does it even better and so
11:08
along those same lines of maybe you have a video talking about your services or maybe you're showing how to use your
11:15
product other things that my clients do are having video testimonials from their
11:20
clients because in theory our brains always say oh right these are great testimonials and if you put a picture of
11:28
the client even better right because it shows this is a real person yeah but if you can put have a video of your client
11:35
even even better because they go oh my gosh right they can see that start to see themselves in that person yeah
11:42
um so it can be a really valuable tool what I find that I struggle with because obviously I design websites I've used
11:49
these these tools these features I do this for my clients um I don't do it for myself enough I do
11:56
create YouTube tutorials so I could use video quite a lot in my business I show up on Instagram stories I did have that
12:04
video ask um but yeah I would love to start having things like
12:11
my about me be me talking because that's clearly something I'm good at right
12:18
it's in my wheelhouse and I am chatty and impersonable and I'm bubbly and
12:24
yeah and that's and that's the thing like people want to buy from real people I know that that might sound
12:31
like silly but like sometimes if you show off your personality in a video people might like
12:37
like you from from that like I actually really want to work with this person they seem really nice they seem really cool
12:43
um showing your face off it makes it more personable I think for when people are spending a lot of money with you so
12:50
that's something actually that I need to update my website it needs a little bit of a refresh I think when you're
12:56
designing a website you like just completely abandon your own when it yeah and yeah I did an overhaul of mine in
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January and now I'm switching one some of my none of my web services are changing but some of my systems services
13:07
so you those of you on the channel probably know that I am obsessed with Squarespace and I'm totally obsessed
13:12
with business optimization and so some of my service assistants are changing and I'm like
13:18
did my website at the start of the year and now I need to split my services page again I really need to get those videos
13:24
in um yeah just never ending I know that it really is never and it's hard to keep on
13:29
top when you are doing work for other people um but then it is important to remember to Showcase your own stuff like to make
13:37
it look the best it can and I think I need to record a video soon have it on my home page basically it has like a
13:44
little breakdown of everything that I do so uh video photos uh drone websites
13:51
basically just talk through what I do because people might land on my um website and
13:58
um yes it says it in the Hat or what I do but I think if you have a video talent and maybe even showcasing off
14:05
like a little bit you say oh I do drone and then show a drone chat you know yeah
14:10
some case studies yeah those case studies example we are all about social proof over here yes yes and in a way you
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kind of even if you're not um videographer or somebody who's shooting
14:24
video you could call it your show rail in a way like a showcase and off your what you do
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um so yeah classic is a show rail um that you can send to people and what
14:35
what you do really um which is great so
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let's talk like if you were a small business owner and you wanted to start implementing some of these things across
14:47
your website so whether that be a big banner image or some case studies or some video testimonials or
14:54
um some examples of your work or a video of what you do or how you offer it or how
15:00
something works all these things we just talked about how would you like so you do this with
15:05
your clients quite a lot how do you recommend they get started this is going to sound like so cliche
15:10
but literally just set up we all have amazing phone like the phone the camera
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and iPhones or Android phones now are amazing like we all they all pretty much
15:22
record 4K which is really high quality and the thing to do
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is put it on a tripod make sure that it's in portrait mode if it's going on
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your social media and literally just press record and no like no joke I would
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do I was like maybe two days ago shooting a little video on color grid and it took me about an hour to do that
15:48
one video but I was I was stopping recording stop and I'm like oh that sounds that
15:53
doesn't sound right need to redo it but do as many as you can and you'll
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probably be sick to your teeth of what you're saying by the end of it because you've said it so much and said it in so
16:04
many different ways but um literally you just gotta press record and I I know from over here in Northern
16:11
Ireland it must be a culture thing but northern Irish people don't like to be on camera or talking
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um and it's just getting out of that like I think people worry about what what are they going to think of me that I'm talking about myself or my business
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but if you don't promote yourself like nobody else is going to shout about you so definitely share about yourself as
16:32
loud as you can um and probably a cultural thing as well that we don't really Pat ourselves in
16:38
the back over here um and say how great we are and what we're doing um but I guess that's can be worldwide
16:45
as well it is hard to kind of bug yourself up um and make yourself sound as good as
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you really are um but yeah just press record go for it don't care what other people think at
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the end of the day it's your business they're not paying your bills it's like you gotta do what you gotta do
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um and go for it like and you will record at the very start um I've sort of started to record
17:08
YouTube videos and stuff and the very start I'm looking back those videos I'm looking are awful like they're really
17:14
bad um whereas now I am starting to get a little bit better and you're sort of starting to see the progress so yeah
17:20
just literally just press record go for it if you're if you're doing it on for social media just make sure it's in a
17:26
portrait mode if you are doing the likes of YouTube and stuff just turn it to the side to make sure it's in landscape
17:33
that's kind of some of the key things but mainly now because everything is Tech talk Instagram reading we're talking websites today so
17:40
for website video Yeah website video definitely definitely landscape if it's
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going on social media and you want to have it on social media always make sure that it is Portrait but yeah for the
17:53
likes of websites I definitely don't recommend doing a portrait doing landscape but literally
17:59
just go for it and um yeah you will be awful at the start but you'll you'll get more comfortable
18:05
get more comfortable talking um and things will get better and and just go for it yeah so for me personally
18:12
when I first started with video because I do this YouTube channel um I've made reels I used to love doing
18:19
igtvs back when they allowed long form video yeah um and I yeah so I hated putting myself
18:27
on video at first um I was one of those people that I've had a podcast and this is going to go on
18:33
the podcast I used to be one of those people that like cringed at the sound of my own voice
18:38
um obviously that never like fully goes away but the more you practice not just
18:45
speaking and speaking coherently and doing all those things but the more you practice in general the more you're
18:51
going to feel like all right this is it's fine so I actually started just doing Instagram stories because I I was
18:57
able to tell myself these disappear in 24 hours it doesn't matter and practice there and then I started
19:03
doing um the igtvs and now obviously I do YouTube
19:08
channels and I think I started doing the same stuff I do on my YouTube by doing courses that in my business didn't fully
19:15
work out to be honest but it gave me the practice of the like whole recording your screen and showing people what
19:20
you're doing at the same time which is a skill it is so hard to do and teach
19:26
um but again I've done it I've gotten to the point where it's so second nature to me and the reason it's
19:32
I have a YouTube channel is because showing up and doing a 10 minute YouTube tutorial is so much easier for me than
19:41
creating a full-on blog post and I can then take that content and put it on my blog which
19:47
um and like you said it's more engaging it's more bite-sized for people to learn from and YouTube personally for me is
19:54
such a great medium because I get comments and leads from videos that I
19:59
created over a year ago yeah um people will be like this is exactly what I'm looking for and they just reach
20:05
out to me like thank you um or can I book a power hour or whatever it is so coming back to
20:12
websites talk to me about because obviously videos are such a powerful tool but there's some limitations
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um when it comes to using videos and on your website so tell me a little about using videos for your website and how it
20:25
works on mobile so I know that if you want like so
20:31
sometimes I've used um Drone footage for the likes of an engineering company showing off their
20:38
product on a really big like site where you get to see everything you get to see
20:44
their product but there's always when you upload the video say to the banner
20:49
and like the Squarespace there's always always have a fallback image
20:54
which is very important so that if for whatever reason the video won't load
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you have an image to fall back on but also you do have to be very weary that
21:05
when recording a video or putting it on your website there's there are multiple things that you need to consider the
21:12
likes of the size so you maybe want to upload the likes of YouTube first before uploading to your website
21:21
um yeah it's it's all about kind of the sizing on mobile like
21:27
obviously when when you go onto your website on your mobile uh once you press play it'll it'll be like the landscape
21:34
mode but hopefully when you turn it it'll turn into you know a larger video
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it's whether you kind of want to have those landscape videos or the portrait videos again so it's kind of figuring
21:49
out what's gonna best suit for each section of your website
21:55
um and and the format so even it is finding out whether you want to shoot in
22:01
in portrait or landscape which can be important sometimes depending on the part of the website really I know for
22:07
banners like when you go on a the likes of a laptop or a desktop a banner video is amazing
22:14
it can look so beautiful um playing in the background but you do have to always have the backup of an
22:22
image yeah like Squarespace actually doesn't allow the video to be played on
22:27
mobile so the way that their platform does this is like you said they have a fallback image and that image is all
22:34
that shows up on a mobile yeah it doesn't show the video and that's good for a few reasons like you said if somebody has a really slow internet
22:40
connection um it allows for on desktop that image just to show and then it allows on
22:46
mobile for somebody not to have to pull through loads of mobile data to play this video
22:52
um other things like you said that we use quite a lot in the website design world is maybe hosting that video
22:57
elsewhere like YouTube or Vimeo I do videos of like screen
23:04
recordings of like me scrolling through the websites I design and I do those in Loom because it's easy where I record
23:09
all my screen recordings and embed them to my website so I'm not
23:17
I'm doing anything crazy with that um the other thing is it some websites you can host as much video
23:24
as you want to especially if you're looking at something like you're having WordPress you're paying for your servers anyway so however much video you want to
23:30
upload to your servers your your thing Squarespace has limitations depending on which plan you're on and and that's
23:38
again having that much Native video in your website is something you should be very wary of how you want to do it
23:46
um but you're right there's lots of ways to kind of get around that so that people aren't having to download the full video Yeah while they download all
23:53
the rest of your websites yeah one thing I always would recommend to people is even if you're not going to use it just
23:59
start a YouTube channel so you have somewhere to put those videos because it's free
24:05
um you can upload their videos if you ever want to use it in the likes of a presentation or on your website you can
24:12
always link embed it into your website but just start a YouTube channel for you and you can put those videos up as
24:18
unlisted or private um so that they're not just showing up for the whole world if you're not
24:24
wanting that to be what they are yeah um I also have a lot of clients that do use Vimeo because if they're especially
24:30
if they're um it's sort of like intellectual property so if it's a course or something they've created in
24:36
those videos and we're using squarespaces members area or other features that Squarespace has
24:41
um they don't want those videos to be accessible off their website so you can
24:47
set up that they can only be embedded on specific domains and things like that in Vimeo
24:53
um so there's lots of things because I have found this issue where a client only wants one web image or one video on
25:00
their website maybe like one big nice homepage video of them talking about what they do and
25:05
why it matters um and then you go to you link put it in
25:11
through either the code or with the link and I've got a whole video on my Channel about how to embed anything into
25:18
Squarespace if you want um but they're embedding this video and then at the very it gets to the very
25:24
end and it recommends a bunch of people's videos that aren't theirs right they're embedded into their website
25:29
so there is just a tiny bit of extra code you can add to keep that from happening
25:34
um if you have a question I can drop that in the comments later if that's a problem you're experiencing but yes there's lots and lots of ways to go
25:41
around to get around all the little pesky problems that happen with free tools
25:46
um without necessarily having to go say the meal route and then that's that's that's a good good point that if
25:53
somebody is watching a video on your website and it is from YouTube and then a recommended video comes up that maybe
25:58
they're interested in they click on it and then they're away from your website so it's it's important to have those little uh
26:05
kind of safety nets I guess for keeping people on your website as well so
26:10
most of you Chris knows because he's and we do the same thing in a lot of ways but if you don't know best practices are
26:17
that any external links any links on your website that go to another website of any kind are opened in a new window
26:24
because it's that that same thing you don't want people to leave your site
26:29
um unnecessarily yeah and even the good thing I guess sometimes about
26:35
um embedding on your website they will stay on your website while the video plays but sometimes if for the likes of
26:40
YouTube they could open the app you know some phones have a setup that if you play a video it'll take them into the
26:47
YouTube app and then they're down a whole another hole of watching videos of dogs that's true I have in my site alone
26:54
I have on my home page I do have three little videos there are scrolling websites
27:01
might not be my home page might be my services page but I have three little videos that are like um mock-ups where
27:07
the scrolling website is inside a laptop or something yeah and those are because they're all like 30 seconds they're just
27:13
uploaded directly into Squarespace then I have some YouTube videos mostly on my
27:18
blog um where I figure if somebody's after information on my blog they're probably gonna watch two or three videos about
27:24
the same thing figure out which one's the best I don't yeah mine will probably be the best fingers crossed yeah and
27:30
then hopefully they'll come back for more information yeah um and then like I said I have the Loom videos and luckily
27:37
um Loom doesn't really recommend other videos or anything like that so that's another option yeah
27:43
um I really love loom like Loom is amazing for
27:48
given like kind of shown so if I build a website for somebody um I will record a loom and showcase oh
27:56
this is what I've done today this is an update this is a video update and it's amazing and it is another power of video
28:02
you know it's it's another kind of medium of video loom in your dashboard it will say you've avoided this many
28:08
meetings this week yes recording videos that's lovely yeah yeah um but yeah Loom
28:15
um for those of you don't know it's a free video software it does a few things and you can record your face so I create
28:22
videos like this um you can record your screen you can record both which is how I do my YouTube
28:28
videos I also create like videos for my clients I also create videos for my team
28:33
that that link that tutorial will live in our project management tool forever but that's a whole other side note but
28:40
what I think is the most valuable is you can record a video of just your face or video of you um you can also create like
28:48
little backgrounds and things and and so you can create a really good video and
28:53
host it there and get that into Squarespace or whatever wherever you're hosting your website without having that
29:00
issue of it referring additional videos I could YouTube would because YouTube
29:05
wants people to stay on their platform that's how they get to show ads and get paid right yeah yeah
29:11
I know and one thing I like this might not be um for everybody but one thing I do like
29:18
is when I'm sending feedback to a client I get a little notification when they watch it and that always kind of it's
29:23
always good for like keeping yourself up to date with where people are and stuff as well so
29:28
um it's always good to know when people have seen stuff yeah absolutely
29:35
so first off I know we've had a couple people popping in and out of the stream if you have any questions for myself or
29:40
for Chris around websites around um video and websites run video in
29:47
general uh let us know but so I would like to kind of harness
29:52
come back to that but like so we've talked about all the different ways that you can use web uh video in your sites
29:58
we've talked about how to make it like optimized and not slow
30:05
down your site or not direct people away from your site um how do you make sure it works on
30:11
mobile and that responsiveness issue is something with anything you're going to add to your site
30:16
um but tell me about like the power of video I guess so this whole
30:22
thing is meant to be like so we know it's going to allow you to be more engaging we know it's going to be really
30:27
really personable but talk us through sort of maybe some of the results your clients are getting
30:33
or other kind of wow things that you've been able to achieve through using video
30:38
for yourself and clients yeah well in a way for myself anyway
30:44
that when I put up a video and people say share it
30:49
for me and my own results it's getting me more work people are seeing what I can do rather than people just reading
30:56
on a business card or this guy does video well that's cool but when people share it and people see it
31:02
it's then giving myself more leads essentially to
31:07
show off um what they like to drone stuff everybody's always amazed with drone images like they're always the most kind
31:14
of impactful in terms of making videos for clients
31:21
I've done some charity work for um from for some local charities and
31:27
they've made videos and the videos have brought like out emotion on people like
31:33
potentially I I remember one video that they were saying that a few people were crying like watching the videos like
31:40
that emotion that you can like if you can attach somebody to a video with emotion they're already investing in you
31:47
straight away they're like this is amazing who's made this video or they're connecting to the company more
31:53
um what's the likes of um well for for websites when people put up videos you'll definitely notice that if
32:01
you check on the analytics if there's a videos page it's probably going to have more traffic than the likes of uh by
32:08
page because of that um people just prefer watching videos
32:14
you know um in terms of the businesses and when they
32:20
do videos I do get a lot of great feedback where people are saying oh um we've had some great feedback from
32:26
employees and um customers that they really love the video and that does that will stack with
32:34
people if they remember oh do you remember that video you've seen it's like kind of like if you think about Coca-Cola now at Christmas time you're
32:41
always going to think of that big that big truck and Laurie people always have only see a video they like connect it
32:48
with something um and companies find that a great way to connect maybe a video with a product
32:54
essentially you know um it's because it combines those two like the learning types like Visual and
33:00
auditory learning like if I just hear something I know I have a podcast and I listen to a couple but I cannot really
33:06
listen to podcasts because it doesn't stick like I have to see it I have to read it or watch it for me to process
33:13
that information so it kind of combines those two major senses and it can improve learning that's why it works for
33:19
engagement so well yeah um it also can be a really quick win yeah right so especially if it's a
33:26
tutorial or a how-to video or a testimonial it's that really quick like
33:31
it takes somebody probably mere minutes to watch something and do something that like for example
33:38
as a side note I spent a good chunk of my yesterday trying to figure out how to add a custom font into a Shopify site
33:44
that I'm working on and I read all of shopify's Articles and everything about it I could not for the life of me and
33:51
the second I got on a YouTube video I was like yeah like it involves code and stuff but
33:57
it made it suddenly was very just this like okay I know how to make this work now it doesn't mean it wasn't still a
34:03
whole rigmarole but it was it worked I figured it out right out there in the end yeah
34:09
um so it's that that power of video can be really really good
34:15
um I know you've also done videos for like um vehicles I know you've done it for like
34:23
um houses or in buildings and things things that just people again it's that
34:29
a picture doesn't do it justice situation so tell us a little bit about that so even like I don't know if sometimes
34:36
when you go to the likes of a restaurant or um even a business you can sometimes you
34:41
want to see what the place is like before you get there um and that that can be quite good for
34:47
customers who are maybe a little bit nervous um who need to kind of like see where they're going or
34:54
um they want to visualize where they're going essentially um it's a good way to show if people are going to like the vibe of somewhere
35:01
um in terms of cars it's good to see if people like it kind of saves people time
35:07
in a way like they're not like they feel like if I go down here am I going to waste my time whereas a video
35:12
can show them exactly what they're potentially getting into where they're visiting where they're going
35:20
um give them kind of like uh pre I think I think we like as humans we
35:25
like to know what's ahead of us rather than being surprised and I think video is a good way of showcasing that I do
35:34
um local estate agent videos here um and for them it's it's been very good
35:39
because it gives people choose people around the house I choose them the kitchen the
35:45
bathroom the bedroom and for them it's it's saving a lot of time with time wasters essentially people are seeing it
35:52
straight away and they know yeah I actually quite like the vibe of this place or this house I could see myself
35:57
living there yeah there's nothing like those three sick like videos but in the world before that either this full 360
36:03
images before they were starting to use video more with properties you'd kind of
36:09
go oh my gosh I kind of actually can see what this place like looks like it looks like you're just looking around and
36:14
you're getting that same but even better right with video um for these spaces and that can be
36:21
so because there's so many businesses that are probably going to be watching this that can be estate agents that can be a
36:27
um Airbnb host um that could be a car dealership that
36:34
could be um your phys if you have a business and a shop that could be your shop people can
36:40
walk around the shop they can see what and obviously your products are going to be updated but if you have a cafe or
36:46
anything like it's people love to I feel like they are in a space you're right and
36:53
it also can maybe give ideas for accessibility um if there's stairs if there's if it's
37:01
family friendly if it's um those kinds of things that people who
37:06
maybe have special circumstances um need to be thinking about in advance as well yeah absolutely and it's it is a
37:13
great way to show off your space and and kind of shout about what you do as well like here's our amazing Cafe here's our
37:19
amazing bar um here's our armies in car showroom and as you said for accessibility needs as
37:26
well it's good to show off that you have those other than somebody coming down
37:32
um say for wheelchair access for example um it could show off that it's there
37:37
rather than them getting down there and being like oh I can't go into this place because because of this reason
37:43
um it's definitely a good way of showcasing off spaces as well um I know I like to see like where I'm
37:50
going and even some places are like quite hard to find as well
37:56
um and I did I did launch a service last year like where to find those videos where I basically strapped a GoPro to
38:03
the front of my car are and like like physically drove to the location
38:08
um that's brilliant yeah so so many places especially I don't I know America's very grid-like
38:16
um but if you're in Europe there's so many places that might be down like you go down in alley and then it's this
38:21
weird little Nook and it's not easy to find yeah and like
38:26
it's and it saves the business so many times because they're probably like getting phone calls being like hey I'm starting outside this place that you're
38:33
meant to be but I'm not here and then like it cuts out all that time um and that was quite quite a good one
38:40
because there was a few places especially in Ireland here we have quite a lot of remote uh roads and and stuff
38:46
so I I basically strapped the GoPro onto the front of the Bonnet
38:51
um and like physically just drove to drove the route with like there was a little map in the corner showing off
38:58
where it goes um and people find that really really handy and that is a good way of sure if
39:04
even if you're in a shopping market or a mall as you as you guys would call them like
39:10
um it's really really good to kind of show that off and just make it as easy as possible for people to find you and get
39:17
there and then as you say then just see your facilities and stuff as well
39:22
yeah and then it's also really interesting so you brought this up before but I kind of want to Circle back to it so it's not just big so we've
39:30
talked about various Industries and how they can use video um I think one of the biggest ones that's coming forward more and more is
39:37
for product-based businesses pretty much Squarespace Shopify any of these tools now will allow you in the
39:44
place where you add images and you know you usually upload a few images you can add a video
39:49
of that of your product and like you said it doesn't so
39:55
you can do video for wherever stage of business you're in obviously these big h
40:00
m and Asos and whatever are having professional done videos at the same time they're having professional done
40:05
photos of the garments right the outfits
40:10
um now you can if I know some businesses that do this right they have professional done images of every single
40:17
one of their products you can like send your products to people who do these images and videos for your site but you
40:24
can do them yourself too like you can in your home have a little light box create
40:30
these images um you can watch a couple quick courses my
40:35
husband's company has at the start of every
40:41
week they do a I say husband's it's not his company he works for them by the way so but at the start of every year they
40:48
have a week where they all get to work on their fun creative projects and then showcase them at the end of the week and
40:53
a couple years ago one of the gals in the company did essentially product videos and she made these like
40:59
incredible videos showcasing perfumes and all this and she's at all with her phone I'm pretty sure right
41:05
um there's videos out there that show you how to make these and it but it doesn't also need to be that complicated
41:10
you know just make sure you have the right light and and go you know give all the
41:17
directions and dimensions of the product that people will be doing um yeah I think people like when a new
41:24
say for example a new Gadget comes out I'm straight onto YouTube to watch that video like how like I watch people
41:30
unboxing it like I want to see what the box is like my husband does this too yeah you guys are weirdos but yeah yeah
41:35
it's a bit of a nerdy thing like but like say for example Apple have released a new Mac I want to go and see what it's
41:42
like see what people are testing out if it's gonna if it's gonna benefit me like the pirate video can make people like
41:49
I've I've done it numerous times where I'll watch a product video and after I'll be like yeah I need that I need it
41:55
yeah and we do it with the research side of like good products is amazing the
42:00
other thing is touch circling back and is a great idea is you having your users
42:07
create those videos for you sending out to you know maybe you've come out with a new product sending a few of your hype
42:13
the people who loved your last product a few asking them to create um a little video or give you a review
42:20
sending it out to and this is touching on influencer marketing but sending it out to people who would be in your Niche
42:28
or industry that create these videos on YouTube and there's a lot of differentiating factors
42:33
about whether they do it or not you know it depends on the size of their YouTube channel the size of your all these things but you could do a little
42:38
research I bet you there's somebody you know that has a YouTube channel or a podcast that would be happy to chat about your product if they truly liked
42:46
it you know absolutely yeah like that influencer marketing style of things is
42:52
is massive now and um like I I can only refer to how I have
42:59
purchased things in the past that I have literally watched videos on YouTube of somebody telling me that this camera is
43:05
amazing and it's gonna cut your workflow down or it's going to help out with your
43:10
workflow make it faster make it more efficient and I'm just like buy straight away like because it comes back to that
43:16
idea we talked about before it comes back to social proof and there is nothing more powerful than user
43:22
generated content yeah right absolutely there's nothing nothing more powerful than that
43:28
um people again it gives people that opportunity to see themselves and someone else it's not and it's not
43:33
coming from the person whose job it is to sell it it's coming from somebody else and I think with the likes of an
43:38
e-commerce website that maybe have a product that they know that they know is great and will help people if they have
43:45
a video on the product page who own the benefits and show them how it's used people will watch it and if something
43:51
clicks with them they'll they'll buy it so abs lately like the pirate video is
43:58
incredible and as you said people can do stuff from their home they can do it themselves I think there might
44:04
be this concept that you have to have a really expansive camera to be able to do these things and you definitely don't
44:11
like your phone as like phones are getting so powerful now that down the line and the computers in them
44:18
at this stage are incredible along with the you know the cameras themselves and I think the thing is is
44:24
it's all well and good to buy a really nice camera but if unless you're doing something like you're getting paid for whatever you're doing with your camera
44:30
yeah if you're not using it tons and tons and tons like the chances are is that your that your phone's gonna
44:36
outpace that camera's technology in like no time at all so and and the thing
44:41
about like fancy cameras is that there's a it's just not a matter of packing it up and press and record there are so
44:48
many technical things in it that you need to figure out whereas on your
44:53
camera everything is like nearly on auto so it's like it'll pretty much do everything for you straight away
44:58
Straight Out of the Box um and then yeah I said really quick I did not know iPhones do not
45:05
automatically put your phone on 4K mode yeah so you can very easily change it to
45:10
4K mode um so mine now is on 4K mode you can do little things like iPhones don't Norm
45:16
just naturally have the little grid so there's lots of things if you literally watch how to optimize an iPhone or an
45:23
Android for the best video it will like one YouTube video will have you sorted and you can do it all probably in less
45:29
than 10 minutes of like okay now every video I take is going to be amazing yeah and people will always ask me oh do you
45:34
recommend a good camera for my partner um they really want to get a photography
45:41
and I nine times out of ten I would say to them um start out on your phone and use your
45:47
phone like you already own the phone whereas if you want to get under photography you have to buy the camera
45:53
body you have to buy then the lens like lenses alone can be like upwards of 2000
45:59
pounds like more expensive on the camera whereas you have already got that in your hand in your in your pocket
46:06
every single day um and and kind of going back to what you said what we were talking about before is that
46:13
to get comfortable on camera once you the first time you do it you'll be like you'll be like nervous you're like oh that sounds so stupid but even just
46:20
record it and keep it locked away for practice column practice runs I guess
46:25
and keep doing it and filling up that like kind of like a bank of videos of
46:30
you recording and you will probably look back and be like oh my God that's so cringe But like after a while you'll
46:36
start getting better and more comfortable on it um but yeah just keep just keep doing it and and one other tip around that is
46:43
when I create videos that I know are going to be like like when I create my video ice cream I'm gonna put it on my
46:48
website I make myself bullet points like don't create a script but bullet points so that you can
46:54
breathe a little bit and be like okay I'm not going to forget anything I need to say um but yeah just practice it just takes
47:01
practice Yeah and then I say that's the thing about websites that video that you have on your home page six months from
47:06
now when you're way better at video you can you can put a new one up like that's not not going to be a problem yeah absolutely and as you said the likes of
47:13
stories is a good place to start because it deletes after 24 hours like it's yeah but another way is just record on your
47:20
phone um and and keep them there and if they're good maybe use them if not just at least but at least you've gained a
47:26
little bit of experience like doing the videos but definitely people don't need to spend thousands of pounds on
47:33
um video gear and your phone is is just as powerful nowadays and they're only going to get better so yeah absolutely
47:39
okay well thank you so much for telling us all about this and for helping us to understand the power of video and our
47:45
businesses in general but especially how we can harness it for our websites um can you tell us a little bit about
47:51
how you can help people if they're you know looking for video especially if they're in Northern Ireland but if
47:57
there's anything you can offer them from abroad as well um and then tell us how people can find you yeah absolutely yeah so thanks so
48:04
much for having me on and and it's been a pleasure um to talk about websites and video
48:12
um so if at the minute the way I work with obviously I do websites but I'm
48:18
kind of steering more towards video now because I just find it I just it gives me a little bit more of a buzz kind of
48:24
you can send the websites my way yeah I'll send them your way um but yeah with videos so we can do
48:31
like one to three minute videos um we can do a little bit of Photography as well
48:37
um a lot of people if you have like big promises and stuff like that drone uh videos are amazing way to Showcase your
48:45
space showcase what you're doing um if people kind of want to get in touch they can go to www
48:52
dot and then put too many W's there www.cc.ie so you'll kind of see it's
48:59
about behind me um and get in touch there um I do a lot of stuff
49:05
um in terms of video and have a lot of equipment with recording and stuff so
49:12
um yeah that's kind of everything that I can sort of think about now effort and where can people find you other than so
49:18
that you're on CC yeah so yeah yeah um uh Instagram uh it's just ccie
49:27
um so it's s-e-e-s-e-e-i-e um every time I'm on the phone I'm giving up my email I have to explain to
49:33
people that it's not just the two ladder scenes so I'm like CC but it's s-e-e-s
49:39
okay they'll all be in this in the show notes as well so don't worry about that and then on Tech talk as well
49:46
um I'm kind of having a lot of fun with Instagram reasons
49:52
the thing I found about video and Instagram reads is that
49:57
um even though we're talking about websites but when Instagram reads came out views were like really high they're like ten thousand whatever but now it's
50:04
a lot slower so um but I'm having a lot of fun with that but um also I have a YouTube channel
50:12
um as well it's just under Chris Colton um and what kind of content do you create there on your YouTube channel so
50:17
yeah recently I I converted a Volkswagen crafter van and do like a camper van so
50:25
it's kind of yeah that whole van life thing is so many people's like Dreams yeah including me yeah but I actually
50:32
recently sold it but I've got a smaller one that I'm gonna do up so yeah kind of doing that and I'm gonna I need a
50:37
project huh yeah exactly yeah exactly but uh recently I've been getting really into like electric cars and electric
50:43
vehicles so doing reviews of those and then I'm just kind of doing tech reviews
50:48
and stuff as well so going for the the Thousand subscribers to start monetizing
50:54
and stuff like that so see how it goes but yeah that's that's kind of uh well go subscribe to Chris
51:00
subscribe to this channel as well and um we're so glad to have you thank you
51:06
so much well thank you so much for having me bye everyone bye.
