In this episode of the GradBlogger podcast, we talk with Dr. Sara Langworthy about how recording video drives her business. We discuss how she got started and the process she follows when recording. We also discuss what technology and equipment is needed, and monetization methods that can be used to generate money from your video creation efforts.

Disclosure: Some of the links in the podcast show notes and transcripts are affiliate links (indicated with [Affiliate] in front). If you choose to make a purchase through these links GradBlogger will earn a commission from that purchase at no extra cost to you.

Introduction

Chris Cloney: 00:01
Welcome to Episode #7 of GradBlogger, where we’re helping academics change the world through online business. I’m your host, Dr. Chris Cloney. In today’s interview, we’re talking with Dr. Sara Langworthy about her experience in recording video and putting video on YouTube and how that drives her business today.

This is the third and final of the live interviews that we recorded as part of the podcast launch party we had on April 13, 2019, in the GradBlogger Connect Facebook group. We pre-recorded this interview and showed it during the launch party. Now I want to share that great information in the podcast as well.

Chris Cloney: 00:40
So, Sara’s background in using video is quite extensive. I won’t go through her education background and entrepreneurship background because I actually talk about that a lot in the intro to the podcast episode. So you’ll hear that in just a minute.

In the episode itself, we do get into her process for recording video and covers topics like:

  • How video has played a critical role in driving her business.
  • What technology skills, tools, and equipment you might need to get started.

We also get into her thoughts and ideas on different ways to make money through your video by:

  • Indirect processes
  • Promoting other businesses
  • Direct monetization on forums like YouTube

Chris Cloney: 01:14
If you want to get the show notes for this episode, which are available as a PDF, you can do that at the show notes at GradBlogger.com/7. We also put together a cheat sheet with the top eight ways to make money through video creation, and you get that in the show notes as well.

As always, I appreciate you listening to the GradBlogger podcast. I know you’re going to learn a ton through today’s interview with Sara and I  hope you enjoy learning from her knowledge.

Chris Cloney: 01:41
So welcome to the first live video recording for the GradBlogger Podcast. This is going to be a videocast with Dr. Sara Langworthy. We are supposed to be recording this live for the podcast launch day on April 13th, which is where people will be seeing this video first. We’re also going to strip out the audio and make it into a podcast episode. So you’ll be seeing that in a couple weeks, soon after the GradBlogger podcast launch.

For those that are tuning in live here at the podcast launch day, the topic here is: how does video drive your business?

Sara, I’m excited to have you on the show, I know you have a ton of experience and I know we can dig that out of you and get that out to the audience. Thank you for coming.

Sara Langworthy: 02:28
Thanks so much for having me. I’m excited to be here today and to talk about video and whatever else you want to ask.

Chris Cloney: 02:34
Yes. Here with the podcast, and with this launch day, we’re looking to help academics build a business and change the world through blogging, podcasting, and video. I know you’ve done a bit of all of them. I’ve listened to all your podcasts as well and we’ll get into that. But the video that I’ve seen you’ve been doing over the last year or two has been exceptionally well. So that’s why I wanted to have you on.

So, I asked Dr. Langworthy for a website tagline and she said: Sara is a consultant, speaker, author, YouTuber, podcaster, and self-proclaimed nerd who loves helping organizations take an honest look at their surroundings and blaze their own trail. The reason I bring this up is that you’re a consultant, speaker, author, YouTuber, podcaster, and probably a bunch of other things too.

Sara Langworthy:  03:27
Yeah, a little bit.

Chris Cloney: 03:28
Which is actually one of the big reasons why I want to have you on so early in the podcast and get you in here today. Your level of experience is hard to find for somebody who’s been self-employed for that period of time.

Chris Cloney: 03:40
Sara has a Ph.D. in childhood development. I know her from the Self-Employed PhD community, which we’re both members of, and Beyond Prof with Dr. Jennifer Polk, whom you met earlier during the podcast launch day. She also has a podcast with Dr. Katie Linder called Make Your Way and has written a book, [Affiliate] Bridging the Relationships Gap, which about childhood development as well.

Her YouTube channel is called Developmental Enthusiast. Three years ago you’d mostly see videos on childhood development. Now she covers topics like:

  • How to prepare for a crisis
  • How to work from home
  • How to make money as a freelancer.
  • How do you get paid?
  • How much should you get paid?
  • Why you shouldn’t ask for $10 an hour and other great topics like that.

I gave that big summary because I want to share Sara’s immense background with the audience today and then we’re going to get into the real topic, which is how does video drive your business?

Chris Cloney: 04:58
So. Sara, I like to start at where we’re at today and then work our way backward. So if you could, what is your business today, or even your businesses today? Where are you making business as an academic entrepreneur?

What is your business today?

Sara Langworthy: 05:15
Well, thank you for the introduction. It’s always interesting hearing your own stuff come back at you. You’re like, “Oh I have done a lot of things.” So that was delightful.

To answer the question about where things are right now: as you mentioned, I’m doing a lot of different kinds of things. Primarily, I’m doing a lot of speaking and training and video work in this child development field. But I also have my foot in the video consulting and organizational consulting world, too. I  like having a diversity of things I’m working on.

A lot of times we get told in the business world that you need to niche down to one particular thing that you’re focusing on. I am a self-identified multi-potentialite, which means I love doing lots of different things.

Chris Cloney: 06:04
Google it, it’s a real thing.

Sara Langworthy: 06:06

It is a real thing. The book is [Affiliate] How To Be Everything, by Emily Wapnick. if you have not read it and if what I’m saying about doing lots of different things appeals to you, go read the book. It’s great.

Chris Cloney: 06:16

I do need to cut in because I talked to my wife three years ago before I started DustSafetyScience. This was when I was thinking about leaving my corporate job and after I saw the Ted Talk, I said, “I think I might be a multi-potentialite.” She said, “What the heck is that?” And now here we are, three years later. So go check out the Ted Talk and the book because it’s highly recommended.

Sara Langworthy: 06:39

Exactly, it’s great.

So, these days you can find me doing presentations and training with school districts or other early childhood development focused organizations, primarily in the Midwest here in the United States. I’m also doing some things online with video and packaging some things for the idea of training and public education around the topics that I covered in my book, which are trauma and stress in early childhood.

Then on the other side of the world, I love doing video and making video.  I have my YouTube channel and I’m doing a lot of creative content over there. I have a series that I’ve been calling the Honestly Series, which dives into some of these deeper topics around, like you said, how to handle a crisis. Or how much should you get paid for freelancing? Some of these issues are ones that I’ve had to wrestle with in both my personal life and my business life over the last couple of years.

Sara Langworthy: 07:44

In addition to that, I like to do a lot of consulting work. I love helping organizations and individuals figure out what they need to do next. If you feel stuck or if you’re like, “I don’t know how to move forward here?” I love helping people think through those kinds of things, especially as it relates to how can they can use video in their business, or in their organization’s work to reach new audiences or to meet people in online spaces. I love nerding out and talking about that, which is why I’m happy to be here today. Yay!

Chris Cloney: 08:15

We’re happy to be able to glean some of your experience with all that. So you have a lot of different things, but two of the big ones are:

  • Content creation and speaking and training in the area of childhood development
  • Consulting and training with corporations, non-profits, individuals that are like, “I don’t know where to go with my business (or non-profit) mission.” You lace video into that and coming up with a strategy for moving forward.

So those two areas are interesting. I ended up in the same dichotomy, where I have my independent research company, which is self-funded and trying to change the world. Then I have GradBlogger, which is trying to help other academics build on their business. How did you get started as an academic entrepreneur, or self-employed Ph.D., or whatever we’re calling ourselves these days?

How did you get started as an academic entrepreneur?

Sara Langworthy: 09:22
I did my Ph.D. here at the University of Minnesota in child psychology. Early on in my grad school career, I knew I didn’t want to go the traditional researcher track. I didn’t want to stay in academia long-term.

What was  fascinating and interesting to me was this idea of “How do we communicate what we’re learning in the research world in ways that are useful for the general public and for people who are working in areas related to child development?” So this idea of using video came in when I was watching a lot of YouTube in the 2010-2012 time frame. I was thinking, “Hey, there is a space here for educational content on YouTube.”

Sara Langworthy: 10:12
I had been watching several other educational creators doing cool things. Not watering down their content but distilling it into nuggets that were helpful for people, whether they were learning this content for the first time or trying to do a deep dive on a particular content area or subject matter. I didn’t see a lot of other people working in the developmental psychology space in YouTube and so I thought, “Well, let’s try to make some YouTube videos. I don’t know, we’ll see how it goes.”

A lot of it was just like, “Let’s try and I don’t know. This is going to probably be awful for a while, and then it will be okay.” When I’m talking to people about video, a lot of times they’ll be afraid that their first video is going to suck and I’m like, “Yeah, your first video’s going to suck. It’s okay. Everybody’s first video sucks. You’ve just got to dive in and get going.”

Sara Langworthy: 10:59
I had a lot of fun thinking about how to talk about different areas of the content that I specialized in. I’ve got a video about the concept of resilience or the ability to bounce back from hardship in life. I used the story of Harry Potter to exemplify the scientific things that we’ve studied about resilience, but with Harry Potter characters.

Drawing these connections between pop culture or things that are in the common vernacular and tying those to these specific concepts that we talk about in developmental psychology was something that was fascinating and fun for me to dive into. I also had the opportunity to write a book several years ago and that was a fabulous and wonderful experience.

What role does video play in your business?

Chris Cloney: 12:43

We’ve been in similar circles and done a ton of these different meetups, especially with the Self-Employed Ph.D. group. So you and I have seen each other’s businesses develop and the big thing that we were discussing earlier was the number of opportunities that would come up if you’re willing to create content based on your research experience, or your expertise, or whatever you love. They’re endless.

I shot a social media video the other day promoting this GradBlogger launch and I was getting my desk and microphone set up to do an interview with a dust explosion expert in Shanghai, China. Three years ago that wouldn’t even have been on my radar as a possibility.

Sara Langworthy: 13:34

Right, right.

Chris Cloney: 13:36

Things like writing books. Things like consulting with large companies. Things like consulting with nonprofits. Those are just opportunities that come through creating video, podcasting, and blogging. There’s a huge content creation field and the more academics that can get into it, the bigger change I think we can have collectively in the world. I’m excited to hopefully spur that along with this podcast. So yeah, it’s a cool space.

What is your process for recording video?

You mentioned a couple of things and I’m trying to figure out if we should go towards monetization, or if we should go towards technology. Maybe because I want the listeners to keep listening til the end. We got to even save the monetization, but I’m not sure we’re going to talk about some different monetization stuff in a second. Before we get to that, can you just go through your process? So you’re thinking you want to shoot a video, what do you do? Do you write a full script?

Creating a script for your show

Sara Langworthy: 14:30
I do, yeah. That’s a great question and that’s one that I get a lot, especially when you’re thinking about your particular research area or your content area.

My process usually involves writing a script of some sort. For me, the process is similar to writing a blog post, but the “voice” that I use for video is different than the voice I use for blogging. Part of that is due to becoming more comfortable with being on camera and knowing what that personally feels like.

So I write out a script. It’s usually, fairly specific, especially if I’m going into research concepts. I tend to make sure that I am hitting all of the concepts I want to hit, so I will have a script in the background while I’m filming.

Show length 5-8 minutes

Sara Langworthy: 15:39

So I write the script, making sure I get all the things that I want to cover into it. I normally try to shoot for five to eight-minute videos. Much less than that and it’s a little difficult to get deep enough into a content area. Much longer than that and you’re beginning to push the limits of what your viewers might be willing to watch in a sitting.

When I get ready to film, I have a camera that I use and I set that up, but I’ve got my script off to the side. I have colleagues who’ve used teleprompters. I have done that once and I didn’t love it. It interfered with my interaction with the camera.

Looking at the camera

One thing I’ll say about interacting with the camera is that you do have to pretend that you’re talking to the people who are on the other side of it. It’s hard when you think, “I’m talking alone in my office and anybody who walking by outside would be like what is she doing?” So you have to just put yourself in that presentation mode.

Multiple takes are alright

Sara Langworthy: 16:41

I will often do several takes of the same portion of the script over and over again. I will also do a lot of bloopers in that stream, which is fun. Regarding the more polished videos you’ll see on YouTube, the secret is that it takes a lot of edits and a lot of tries to get some of those longer strings of sentences put together. I will have chunks of text that I’ll try to group together as I’m filming. Sometimes as I’m filming, I’ll be like, “I don’t like the phrasing of that.” I’ll adjust things on the fly, but then once I get the video content, then it’s down to editing. That’s a fun process for me.

Enjoying the editing process

I enjoy the editing process because it allows me to review the footage and think about things like “Which tone fits better here?” (How would it look) if I did a slightly different take in one area or another. It lets me piece things together.

Sara Langworthy: 17:41

Normally I stay within the script and keep in line with the script, but sometimes as I’m editing, I’ll find, “Oh no, this section actually goes much better up here.” So it’s  nice to play around with that and figure out again, “Where do I want to put text on the screen if I want to do highlight a particular concept?” So I enjoy the editing process a great deal. I think that the creative energy I get from that is my favourite creative energy. The scripting and the filming are the harder parts of the process for me, but I also have a lot of colleagues who don’t do a full script but will do an outline. Are you one of those, Chris?

Two tips for making editing easier

Chris Cloney: 18:25

Actually, I want to jump in because there are some important things here.

You just said that you thoroughly enjoy the editing process. I thoroughly do not enjoy the editing process. So I bullet point and I have scripts. I’ll script specific stories when I’m giving a presentation, mostly so that I can review how it went and make a change if I want to mix it up. When I’m shooting video, I tend to bullet point notes and then go with the flow. If you enjoy the editing process, you’re probably going to be better at doing a lot more takes and editing, because you’re probably not dreading the whole editing process, like I am the whole time.

Sara Langworthy: 19:07

Probably true.

Chris Cloney: 19:08
Two tips about that ran through my mind when you were talking about the different steps.

One is that I turn on another video. If I’m shooting through Screen Flow or some application on my computer, I’ll turn on Zoom so I can see myself. I think that helps me a bit with the feeling of not having an audience because there’s somebody there even if it’s just you. Because I’ve tried it without being able to see myself and it is disconcerting. It’s weird.

Chris Cloney: 19:43
The other thing that I like to do is: if I mess up or don’t like how something comes out, I keep going and then I’ll go back and re-shoot the whole thing. If I need to edit, I might have three go-throughs of the same material and then just mix and match the sections I like. If I stop and then try to re-shoot them, something I thought was going to take half an hour ends up taking my whole day to get through. So I try to shoot the whole thing start to finish and if I have to, I’ll shoot certain sections from start to finish again and try to work through those. Sometimes you find some gold nuggets that come out of those struggles.

Sara Langworthy: 20:26

Yeah. That’s a great point. There are different ways to do this. There is no one size fits all approach. It’s what you’re comfortable with. If you feel like you need more scripting to get the information across correctly or to feel like you know what you’re going to say and how you’re going to get there, then script.

If you feel like, “Oh I got this in my sleep. I could do this I just need a couple of bullet points to get me through.” Do that. Whatever is going to make you most comfortable on camera is the best way to go and there’s a lot you can fix with editing. There’s a lot that you can do to support your learner if you’re doing educational content, whether that’s with graphics or animations, or text on the screen or those kinds of things. The more practice you get at editing, the more you can cover your own flubs a little bit when you’re talking to direct to the camera.

Chris Cloney: 21:21
That’s right. I will mention that those of you who are watching this during the podcast launch party in GradBlogger Connect can still leave your questions below and we’ll actually re-shoot this and add to it later. I’m making this promise to my future self, but I may be able to help you at the end of this video recording. I may not be as well. But we’ll get Sara back on to go through some of those.

If you’re listening to the podcast in the future, go to the show notes which will be in some intro GrabBlogger.com/ 7 and leave your questions there. We’ll get back to you that way as well. So I want to ask you the big question that most people are probably thinking. Not the monetization question- I’m going to ask that next- but the other big question …

Sara Langworthy: 22:06
You have a big question.

What technology skills do I need?

Chris Cloney: 22:07
If I’m a technophobe- I’ve never used a computer- should I just discount video? Is it way too hard? Or what technology skills does somebody need to be able to start doing their own videos?

Sara Langworthy: 22:20
Yeah, that’s probably the most common question that comes up for video. It can seem intimidating, especially if you’re new to it. Especially when you think about TV production. The amount of equipment that goes into that is intense.

The great thing is, is that most of us have these little devices, otherwise known as our smartphones which have high-quality cameras on them. I mean, higher-quality than most of us have had in our entire lifetimes and they shoot great video, as well. So there are ways to use your phone to keep it simple, especially if you’re just getting started. I don’t recommend investing in a ton of video equipment right off the bat if you don’t know that video is what you want to do.

What tools and equipment are needed?

Sara Langworthy: 23:08
You can shoot a lot of great stuff on your phone and use that. You can even do editing on your phone now. There are all kinds of apps and things on your phone that make video a lot easier. So I would say, definitely don’t be afraid of jumping into it a little bit. Like I said earlier, you’re going to mess up and it’s not going to look as great as you want it to be, but you’re only going to get better by practicing and keeping at it.

There’s a lot of complicated editing software you can get, but there’s also a lot of freeware that is available on your standard computer and things that you can get online that are inexpensive, if not free. To begin that process of learning how to edit and learning how to do video well.

Sara Langworthy: 24:02
So I would say, jump in. It’s a lot easier to do video now than it ever has been and it’s only going to get easier, I think. If you’ve got your smartphone, try to get either one of those little tripods. You can get the little ones that hook onto your phone and are very small and portable. I have one somewhere.

Chris Cloney: 24:26
I think I had a [Affiliate] GorillaPod is maybe the main one.

Sara Langworthy: 24:28
Yeah, like the little GorillaPod ones, right? So if you want, invest in something like that. Otherwise, I know fairly established video bloggers who will just set up their phones on a stack of books. So you can do it that way too but aside from that, the primary thing I would suggest people focus on is actually audio, not the video quality. The first thing you would want to invest in would be a microphone.

Sara Langworthy: 24:55
I am currently recording on a [Affiliate] Blue Yeti. For those of you who are listening to the podcast and don’t have the visual medium, you don’t know that, but I have a Blue Yeti that I do a lot of my podcasting and things on. I’ve used that for video before. It works well. I also have a couple of inexpensive Lavalier mics that just plug into your phone and can be used to record voice memos or another application like that.

So there are ways to do video relatively inexpensively. In terms of getting to know the software, a lot of it is just trial and error. Play around with some stuff and if you aren’t a trial and error person, there are so many tutorials online about how to use these things.

Chris Cloney: 25:41
Too many.

Sara Langworthy: 25:41
Too many, right? You’d go down the rabbit hole for days. There are resources out there showing you how to get started, but I recommend you just jump in and try some stuff. Fill your gaps in learning where you need to, but get out there and do it.

Start simple and don’t be scared

Chris Cloney: 25:56
Yeah, I totally agree. I think the one summary of that is: don’t be scared. Start as simple as you can. I started with Facebook Live in GradBlogger Connect in the previous Facebook group and I just started shooting them just from my computer with the same headphones I have on here. I do have a fancy mic, [Affiliate] ATR2100.  If you’re at our GradBlogger Connect, this will be the giveaway in six hours or five hours. So stay tuned for that and enter that giveaway.

Chris Cloney: 26:35
The thing I want to say is, yeah, start as simple as you can. If you want to try some Facebook Live, let me know. You can do them in the GradBlogger Connect Facebook group. People are probably going to love them. It’s a great way to get started and literally, you need no gear. You can do them on your phone, you can start to do YouTube videos, all that stuff works.

Just get started, and get started as simply as possible. Don’t go buy all this fancy gear because you’re probably going to put it in your closet and not do it. Just do it first and get started. That would be my summary of those points.

So I think we can turn our attention now to the nitty-gritty for the business side. So what are the different ways that you have either made money or let’s just say the different ways you’ve made money online through video? Is that even possible? Do you make any money online through videos? Or are you doing this for no reason?

Sara Langworthy: 27:31
I do it just for fun. Well, I do do it just for fun. But no, there are lots of different ways to do this and I have a little less experience personally with this, but I have worked either with clients or other content creators on understanding these different ways to make money.

For me personally, the video side of things has been more about generating business in other spheres, whether that’s speaking, training or consulting. The fact that I have a YouTube channel and the fact that I put my face out there means I’m more recognizable when people are looking for speakers. It means that because I can do this four-minute video or whatever on this topic, they know what they’re getting when they’re hiring a speaker. Same thing with consulting. Because I have a portfolio of my previous videography work, potential clients can look at that and say, “Oh yeah, she’s done some good work in these particular areas before. She knows what she’s doing.” It’s a proof of concept thing. So I view my video making more like a generator of other business opportunities more than making money in and of itself.

What are some different ways to make money from video?

Sara Langworthy: 28:45

That said, I do have a couple of ways that either I have made money, or other people have made money.

The first one is the standard monetization feature on YouTube. Now I will not get on my soapbox about how this has all changed very recently within the last year or so, but if you hit a certain number of subscribers and a certain amount of viewer traffic (watch time is the metric that YouTube is using) then it unlocks a series of opportunities for making money on your video content. I do have the subscribers now but I don’t have the watch time and so I don’t make money on my channels. But there are other channels that I either manage or that I have worked with to hit that level. Then you start to see ad revenue.

Sara Langworthy: 29:33
For those of you who aren’t familiar, what YouTube does is allow you to run ads ahead of your content. YouTube then splits a portion of that ad revenue between the creator of the content and themselves. So you get a portion of that ad revenue when you’re able to monetize your content on YouTube. Now that has shifted a lot over the last several years and there are lots of issues with that. We won’t get into all that today, but it is still a primary way that a lot of content creators on YouTube make money.

There are other things like merch that you can advertise on your own channel to get your audience to participate in other kinds of ways. So those are definitely possibilities.

People will pay for convenience

Sara Langworthy: 30:18
From the online business side of things, one area that I have branched into a little bit more recently is creating a content packet, for lack of a better term. It’s called a resilience toolkit.

My colleague and I produced a couple of videos as well as a handout kit that’s meant to be used in training and professional development opportunities for people who want to study trauma and stress and understand how it is affecting the kids in their care. It contains video content and written content, and we’ve been selling that as the toolkit on the website. We’re starting to get school districts and other bigger groups say, “Oh we’d love to have 60 copies of this to distribute to our group. How do we do that?”

You need to create the content first

Sara Langworthy: 31:15
There are ways to use video as a content disbursement mechanism that might not always be free. You might behind a paywall if it’s especially advanced or if it’s part of a larger kit or tool, or whatever, that you want to sell or market in a different way.

When we think about those online funnels and ways for people to interact with you, it’s great to have a lot of free content out there but I also think about whether there is a specific content -video content- that I want people to pay for. I think that’s part of the strategic consideration and you have to ask yourself, “At what point does it make sense to do that?” So those are a couple of the primary ways.

Chris Cloney: 32:07

Yeah, and I want to summarize a couple of points there. So we named five different types:

  • Using it to get speaking gigs to prove that you can actually speak and look good doing it.
  • Consulting work as an expert in your field. This can include training and presentations.  
  • YouTube AdWords which is probably the lowest money maker for any of us academics in the beginning. That being said, there are people that have done it, like Leslie Samuel. He started a successful blog about biology and was doing videos on biology.
  • Merchandise. We may try to do merch sometime- you might be able to get some fancy, bright green GradBlogger shirt!
  • Packaging. A lot of people will pay for convenience. I never worry about putting out my best stuff like on podcasts or blogs. If you took one course and broke it down, you’d probably get 50 pieces of content. If you put out one a week for 50 weeks, the people who read it are probably at the start of the ladder. Packaging that content in a more efficient manner to someone who wants to read it all and understand it in two days. instead of reading 50 weeks worth of blog posts, has a lot of value.

We’re trying to do the same thing with DustSafetyScience: we’re packaging the knowledge that we’re creating and serving underserved portions of our audience. That includes people like firefighters, who consultants and equipment manufacturers don’t care about because they’re looking at the industries. We’re saying we could help save firefighters from being killed in these industrial accidents. So we’re packaging that up and trying to create courses for what we call the underserved audience.

Chris Cloney:  35:00

The first thing is, you got to create the content. That’s what we’re about here today. That’s why we’re launching this podcast. You got to get something into the world. It can be written, audio, or video, but if you do that for a year or two, you’ll be amazed at just what you can do with repackaging and repurposing it. You’ll also be amazed at what you can do with the personal brand that you’ve built.

It’s something that’s blown my mind and it’s why I get to sit here in this office and talk to amazing people like you. It’s why we’re having the GradBlogger launch party. That’s how we get to do all that- by bringing that material to the world.

What advice would you give to someone just getting started?

Chris Cloney: 35:39

For those of you who are watching live in GradBlogger Connect, please leave questions in the chat box. I may try to answer them, or we’ll push you through to the expert for sure. We’ll even get Sara back on to answer some of them in another podcast video. So definitely do that!

What advice would you give to somebody that’s just in that place about getting started? They’re either a Ph.D. student or maybe a recent grad struggling to find employment or worried about employment opportunities once they graduate and they think that they’d like to start doing some video.

Learn from someone else you admire

Sara Langworthy: 36:29

The simplest piece of advice is just get started. To unpack that a little bit more, I think one of the things that helped me when I first started off in video was watching other people and figuring out what I like about what they do and what I can emulate but also make my own.

I watched a lot of Hank and John Green- the Vlogbrothers for those of you who might be familiar with them. If not, go check them out, they’re delightful. They do a lot of educational content and they have entire channels that are crash course and slideshow. They have these educational empires that they’ve created online. I loved watching how they would approach teaching new content to somebody.

Sara Langworthy: 37:26
So I think that learning from other people by watching what they are doing and trying to pull that in and weave it into your own personality is a great place to start. The other thing is -and it’s a challenge that we academics can face sometimes- is that we forget what aspects of our topic area is cool to people who don’t know anything about it.

Chris Cloney: 37:47
Everything.

What parts of your topic are interesting?

Sara Langworthy: 37:47
Everything is cool, right? Try to take yourself back to that place when you were first learning about your subject area and you were like, “This is the coolest thing ever.”

Try to go back to that place or, if you’re doing some teaching right now, try to hone in on some of those topics that make their eyes light up. They get excited and say things like, “Oh, this is neat. I had no idea.” Honing in on some of those topics and recapturing that fascination was helpful for me when I first started and was trying to figure out things like, “What’s important to talk about? I don’t know what I should talk about with child development. There’s so much and it’s all very straight forward.” Until you realize it’s not.

Sara Langworthy: 38:28
Not everybody knows what’s in your head. So think about those nuggets, those things that have fascinated you from the beginning and start from there because your energy, fascination, and excitement will come across well on video.

That’s one of the ways that I think video is a  different medium than written and podcasting as well. You can see somebody’s face and know how excited they are about a topic. You can see the care and the level of editing that they might do to make a topic come to life in a different and new way. So, video can express this excitement that you feel about your subject area.

So yeah, those would be my main things but just dive in. It’s fun out here, I promise. We’re nice.

Conclusion

Chris Cloney: 39:22
If you want a recap of this podcast episode, go to the show notes at GradBlogger.com/ 7. We’ll have a copy of the transcript and we’ll probably throw a cheat sheet together that outlines some of those monetization methods for how video drives your business. If you want to know more about Sara, or Dr. Langworthy, you should-

Sara Langworthy: 39:53
Call me whatever, “Hey you” works too.

Chris Cloney: 39:55
Hey you. You should check her out at Drlangworthy.com. Check out her YouTube channel, Developmental Enthusiast Channel, and we’ll include links in the show notes when they’re up as well. She’s Dr. Langworthy on Twitter.

Where’s the best place for people to go if they want to get to know you more or get to know strategy about video creation?

Sara Langworthy: 40:25
The best method is probably to get in touch with me via my website. Again that’s D-R Langworthy.com. Yeah, I’m always interested in talking to people, individuals or organizations, about your video goals and what you are trying to do. So please reach out: I’m always happy to chat. Otherwise, you can always find me on Twitter, so you know hit me up over there too.