GOOD AT WHAT YOU DO? THAT DOESN'T MEAN YOU HAVE TO BE GOOD AT EVERYTHING.
What an Instagram Reel, two stuffed-animal microphones and a tiny ghost train car reminded us about expertise, collaboration and trying something new.
WHEN THE CONTENT CREATORS BECOME THE CONTENT
At Schparkly, we spend a lot of time helping businesses communicate. We work out what they have worth saying, who needs to hear it and how to make it interesting enough that people actually pay attention.
Sometimes that means developing a brand strategy or messaging. Sometimes it's writing website content, creating campaigns, producing articles or building a content strategy that gives a business something useful to say beyond the occasional obligatory LinkedIn post.
We're comfortable with all of that. We're also comfortable speaking in public. Give us a room full of people and a subject we care about, and we're happy.
So when we were asked to make an Instagram Reel to promote a personal branding talk at Werewolf Beer in Camden, we thought it would be relatively straightforward.
We were wrong.
AN HOUR OF FILMING. THIRTY-NINE SECONDS OF VIDEO.
The creative team was Harmony, a social media specialist, director and editor, and Miriam, a videographer and photographer. Harmony understood what would make people stop scrolling on Instagram, while Miriam knew how to capture the footage that would bring the idea to life.
They'd planned the lines, the shots and how the finished Reel should work. We just needed to deliver our parts.
Of course, delivering a line naturally while staring into a camera is surprisingly different from having a conversation. Wren kept looking away from the lens, we repeated takes, and at one point we found ourselves squeezing two rather tall creative directors into a wonderfully tiny ghost train car.
The microphones were another highlight. Attached to a stuffed werewolf and a plastic horse, they required us to hold the animals close enough to our faces to capture the sound while attempting to appear perfectly natural.
An hour later, we had the footage for a 39-second Reel.
And the finished result was rather good.
CONTENT EXPERTISE ISN'T THE SAME AS BEING COMFORTABLE ON CAMERA
There's an important distinction here.
Knowing how to create effective content doesn't automatically make you comfortable appearing in it. Writing a compelling article, developing a website's messaging and delivering a scripted line to camera all involve communication, but they're different skills.
And different formats have different demands.
An article gives you room to develop an argument. A website needs to help people find information, understand an offer and take action. A newsletter needs to give readers a reason to open it and something worthwhile once they do.
A short-form video has to capture attention almost immediately, communicate quickly and work within the expectations of its platform.
The underlying thinking matters in every case, but the execution changes.
That's why simply taking the same message and dropping it into every channel rarely produces the best result. Good content starts with understanding what you're trying to communicate, who you're talking to and what each format needs to do.
In our case, Harmony knew what the Reel needed. Our challenge wasn't developing a message worth sharing. It was learning how to deliver that message effectively on camera.
SOMETIMES THE BEST CREATIVE DECISION IS TO LET SOMEONE ELSE LEAD
We're normally the ones giving creative direction.
We ask questions, challenge assumptions and help clients work out which ideas are worth pursuing. Sometimes that means encouraging a different approach from the one they originally imagined.
This time, we were on the receiving end.
Harmony knew what she wanted from each take and why. Miriam knew how to capture it. Even when the direction felt unfamiliar, we trusted that they understood what the finished piece needed.
That trust didn't mean switching off our own judgement. It meant recognising where their expertise was more relevant than ours.
And that's an important part of any good creative relationship.
The best collaborations aren't built on one person knowing everything. They're built on people bringing different skills and perspectives to the same challenge, being willing to question one another and knowing when to let someone else take the lead.
YOU KNOW YOUR BUSINESS. THAT'S ONLY HALF THE STORY.
We see this all the time with the businesses we work with.
A founder might know their product inside out but struggle to explain why anyone outside their industry should care. A growing business might have an excellent reputation but a website that no longer reflects what it does. A team might be full of expertise and interesting ideas but find it difficult to turn that knowledge into content people want to engage with.
That's where an outside creative perspective can make a difference. Not because we know a client's business better than they do, but because we bring expertise in positioning, messaging, design and communication that complements what they already know.
We can ask questions they might not think to ask, spot opportunities they've become too close to see and help turn their knowledge into something that connects with the people they're trying to reach.
And sometimes, just as Harmony and Miriam did for us, we can help them feel more comfortable trying something different.
MORE GHOST TRAINS, PLEASE.
The Reel received views, comments and shares, and the event attracted a decent crowd. We enjoyed the finished result enough that we're now working with Harmony and Miriam on more Reels for Schparkly.
We're not suddenly experts at performing on camera, and we're certainly not abandoning the content work we already know how to do. We're simply expanding the ways we communicate and getting better at a format that's still relatively new to us.
That's the interesting thing about stepping outside your comfort zone. You don't have to abandon what you're good at to try something different. You can build on it, learn from other people and discover new ways of doing things.
And you don't have to do it all yourself.
GOOD AT WHAT YOU DO? SO ARE WE.
Whether you're rethinking your brand, building a better website or trying to turn your expertise into content that people actually want to read, watch or share, we'd love to hear what you're working on.
You know your business. We know how to make people care about it.