5 Great Secrets to Amazing Short Tech Content

I’ve been creating short form technical content for a few months for many companies including Cloudinary and Mightymeld and I’ve learnt a lot in the process.

Short form content is an excellent way to convey your message quickly and effectively. It’s usually less expensive to produce, easy to consume, and more shareable.

This is one of the reasons why more businesses are gravitating towards it and why it baffles me as to why tech companies are only using it for memes and humour instead of using them as a platform to share knowledge and educate people.

So I’ve written this article to kind of share my findings on how to create effective short form technical content.

NOTE: Short form here can be anything from a 5 minute YouTube video to a 40 second TikTok video.

1. What Would Benefit your Community?

The first thing you need to do is to understand what would most benefit your community or the kinds of people you want to sell to.

This is the most crucial aspect to consider when creating short form content. You need to understand your community’s struggles and how you can help.

You can do this through a bunch of research, going through forums and social media to see what your community is struggling with.

This doesn’t have to be a problem with your specific product, it could be a problem with the tech that your product is built on.

This is the kind of content you should create as it will bring the most value to your community.

2. Don’t Put the Best Information Behind a Paywall

“Give away your best information for free and sell the implementation of it” — Alex Hormozi

I’ve seen a lot of companies put their best information behind a paywall which is never a good idea.

You need to give your community a reason to follow you and engage with your content. If you’re putting your best information behind a paywall, you’re not giving your community a reason to follow you.

This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t put anything behind a paywall. Instead, offer some of your best information for free and reserve other content for behind a paywall.

For example, if you created a product that uses some technology that your community would love to learn about, you should create some content that educates your community on how to use that technology, and depending on what you want to sell, you can put other bits of information behind a paywall.

This will bring value to your community and give them a reason to follow and engage with your content.

3. Keep It Short

It’s very tempting to squeeze as much information as you can into a short video, but there’s no need. You can spend a video focusing on one topic or feature, and if that’s too short, even better. The shorter the video, the higher the likelihood that a user will finish it.

Did you know that, on average, 20% of viewers watch a TikTok video to the end? Honestly, I think 20 percent is high; for me, it’s less than 10%.

So the shorter and more relevant your video is, the more people will watch it to the end and see your call to action.

4. Don’t Sell Your Product Initially

The focus of short videos should be on educating and bringing value to your community, not solely on selling your product or services.

This doesn’t mean you can’t do any selling at all. I would say every three videos should be educating people and every fourth video should mention your product or what you’re selling. I know people who would do 10 videos of free content and sell something on the 11th. But it’s something to experiment with and see what works for your audience.

5. Show Your Face

This is a tip I got from a professional video creator. Showing your face in a video makes it more personal and engaging. It’s a great way to connect with your audience and make them feel like they’re having a conversation with you.

While it may be easier to just show text, displaying your face is a powerful way to connect with your audience, making them feel engaged in a conversation with you.

Faces capture attention it also adds a personal connection to the content. So if you’re creating a video, make sure to show your face.

You could just show your face at the beginning or have a small circle in the corner of the video. It’s up to you.

Conclusion

So those are my 5 tips on creating effective short form technical content. I hope you found them useful and I can’t wait to see what kind of content you create.

Make sure to follow me on LinkedIn for more tips on coding and creating short form content.