Today’s episode of the podcast is an interview with Christoph Trappe who is a digital based brand strategist. Christoph has been named as a top content creator, digital marketer and thought leader. Christoph is a journalistic story teller and we talk all about live streaming – how to tell a story and have confidence!
KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST
- Journalistic story telling is telling the story around what people need to know in an engaging style – so people want to read it!
- Think about what you stand for and what is unique about you – this is what you need to focus on when you tell a story.
- If you are going to go live you have to be realistic and accept that things do and may go wrong!
- Before going live – think about what you are going to talk about and how you are going to talk about that topic.
- Aim for around 40 minutes for your live stream.
- Decide how often you will go live and commit to it.
- You have to get used to the idea that people may not show up.
- If you are streaming into a platform you use a lot, someone will most likely show up!
- You can stream in multiple places at one time.
- Try to do a solo episode if you are just starting so you can get used to it, then move on to interviews.
- It is a lot easier and more fun when you have guests!
- Going live is not as much prep work for you if you have less time.
THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…
Don’t overthink it, don’t feel bad and just keep pushing forward.
HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN’T MISS
- An Introduction to Christoph 02:25
- What is journalistic story telling? 03:31
- How to tell stories for your business 05:52
- Going Live Book 09:42
- Things that could go wrong 11:34
- Getting started with live streaming 19:05
- What if people don’t show up? 22:47
- Should you go live in multiple locations? 25:29
- Solo vs interview 30:15
CHECK CHRISTOPH OUT:
RESOURCES MENTIONED
Transcript Below
Hello and a really warm welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. How are you doing? So as I'm recording this, the sun is shining. My windows are open and the birds are singing. How very grateful I am for a lovely sunny day. Because honestly I just miss the sun so much. If you're not in the UK, then. And you don't know what our weather is like, we do, you know, we have nice summers, but it's not as nice as California, which obviously it's sunny all the time.
And because haven't been to chapel we've had, what's felt like a really long winter. Anyway, also that was such a precious thing to do. Talk about the weather. I'm not here to give you a weather rundown. So this week I've got a podcast interview for you. I'm interviewing Christoph Trappe who is a US based digital brand strategist.
He has been picked as one of the top 14 content marketers and a top 24 digital marketers. And then top 100 CX thought leaders. He's a journalistic storyteller and we talk all about Livestreaming. And we go into the kind of conversations around how easy is it to be a storyteller and what sort of things you needs to do as well as some of the confidence in livestreaming.
So I think this should be a really good one. I am a big fan of telling stories. If you receive my emails, you will know I am. Uh, I like to explain things in a story because I think you understand them better. Anyway, I'm just going to let you dive straight in. I feel like I should intro more, but I think we're good.
I'm going to link off to everything in the show notes, if you want it. And otherwise enjoy. I am really excited that today I get to welcome to the podcast the very lovely Christoph Trappe. Christoph how are you doing?
Christoph: Doing great. Hey, thanks for having me really appreciate it.
Teresa: No problem at all. So Christoph, we always start the conversation about who are you and how you got to do the thing that you're doing today. So if you can enlighten my audience, that would be lovely.
An Introduction to Christoph
Christoph: So I, uh, I actually started as a journalist, uh, wrote for newspapers back in the day when, when they was mostly printed, we were just making the transition into digital. And then slowly but surely made the move into digital, mostly digital, digital content marketing um, for companies and of course those things continue to evolve. You know, I started as a writer, writing still matters. It's still, it's not dead. Seriously. The written word still matters, but now we have podcasting. Now we have live streaming. Virtual reality will be next. It's already here in some industries.
What is journalistic story telling?
Christoph: So things always continue to evolve. And you know, I'm very interested in how do we use the new technologies, time into our existing strategy, time into our current implementations and really throw our content to parade. So journalists had hard journalistic storyteller, um, on the company side.
Teresa: I like it. So how much of that kind of journalism. Is it, is it basically the same, but performing it or, cause I always thought journalism was a very different skill set to maybe content creation. I know they are both a level of content, but are there more similarities than I imagine?
Christoph: Well, they are pretty similar when you, when you, when you do it well with a company.
And a lot of times I know, um, content creation companies has turned away from journalistic storytelling, and that's not always the right way to go in my opinion. Sometimes it is. Um, but sometimes what it means is, you know, we're really watering everything down and, you know, it's like, it goes through approval, hell of 59 steps where people want to change a word because they'd like it better.
Or they have a childhood memory or whatever, I'm overdramatizing this a little bit, but, you know. And journalistic storytelling really just tells the story around, um, what people need to know in an engaging style. Um, and that doesn't mean we have to tell all the bad stuff or tell, you know, everything.
Um, but we want to, we want to tell that story differently in a way that people actually want to read it. And sometimes, you know, when you look at corporate marketing gobbledygook, quite frankly, nobody wants to read it. And then we wonder why our content isn't performing. So what I found is, you know, when you use some of those journalistic storytelling, um, strategies, you, you can, um, you can change that. And I think about what we're doing right here. Like, you know, 15 years ago. I was on TV. It wasn't any different from what I'm doing here. I got a camera in front of me. I got a light looking at me. I got a microphone in front of me. Only difference is that I'm a lot more casual sitting in today. If you're listening on the podcast, right.
I got a, I got a hat on, you know, I, I I'm relatively well dressed, but I'm not in a suit, you know. So, but at the end of the day, what we're doing here is very similar to, you know, going on TV except it's more conversational.
Teresa: Okay. So I've got you know, I'm thinking of my, my listener, listen to this and anybody's thinking, but I don't know how to tell stories.
Like, it feels like that is a real skill to be able to. Because you know, you're trained journalist. That's, you know, you learn to do that thing. So, so if I'm, uh, you know, solo business owner or somebody starting a business, like how do I start to try and create just the emphasis of story, regardless of my media. How do I do that?
How to tell stories for your business
Christoph: Well, you got to figure out what you stand for. What's different about you. What's unique about you. And I think a lot of businesses fail at that because, you know, you asked them, “What's your goal?” And everybody says, I want to make money. And for the millionth time, I've never heard anybody say, oh, “I don't want to make any money.”
That's not your end. That's not the thing that will differentiate you. Everybody says that. What's different about you. How can you help people? What are you trying to do? I'll give you an example.
Going Live Book
Christoph: So the latest book I wrote Going Live, you know, I wrote it because I saw a market problem. And the market problem is, all these companies are starting podcasts, which I think is actually a good idea to do a podcast. But the problem with podcasting, especially for companies, when they just start newest, it's a new channel. They're building it from the ground up. Right? So what I determined is, well, you can grow that. I get it, but you can also maximize it by live streaming your podcasts and by live streaming more because those are existing networks.
So my storytelling differentiator currently is how do you do that? How do you use the technology? What do you need? And so companies need to figure that out. What's unique about you and it can't just be, “Oh, this one little widget is slightly better than the competition.”
Teresa: Yeah. Yeah. So would you say that in terms of storytelling that it's not just necessarily the product, but it could be them? Their, you know? Cause one of the things that I joke about all the time is, you know, that I like gin and, and when I say joke, I'm not joking. I really do like gin. But like, so I included it, it's on my website. It says on my home page, you know, uh, on my about page, I think it is that says, you know, I'm from England and yes, that means tea by tea I mean, gin. You know, and, and it's part of my, my character, my story almost. So can that be something personal to them as well?
Christoph: Yeah. And I think you kind of have to do that quite frankly, to, you know, get yourself out there and, and be part of the brand, especially as the founder or, or really anybody at, at a company. It doesn't just have to be the executives, but yeah, absolutely.
Get out there, share your story, stand for something, you know, and, and people will say, well, but who cares about it? I'm like, well, Then who cares about your product? I'm just saying, you know, there's so. Think about it this way. So I got a camera in front of me, 4k camera, you know, how many 4k cameras are out there.
It's unbelievable. You know, how do those companies find a way to stand out? So, absolutely that's one way to stand out by kind of inserting that personality and continuously sharing those stories that, that potentially have an impact.
Teresa: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So let's talk, uh, before we get, we're going to get on the live livestream.
We're going to talk about live streaming and why as a business owner, you should look at it and think about it and do it. And we'll talk about some of these fears. But before we do, let's just address the book because you're talking about an industry that is so fast moving. So in the book, are you telling me the, the kind of tactics or are you telling me the kind of, you know, premise or basics around it? Because it's funny because obviously even podcast episodes, even blogs, the minute you write them in this industry, the potential outdate. So how do you go and write a book about an industry that's so fascinating?
Christoph: Well, so first of all, you want to have some content that doesn't change, right? So evergreen content that's always important. And the evergreen part of going live is what are the strategies? What are you going to do? How are you going to talk about it? How do you invite guests? What's your workflow? What do you talk about?
What's your style? And there's all kinds of different styles for shows. You know, people have segments, other people have a conversation, other people, a little bit more scripted, which I wouldn't recommend necessarily. So I talk about all those different things, how to get started. That's pretty high level.
And I don't think that's going to be outdated anytime soon. Then I also dive into some of the technology things. Here's how you do it. Here's how you schedule it. Some of those things will probably be outdated at some point, some will evolve. Sometimes the screenshots will change just a little bit.
Um, but the, the context, the content will still work. Um, and then, you know, so, so there is a good mix. And then the other thing that's probably going to be evergreen for, for quite a while. I really talk about every mistake I've ever made, you know. So unmuting the wrong guests, doing this, doing that and all that's in there.
And, you know, you might still make some of the same mistakes, but at least you can think about them. And here's the other thing. You will make mistakes. It happens. It's life, you know, so just kind of roll with it and figure out, um, figure out how to move forward.
Teresa: I think that's so good. And that's, that's something that, you know, we wanted to talk about staying in, tends to live cause I think that's what holds so many people back. Because they are terrified of looking a fool showing up wrong, saying the wrong thing, the tech not working. But I think we just have to look to like real live TV. Like these are production companies that are putting on the stuff and they still make mistakes.
So if you, with your iPhone in your house, you know, we're going to go live. You've got to just be realistic about the fact that I guess these things are going to happen. Aren't they?
Christoph: I mean, things are going to happen. And Jason falls, you know, who of course is a fantastic live stream. He always says there was like 47 dominoes that have to fall and we don't control most of them. Right? I mean, the only one I control is that I'm showing up and looking at the camera quite frankly. And then everything else, you know, it's mic, camera, the internet. I don't run the internet here. Right. The internet has to work. It ships it from here to you, to somewhere else, so then somewhere else. And it's all these different dominoes, so something will happen.
No doubt. And you just kind of roll with it, you know? And even when something happens just to acknowledge it on air and that that's, you know, I've actually, I've lost, um, a live stream guests live on air and I lost him. I actually, I lost his video. So I said, well, I think I lost your video. So why don't you just leave the room and come back and I'll keep talking until you come back, you know?
And he did, and his video never came back. We don't know why. So all we did is we just put up, I just, I was on the screen. I put my logo on the screen, split screen. And on the top, I just said voice of Ryan Carruthers. You know, the master, whatever it was, mastermind, membership something. And it worked, nobody emailed with some angry emails saying, “Oh my goodness, I can't believe it was just you on screen.”
You know, like, oh, well, some may have thought that looking at me, but.
Teresa: Yeah you know, but that's up to them isn't it? But you're right. It. So I have a classic, the other week, uh, one of my members came to me and had launched a product. And she was like, what can I do to really get this out here? And we were brainstorming ideas and I said, you could go live.
Let's do like a launch event, go live on your Instagram, which was her biggest following. Um, talk about your product. Maybe do a prize, maybe get some Q and A's beforehand, like create it into a bit of an event. Anyway so she was really nervous. So I said to her, I'll tell you what I'll come on with you, right?
I'll interview you or I'll prep the questions, cause I'm not afraid of, you know, go in live and look, and shoot, but I've managed to do that most days, that's fine. Like, you know, so anyway, I said, I'll come on. And she was really nervous, but you know what happens? What I've got odd. She invited me into the Instagram live.
Something happened to my phone, which again, don't know what or why, but basically my face got really zoomed in.
Part of the live. You can literally just see like the top of my, like, literally like the square was full of my face and everyone's like paying a message of “Faces of I think Teresa is like.” “Oh I don't know.” like completely owned it.
I was like, I don't know what's going on here. Let me have a look. You know, we were making a joke a bit and of course, but the girl that was on, I was doing the live with like, she completely relaxed. Cause it was like, if someone messed up, Teresa has done it. Thanks so much. But like. Anyway, I messed with the settings or something.
I managed to change something and it was fine and it went back to normal, but you just, you know, you, haven't got a choice just own up to it. It's happening live and you're human and we're humans and things happen. And like you said, lots of them aren't in our control. So you just have to go with it. But it was just, you know, and I just laughed about it and we had a bit of a giggle.
Things that could go
Teresa: It was fine. And that's great. And yeah. But I think that's what people are concerned about. And the truth is it's probably more likely something will go wrong than not. Like, do you not think like how many times have you done lives, where it has literally been slick the whole way through?
Christoph: So it also depends on what your definition of slick is.
Right? So there is. Um, I, I do have a relatively high tolerance for something that being perfect, um, because it's not going to be, and, and you have to think about it. So for example, if I'm doing a live show, if I'm the host, I'm producing it, I'm directing it. I'm the technical person and I'm also the host.
So I have to do all those things, including I have to listen to the guest and then I have to have a conversation with them. In a TV studio, that's like five people or more, you know? So, so just something to keep in mind, give yourself some grace, give yourself some, some, some leash there, I guess, and you know, just kind of roll with it and if something isn't perfect.
Um, I bet you, people won't even notice. I'll give you another example. So if I pause, if I'm thinking, right, so I'm going to pause. That felt like eight hours in my head. Right. But it, it barely was a pause like listeners won't even notice. Then here's the other reality on podcasts, not on the live stream, but on podcasts.
The silence is now trimmed. If you turn off, if you turn that on, so people can't even tell. So if you're going through and editing podcasts and trim silence, it's a little bit of a waste, you know, not, not completely. But yeah in lives, you know, “Oh, let me check. What's going on with the camera. Don't you walk over and you take your time.”
And the other thing is you can take your time because people take time to show up. And I've actually noticed that that the longer the shows are the more people tune in.
Teresa: Okay. So that's all, that's really good to know. Let's, let's go back a bit then in terms of like, so why in your mind, should businesses look at doing live streaming over something else?
Christoph: Well, I don't know if it's over something else, but I think you need to integrate it into what you're doing. So here's kind of my process. So I do a live stream and I don't always do it. So I pick my battle. So if you live in a world of black and white, join me in the world of grace because you know, it doesn't have to be also black and white all the time.
So. I do a live stream. And then I take that content and I put it on the podcast channel. So first it goes to the live channels. So LinkedIn, Twitter, Amazon, YouTube, and I'm doing that. And then I put it on the podcast show now. So another 20 channels. Then I might take the content. I write an article. So that goes on my blog that has SEO impact.
And by the way, your live streaming a podcast has SEO impact too. So, um, it's not like it doesn't do that. Um, but you want to integrate it and then are there any other campaigns you can use it for? Can you ship content to the sales team? Can you ship content to prospects? Can you do all those different things?
And that's, you know, that's how I would think about it. The other thing is. Think about who you're going to invite. And there's a couple of different strategies here. Some companies literally only invite prospects, which is actually not a bad strategy, unless the prospects have nothing to talk about. And you might not care if you just get a six figure deal out of it or something, you know, and I, I get it to an extent. I mean, I, you know, I, I live with that to live with it. But you know, you're connecting with people in your industry and you're establishing yourself. You're, you're talking with people. And especially today, it depends on the industry too. There's a lot of industries where people are still at home, you know, they never see anybody.
I mean, I was kind of kidding. I got my COVID shot and, and I had to drive 25 minutes one way and then got the shot, wait for 50 minutes to be monitored. Drive back for 25 minutes. It has like, that's almost like a vacation, you know, it's leaving the house.
Teresa: Better than what we have been doing, cause you are. But yeah. So, okay. So integrating it with other things, I totally agree with what you're saying in terms of going live and doing something and how you can then pull out all the different content from that.
Getting started with live streaming
Teresa: But how would someone get started if they were thinking “I want to do live streaming” or “I'm thinking about it.” or, and I was saying to you before we got on that for me, when we talk about core content i.e. a blog or a podcast or you know YouTube. Live is for me, I think one of the easiest things to do from a uh, kind of planning and production point of view. Because if I was going to go live, I would normally a bit like how I record an episode, I guess, for podcasts, I'd normally sit down and think, right, I'm going to talk about this subject.
So I want to hit five points. What those five points, right, just talk. And that's as much planning as I do. I wouldn't do any kind of scripting for me. That would just be the worst thing I'd make such a mess of it. So if they weren't going to get started, what sort of things do you think they need to do to get started with going live?
Christoph: Well, the biggest thing is really to figure out what you're going to talk about and you know, how are you going to talk about it? And I think that takes a little bit getting used to it, just to talk about things for, you know, the, the right amount of time, which depends. But I would recommend, you know, somewhere between 30 and 45 minutes, it's quite frankly to have a show if it's just you solo, maybe a little bit shorter is okay here and there. But that's really the biggest thing. Figuring out what are you going to talk about? What are the topics. How often? Make a commitment, you know, for example, at Voxpopme, where I work as a content strategist, we have a commitment to go live once a week. So when I'm on vacation one week, guess what?
We'll go on live twice the week before, because I'm not going to be here next week. And, um, so you have to kind of make that commitment, because if you don't, guess what happens, you go live one time and say, “Hey, we're going live now all the time.” And then you don't go live for six months and then you come back and say, “Oh hey, we didn't go live for six months.” Anybody has noticed no. Okay. We're going to get started now. And then you still don't get started. So forget about this whole launching it thing. Just go do it and get it in front of people. And then technology is also kind of important. So you don't have to start with a highest level of setups.
So for example, now I got a nice mic. I got a nice camera. I got a nice ring light, you know, all these different things. But I didn't start there. You know, I started with my iPhone and my iPad. I don't even think I had an iPad at that time, honestly. So just my iPhone. And you can start there. And so if you're, if your excuses, I don't have the technology.
If you have a phone, you probably have the technology and then you can buy a little tripod to put it on. I mean, that's really how simple it is.
Teresa: You're right. And I think often we let those things stop us. We let those things, “I need the lights in better. I need a nice background. I need a nice room.” but you know, I was looking at a picture just the other day.
My daughter was behind me while I was looking at my computer and she's like “Is that you mummy?” And I'm like, “Yeah, from ages ago.” And of course the quality looks awful. My office looks a mess. Like nothing is like the setup I have today. Cause like you said, you have to get to that point. And also personally it'd be, I think it'd be a waste to begin with. Because who knows you're not going to like it. Like it might not be for you. You might decide “Actually, I just live video is really not for me.” And you've just bought all this stuff and now it's absolute pointless. So I think I would personally, I would probably get going with it. And then once I've established enough of a fact of, and again, I did the same with the podcasting in terms of the mic and the equipment and or whatever, you know?
And then I got to a point where I was like, actually, this is, this is what I want to do. I really like this. Let's start to invest in it. But I think that key thing of just planning what you're going to say. And just doing it. So talk to me about the fear of no one showing up, right? Because I know there's loads of other fears, but people must have this one.
And this is probably for me, the thing that is more than likely to happen when you get started. So how do you handle that? What do you do?
What if people don’t show up?
Christoph: Well? So here's, uh, here's childhood trauma, you know, honestly, uh, birthday parties were not, not as many people showed up, as I thought they would, for example. Say, but that doesn't mean I should ruin my birthday. Right. Like, I mean, think about, you know, I'll sit in a room by myself and have a steak if it has to come to that and I'll still enjoy it. So there's, you just, you have to kind of get used to it quite frankly. And early on, especially if you do a podcast only very few people will show up and well, listen.
If you stream to your existing social channels, all those channels that you spend years building, chances are that nobody will show up are pretty small today because all these channels are actually, you know, favoring live video because it's relatively new. So somebody will show up. Will you have millions of views?
Probably not. Depending on your industry. You know, who knows how many people are in your industry. So if you, for example, if you sell a big piece of equipment, construction equipment, there's not millions of buyers that care about those topics. So keep that in mind too. Um, but even if nobody shows up. Don't sweat it.
Keep going, keep pushing, keep, keep doing it. And you know, I think the latest I saw when it came to podcasts, most podcasts stop after seven episodes. That you can't do anything in seven episodes. Sorry. It takes a while to build the, you know, your brand. So, um, even if nobody shows up. Don't sweat it, keep going.
Um, hopefully it'll go up, um, down the road, um, and you know, promote it, schedule it. Scheduling is another tool that has helped me really drive reach because people see the scheduled posts, you know, and then they can see the live stream within that same post later on. Um, but yeah, don't overthink. It don't feel bad.
Just keep pushing forward.
Teresa: Awesome. So let's just talk briefly about the tech bit, because my, my main platform that I'm on now is probably Instagram. That's the one I liked the most. That's the one I spend the most time on, but obviously Facebook does do some good stuff. When you're doing live video, the reach gets better than you would on a normal post.
Obviously, LinkedIn have now got low video. So, where am I? Where am I doing this? And how do you feel like doing it to all of them, but bearing in mind with Instagram, as far as I'm aware, please tell me if I'm wrong, but you can't. Multistream to Instagram, Instagram, still on it's adding and you've got to do it through a failure.
Should you go live in multiple locations?
Teresa: So, so what's your thoughts on doing multiple locations at once? Well, I'm a big fan of doing multiple locations at once and I currently stream to Twitter. Of course, Twitter is changing with Periscope going away. So I think they're just moving it to Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Amazon. I'm a big fan of that currently.
I don't currently stream to Instagram, so you're correct. Technically speaking. Um, uh, based on the terms of service, you are not supposed to stream to Instagram with a third party service. Um, however you can, so depending on how rebellious you are, you might think about that. Uh, I think it's yellow dock is one of the tools that allows you to do it.
So you can go re stream to yellow duck. The Instagram, I haven't made Instagram a priority at all, because first of all, it's a different, um, you know, it's vertical versus horizontal. Um, so it doesn't look like the way we're talking. It's horizontal, right. With the pictures next to each other. So that wouldn't look good on Instagram.
So that's a big problem. Um, so you kind of have to think about how do you potentially overcome that if you want to go there. The, the other problem that I see on Instagram now, if you have a huge audience, You might not care, but it's very, very difficult to repurpose the content because it doesn't, as far as I know, it doesn't really save anywhere or maybe it does now, but last time I looked it doesn't.
And then, so once your life you're done, you could record it, I suppose, with the screen grab, um, tool, the screen recording tool, for example, or others. But yeah, I'm a big fan. If you can stream to multiple channels and save it and then use it other places that's I think the way to do it, of course, you know, it always does. Pence as well. And what system do you use to go multiple at
Christoph: once? So I currently produce on switcher studio on my iPad, and then I pushed that to restream and then restream pushes it out. You can also directly work in restream if you don't necessarily want to produce it the way I do it, you can also use stream yard.
And I think those are probably the, the main players. Yeah.
Teresa: Yeah. Okay, awesome. Awesome. So I'd love to just touch back before we finish on the, some of the things that you said that go wrong, like, and, and some of the problems that you've had to do, because again, I think often what happens is our audience, they find you, or they find someone when they're at a good level, because the reason they find them is because they've been doing it so consistently for a long time.
And then. They look at that standard and think, well, I'm not going to do that. Not knowing that you have made every mistake under the book up until that point. So tell me about like some of your entertaining, horror stories going live and what's
Christoph: happened the wrong person, right. Or not explaining the right things.
So I'll give you an example. I don't think sometimes you forget about it. Explaining everything you know, to the guests, because you only have so much time before you go live. So, but on switcher, what happens is, so I got the live channel and then there's like a back channel. So the guests and I can actually talk off air while the live feed is going on.
Well, what happens is. So they can also hear me if I mute myself, I'm off screen. So every once in a while, you know, like my kids will walk in and out I'm on mute, but I go get out of here or whatever, and they can hear it, but it's not actually on the live feed or I'll get up and I'll pick something up or I'll grab something and they're like, oh, what happened?
Because they can see behind the scenes. Well, they're not realizing that's not being broadcast. So, uh, you know, some of the prep things for sure. Um, also, I mean, what else un-muted the wrong person lost, feeds midway through? Um, what else? Um, I mean, horrible audio. I think audio is probably the most important thing right now to get, you know, nothing like that.
Totally terrible, but you know, or put the wrong, lower third on the screen. Like one time somebody was talking from Adobe and I put on the starting soon, uh, but the, the starting student graphics pushed the wrong button. Um, and they were like, huh? Oh, you know, sometimes like it's interesting, like some guests just kinda breeze through it.
They don't acknowledge it. And which is probably the best way to do it, but just those things, I mean, things, but things will happen like the end.
Solo vs interview
Teresa: Yeah. And, and we just have to go over that. Don't we? So tell me, do you always interview or do you do solo ones sometimes? Should they be looking to interview if they're going to do a livestream, what
Christoph: do you think?
Well, I do solos at interviews, but I find interviews much, much easier just because first of all, you are talking to other people, you have a little bit of a conversation and, um, it's much easier to actually offer, you know, a full show. If, if you're not a trained. Journalist, I guess, per se or a storyteller doing a live show.
I mean, that's, that's a lot of work because you're just kind of talking to yourself. You're just talking to the camera, right. You're looking at the camera and then you also have to do everything else unless somebody else produces it for you. But when you first start, probably do some lot, some solo ones just to kind of get the feel of it and then pretty quickly.
Jumping, you can also interview internal people, customers, you know, um, and, and invite others. Um, but I think it's a lot easier and fun when you have guests.
Teresa: Yeah, I think so. I think as well, especially if you know them late, you know, and those are your first few before you then go out to like the wider world, just because then.
You can be forgiving of each other. You can laugh. If something goes wrong, you can, you know, have a bit of an easier time of it, rather than I guess when you start having bigger guests, you then feel this pressure of I've really got to perform. I've got to be on as well as. Do everything else and do all the stuff and that sort of thing.
So, so yeah, I think it's funny. I keep talking about whether I'm going to do some live stream. Cause I, at the moment I only go live in my group paid group and I don't often do lives externally, but I have all the setup and all the things. And it's like sometimes I think it would really help to do some lives and repurpose that, that content.
But I'm a stage just to sort of, you know, reiterate where. Obviously, I do have a podcast, but I have a team now. So, so if you're thinking, how on earth am I going to fit this into my day with everything else? You know, you've gotta be realistic, which is why I'd probably go with a life first because it just isn't as much prep work or organization as maybe some of the other things take. Um, I do
Christoph: think. And think about, so what we're doing right now, like you as going live would have hardly been any more work for you. I mean, yeah, a little bit, because you got to push some button. Depends on how fancy you want to make it too. Like, when I first went live, I didn't have an opening, you know, I had a lower graphic and then we were just next to each other and you could literally start like that.
Like, you could literally take what we're doing right now and just livestream it. And at some point you had an opening, some people have closings. I don't even have a closing. Yeah. So, but yeah, you could, like, we could have totally gone live and it's very little extra work on your end, quite frankly.
Teresa: Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. You know, and I'd have to say just one last thing, the closing at the opening for me fix so many problems, you know, when you watch a live and someone goes live and they're like, and they're just looking at the camera and then eventually the like, uh, hello. Oh, I think we're live. I think we're live.
Whereas like when you do a, a counter Han or an opening scene, which if I can do that, I can assure anybody listening. It's really not that difficult, but like when you've got that, you know, that you've gone live, you can go and check. So I'm on mute. Well, that's canes in dine. I then open up another screen and check that I'm live in the group and then literally it can't stay in.
And I use Ecamm for when I go live. And I'm sure it's the same in all the other ones where. It can then change to a different scene automatically. So then certain I'm automatically on screen and then I can go, Hey, and welcome to the life. And it's just, for me, that just felt so much slicker, like, whereas I think when, when I didn't have that, it was like, am I alive?
Am I not live? Let me see. Can you hear me? Can you see me? Can you, you know, when you were doing all these things, whereas I think having that for me anyway, made it feel. One, it looks nice and you know, it kind of gets, it gets you to test the tech as well. In the sense of if you're not streaming, if it's not streaming, for whatever reason you can see before you're meant to be that talking.
So, yeah, but I did make an epic fail check the say as a ridiculous thing, I did a low stream. I like, oh, I know. I'll, I'll push that live stream may as a odd. But of course I pushed the live streamer as mad with my cane on it. So the first minute and 50 seconds of the live stream was just a Cate bang. And it's like, if I'm trying to advertise that to a cold audience who is going to watch a cave day.
So anyway, I then cropped it, repeat it back up again.
Christoph: So now though, you know, when you, um, so I have a countdown as well, and when you go, uh, when you're done going live, you can go back and actually now trim it on LinkedIn and also on YouTube. So YouTube, you go in, you just trim it out, then you just trim it out.
Yeah. So it starts at the beginning. So people don't have to watch the count on Twitter. It doesn't currently allow that, but of course we all know Twitter as like edit buttons of any kind. So, um, but yeah, you can, um,
Teresa: I didn't even know that that's so cool. Facebook doesn't offer it
Christoph: now. I don't know. I don't currently stream to Facebook. I think they don't, but yeah. Yeah.
Teresa: Awesome. Brilliant. Thank you so much. Good stuff that was so useful. Lots of good stuff. It really lovely to have you on today. Obviously I will link to everything in my show notes, but where would you like people to come and find you?
Christoph: I mean, please check out authentic storytelling that net feel free to connect on LinkedIn. Twitter. Of course the book is available on Amazon worldwide. Um, and it is also avail. It's a Kindle paperback and hard copy hardcover, which is a relatively new for independent publishers. Um, and that's available in the UK, Germany, France, the us, Italy, Spain, something like that. Cool.
Teresa: And we will make sure we've got all those links in the show notes because I thank you so much has been a pleasure to have you on.
Christoph: Thanks for having me on. I really appreciate it.
Teresa: There you go. That was this week's interview. I will be back next week for a solo episode, have a wonderful week, and I will see you then.
