Using Audiograms As An Alternative to Video

You're listening to podiatry marketing, conversations on building a successful podiatry practice with Tyson Franklin and Jim McDannald. Welcome back to podiatry marketing. I'm your host, Jim McDannald, joined always by Tyson Franklin. Tyson, what's shaking today?

Good morning, Jim. I just wanna wish you a happy Halloween that would be happening this week depending on where you are in the world. So did you do anything exciting for it?

Oh, it's always taking the kids out to the local neighborhood to fill up on nothing but nutritious sugar and caffeine and whatever they pack inside those, you know, those Halloween baskets these days. Yeah. It keeps me busy, then it becomes a nightmare for the next, you know, one or two months afterwards about that that expectation of candy after every meal.

See, I find that even funny over here is in Australia, it used to be we never did it as children. But as my youngest daughter who's 18 this year has gone through the years, all of sudden, her and her friends wanted to do Halloween. So somebody has marketed it quite well over here in Australia. And, yeah, it's it's becoming bigger and bigger, and then people are starting to have parties when when it occurs. But I I don't need an excuse to celebrate.

And in the last few years for Halloween, I will put on my gorilla costume and just drive around in my car.

I like that. I like that. I think the only thing about about Halloween is like, you go from Halloween to US Thanksgiving to Christmas to Easter in the spring, and it can be this like call it like the candy marathon where it's just like chocolate and candy for months at a time. But

So is Thanksgiving the same?

I mean, it's sweets. It's not actually like, you know, the the store bought candy, but it's, you know, pies and desserts around Thanksgiving. And then Christmas is similar, you know, Christmas candy and then, yeah, Halloween. I'd say Easter is the bookends. Right?

Like, Halloween and Easter is like the store bought candy bookends, and then you get all kinds of stuff in between plus, you know, the the runway that Halloween provides for a couple months.

Okay. We better get on with the episode. Everyone's going we don't want we didn't we didn't tune in to listen about your festivities. So

Yeah. To the Halloween candy podcast. Welcome to the Halloween pot candy podcast. But so what's the topic to do today, Tyson?

The topic today is using audiograms as an alternative to video. And if people are not sure, well, you know, what is an audiogram? Well, first, I'm gonna say if you're nervous in front of a of a camera, then maybe audiograms may be the solution for you. An audiogram is basically you're creating a a video file by combining a photo or some form of graphic that you've put together and combining it with the audio. So a simple thing is you might yeah.

Like my wife perfect example was my wife when we had the shoe shop, and we and I'd say to her, we should shoot a video for social media. She go, yep. Not a problem. But then whenever we did it, she she had this funny action of, like, springing up on her toes when she first started to talk on camera. It was like her, like, warm up.

And she I thought she was quite good in front of the camera, but she didn't always feel comfortable. I said, well, do you wanna do an audiogram instead? So we took a photo of a shoe. I then put some graphics around that photo. Just got my wife who wrote a script out.

She read the script perfectly. I just combined the two things together. And from that point onwards, that became our preferred method of creating videos for social media. Because a lot of people don't realize you can't just take an audio for like we're doing now and just go and dump that onto social media platforms. It just doesn't work.

They they only accept videos and photos.

No. That's a that's a great point there. I think there is something engaging as well, whether it be the text showing up on the screen or some motion in that video or that that photo, know, kind of a panning shot. I've seen that used a lot with different either podcast promotions or just companies promoting their products or services. Audiograms definitely seem like a a worthwhile to kind of kind of a way to get started, especially if you don't feel super comfortable like staring into the abyss of the camera.

And it can be a little intimidating to to really get started in video cause you're self conscious. You're judging yourself. But if you're just reading a script or you're reading off some detailed information and you know that it's gonna be covered up on the visual side by a photo or video, it can kinda set people at ease, but also provide something interesting for people to watch.

Yeah. Well, sometimes if you wanna shoot a video, it's always what's the lighting like? Yeah. How do I look? Should I have shaved today?

What shirt am I wearing? Is this shirt wrinkled? Did I wear this shirt last time I showed a video? Does everyone think I only own one shirt? Just like when I come on the the podcast with you, I reckon half 50% of the podcast I do with you, I'm wearing the same shirt because I just have this rotation of shirts that I I like wearing on certain days.

Yeah. There's all these things that go through your head, and and this is what people overthink things, and that's what stops them actually taking action. Whoever's at Zig Ziglar, you said, was it paralysis? Oh, was it paralysis by analysis where you just you overanalyze everything. So that's what I liked about audiograms is sometimes if I've had a thought and an idea, I can easily record it and just combine that with the picture.

When I am editing the other podcast, say, Podiatry Legends, sometimes while I'm editing that, somebody will say something, and I'll go, oh, that was that was a really good audio snippet. That was a really good point. But I don't wanna go back through the video to try and figure out where that was because I've done so much editing through the process. So I'll just take that audio snippet, put that aside, then I'll take a photo of the guest, and then I just combine that with my logo, put it all together, and video is done. And so, yeah, I I find them really useful.

No. I think they are they are an intriguing way to, like, promote something, but also get some, like, the best snippet of a conversation to kinda tease people into listening or just to kinda learn more about whatever you're you're putting out there. When you make these audiograms, Tyson, what kind of lengths of audio and video are you looking for?

Well, you can make them really as long as you want. The program that I use, which we'll talk about software later, you can do one up to two hours if you really want to. But logically, you wanna stick around the sixty second mark. Or even a little yeah. It can be shorter, but I wouldn't go beyond sixty seconds because most social media platforms will only accept short videos up to that particular length.

So even if you were posting something on Instagram, ideally, just to post it straight. If it's under sixty seconds, never a problem. So I try to keep them somewhere between thirty to sixty seconds, and therefore, it's also snackable. If people if you're putting them on social media platforms, you got a number of little audiograms there and people watch it and they go, wow. I really like that.

They're liable to go through and watch another four, five, six, 12 of them. Whereas if you put a a little audio thing up there and it's twelve and a half minutes and the person's there going, my god. That was a little boring before it got to the point. They're not gonna tend to, yeah, want to come back. So thirty to sixty seconds is great.

That's a short answer.

I totally agree with you. That's that's kind of like the the sweet spot for those different social media platforms, but also enough to give people a little bit of information but not like you said, kind of not necessarily bore them but just like maybe they didn't they didn't they're not not on social media to have that you know long video experience. It's enough for them to get a little bit of a taste of it. And if they wanna have more of it, there's probably a link or something that you're talking about where they know how to download whatever you're promoting in that that audio gram.

Yeah. Well, that's it. It's what the it's the purpose behind the audio gram. So when I'm doing an audio gram, say, a podcast, I'm promoting the rest of the episode. So listen to this audio snippet and or watch this video that I've posted because I want you to listen to the whole show.

If somebody was promoting, say, a product that they're selling, they can do a short little video snippet of that product, which can then have a link that goes through their website. There's more information, or they can then order that product or learn more about the service, or you might have a a new staff member that's joined your team, a new podiatrist. And you might say, well, we wanna we wanna promote you to the to the community. And most not everyone is comfortable in front of a camera. And you don't want that person to also look like a fool.

So whereas if you said, hey. Let's write out a bit of a script on who you are and get them to practice that script and say, all we're doing is getting you record this, then have a nice photo of them, your logo, and and the script, and that is introducing them to the community. So I think it's a great way of introducing new staff.

No. I think that's a great point. I think you you would definitely wanna have whoever's, you know, giving the audio or the video kind of projecting that expertise or that confidence. And if someone doesn't feel great and com you know, feels comfortable on camera, and either Graham Graham can be a way way of doing that.

Yeah. And it's also I I think anytime you've ever been recorded in something, if you've done an interview on the radio and there's any audio recording, mean, just think back if you've got any stuff stashed away, and can you break that up into little parts? And was there something you said that was really significant? And you go, wow. I should convert convert this to an audiogram.

So I did a talk in Power River in British Columbia a few years back. And while I was doing the talk, I went on, okay, I hooked up my iPhone, put on lapel mic, and I just recorded the whole conversation or the whole talk that I did, and it was on the six mill six pillars of marketing. When I did that afterwards, I I eventually released that as a podcast episode, but then also broke up bits and pieces of it and created a little audiogram. So but I've also been interviewed on, you know, local radio here in Cairns. Used to go on there every week for about five years, and I kept a copy of every one of those recordings.

And I used to break them up and create little audio small audiograms as well.

That's awesome. Yeah. I think they think you bring up a good point as far as repurposing content. You know, like finding those snippets or those little parts of an interview or some other media appearance you made. These are other great ways you can potentially promote your practice or some of the services you're providing.

Yeah. And even if it's a particular condition, think of if you're sort of thinking, oh, I don't know what I would talk about. Do do do you know any podiatry conditions that people may complain about? So if you do happen to know something, pick one, write a short script about it, have a photograph of that particular area that you take yourself, and and then just read the script. Combine it together.

And I and I think the other part with it too is, like, it's the process that you actually go through. I I like matching things together. So if you're going to do a recording, instead of thinking, oh, I'm gonna do an audiogram today. I must record something. You do the recording.

You go, oh, I must create a graphic. Do the graphic. What you should do is think about three or four, maybe five ideas, and record them all at the same time. Then go through, edit them all. Then later on, do the graphics feature, and then you can release them over the next, yeah, four or five weeks.

Yeah. Schedule it all in to do it. So I think batching things is really important to get the most well, to make sure you actually do it because it's the same thing. If you sit back and you go, oh, I must do an audiogram today, you're overthink it and you're not gonna do it.

No. I think you're bringing up a good point there as far as the batching. A different task can be hugely important because if you're, you know, if you got three or four different steps for each thing you're doing, you're just not being time efficient every time you switch. We can do four or five recordings, four or five finding the images, four or five kinda mixing together kind of in that sequence, you're gonna save a lot of time overall. But getting into that sequence, what type of software are you generally using to make the audio into the video portions of your audiograms?

Okay. Well, with the so the first part, you must must capture the audio. And you can do it very cheaply, or you can spend a lot of money trying to sound extremely professional like we always do, Jim. So For sure. But when I first started, I used to just record everything on my iPhone, and there's a program in there called Voice Recorder Pro.

It's a free program. I should just hook a lapel mic up to that, and I would just talk. And I was standing. Therefore, I could move my arms around while I was talking. It just seemed really natural.

Then later on, I moved through to buying an Audio Technica microphone, which cost me $80 at the time. And I hooked it up to my laptop, and I started doing the recordings directly on my laptop. And it just just sounded that little bit more professional. And by doing that, I used a program called Adobe Audition, which is a paid program that I do my editing on. But there's also free programs called there's one called Audacity that you can record directly into.

You can edit it on that same program. Really, really easy to use. And my most of these programs are the intuitive learning. Just push buttons. You can't break anything, and it gets better.

So I think if you're gonna use Audacity, like, on your laptop, which I think is probably the preferred method, is you buy yourself a just a nice USB microphone, cost you $80, hook it up, download Audacity, and just start recording. Listen back. You know when you listen to yourself, you're gonna sound like an idiot. Just expect that. That's just that's what goes with the territory.

You'll listen to it and go, oh, I sound so stupid. But then get other people listening to go, do I sound? And they'll go, oh, you sound good. So don't listen to yourself. So that's the first part is you gotta capture the audio.

Nope. That makes sense. And I think you're right. You're we're always we're always so self critical. Right?

So

Yeah. And and don't and just don't capture bad audio. Like I said, to get a free program like Audacity, put it on your laptop, buy an $80 USB microphone, and there are cheaper ones, you're gonna get decent quality sound. Nearly all my podcasts up until this one today has always been on by Audio Technica eighty dollar microphone. And now I've got this new one, a Shure MV seven, which I don't think sounds that much different, but I just I like the look of it.

No. I think that makes total sense. And like you said, there's just a range of budgets and a range of things that are gonna work for people kind of where they're at making these audiograms. And the most important thing is, like you said, have some reasonably decent equipment, but also finding a quiet room, having a good Internet connection if that's needed. I think we just found that out not too long ago.

But those things are really, really important. Right? If you have a loud noise in the background that's gonna annoy people, you just need to find ways either to remove that in post or just find a nice quiet space to block off and record in.

Well, I know a person that's got one of the one of the most popular podcasts in the world, and I met him at a conference. And I said to him, how do you get this this beautiful sound? He says, I record everything in my closet. I said, are serious? He says he says, I've got a little box that I've set up in my in my walk in wardrobe.

I've got my microphones and everything set up there. He says, everything is 100% scripted. I know exactly what I'm saying and doing. Yeah. Dot points so he ad libs just a fraction.

He says, press record. He says, and the acoustics in my wardrobe is fantastic. And that's where I do all my recording. So it it's a good point. It's just I think it depends in your on your environment.

So if you're if you're in your clinic and you're recording something and there's a bit of noise, you can crazily say I think as long as you pre frame it, oh, hi. I'm Tyson Franklin. I'm doing this recording today from the clinic in, yeah, in, yeah, whatever town you're in, then people will understand there's a bit of noise going on the background. When I did that recording in Power River, at the beginning of the podcast, I said, I just wanna point out this was a live recording that I did for the chamber of commerce in Power River during one of their luncheons. So if you hear doors opening and closing, cutlery hitting plates, cups in, people murmuring, and people laughing from my jokes, then that that'll explain everything.

Now I think if I didn't mention that, people go, what's all that bloody noise in the background? I think it's the same. You do an audiogram. It doesn't have to be perfect if you're not in a perfect environment. But ideally, if you're promoting a a person in your clinic, a product, a service, you want a quiet environment.

No. Makes total sense. So so next step, once you get that audio, that clean, crisp audio recorded, what's the next step in the process of making an audiogram?

The next part is just trimming it, giving it a little bit of an edit. And what's funny is when I've done short little audiograms myself, the editing probably takes me about two and a half seconds because I know what I'm gonna say. I press record, I press end, and I just tidy it up at the end. So that the software that I mentioned, Voice Recorder Pro, you can trim that directly on there. And also on Audacity, do the same thing as a little scissor icon, and you can just cut parts out.

The good part with it, if you're talking, instead of trying to be perfect all the way through, if you're partway through something and you're really good and then all of sudden you forget something, instead of going, stop. Oh, I need to do the whole thing again. Just pause and start again. And then you can just edit out those pauses. And because the whole recording you're gonna put together anyway is only gonna be about sixty seconds, Even if you stuff it up five times, you're only listening through something for about three minutes, so it's easy to find the parts to cut out.

So editing is really easy on those two platforms. Like I said, I use Adobe Audition. There's heaps of editing software there. All you do is just type in editing software for audio and you'll get a list and it'll have the top ten and eight of them usually free.

Now I use a bit of GarageBand back in the day and then also just using basic QuickTime. You can sometimes use a a kind of a trim function within there to to trim things up. So if you're on a Mac or if you're on a PC, there's definitely cost effective ways to kinda get started and feel comfortable with editing. It doesn't have to be overly complicated to get started.

Yeah. The only difference between the cheap stuff or the free stuff and the paid product is really you just get more tools. You can play around with the quality of the sound. You can adjust things on there. There's filters.

So and if but if you're just doing an audiogram, if you do a good recording from the beginning, you don't need to worry about all the other stuff that goes on in the background. So it's all about quality from the start, and therefore, you don't have to be patching anything up. That's why we sound so good, Jim.

Well, I've got a great editor. My editor makes me sound like a pro. What can I say?

I actually don't do a lot of editing to hours. I I edit a little bit, but I don't do a huge amount. I adjust the sound a little bit. So I could probably get away with just using one of the free programs because we are that good.

We're pretty good. I'm not gonna lie. But beyond beyond us being good, what what do you look for as far as how do you get that artwork associated with the the audiogram on your end?

Okay. Well, you can easily just grab a photo. Grab that photo and you can put it in this program that I'll mention in a sec. But to create my graphics, usually, I use Canva. Once again, there's a free version and there's a paid version.

Start with the free version. Play around with it. Once again, it's intuitive learning. You can't stuff it up. Put the pictures in there.

Put some graphics over the top. And always think anything you're creating should always have your logo and branding of your business on there. Even if you're just posting any photograph we're not not even talking about audiograms. If you took a photo in your clinic or a photo of a sunset and you're gonna post that onto social media and it's related to your business in any way, put your logo on it. And therefore, everyone will always know where that picture came from.

So if it's shared around, people will know where it was actually shared from. So I use Canva. I have the paid version because I want to have my corporate colors and all my branding and my fonts and everything in there. It is like a hundred dollars a year. So if you're a podiatrist and you cannot afford a hundred dollars a year, you need to have a hard look in the mirror at yourself.

It's a hundred dollars. Agree. Totally agree.

And that's it's a lot of this stuff. I've spoken to podiatrists about things in the past, and they go, oh, how much is, you know, that microphone? You might go, oh, that microphone there is the one I have is a hundred dollars. The one that I've just bought now, I think it was, like, $300. It's nothing.

And if you're a podiatrist and you can't afford to just buy yourself some quality equipment and some quality programs to create something that is gonna just really lift your business and make you stand out from the from the other podiatrist down the road who's too tight to spend money, then, yeah, you've really got a question. Maybe I should just get a job working for somebody else. Maybe I should stop listening to this podcast. I should stop doing marketing altogether. No.

Don't stop listening to this podcast.

We don't have a massive audience yet. I mean, like, we've got we've we've got tens of listeners, not hundreds or thousands yet. But but, yeah, I think you're right. You just have to invest into your your business, invest into your practice for future success. But I think that's it's sage advice, but even if you do go work with somebody else, keep on listening to our podcast.

Oh, yeah. Keep doing that. So when you decide to open up a business again and take it serious, you'll know what to do. But the the last part of it all is is the program to create the audiogram. I use a program called Headliner.

Once again, there's free versions and there's paid versions. The biggest difference is the free versions only limit you to do so yeah. I think one one a week or something out of four a month or five a month. The paid version lets you do a lot more, and I do a lot more. And I also like a lot of the other things that it offers me.

But go on to Headliner and same again. Play around with it. I mean, it's so simple to use. It'll say, what where's your audio file? You dump it into this box.

Where's your graphic? You dump it into the box. Would you like us to put it together? That would be fantastic. Put it together.

And then it also does the what's the word I'm looking for there, Joe?

The captions.

Captions. It automatically does the captions for you as well. If you don't want captions, you can say don't do the captions. But I always do the captions. I go back and then you can as it goes through, you can go in there and edit the words because for some reason, headliner doesn't like the word orthotic.

It puts orthodigs. I don't know why. And it prefers Americans to Australians. It actually understands Americans a lot easier than Australians, but it's definitely gotten better.

It can biased. Software can definitely be biased. I've had some of those in the past as well where similar issues where just you can't does let you edit it, but sometimes it just doesn't do the right word, especially in podiatry.

Yeah. Well, the good part with Headliner is it's just it's a really, really simple program to use. I did a an audio marketing workshop on the Gold Coast last year in between COVID. And there was six people in the room, and we went through everything from doing the audio recordings. I took all my equipment down.

We got everyone doing different recordings, got everyone on camera doing different graphics, had everybody edit, yeah, doing editing while we're there, and then we combined a whole and then we did a whole poll of audiograms. So by the time they left that day, they had done everything from start to finish. And then we went through all the different ways you could actually market yeah. Use audio to market your business. It was a fantastic day, which is why I thought this was an important topic to talk about because audiograms, you can use them, yes, on all social media platforms.

You can also use it in your website. You can put it in your email newsletters. Just think of anywhere where you could put a video, you can put an audiogram.

And I think it's hugely impactful. Like you talked about, like, just having having that confidence that with a spoken word, with a script, if you're not super confident about being on camera, you know, providing a visual, whether it be a video or an image of what you're trying to describe that's kind of intriguing to your audience or to your potential patients, it can be a real benefit to have these audiograms in your arsenal for sure.

Yeah. So if you haven't done one before, really think about it. If you're not sure what to do, there's plenty of videos online that you can can watch on how to do audiograms or reach out to us and, yeah, we might be able to guide you as well. But I just think get get started. And once you do a few, you you realize how easy it is and you will just you'll just keep doing it.

So I think I've covered this topic today. Jim, I'm done.

Alright, Tyson. Well, thanks for sharing that knowledge about audiograms, and look forward to seeing you in the next one.

Alright, look. Always look forward to talking to you. See you.

Alright. Thanks for listening to podiatry marketing with Tyson Franklin and Jim McAnnold. Subscribe and learn more at podiatry marketing. That's the website address, podiatry.marketing.