About Joe–how do you become a full-time content creator?
The way we create content and go about marketing our businesses has undeniably changed, especially as more creators are taking advantage of repurposing tools like video to text transcription tools.
Algorithms are telling us how to post, creators are telling us what to post, all while we scramble to create content fast enough to jump on the rollercoaster of online trends and stay relevant. With the amount of pressure, and massive workload, how do content creators do it full-time?
That's exactly what Joe thought before he launched his own full-time social media agency off the back of his part-time personal brand.
Meet Joe
Joe Gannon is a content marketer and social media strategist, and recently the Founder of a social media and content marketing agency.
Before launching an agency, he created video content for his personal brand on LinkedIn and YouTube.
Joe established himself as a thought leader in productivity and video marketing on LinkedIn and became an ambassador for companies, like Subly. He would share stories about creating video and text content, what workflows work for him and tips for video marketing, especially using social media subtitles to boost engagement on social media.
Where did Joe's content journey begin?
He grew his LinkedIn following from 0 to over 10,000 in under a year thanks to the content strategy which he developed using automated transcription for audio to text and video.
In the beginning, he would post on LinkedIn Monday to Friday.
"I developed a content workflow with the help of transcription software," said Joe. "I wanted something that would help me stay consistent and post every working day. I knew it was essential to be posting every day if I wanted to break through the noise."
How did it lead to starting his own agency?
After just 18 months, Joe began to see opportunities arise, opportunities for freelance projects and before he knew it, he had a budding business.
"I was being invited to speaking events, podcasts and workshops." said Joe. "The opportunities were pouring in!" This all turned into people asking Joe if he could create the same content for them, too.
About Joe’s agency
Joe has built his personal brand with the help of transcription software to repurpose content and help others maximise the reach of their audio and video content, too.
Recently, he started a content agency focused on the art of repurposing content from audio to text or video to text for creators, business owners and entrepreneurs.
How did Joe successfully launch an agency off the back of his personal brand, and how replicable is the process he has created?
The secret all lies within the workflow he developed after coming across a series of challenges in his content creation process. When it came to transcribing video to text and creating more engaging content he found the perfect recipe.
The challenge
Joe’s priority for his personal brand was to maintain a consistent output. As a productivity influencer on LinkedIn, it was critical for Joe to have a productive workflow that he could scale if needed.
“I was creating content for myself to post on LinkedIn and I knew that there’s a set frequency of content needed to have an impact and show up in timelines.” said Joe. “I knew that it needed to become a habit and I needed to be posting at least three times a week, so that’s what I did.”
Quickly Joe was known in his network as ‘the guy who could probably do it.
Suddenly, Joe saw the opportunities turning inbound. Whether they were people enjoying his content or people in his direct messages. Some messages would really say, 'so I can see that you're creating all this great content... I don't personally have the time, but I think you're the guy to do it.'
Joe’s workflow
Joe began taking on clients because they trusted the transcription and repurposing workflow he was putting in place, and knew he could produce high-quality engaging content consistently.
Joe had one blocker in the way: the engagement.
While Joe was confident he was showing up on his audiences’ feeds, he knew another very important factor. The engagement. And it was key, as most audiences on social media were browsing video content with the sound-off.
Why audio and video transcription was essential to scaling his agency
The people in Joe's direct messages were hoping he could replicate this process for them, too. Subtitles were a major problem for Joe, and would be for any client of his. too. So he went out to test all of the options he could find to make subtitling as easy and simple as possible.
“I know that adding captions to content increases the chances of a video being watched in full by 80%, so it was vital that I could easily do that for myself and my clients,” said Joe. “Ideally, I wanted to bulk most of my video optimisation into the tool I would use, and that was the toughest part.”
According to LinkedIn, around 63% of users scroll the timeline with the sound off.
What were the biggest road blockers in Joe's process?
So what were Joe’s biggest challenges and reasons for seeking a subtitling, repurposing and transcription service for automated transcription and subtitling?
Creating visually appealing videos
As a solo creator, Joe didn’t have any budget for his own content, but he was willing to look into paid tools that would help him save time.
“The biggest challenge I found with the tools I was looking at was the inability to move subtitles, or create a template to repurpose the clips or add a headline,” said Joe. “It was very important to me because I know content in templates performs better.”
Writing captions for social media video and text posts
When it came to posting on social media, Joe would always start from scratch. But as he began working with more clients, beginning from scratch for every social post wasn’t possible anymore.
“A social media strategy for clients means writing copy, too,” said Joe. “As most tools wouldn’t allow video to text transcription and TXT exports, I would have to watch through the whole video a couple of times to write the social media posts.”
Creating SRT files to repurpose long-form audio and video content
Joe needed his workflow to make it easy for him to repurpose his audio and video files. It was important that his workflow made it easy to export TXT and SRT files because they are key to repurposing.
He wanted SRT files to easily share his short video on social media with subtitles, all while not compromising the quality of the video. He needed audio and video transcription so he could create blog posts and social media copy for his clients and himself in minutes, not hours.
Creating branded videos
Another challenge Joe couldn’t get past was the difficulty of branding the videos he was editing.
As he began working with more clients and brands, it was a priority for him to be able to easily add logos, brand colours and fonts in the editor.
“It was a pain that the traditional ways of subtitling content usually meant that the subtitles would either stay in one place, or would disrupt how the video looks,” said Joe. “So when I found Subly it was a game-changer."
The solution
Joe understands the importance of digital content– everything from newsletters and website copy, to one-pagers and white papers.
This is another reason he needed a solution with easy audio and video transcription and TXT export. It means that he can diversify his services without adding to his existing workload.
Joe's new workflow
Joe's new workflow is now focused on simplifying his editing. It also helps to shorten the audio and video editing, including shortening the amount of time he spends transcribing video to text.
Creating visually captivating branded video content with Subly
A top benefit he has seen from implementing Subly into his workflow is the ability to manipulate the content he creates to look exactly the way he and clients want it to look.
“Before any problems with how the videos looked would be amplified when I attempted to repurpose longer form content for social media,” said Joe. “With Subly the problem is solved. I feel comfortable and the video and text content is attracting customers for my clients.”
Streamlining the copywriting process by turning audio and video to text
The biggest benefit to his workflow has been the ability to streamline the copywriting aspect for his own content and his clients' content.
He uses the text file because it's so useful to have the transcription of what was said.
Every video clip he creates can become 10 video clips for social media and the social media copy is mostly written in the transcript.
“Now deducing the key messages by skimming through the video to text transcription is so easy,” said Joe. “Subly has genuinely saved me hours and hours every week. To be honest, this was the key component to growing my business because I can now repurpose video content across any social media platform faster.”
The video to text transcript mattered so much to Joe because for every social post he would have to write a different copy, this would end up taking up hours.
Optimising for social with transcription
An Instagram post is different to a Facebook post, and Twitter threads are completely different to a TikTok video or Instagram text captions.
“It was honestly like a lightbulb went off in my head that suddenly you can take this transcript and that can be social copy or a blog which you build out where 80% of the work has been done,” said Joe.
With the transcription files, he is able to work in the TXT file to write the different social media variations and copy for each platform.
The results–"Subly was the key component in growing my business by using video to text transcription."
Discovering Subly enabled Joe to produce content on a daily basis, for himself and his clients, without limiting what he can offer or how well the video content will perform.
What Subly features helped Joe the most?
- Branding
- Automated transcription
- Subtitling
- Styling templates
- Headlines
- Resizing for different social platforms
- Exporting SRT and TXT (text) files
Joe can now create daily social media clips for YouTubers, like Ali Abdaal; business owners and entrepreneurs.
How has Joe's overall work improved with these changes?
For Joe's personal workflow this automated transcription and repurposing system made sense because he could start posting and optimising for YouTube better using Subly.
He no longer needs to manually transcribe video to text or use a transcription service to do the transcription for him because he can do it within minutes on his own. It allowed posting a lot more content than he thought possible.
He diversified his content with transcription, optimised his pillar channels and expanded reach onto new channels for himself and his clients' thanks to the video to text workflow. He began creating a lot more for his clients, and his workflow became more circular.
This is his process now and how he uses automated transcription in his repurposing workflow:
- Film a video
- Create a video to text (or audio to text) transcription in Subly
- Include the text in the description
- Post an article
- Repurpose article into LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter text posts
- And, save some subtitled videos for Instagram posting.
"Subly genuinely provides so much flexibility" said Joe. "It has saved me hours and hours and hours and it's just completely worth it because it not only saves time but encourages you to be more creative by giving you everything that you need in the social media content production process."
How long has Joe been using Subly now?
Joe has been a Subly ambassador from day one, even before Subly had launched an ambassador program.
“I have been raving about Subly from day one,'' said Joe. “I think I quite literally asked if I could help and become an ambassador! Whenever I am talking to anyone, or hosting workshops, I show the Subly platform– Subly has been instrumental in helping me build my agency, I want to share that with other creators, too.”
Joe is now hiring his first employee at his social media and content marketing agency and is saving budget by using an automatic transcription service. He has over 10,000 followers on LinkedIn and is growing his other channels including YouTube.
He is running a weekly newsletter (yes, using repurposed text!) and works with creators like Ali Abdaal to help them repurpose their content for more channels through transcription and subtitling. He also occasionally runs workshops, like Ali Abdaal’s Part-Time YouTuber Academy, and guest speaks at events.
Read about how Joe helps Ali Abdaal repurpose his content to scale a YouTube channel to over 1 million subscribers with the help of a subtitle transcription tool.
Note from authors: (It’s true, Joe was always in our inboxes asking for more features, and offering ways to promote us– we couldn’t be here without you either, Joe!)
