S5E62
· 35:23
Hey. It's Matt from Money Lab. I've been on this kick recently where I'm titling these episodes episodes something very short, and I didn't mean to do it so many times in a row, but I wanna title this one templatize, which I don't even know if it's a is a word or not. But I did 2 episodes about systems, and now I wanna do an episode about templatizing stuff. Because I sat down and after my AI sucks episode, I took the initiative to take a a script that I have is that I had or that we'd already published as a video.
Matt Giovanisci:By the way, if I take sips, it's because I'm drinking. It's Saturday. You know? Leave me alone. I can have a beer at 1 o'clock on a Saturday.
Matt Giovanisci:But I, so I took some time and, you know, formatted a blog post out of a script, And I did the whole thing, and it took 15 minutes. And I was like, okay. Great. And then bottleneck. The bottleneck was alright.
Matt Giovanisci:Like, I did it, and I could do it on my laptop. It's pretty easy. But I was like, I can't publish it because there's no featured image. I need to create a featured image before I publish the blog post, and the featured image has been the thing that always becomes a bottleneck in my publishing process. And so I was like, what are some ways I can solve that friction in my publishing process?
Matt Giovanisci:And the word then I was like, alright. Well, what else am I doing? Maybe I can pull some inspiration. I went on Google or sorry. I went on YouTube, and I was looking at, like this is a stupid idea.
Matt Giovanisci:I already knew it was gonna be stupid, but went on YouTube and was like, how to create featured image for a blog post. And, of course, all the top results are using Canva, and they are all shitty. And I was like, goddamn it. Yeah. Of course.
Matt Giovanisci:Like, everyone's gonna use Canva. It's gonna be carbon copy bullshit. It's not gonna be like stock stock photos or stock graphics, whatever. But I guess in that process, I was like, well, what's interesting about that is I'm sitting here saying, oh, I can create a template for articles, a template for videos, like emails, I mean. I have a template for like, I'm trying to create a template for everything.
Matt Giovanisci:Why don't I just create a template for featured images? And here's what's interesting about that, is because kinda already do that. So one of the things that I've templatized in the past was our thumbnail design. So I I created basically a series of different colored backgrounds. So I had like, okay, you can choose and so I don't do thumbnails anymore.
Matt Giovanisci:Steph does them and she basically just picks it's it I made it really simple for her. She just picks and chooses assets and throws them together. So the idea is that she takes, she picks a background color. We have, I wanna say there's, like, maybe 8. So there's, like, there's solid color backgrounds that have a slight gradient to them.
Matt Giovanisci:So we have, like, purple, orange, blue, green, red, and that actually might be it. So there's 5. And then we have split screen. So we have oh, so we only have 6. So then we have we have 5 different background colors, and then we have a split screen color.
Matt Giovanisci:Oh, sorry. We have we also have black as a background, and we may have a dark blue. So okay. So we have 8 we have 8 colors. We have 8 total image, background colors, and one's a split screen.
Matt Giovanisci:So half of it's orange, the other half is blue, which is our brand colors, and that's for this or that type of videos or, like, comparison videos. So we've kind of like so anyway, she just picks the background color, and then she picks a photo of me. So there's, I don't know, maybe like, I wanna say close to 50 to 75 different cutout photos of me reacting, and she just sticks those on either the left side, the right side, or in the middle of of the frame. And then she creates up to 3 words of text on the thumbnail. So it's, you know, we we know more than 3.
Matt Giovanisci:She tried to do no more than 3. And that's sort of a challenge, but it's still a fun challenge. It's a constraint challenge to be like, oh, okay. Look, we wanna say these words, like, because especially because we use the word hot tub a lot. So it's like, how do you you know, hot tub takes up 2 words.
Matt Giovanisci:You can only use one other word, so maybe you have to use the word spa instead or maybe you don't use the word at all and, you know, so it's kind of a game. And then she just adds little images. So it's like, okay, what's the video talking about? Add that image, add this image. You're done.
Matt Giovanisci:K? So I've kinda started doing that where I but I don't have, like, a full palette to choose from. So she she does now, because I've created I mean, I created, I don't know, maybe, like, 50 different thumbnails, and now she's taking over and she has she's, like, working off the back of 50 different email of of, sorry, of thumbnails. And I haven't made that many featured images, and I don't want them to look the same. So I yeah, so, basically, I have to do that.
Matt Giovanisci:So I'm gonna use Figma because it makes the most sense. It's fast. And I actually wanted to write this down because if I don't write it down based on our thumbnail design and I just have to be okay with it. So, here's what we're gonna do. So I'm gonna write I'm gonna call it featured image template.
Matt Giovanisci:And the what I have to decide is let's let's not decide this now. So I'm gonna chew I'm gonna have to create create, like, up to 10 background colors and textures. I do like having the textures. I have, like, a bubble texture. I have a wave texture.
Matt Giovanisci:You know, there's, like, a crinkly texture. So I I I made textures look stupid, but made it work look worse. Textures. Okay. And I will cycle between, let's say I mean, because there's essentially 3 if you look at our grid system on our website, there's it's it's in a series of of rows of 3.
Matt Giovanisci:So I could do 6, you know, up but I said up to 10. I would say 6 to 8 maybe is better than 10, and those will be my colors I always use. Right? So I just okay. Pick a background color is different than the one you just did, and that that's how I'll decide that.
Matt Giovanisci:And then we for for our for our blog posts, we do not usually put text in the featured image. And I'm starting to question that that that. Well, the reason we don't do it is because alright. I'm just thinking out loud. The reason we don't do it is because, obviously, with a website, the text can change.
Matt Giovanisci:And I kinda thought that the text was I don't know. It's like if it's redundant because if you post that because, like, what is a featured image really used for? It's used on Twitter, like, to share it's, like, used on social social media platforms. Boy. Social media like, 2 sips of beer.
Matt Giovanisci:And then it's used as, like, a featured image in an email to promote it. And I'm wondering if text is not a bad idea as long as it's not a I wonder if it could be templatized. Like, I don't have to think of what the text is gonna be. I don't have to use the so I'm gonna take the most recent example we did, which was, like, do not put Epsom salts in a in a hot tub, right, or something like that. Or or it was like the question was, should you put or can you put Epsom salt in a hot tub, was our most recent post.
Matt Giovanisci:And, you know, I basically just created a featured image that had a red background, picture of a hot tub, You're adding Epsom salts and it has a big no, you know, symbol through it. I think that that works. But if you just saw that image on its own, it wouldn't scream, like, you wouldn't know what it was. And as and I think with Twitter now or x or whatever, they don't show if when when you share a an article, it only shows the featured image, and it doesn't show the text or the title. And, obviously, people are seeing the the image.
Matt Giovanisci:So I think it's taking a page from thumbnails for featured images. Like, we have to think we have to think I'm just gonna write this sentence. Featured images are thumbnails for articles. What does that mean? Obviously, it means or at least means not maybe not obvious.
Matt Giovanisci:But the way that you think of a YouTube thumbnail in that you spend time on crafting the thumbnail to make people want to click through, that is the only reason to do a featured image. So I think we could, which would which would help tremendously, is to think of a featured image like a thumbnail. So the same let's let's do the same thing, and we'll just omit some stuff. So, yes, we have the background, which is exactly the same I do for thumbnails. We'll say up to 3 words of text.
Matt Giovanisci:I immediately wanna include one action icon, and I'll explain what that means. Like, the no symbol or an arrow or a star. God. I'm so bad at this. You know, yeah, like an arrow pointing to something, a no symbol, a you know, it could be like this is, you know, star or highlight it, just some sort of action icon.
Matt Giovanisci:Okay. You wanna also include topic image topic item. It would be hot tub, pool, etcetera. I didn't spell etcetera right. I did e c t instead of e t c.
Matt Giovanisci:Jesus. Brutal. Yeah. So that would craft a lot of very fast images. So, again, the background color is the biggest, like, visual shift, then the words of text, big visual shift.
Matt Giovanisci:Then you have an you know, you have the the topic item, meaning, like, if it's a hot tub post, you have a picture of a hot tub. And I have 2 or 3 different like, I can create, like, hot tub versions and pool versions. So I have, like, above ground pool, in ground pool, just a round shape pool, in text pool. I can do multiple types of pools where it could be, like, bird's eye image, side view image. So just have, like, my column of pools, a column of of background colors.
Matt Giovanisci:My my text can just be, you know, my we'd use Poppins, white text on the on the background that works on every background, and include one action icon, so like an arrow, a no, if it even even needs it. So the one thing we don't have is the one that's different from thumbnails is we wouldn't have my face. So my face sort of conveys the emotion of the topic. So if I were, like, if I were doing a, a video on should you add Epsom salt to your hot tub, What I would probably do for that thumbnail is I would probably make the background red because red is red means no. I would three words of text would be like, maybe don't do this, because that's also in the title as well.
Matt Giovanisci:Or I would say, like, or just
Matt Giovanisci:like just make maybe
Matt Giovanisci:the word epsom salt question mark. It could be that, simple as that. The action eye icon for that would be obviously the no symbol. And then a topical item would be a hot tub with a picture of Epsom salt. That's pretty much it.
Matt Giovanisci:Alright? So let me take another. I'm gonna go on our website real quick. I'm gonna take another example, and I'm just gonna try to out loud. Alright.
Matt Giovanisci:I'll do a hard one. And this is hard to me. So I have pool cleaning 101, why, when, and how to clean your pool. So for this one, it would probably be a blue background because blue is clean. And I would do, you know, an in ground pool picture.
Matt Giovanisci:Sorry. Let me go through this. I would do blue background, three words of text would be pool cleaning 101. That's pretty easy. And then I would include one action item, which would be an arrow, probably pointing to something.
Matt Giovanisci:And then the act the topical or the topic item would be a pool, a skimmer, a brush, and a vacuum. Alright. That feels like it could be easy. Let's do another one. Alright.
Matt Giovanisci:Let's do 11 common pool maintenance mistakes. So mistakes could be red, could be orange. Those are both, like, kinda cautionary colors. Three words of text, pool care mistakes. One action item could be probably the the the x symbol.
Matt Giovanisci:Right? Or it could be an x, I guess. So it could be the no symbol, could be an x symbol. Right? Could be a I'm trying to draw a star here, but that's not working.
Matt Giovanisci:I don't like that anyway. Doesn't feel like emotional. A you know? Doesn't even it doesn't it's not an action, the star. The topical item could be a pool, and it could be something as a part of that.
Matt Giovanisci:You know? It could be like, I don't know what the mistake would be. Like, it could be adding, like, it could be adding a chemical into the pool. So just like a, you know, just like, oh, what what the hell does that mean? You know?
Matt Giovanisci:Let's do let's do a hot tub one. Okay. I already well, I already have one for that. Alright. Here we go.
Matt Giovanisci:7 household products to clean your hot tub. K? So background, clean, could go with blue. I could have you know, for hot tub, I could have teal. There's purple.
Matt Giovanisci:So, you know, hot tub could have, like, alternative colors to use, but those both feel clean to me. I wouldn't I would include the number. I would include I might have to do 4 words on this one. Hot tub household cleaners. I might do that.
Matt Giovanisci:One action. Oh, action could be a thumbs up. Alright. Thumbs up emoji. It does feel like it's, you know, household cleaner, or it could be an arrow pointing to, like, baking soda, bleach, white vinegar.
Matt Giovanisci:So I could have those those icons. And then, obviously, the hot tub. Okay. This is and I feel like I could do that pretty fast. And, again, like, visually, we're we're talking about a thumbnail, so it's not gonna take up a like, the action icon is what is essentially replacing my face.
Matt Giovanisci:Not that my my face takes up a big portion of the thumbnail, but in the case of a, you know, in the case of a a thought or in the featured image, I I can't put my face on there because then it'll just look exactly like our thumbnails, and then it becomes confusing. And I don't want my face all over our website. But alright. So let's do alright. Here's another one I don't have.
Matt Giovanisci:Although this is a pretty damn good thumbnail, but let's say I was I was gonna change it. 25 awesome hot tub care tips and tricks. So I would the background would probably be pretty neutral. It'd be, like, either teal, purple, blue, orange, you know, whatever. Nothing crazy.
Matt Giovanisci:Three words of text, hot tub tips. Easy. Include one action, probably a thumbs up, or could be a check mark, now that I'm thinking about it. Check mark. You know, the word awesome or, like, thumbs up is pretty cool.
Matt Giovanisci:And then the topic item would obviously be a hot tub. And what would be the the I know from this article, there's, like, a tennis ball trick. I might just grab an image of a tennis ball. I might, grab an image of, I don't know, something. So alright.
Matt Giovanisci:Not too bad. Let me go back to pools. Here's here's another one that we didn't talk about yet, this topic, But I already know that the words so it's the best pull alarms to keep kids safe in 2024. Alright? So background color, talking about safety.
Matt Giovanisci:I'm probably gonna go with green or maybe even maybe green or purple, because I feel like those are, like, kinda neutral. Usually, green, I I say it for, like, algae or, like, dirty, but in this case, like, green means go. It's like safe. I don't know. 3 words of text, obviously.
Matt Giovanisci:Best best poll
Matt Giovanisci:arms. It's pretty easy because
Matt Giovanisci:that's in the in the title. Include one action icon, best. Could be a check mark. Again, that would that would you know, a check mark or, a seal of approval. Seal of approval in this case, because that would work for a lot of the best stuff.
Matt Giovanisci:And then the the thing would be definitely an in ground pool. I wouldn't do an above ground pool. And I would put I have images or or illustrations of alarms, and I would put those around the pool. Okay. I'm gonna give another one that's totally random again.
Matt Giovanisci:So I'm just gonna keep trying this because the the the more I do this, the more I'm like, oh, I'm finding new things that I can add to my list of assets. How to clean a pool filter, sand cartridge d e, which is like basically how to clean any pool filter. Great. So create background color, clean, blue, makes sense. Could also go orange, could also go green, I think.
Matt Giovanisci:Would be okay with that, then I would do 3 words of text. I was thinking, oh, could I do, like, a question, like, is your pool filter clean? No. Probably 3 words. So, like, clean pool filter or pool filter cleaning.
Matt Giovanisci:Then one action would be clean. What is clean? Could be the thumbs up could be the thumbs up, could be a check mark. I could go either way with that one. I don't know if there's a I don't know if I could think of another action, I I item.
Matt Giovanisci:And then, obviously, I would do probably an in ground pool there or just a standard pool, and then I have pictures of all 3 types of filters. And maybe there's I could also throw, like, a cleaning icon in there or some kind, like a hose or a, I have, like, a sponge with bubbles, usually means clean. So yeah. Alright. So, yeah, I think doing this as a, I think templatizing is is an interesting because it's like, I could, I mean, I could just knock out feature images.
Matt Giovanisci:Now the the one thing I'll add to this and what I've been doing and and perhaps maybe is unnecessary. So I'll just call it that. But I've been when I was creating these images, I was also doing a so I was making horizontal, you know, 19 by 20 by 10 80 featured images. I chose that size even though that's technically not the size of what you share on Facebook, but it's pretty damn close as far as ratios are concerned. So it's, like, pretty close to 69.
Matt Giovanisci:And I'm like, alright. Well, just give enough white space so that when it does crop it a little bit, you're not gonna cut off any important information, which is totally fine. And then, obviously, it unifies all our thumbnails. It unify you know, it unifies everything if we just keep it at a 16 by 9 rate aspect ratio. But I've been flipping that and doing a 9 by 16 aspect ratio version of it that I was putting up on pinch for Pinterest only.
Matt Giovanisci:But I just kinda feel like Pinterest doesn't really. And I and I'd be interested to be challenged on this. But, yes, we get traffic from Pinterest. I do not wanna neglect it. Although, I really don't see Pinterest as a a long term strategy just because I just you know, I don't personally, I don't know a single motherfucker that uses it.
Matt Giovanisci:And I and that's and granted, I don't know many moms, which is what it was originally geared towards. But, I mean, my mom uses it, but I don't know how often she really uses it. Now if that's the case, which I believe it still is, there's it's still a very female focused audience. My gut tells me that they don't really wanna see just graphics. It's not a place where they're collecting like, they're not gonna pin or save, I guess it's called now, a just a graphical representation of an article.
Matt Giovanisci:They're more likely they're more likely to so, I mean, what are people doing there? I mean I mean, look, I use Pinterest for mood boards, especially, like, when it comes to designing stuff. I use it, quite a bit. I know it's I know that kinda goes against what I was saying. I mean, I don't know anybody that uses it besides my mom, but I use it for, like, mostly design stuff.
Matt Giovanisci:And that could be interior and I also use it for interior design. So really anything where I need to see a bunch of, like, inspiring images in one shot. Now if I were to think of it that way and that's the way that people use it, and I'm I'm assuming that, yes, probably, that's the way people use it. Does that work for the type of content that I'm doing? And I would say, yes.
Matt Giovanisci:I think somebody would somebody would create a board called, like, hot tub care. But what are they gonna put on that board? Like, what are they gonna what are they gonna save? And what would spread the, you know, the stuff around? And I do think it's just I think it's photographs.
Matt Giovanisci:I do not think that it is textual image or, graphic representations. So if I'm right about that and and Pinterest is more of a photo heavy platform, like, I don't one of the things I don't do when I because I I don't believe it works is I don't put I don't publish these graphics on Instagram. I don't think people wanna see graphics. I think they wanna see photos. They wanna see real things.
Matt Giovanisci:And I that's just a that's a guess because I very rarely see graphics, and when I do, I very quickly swipe by them because I it's just so basic. Whereas a photo is like, oh, that's real. And not an AI photo, but a real one. So if I were to do a vertical aspect ratio for an article, I would probably take a screenshot of a video that showcases, Like, we don't have a video where someone's putting Epsom salt in a hot tub. Right?
Matt Giovanisci:We don't have that footage. But we do have footage, we do have, like, vertical footage of people soaking in a hot tub. And that alone, maybe with an additional graphic over overlaid on top of it that is, you know, illustrated could work. Or an actual, like it could be photoshopped. It could be an actual picture of a thing of Epsom salt, like, almost like a collage where and then we put the title in the, you know, in the that graphic.
Matt Giovanisci:That, I believe, would be an excellent use for Canva and probably something that could be done in bulk and not something that needs to be done each time we create a an a graphical element. Because that that does add a bottleneck to my publishing process. That said, it might be something where I could just go, alright. I'm gonna go into Canva, and I'm gonna use Canva to create pins. And I'm gonna create a bunch of pins, and guess what?
Matt Giovanisci:I'm using fucking stock photos because stock a mixture between stock photos and my own because, honestly, it it feels like it kinda doesn't matter. But maybe I'm wrong there. Do you know? Because it's really just for Pinterest. So it's like I'm just doing this for Pinterest, and I've I've I've created pins in the past where I've used a collection of featured images, you know, that I've designed over top of, and they send us traffic.
Matt Giovanisci:So the ones where I actually, like, tried really hard don't really work. And our videos, we're publishing our videos to Pinterest, but they're not really having the same sort of draw. Because, again, like, the video is just you're not you don't need to leave. The video is just there. But we have I did one on pool care mistakes where I took I found, like, 3 3 stock images of, like, you know, problem pools and made a graphic out of it, and that seems to crush.
Matt Giovanisci:But, again, no one's really using stock photos of pools. Like, we're the only company really doing that, but I obviously would love to use our own stuff. So I think, you know, in the in the future, I would have what I might do in the future is I obviously, I could take a screenshot of a video that we have. That's fine, and I should use those more often. But when next time I hire an influencer to to go out and shoot, you know, videos for us, I'll also have them take a photo of whatever they're shooting vertically.
Matt Giovanisci:So that way I have at least a photo shot of that that I could use specifically for Pinterest or even static ads. So it does serve a couple purposes, and, you know, maybe could be used for stories. So, anyway, this has gone on pretty long, but I'm gonna start crafting my Figma board with all my assets. I'll have my 6 to 8 background colors and my textures that I can overlay. I can have I'll have my 3 words of text that I'll that I'll break out.
Matt Giovanisci:That should be pretty easy. I'll get a couple action items. I'll probably use a mixture of I like font awesome for a lot of icons. I just can find icons on 123 RF, just quick ones. I can even make some of them.
Matt Giovanisci:Like, I've I made the, you know, the circle with the x through it, like the Ghostbusters logo. I've I've made that because you know, I was just it was like, oh, I could do this so fast. Let me just make that. Arrows, I can make pretty fast. Xs, I can make very fast.
Matt Giovanisci:Check marks. And then topical or topic items, I'm just gonna just keep adding and adding and adding. Those are all kind of, like, collected in other Figma boards right now, and even some still left in Adobe XD that I'll just, like, slowly move over and be able to use those at will. And as I get more and more in a single Figma board, it'll just become easier and easier to make because I'll have more assets to just kinda grab and drop and sort of mix together. And I think, honestly, like, that's gonna work really well.
Matt Giovanisci:So yeah. Alright. That's it. If you have any questions or, I don't know, wanna see this in real life, I'll probably post some stuff on Twitter about it. But, shoot me an email, matt@moneylab.co.
Matt Giovanisci:Bye.
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