How to make killer short-form content (no matter your age)

When it comes to getting eyes on your brand, few avenues are as reliable as short-form video (SFV) content.

But if you’re an experienced, old-school marketer, this recent boom in SFV content might have you feeling anxious about getting in front of the camera. You might even be telling yourself you’re too old and/or unrelatable to build a brand on social media.

I looked to Bhaskar “Buskey” Sharma, a 300K follower-strong content creator and creative director at The Attention Seeker, to get his take. Having been in the personal brand game for 5 years, he shared his insights on staying relevant in the age of SFV and how to overcome those mental barriers that scream “this is so stupid”.

Sup Buskey! You’ve been a content creator for a while now. Tell us a bit about that.

So for the last five years, I've worked with big brands both nationally and internationally. I've also been writing, directing, shooting, editing and starring in my own skits, and a lot of them have done really good numbers. From that experience, I now understand what the audience wants and how to build momentum from specific shots and editing styles.

You mostly film skits, both scripted and unscripted. Where do your content ideas come from?

My most viral videos have been me waking up and picking up the phone and just recording what feels right. If you go my old videos, some which got around 2 million views, you can see that I do a “millennial pause”, then after the third clip I stop and turn the camera off. Like, that's how much I didn't care at that time. But that just shows that if the idea is strong enough, the execution doesn't really matter.

A lot of people think of SFV ideas but never post out of a fear of looking stupid or embarrassing themselves. Is that a barrier for you?

I'm of the mindset that haters equal more views. Being an Indian that makes videos about South Auckland, I'm gonna get haters and I just don’t care. I think all my ideas are stupid, but I just post them and if they do well, then they do well. If not, then they don't. Those “what ifs” you ask yourself just stop you from growing. If you started making videos now, posting every day for a few months, then you might be 10-20K more followers ahead than if you didn't start.

As a creative director with TAS, you’re helping people and businesses find their voice on social media. What's your approach with them, and how do you know where to draw the line?

The important thing to remember is that they all have a vision. Everyone’s vision should be respected and cherished. Without it you've got nothing. You also have to understand their morals and their lines that they can't cross. From there, you can recommend some ideas and push them to be a little bit cutting edge. They don’t have to go that route though. Like one of the best TikTok accounts I follow is Bradley On A Budget, and he just shows how he saves money. It's "boring" in comparison to some other types of content, but people want to see things like that.

With either your own personal brand or others’ brands, how do you keep growing when you’re unsure what direction to take things?

It's all about momentum and consistency. If you post a video and it gets only 100 views, then you think of ways you can do again that's 10x more relatable, 10x funnier, 10x more entertaining. 100 people saw your video because of the algorithm, and there’s millions out there like them who could see it, too. So you just have to see if you can stick with a niche and topic, but just change it up a bit and make it more interesting. It’s really hard to pick up momentum, but once it’s there, you gotta go with it.

Your dream is to be in a Netflix movie, and according to you, it’s "going to happen, could be when I’m 50, could be next year”. What would you say to people who worry about their age and getting “too old” to learn or accomplish something?

For me it’s inevitable, it's gonna happen. I feel like things are clearer once you’re a bit older. When you’re young, you make dumb decisions. But when you're older, you're more in tune with yourself, your morals and the way that you want to be seen and represented. And even if you just think about the next two years, it sounds like a long time but it’s gonna come fast.

You can't stop time, and wherever you want to be at the end of it is fully up to you. You could sit around moping, wanting to do content and “waiting for the right time”, only for those two years to pass and hit you between the eyes. Or, if you just start now, just give sh*t a go, then you could be somewhere else entirely when those two years end.

-Devin Pike, Copywriter