In January 2019 we launched InvestOrama: a channel about Fintech and financial education, based on 4 observations.

• Many Creators, mainly on YouTube, find success with complex, niche, business topics ranging from science to business to law.
• Businesses covering similar topics typically struggle to build a significant audience.
• Successful Creators in their field develop their own style and inject their personality
• Businesses communicate generally with “talking heads” or format inspired by business TV (interviews, panels) but not adapted to social media

This led to testing a few assumptions with potentially far-reaching impact for the marketing and communication of financial services firm.

• Technical business content, in particular in the financial world can be made engaging with storytelling and cinematographic techniques
• Thought leaders or businesses that operate in a technical B2B context can also engage and grow their audience faster with video than other media

With that in mind, we started filming the first videos in late 2018 and have been posting content regularly since January 2019 on InvestOrama.
Below are some key findings from the journey so far, along with actionable takeaways for Fintech video marketers.

Production: How to showcase technical expertise

Hundreds of references were analysed in the research leading to the first InvestOrama video. One that emerged in terms of production was Vox’s “Explained” on Netflix. Each episode is a mix of interviews with real footage and graphics.

Here is a free episode on YouTube. If you browse to the end you will see that over 20 people are in the credits. It’s not quite a Hollywood film, but we are clearly looking at high production values and significant budgets.

Although these resources are out of reach, the show remains a reference and a benchmark.

Here are some observations from the first 20 videos produced and posted

The format we are using allows a lot of cuts. The first benefit is that the speaker doesn’t need to learn something by heart and therefore can be more natural. The second is that for some of us who hesitate, are not native English speakers, or often need time to think before answering, none of that counts. With clever editing, it becomes just about the actual content you can deliver.

To properly test the model we didn’t skip any topic, no matter how dry it appeared at first. These include regulation, investment strategies, cutting edge technology. As the methodology and toolkit expand it becomes easier to address abstract concepts.

MSCI Inc and our partner Solactive AG are in the same industry, where the former is a leader. MSCI has 38x more followers on LinkedIn. You’d expect them to have a greater organic reach with their videos. Yet, the videos we produced for Solactive reached over 3,000 people on average vs. less than 1,000 for MSCI’s. (Very reassuring given the amount of work on post-production)

Although the feedback on all videos posted from 2019 has been very positive, this was not always the case. Earlier tests in that style were produced that did not feel right. Mainly, because as we blend many different elements together (interview, stock footage, images, graphics, icons), the cohesion of the piece was lost. Only after doing considerable work on the branding and formatting did it start feeling right. We now operate based on a template that is regularly updated.

Showing the speaker on screen may not be essential to the message (which could be narrated by an actor). However, it provides context and personality which has a dramatic impact. We also make sure that the interviewees talk directly to their audience, not an interviewer.

Where and how to post your Fintech video content

So far, we have published content on YouTube, Linkedin, Instagram, Twitter, in that order of priority.

Facebook is an obvious absentee with which we had great success in the past. The context, however, is less favourable.

Tik Tok, Snap, and others are not part of the list (although I was into Vine) as they don’t fit the potential audience, but this can evolve.

Here a few observations valid for distribution across all networks.

• The first few seconds are critical

It doesn’t matter where you post. It is very hard to capture the attention of the modern viewer so you need to carefully plan and address this.

• It’s ok to duplicate the content on all platforms, except on YouTube

What differentiates YouTube when all other social media offer native video? Its search functionality. You don’t want to confuse the algorithm with duplicated content.

• LinkedIn: has become a must for technical video content

Based on our experimentation so far, LinkedIn has been the most effective. Below are some key takeaways for LinkedIn and others.

LinkedIn has become a place for content

Linkedin is where we’ve registered the most views and engagement ORGANICALLY. Over 4 posts, we have noticed an average view count of about 4,000 per video with an engagement rate of 3% and a click-through-rate of 2%

The video below has raked almost 6,000 views organically.

Olivier BOSSARD on LinkedIn: ""Blockchain and the History of Money - Episode 1" - the first in a series of 3 mini-videos aimed at demystifying the #blockchain and its applications. 💰🔐💱🚀!!! Super cool video production by my great friend and HEC Alumni himself George Aliferis, founder of Orama.tv, the booming London-based video production studio! 🚀🚀🚀 Beyond any interest in the technical content itself, please help me advertise further George's super creative productions by liking & sharing this video as much as you can! 😊 And if you don't want to miss the upcoming Episodes 2 & 3 of our "History of Blockchain", register now on Orama.tv's YouTube channel here: 😍 https://lnkd.in/gHPSUGw http://invest.orama.tv https://lnkd.in/gM87RfG https://lnkd.in/gYHy_ys cc HEC Paris #fintech #crypto #bitcoin #mobilepayments #ecommerce #IoT #digital #banking #digitization #payments #digitalinnovation #digitalfinance"

2 years ago, LinkedIn didn’t even support native videos, but the recent changes in the algorithm have made it very effective for video marketing, especially for B2B and technical industries, like Fintech.
Aside from the elusive algorithm, there are a few reasons why this type of content performs well.

• LinkedIn provides context

For hyper-niche content, context is essential as the viewer may otherwise not have all the elements to comprehend the content. Watching something on “Index Regulation” makes a lot more sense on the page of an index provider than somewhere else.

• Influencers matter

This is very different from the “Influencer Business” on Instagram

In the video above, the fact that it was posted by Olivier Bossard made a big difference. He has built a significant following but more importantly he is a Finance professor, is regularly invited on financial media who previously held global roles in derivatives. His voice in financial matters carries a greater weight than the average.

• Existing audiences

B2B and Fintech businesses often have a larger following on LinkedIn than elsewhere, here is an opportunity to leverage it

• Captions are required

While testing on different browsers. We noticed on some of them, the LinkedIn video did not offer the possibility to view captions. So we went for “burned captions” like in the video above.

• Employee sharing is an easy hack

Even if you are a small business with just a few followers on your page, your employees statistically are likely to have over 500 followers each. Encouraging them to share it, means you can multiply your reach. Solactive, below, encourages its employee to actively engage with each new video posted.

Solactive AG on LinkedIn: "What is #indexing and why does it matter? From the famous Fibonacci sequence to the concept of Minimum Downside Volatility, our Head of Research, Timo Pfeiffer, illustrates the fundamental concept behind indexing and its diverse application. For more information on how Minimum Downside Volatility indices outperform plain volatility strategies, take a look into our recent blog post: https://lnkd.in/gDCAGMt #ETF #ETFs #Passiveinvesting"

YouTube: a longer term play

On YouTube content can live forever and grow. Whereas on LinkedIn the active life of a video is about a week (similar to Facebook). So far, it’s been a decent but modest start for the InvestOrama channel (about 90,000 views in total and 1,775 subscribers as of 21 May 2019)

• Thumbnails and optimization are essential
• It’s relatively easy to rank for long tail keywords, but the traffic is less consistent than on Google
• It’s hard to get organic traffic quickly
• On the other hand, well-targeted paid-for traffic tends can be meaningful. We see a decent rate of subscribers and engagement with promoted videos.

Instagram: make it easy for yourself

After trying out different tactics, we’ve now found one that works in terms of workflow on the InvestOrama account.
Initially, we were creating content for Instagram, transforming videos in square format and creating specific content.
It turns out that we get the same results, or better, by using screenshots from the video. This has now become the way to keep the feed alive without too much effort. This is made easy by the effort put previously in the video.

InvestOrama (@invest.orama) * Instagram photos and videos

On Twitter: Pin it

This tweet has generated over 1,300 views and significant engagement

Pinning to a profile is an easy way to give a tweet a longer lasting impact.

What’s next

We are just getting started.

The format and style have been well received. The content has performed well overall, in particular within a business context, such as LinkedIn.
LinkedIn stands out so far. It has transformed from, mainly a place to recruit to a great platform for B2B content marketing.

So far we are only talking about organic results, now that we know what worked best we are just starting promoting the content in a targeted way. The results and approach deserve a whole new chapter.

We still have a lot to develop in terms of formats, storytelling and editorial choices and that makes me very excited about the journey.

Originally published at http://orama.tv on May 21, 2019.

**This visual essay is adapted from the script of a video: The Idea that Saved a Trillion Dollars**

We admire those who became billionaires with their investment performances. People like Buffett, Soros, Icahn, who are all worth billions. However, in terms of saving money for others, one man holds a record that may never be beaten: Jack Bogle, who passed away on January 16, 2019. He did so with a tenacious data-driven approach, which led to the creation of Vanguard. Today Vanguard is one of the largest asset managers in the world but it was not an easy start. His story shows that data and academic research alone can’t sway investors mind.

The trillion dollar idea

It’s estimated that he saved one TRILLION dollars to investors big and small, according to Bloomberg who called Vanguard a “private-sector wealth-transfer machine”.

Although it’s a loose approximation based on future impact, there is no doubt that no matter how you calculate this, the number is huge.

At the Vanguard of ideas

The story starts in 1951 at Princeton, where Bogle wrote a thesis on fund management. It concluded with the following recommendations for the future growth of the industry:

• Reduction of sales loads and management fees
• Make no claim for superiority over the market average

Walter Morgan the CEO of Wellington, a fund manager, was impressed. He offered him a job. It was a traditional fund management company, picking stocks to beat the market. There, Bogle rose through the ranks and is credited with various new products and initiatives in his early years at the company. In fact, he did so well that he eventually became CEO himself.

Yet, the belief that things could be done differently was always on his mind and research kept coming that was making the concept stronger and stronger.

Research galore

People like Paul A. Samuelson, a future Nobel Prize winner, were challenging the status quo.

Books like “A Random Walk Down Wall Street” demonstrated that “most everyone is wasting their time trying to beat the stock market”, and called for the creation of a cheap indexed fund.

“The Loser’s Game” compared the stock market to a casino where odds were stacked against investors. Their trading and research costs were playing the role of the green zero at the roulette.

And there are more references mentioned by Bogle himself in his history of the first index fund.

Data confirmation

From 1945 to 1975 the S&P 500 outperformed the average fund by 1.6% per year. By then Bogle felt compelled to act.

Setting sail

Coincidentally, in 1975he was ousted as CEO after a failed merger. He soon bounced back with a plan for indexed funds. He was convinced he could deliver a better performance than most funds, at a fraction of the costs.

He built a pitch to show that ‘Great rewards grow from small differences in cost’.

The logic of it is very simple.

A $1 million investment with a 10% annual return would be worth $17.5 million after 30 years, with an 8.5% return (using the 1.5% cost differential) it would be $11.5 million. The difference is 6 times the initial investment.

This was the first stone for a new company named after HMS Vanguard, Admiral Nelson’s ship. The name was a clear signal:

• The company was at the vanguard of a new logical concept: indexed funds
• It wasn’t going to be stopped easily

Headwinds

The first fund was based on the S&P500, and fees were set to 0.5%, the average fund fees were 2%, or 1.5% higher. The fund was just going to deliver the market average at the minimum cost. A very simple idea, yet a revolutionary one.

Bogle’s folly

The industry was not scared, they thought it was ridiculous. The concept was quickly labeled “Bogle’s folly”.

The chairman of Fidelity, a big asset manager declared this would never work.

The concept of average sounded like mediocre. Another competitor put out a leaflet stating: “Who wants to be operated on by an average surgeon, be advised by an average lawyer.”

To many of us today, index funds are an obvious choice, but if you put yourself in the shoe of an investor from the 70s (and still many investors today), it was counter-intuitive.

How can you beat highly skilled professional asset managers competing against each other and trying to beat the market by just calmly following the market, by doing the minimum effort?

(short answer: investors form the market so they can’t beat it)

The Vanguard indexed fund team, just 3 people at the time, went on a roadshow to raise $150m. After weeks of intense marketing, they raised $11.4 million. through the 70s, the Assets Under Management (AUM) stayed at similar levels. The fund must have been operating at a loss.

50bps were split between trading fees 20bps and management fees 30bps. 11 million x 0.30% = $ 33,000 per year. Not a lot of money for 3 salaries and all the associated costs, even in the 70s. Luckily, the company was still linked to Wellington with traditional funds amounting to over 1 billion $ AUM and so it survived.

It got by until the 80s. However, it was outperforming year after year as predicted. The concept was materializing as a reality. Things started picking up. The vanguard ship was sailing and growing, but it had to wait another decade before reaching a real turning point.

The Vanguard Armada

In the 1990s, everything started going Vanguard’s way.

• The internet made it easy for everyone to access data (Yahoo Finance was born in 1994)
• There was a lot of good press
• Bogle was often on TV and was although not always getting the best questions, he was getting his message across very clearly.

Billions were flowing. Everybody noticed, Even fidelity launched indexed funds and a new type of indexed instrument, the ETF or exchange-traded fund appeared.

Vanguard was launching more fund based on the same concept, and reso using the ongoing naval metaphor it started to look a lot like this.

Passive attack

Vanguard soared and keeps growing fast until today. It now has over 5 trillion in AUM. If it was launching today it would be called a disruptive startup, but the term was never used then.

More importantly, the idea has outgrown than Vanguard. It has changed the way we invest forever. We now call it ‘passive investment’. Where you simply follow the market as opposed to active investing that try to beat it. Passive is set to overtake active investment by 2024.

Investors have more choice. Mutual fund fees continue to decrease. The average fee on Vanguard Funds is now 11bps. In January 2019, Fidelity launched the first 0% fee index fund.

With a trillion dollar of savings, both direct and indirect, the investor community can be grateful. Warren Buffett, the most successful investor, has also been one of the most enthusiastic supporters of Bogle.

Index funds are so popular today, that it’s easy to forget how courageous and tenacious Jack Bogle was in starting them.

The passive investment idea was bound to emerge eventually. Its late and slow success, however, is a good reminder that even the best idea, backed by data and Nobel prize level theory, is just an idea until one individual or team makes the grueling work of transforming it into. It’s a good lesson for startups and innovators of today and tomorrow.

If you want similar stories as well as analysis of financial concept in video format, we have just launched a YouTube channel dedicated to meaningful, financial stories. Just like Vanguard, it’s a modest start with about 1000+ subscribers, so I’d love it if you subscribed or gave me some feedback.

InvestOrama

Related Stories from DDI:

• Why Data will Transform Investment Management
• A Quick Guide to Investment Algorithms

Jack Bogle: The Ultimate Data-Driven Investor was originally published in DataDrivenInvestor on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

If you haven’t gone through a pregnancy yet, you must have heard about cravings anyway. There are a lot of amusing tales of special food envy, from exotics fruit to normally gross dishes that suddenly become a pregnant woman’s urgent need.

What it normally means for a soon-to-be-father is frequent trips to the supermarket, characterised by the randomness of their timing and their purpose.

Here is a quick guide for the supportive partner based on 9-month of research and practice.

You can’t stock it

One cunning approach for craving could be to make a list early on during the pregnancy in order to stock up on those items.

Here is how the first items appeared in my list (all items that were not in our pantry):

• Vegemite (she’s Australian)
• Strawberries (classic! I knew it)
• Bread (simple)
• Cherries (maybe there is a fruit pattern?)

A promising start, but here is how it continued:

• Milo (a chocolate substitute drink)
• Tuna
• Crackers
• Ginger tea
• Apricots
• Total Grek yogurt

See the pattern?

If yes, look again because there isn’t one… except the fact that none of those items was in stock at home. This is because that is precisely what a craving is: something you don’t have at home.

If you were to buy half the supermarket items, then the cravings would be targeted to the other half.

How to respond to cravings?

You wouldn’t say no to a pregnant lady, would you?

As this lady won’t be able to do the running herself and will probably experience morning sickness catering to her cravings has become your mission.

The only answer to “I would really like strawberries, now” is “Of course I will try to get them”. It may become annoying and repetitive but remember, it only lasts a few months.

Be resourceful

I live near a shop so it’s easy to pop out but that may not be your case. Or the shop next door won’t have it and sometimes those extra special cravings may simply not exist in your country.

Think of substitutes. When asked for Milo (Australian brand) Ovaltine did the trick instead. Instead of dried prunes, dried apricot where a good proxy (after a short period of disappointment).

Satisfy your own cravings with extra brownie points

You may not enjoy trips to the supermarket, but they are a show of love that will earn you brownie points. Like miles for frequent business travellers, you can accumulate them quickly. I like to think that they can be exchanged for “caveman” time later in the future.

Or in my case for stuff like:

It’s also a lot more pleasant than washing the dishes!

Let’s face it as a modern dad you will have to share some of the pregnancy’s chores. In my mind cravings are to embraced, tackled and among the list of parenting tasks they are amongst the least annoying ones because it’s a show of love that you can demonstrate easily, immediately and decisively.

And not that it matters, but yes they also earn brownie points (or miles).

PS: I am posting this here as we are expecting our second child and I’m reviewing some old memories and posts and sharing those that others may found fun or useful. My first is now 2 years old, so I may occasionally post some parenting posts, as it’s a big thing for me although fintech and marketing is what I normally write about.