In this short article, I want to share with you why it takes a shit load of time to turn a one-hour webinar into something people can re-use.

The short answer.

It takes about 3-4 hours.

The long answer

Yes it takes a shitload of time to edit the video of a webinar, but that's because I'm going the extra mile to make sure that I squeeze all the value I can from that one hour recording.

Let's take the example of the webinar “Setting the Scene with Service Design” with Emmanuel Fragnière that I hosted for the Swiss Service Design Network.

Here is what I get out of a 1-hour recording that I then publish in a summary page:

A 39-minute edited video

This video of the full webinar is one where I removed the unnecessary intro, blanks, and conclusion that make sense in a live event but not when you watch it afterwards.

I also add chapters in the video, by using the Descript timing I automatically get when using the marker feature, so that people can easily jump from one part to the other.

To make that long-format video more interesting to watch, I now add a short teaser at the start of the video so that people understand what we'll cover in the video, and so there is a bigger chance that they stick to the end of the video.

8 clips that answer specific questions:

I cut out the most interesting and actionable parts of each webinar so that people can get directly to those parts without watching the full webinar. I then also import many of these clips in my digital brain about service design. So that people can then search through the content easily.

A full transcript

By using Descript to edit the videos, I automatically get a text version of the video that I can add so that people who prefer to read can explore it like that. But it's also pretty great as it makes it possible to have text that search engines can use to find your event summary page.

A summary

I use the transcript and then by using notion.ai with the prompt: "Make a summary with bullet points" I get a good basis for a summary of the whole event. This is a great addition to the video as it lets people know what we'll cover in the webinar in just a few seconds without watching the video.

Resources

Often during a webinar, a guest mentions additional resources (like books, templates, etc.), and I try to link to these resources directly on the summary page. So people don't have to watch the video and then Google a book title but can directly see that a book was mentioned on the summary page.

Written on Wednesday 20th of September 2023, by Daniele Catalanotto