People see my studio setup and think they need to drop thousands on equipment before they can start.
They’re wrong.
The majority, if not all, of my viral content has been shot from an iPhone.
Let me break down exactly what tools you actually need and what’s just a waste of money when you’re starting out.
Do You Need Scheduling Software?
I’ll answer that pretty quickly. Definitely not. I recommend almost not using it, especially for YouTube.
For folks on YouTube, you do not want to have a pre-schedule that goes out. They want to see that you’re doing it physically from your phone or your computer, having to go live.
The rest of the platforms haven’t shown a big difference.
So as you get to scaling to post three to five times a week, then you can get some things that’ll help you. Definitely.
There’s a platform, there’s a software called Loomly that will, you put your video in and it’ll post it to all your social platforms at the same time.
But for YouTube, I would not recommend that.
For after you’re posting early on, you’re still posting once a week, I definitely still recommend just posting it naturally or natively from your phone or your computer.
What Editing Software Do You Need?
There are two kind of natural extremes. You literally film on TikTok and edit and post on TikTok. Or I see some people, you have to get Photoshop and you have to get tons of crazy editing tools.
So when you’re starting out, can you just edit on TikTok or how should you edit?
I think that’s fine. You have it on there. Don’t go spend $1,000 on software. You can do it right from your iPhone. You can do it right from TikTok. You can do it right on Instagram.
You can do it on all these platforms. That’s what they’re for. I use those first.
CapCut Is All You Need
My daughter lives on CapCut. She’s nine years old and she lives on CapCut. She’s super good at it.
So there’s a bunch of free software out there that are great for editing videos too. Don’t spend too much money at first.
CapCut’s a great one. I believe they’re partnered with TikTok and TikTok allows a good amount of editing within their platform, but CapCut has even more.
So that’s another one. If you want to go a little bit crazy, but still a free tool that gives you some more access, then that’s a great one too.
So that’s the ones I would recommend that are relatively inexpensive or free actually to start there.
Do You Need a Professional Camera?
I think most people would see us today and see the studio stuff and see all this equipment. We do have $1,000 cameras. We have multiple cameras. We have drones. I get it.
But honestly, just starting out again, going back to what I said earlier, the majority, if not all, it’s in the majority, have all just been shot from an iPhone.
Go get yourself a lav mic. They’re 30 bucks online. Go get yourself a lav mic. The sound quality is good. Just to start out, there’s nothing wrong with that. It works really, really good.
Just start there.
Do You Need a New iPhone?
Even the older iPhones, most people are not going to have iPhone 8s anymore. They’re going to have 10, 12, 14, whatever.
The new iPhones are so good. You just don’t need all this fancy stuff.
I did the same thing though. I went and bought the fancy camera and it never moved. I went and bought this tripod and never moved it.
Selfie stick, I used that a lot actually early on. The tripods I did use.
But just hold your phone. Way easier and it doesn’t cost you any money.
The hardest part is picking up the actual phone and making the video.
You don’t need the $10,000 camera. And I think that’s what most people do. It’s like, “I’ve got to have this. It’s got to be perfect. I’ve got to do this.”
You don’t need any of it. Just create the video and post it.
You’re literally delaying all this stuff because you don’t want to actually go do it. You’re trying to find everything else. You’re trying to set it up perfect.
But when you start out, you’re never going to be perfect. That’s anything.
Like I said, that’s the main thing. Your first 100 videos, just know they’re going to suck and no one’s watching. So who cares?
Watch my old videos. God, those did suck. My new ones still suck. So we’re constantly getting better.
iPhone Content Actually Performs Better
Videos filmed on iPhone arguably perform better than the ones on camera.
I think it just knows that they’re coming from the person doing the content. The majority of our content is all filmed on your phone.
Everywhere that I go, every trip that I’m taking, I’m doing content.
I took my girls on a cruise. That’s what I’m doing. My daughter is holding my phone. I’m talking on the cruise ship.
Going through the cruise ship and I made like 10 videos and the worst one got like 10,000 plus views.
She was with me and she got to have fun doing it. She of course felt super embarrassed because she’s 14 years old at the time.
And she’s standing there holding a camera in front of all these people and I don’t care anymore. She’s like, “No, we’ve got to wait until they walk by.”
I’m like, “No, let’s just shoot.”
And so we went through that, but it’s fun. It’s fun for your family. It’s fun for your kids. They enjoy it. And they love seeing my TikTok. They go through it like, “Look, there’s my dad.”
That’s really cool too.
Why I Really Do This
This is how I think about social media these days.
You know how awesome it would be to build up, my dad passed away a few years ago, imagine if I had all this content of my dad growing up that I could go back and watch. How cool that would be.
I could still be with them.
So that’s what I think about every time I’m shooting all this content. My kids are going to have hopefully hours and hours of content.
We have from this, what we’re doing here. There’s so much content of what I was thinking at the time, what I was doing at the time, that they can go back and watch.
I’m still there.
That’s why I’m so attracted to content, that it lives forever. You film it once and it’s there forever.
Especially mid-form, long-form YouTube video, this is going to be here forever. You can find us long after we’re dead. This is going to be on YouTube.
The Actual Tools You Need
Let’s just get really clear about what you need.
Other than a camera, which obviously you need, that will be on your iPhone, what else?
1. A Tripod
If you’re filming it by yourself, get a tripod. They’re cheap. I mean you can buy ones that are 30, 40 bucks. They fold up to the size of 8, 12 inches. They fold up and carry it everywhere you go.
I have one with me everywhere I go. Just in case I need a selfie stick or need a tripod for pictures, whatever. I have that with me at all times.
Sitting right over there.
And that way you can set it up anywhere and then you don’t have to have someone to film.
Whether I’m sitting in the airport, I can make content wherever. I can just make content.
So that is a must.
2. A Mic
Obviously your mic is a must.
3. Your Phone
And then your phone’s a must.
You know what? You don’t need anything else.
Optional: A Nano Drone
But you can go get a, I think they’re Nanos. It’s a drone. It’s a Nano drone. I think it’s called DJI Nano. It’s $200.
That’s not bad. And it has audio, video right on it. It’ll follow you around anywhere you want to go. It’s pretty cool.
If you want to get drone footage, that’s it. And it’ll follow you around and you can shoot content by yourself.
How to Use Drone Footage
If you want to get really good action shots of your technicians servicing a home or obviously vehicle shots driving down the road, technicians, if you do say you’re a fertilization, weed control or whatever services that you’re out in the field going pretty fast, you can get shots of those guys.
Just a lot of good action shots.
So depending on where you’re looking for, if you’re looking for a lot of B-roll with your videos, that’s a really good way to do it.
And drones have come down in price so much too. You can get some really good ones for $1,500. You can get a used one if you wanted to, to get you started for $400 or $500 bucks on eBay or Craigslist or whatever.
Craigslist is a little thing. But eBay for sure, or even on Marketplace obviously. You don’t need to go buy a brand new one as long as it works. Just use a used one.
You Don't Have to Do It All Yourself
It’s crazy how cheap things are. Maybe something to consider here also is you don’t have to do all these things yourself.
I think something totally realistic is having your son or daughter do it or having a nephew or finding someone at the local college.
You don’t have to do all these things yourself, but understand they’re important and get help from someone who might be younger that just knows about social media and creating content.
A lot of these pest control owners, they have $200 to drop on a drone, but they don’t want to actually use the drone. How do I upload the footage and all that stuff?
Get your team bought in. Get your kids bought in.
Like I said, my nine year old’s great on CapCut. My 14 year old, she wants to hold the camera for a majority of the time.
Especially when we’re traveling, everyone’s like, “What do you guys have, this video crew that follows you around?”
I’m like, “Well, kind of. I do. But most of the time it’s her, honestly.”
And she’s obviously gotten used to this stuff too. She gives me a little eye roll at first, but she’s always taking pictures or whatever. Just squeeze everywhere with me and let’s go.
So they have fun with it too.
The Biggest Mistake People Make
I think people just think they need all this stuff. So they’re ordering all this stuff and then they get it and then they don’t use it.
But again, they’re just pushing it off so they don’t have to actually do it.
The hardest part, biggest mistake is just not doing the content consistently.
You’ll see people post content, then they’ll stop doing content for three, four, five months and they will expect to pick back up and the algorithm just falls off.
It’s turned into like a full time job. But again, like I talked about earlier, you want to make it fun so you don’t burn out because you can burn out doing this.
With podcasts or any long form content.
Just take a day out of the week, every single week. Say, “Hey, I’m going to do content for four hours a day.”
That four hours of content goes a long way.
The Bottom Line on Social Media Tools
You need three things: an iPhone, a $30 lav mic, and a $30 tripod. That’s it.
Don’t buy the fancy camera. Don’t buy expensive editing software. Use CapCut or edit right in TikTok.
Get your kids involved. Get your team involved. Make it fun.
Film everywhere you go. On vacation, at work, in the airport. It all becomes content.
And remember why you’re doing it. This content lives forever. Your kids will have this long after you’re gone.
The hardest part isn’t the equipment. It’s picking up your phone and actually doing it.
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Stop buying equipment. Start filming.
