I'm learning how to publicize my work.
This is new territory for me.
In a recent post I talked about recording family interviews to document my cousins’ BRCA stories.
As a family historian, I'm used to conducting research and sharing genealogy information, but I'm new to interviewing. And I know nothing about publicity.
I also discovered that some cousins are not avid readers, so I learned to create videos to tell these family stories. Others want everything to be written down, but they keep losing the link to my blog. To fix this, I joined Substack. They can sign up now and get my writing in email.
Do I care whether cousins listen to my family stories? Not usually, but this time is different.
Now they really need to hear what I have to say.
The Steps I've Taken So Far
I did the interviews, created the main video, and wrote a post on Facebook letting them know a video is coming.
The next step? Short teaser videos.
These need to be under a minute for YouTube and no more than 90 seconds for Facebook or Instagram Reels. I'm still learning about these platforms. I've prepared three teasers to share throughout the week, leading up to the main video release on Friday.
Here is the first teaser video, featuring my cousin Melody, who was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2018.
She discusses her chemotherapy experience.
Unlike traditional landscape-oriented videos, these teasers are in portrait mode to suit mobile phone viewing.
The wiggly thing below my photo is called a waveform generator. These are often used in podcasts that are also delivered as videos. I don’t have a video of Mel, so her words are animated with a waveform instead.
Will my cousins notice?
I'll let you know later in the week!
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