Shooting video for social media – strategy, techniques and kit

Content creator Harry Seaton started self-shooting busking videos for social media when he was just 16. Today, after launching two media marketing agencies, he is an expert at producing strategic and creative content across a variety of social platforms.

Here, he shares his tips for delivering professional social media video content.

Before shooting anything, it's important for today's videographers to understand the market they're in. The creative relationship between videographers and their clients has become more fluid, Harry explains, but there are still challenges for those looking for creative control. "A lot of marketing managers are on social media, meaning they see filmmakers as almost an all-in-one, from ideation to creation," he says. "But legacy brands, especially in trickier industries such as finance, are still giving strict briefs."

People hoping to be involved in the creative process from start to finish should look to work with startups, Harry suggests. "They may have the money to be a major client, and are often a bit more open."

Working with legacy brands doesn't have to mean sacrificing creative influence, though. "Making recommendations right from the start is the best way to find out how open they are to ideas," he says. "Whether that's as simple as the way you grade footage, or whether it's creative direction as well – you have to get that in, right from day one."

A social content journey begins with a platform-centric mindset. "When it comes to brands, it's easiest to work backwards and start thinking about basic customer profiles," says Harry. "From there you can think, 'that type of person is typically on Instagram – so I need to make sure the videos I deliver are square, there are various different cuts, they're less than 60 seconds, and maybe throw in a 15-second piece for an Instagram story'."

Although there is no set formula for a successful social content campaign, Harry believes transparency consistently gets traction. "There's a huge trend now around building businesses in public," he says. "A lot of CEOs and founders of startups will have public-facing profiles, where they talk about everything that goes on behind the scenes – some of the larger brands are starting to adopt this a bit more as well. Go behind the scenes and show exactly how certain things are made, because there's a lot of interest there."

For Harry, the right photography kit boils down to functionality. "Can I send things to my smartphone? Does it boot up quickly? Does it have good autofocus? The Canon EOS R5 and EOS C70 tick all of those boxes," he says.

The Canon EOS C70 would be Harry's go-to camera for slightly longer social content such as his music video work. "I think a lot of pro filmmakers would struggle to tell the difference between footage from the EOS C70 and a camera costing upwards of €50,000 when it's used by the right person and graded correctly," he says.

The built-in ND filters on the EOS C70 are easily the standout feature for Harry: "You don't have to miss shots because you're outside and the light changes. If you're inside a studio and the sun suddenly shines through a window, you can miss something great. Being able to press a couple of buttons and have it look exactly how you want is hugely underrated."

When it comes to lenses, Harry favours the Canon RF 28-70mm F2L USM. As a self-declared "one lens" shooter, he feels this covers all his focal-length needs. The IBIS in the EOS R5 works wonders with this lens, he says, enabling him to focus on the shot without having to worry about lengthy post-production tweaks.

When it comes to camera settings, Harry has some simple rules. "If you're using a Canon camera, where the colours are really nice, I think you want to leave the picture profile off," he says. "When I'm outside and manual exposure can be a real pain, I usually tailor around my aperture so I can maintain that really nice depth of field. I use Aperture priority with a faster shutter. I know a fast shutter speed is a bit of a taboo and often people want to keep it low for that cinematic motion, but I like being able to have the option to switch to a very smooth, slow mode later because you've captured so much data."

Social-first is a vertical world, Harry says, and it is important to shoot vertically rather than cropping in post. If you do the latter, "you'll always be annoyed with yourself, because you'll have set up the shot horizontally to include certain things that you then lose in the crop. If you're filming horizontally, you're not going to get your subjects shoulder to shoulder. So when it comes to cropping, you're going to be constantly having to flip between an angle of one person and the angle of the other – you'll never have them together."

Harry also thinks it can be beneficial to shoot B-roll separately. "I prefer to break it in two, so you're more focused on what the B-roll is trying to achieve. You can miss key A-roll moments if you're trying to shoot both simultaneously."

Harry's final piece of advice might be tough to swallow for the professional perfectionist, but makes sense for an industry that demands constant output. "4K isn't the be-all and end-all. It's a fantastic feature when you have the time or when you are making a tutorial – to give yourself extra room to crop in without losing quality," he explains. "But if I'm making social content and doing it quickly, 1080p is always my go-to. This is why Canon is so good – the colours are fantastic straight out of the box, so you can keep the file sizes small but still get great quality because of the power of the camera."

Harry tends to add slo-mo in post-production using Adobe Premiere Pro.* "I think one of the handiest things is building a project into nested sequences, as it can often get quite messy – especially if you work with tons of different clips," he says. "Sometimes if a clip is at reduced speed, it's very hard to notice. Having it in nested sequences gives you a bit more flexibility."

Jump cuts are an established technique both to save time and to keep edits punchy. "With social, there's no expectation about how much space you leave after a sentence," Harry explains. "I will zoom in heavily onto the audio section of my footage and make crops the moment I see the wave dip; the moment I see it come back up again I cut the footage and drag it back together."

Though this slightly aggressive style of edit might seem alien to pros with cinematic leanings, it's vital when making content that can actually get on social platforms. "YouTube shorts, Instagram reels – they're capped at 60 seconds," Harry says. "You'd be surprised how many seconds jump cuts save. And every second counts."

*Adobe and Adobe Premiere are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Adobe in the United States and/or other countries.