8 Second Video Challenge

Are our modern-day proverbs memes?

What about video? Could we have something better than just GIFs?

Could you write a proverb?

I challenged myself to give it a go.

I listened to a podcast about how you can use proverbs, the tiniest of stories, to make your points stick.

It was with Ron Ploof, author of The Proverb Effect.

Proverbs are remembered for centuries:

-Two wrongs don’t make a right.

-When in Rome, do as the Romans do.

-Fortune favours the bold.

Short and simple, yet so impactful.

So I challenged myself to give a video lesson with context and key messages in 8 seconds.

Here are 10 x 8-second videos I made. 

All of mine have a commercial theme.

Scripts and insights are below the videos.

🗣 These are the 8-second video scripts

the world is hungry for truth

we want to hear from you 

with all your lumps and bumps and wrinkles of your life well lived 

video is not the secret sauce, you are

This one comes in at 33 words and as you’ll hear is very rushed. 25 words are the sweet spot.

Brushes don’t make the artist

Typewriters don’t make the writer

big cameras don’t make you better videos

but good video habits will earn you money 

This is 25 words. I think this is the sweet spot of message and delivery. If you watched the 8-sec lesson in Part 1 which was 33 words, you’ll see the difference a few words make.

Sshhh

video is not radio

video doesn’t need a thousand words

videos power is pictures

show don’t tell

This is 18 words. The shorts of the 3 examples so far. It has so much more time for the delivery to breathe. Compare it to number one which was 33 words and very very rushed.

Do I need video?

there’s only one question to ask

would I be more effective if I looked my customer or colleague in the eye

there’s your answer

👉This is 28 words. Just a few words over the sweet spot of 25 words which I delivered in video number 2. These three extra words equate to about one extra sec which means I had to rush the delivery.

👉33 Words is too long. Almost impossible.

👉This is more poetry than proverbs

👉 It is worthwhile doing. It brings clarity to your thinking.

I’ve made 10 of these so far. They require so much work in the scripting. As Winston Churchill said, ‘if I had more time I would have written you a shorter letter’.

Are you interested in giving it a go? I'd love you to send me you versions.