How to Create a Short-Form Video Series

Are you looking for a breakthrough content strategy? Wondering if a short-form video series could transform your marketing results? 

In this article, you'll learn how to develop a consistent short-form video series to rapidly grow your audience and create multiple revenue streams.

Why Short Form Video Series Matter for Marketers

Creating a consistent short form video series can transform your social media presence. While many marketers and content creators focus on producing random individual short videos, a strategic series approach offers significant advantages.

For example:

• Building Subscriber Loyalty: A series creates clear expectations that encourage subscriptions. People will subscribe because they know what they'll get next. 
• Creating Viewing Rituals: Regular engagement is much harder to achieve with random content.
• Simplified Production Workflows: Having a consistent format allows creators to develop templates, shortcuts, and processes that drastically reduce production time.
• Narrative Continuity: A series allows you to reference previous episodes, building storylines that span multiple videos.
• Community Building: Regular viewers begin to recognize inside jokes and recurring elements, creating a sense of belonging.

Pat Flynn’s journey into short form video started as an experiment. Already successful with his long form Pokemon channel Deep Pocket Monster (1.5 million subscribers), Flynn decided to test whether he could build an audience with short videos.

He launched a separate, faceless channel called “Should I Open It or Should I Keep It Sealed?” The concept was simple: every day, he would open a pack of Pokemon cards to see if he got valuable cards or not.

Flynn committed to a 60-day experiment with no expectations for views or growth. He focused solely on showing up consistently and getting better with each video.

“The goal was to get to day sixty and to try to get a little bit better with each video. That's it,” Flynn explains. “I like to take the lean learning approach, which is just let me do the thing that I can control and get through the experiment and then assess whether or not it's worth continuing or not.”

Around day 21, his videos were only getting a few hundred views but Flynn stayed committed to the process.

The breakthrough came around day 32-33 when one of his videos suddenly received a million views in less than 24 hours. This success pushed his other videos up, and he began reaching tens of thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands of views per video. By analyzing which videos performed well, Flynn identified elements to replicate in future content.

Today, Flynn's short form channel has over one billion views across platforms and has grown to over a million subscribers. It generates five-figure monthly revenue, has led to brand deals, partnerships, and even an invitation to open Pokemon cards on field at a Detroit Lions game.

How to Create Your Own Short Form Video Content Series

#1: Commit to a 60-Day Experiment

Committing to a 60-day timeframe creates what Pat calls voluntary force functions–a pattern of constraints that help you develop discipline and efficiency.

Rather than worrying about how your short form videos are doing, the focus becomes, “Did I actually create a video today and did I learn anything from it?”

This approach removes the pressure of immediate success and allows you to focus on improvement and consistency – things you can control. Instead of setting view or subscriber goals that you can't directly influence, focus on the daily practice of creating, refining, and showing up.

60 days is a good timeframe because:

• It's long enough to see meaningful patterns emerge
• It creates urgency without being overwhelming
• It gives you an end date to evaluate results objectively
• It forces you to develop time-efficient processes

This fixed timeframe also makes it easier to get buy-in if you're proposing this experiment for a brand or team.

#2: Develop a Simple Framework for Your Short-Form Videos

The key to a successful, sustainable series is creating a simple, repeatable format that viewers can immediately understand. Flynn recommends brainstorming many potential frameworks, then selecting one that’s easy to communicate and feels right for your expertise and audience.

Here are so industry-specific framework ideas that work well:

For professional service businesses:

• A daily “Myth vs. Reality” series where you debunk a common misconception in your industry
• A “Before & After” series showcasing client transformations with the same format each time
• A “Quick Win” series where you demonstrate one small actionable tip that creates immediate value

For product-based businesses:

• A “Customer Spotlight” series with a consistent interview structure
• An “Unknown Feature” series highlighting overlooked aspects of your product
• A “How It's Made” series showing behind-the-scenes glimpses of your production process

For marketers serving other businesses:

• A “High-Low Sales Pitch” where you reveal a product, hide the price, guess its value, and track your accuracy over time
• “Born With It or Built It” profiles of successful entrepreneurs revealing if they inherited wealth or created it themselves
• A “60-Second Strategy” series covering one focused marketing tactic per day

Once you have ideas, test them by explaining the concept to others. Flynn advises: “Go down the office and say, ‘Hey, what do you think of a video series where I do X, Y, and Z?' If they respond with, ‘Wait, when you say that, what do you mean?' that doesn't work yet.”

Examples of other successful series are a photographer who approaches strangers with dogs and takes professional photos, or a golfer attempting to make a hole-in-one over his house with an increasing number of balls each day.

Camera Shy? Your Videos Can Be Faceless!

One liberating aspect of Flynn's approach is that this series is now made of completely faceless videos. This removes a major barrier for those uncomfortable on camera.

Flynn discovered through analytics on his long-form channel that when opening Pokemon cards, viewers actually skipped parts where he appeared on camera talking. “They don't care about me when the premise of the video is to look at this mystery box I bought from eBay. They want to see the things inside the mystery box, not me when I'm trying to explain everything.”

This insight led him to create a faceless format for his shorts channel, focusing entirely on the card opening experience.

“There is very clear personality in this faceless channel,” Flynn explains. “The personality in there with my dad jokes show up as I'm talking. Sometimes a Pokemon with a funny name will come up and I'll make a dad joke on the fly about it.”

Even without showing his face, Flynn's unique voice, editing style, sound effects, and personality created a recognizable brand. Interestingly, viewers eventually began recognizing Flynn's weird thumbs in the videos, which became a running joke and even part of his identity at events.

Rather than ignoring these comments, Flynn leaned into this unexpected element. “I started to play along with that with the audience. In fact, I bought some fake thumbs on Amazon and put them on one day and didn't say a word. And everybody was cracking up and noticed it.”

He later dubbed them “Diglett thumbs” after a Pokemon character with a similar shape. “My thumbs are now my ID because I've just purposefully injected that into the storytelling,” he shares.

This experience shows how even faceless content can develop strong personality markers that viewers connect with. The key is maintaining your authentic voice and being willing to embrace unexpected elements that emerge from audience interaction.

#3: Master a Technical Production Workflow

Flynn emphasizes that creating movement at the beginning of videos is crucial for grabbing attention. “If I started videos with me just holding the pack straight away and talking for five seconds about what this pack is and then opening it… People would leave.”

Instead, he flips the pack to reveal it, using the jingle intro, and getting right into the opening action. This constant visual motion keeps viewers engaged while he provides context through voiceover.

“My big secret is in the voiceover,” Flynn explains. He films the card opening mostly in silence, capturing natural reactions only when pulling something valuable. After editing the footage, he records the voiceover while watching the video play back, stopping to record sections separately if needed.

This approach allows Flynn to maintain constant visual interest while providing context, creating a more engaging viewing experience than explaining first, then acting. As he puts it: “The beauty of voiceover is you can have movement happen the whole time and explain what's happening later as it's happening.”

Flynn also incorporates strategic audio elements:

• A consistent intro jingle that signals the format
• Sound effects for card appearances
• Music that intensifies toward the reveal
• Special sound cues for recurring elements (like the “It's Pikachu!” sound whenever a Pikachu card appears)
• A unique voiceover stinger at the end of each video

The entire editing process, which initially took Flynn an hour per video, now takes just 15 minutes thanks to templates, keyboard shortcuts, and batch processing. The production process is surprisingly simple:

1. Capture raw footage on his iPhone (about 90 seconds of raw footage)
2. Transfer to computer via AirDrop
3. Edit in ScreenFlow (though he notes other tools like CapCut work well too)
4. Add voiceover after the video is cut
5. Incorporate sound effects and music from a template folder
6. Export two versions: one under 60 seconds for YouTube Shorts (59.5 seconds exactly) and one just over 60 seconds for TikTok (60.1 seconds to qualify for monetization)

Create a Tension-Building Structure

Flynn's videos maintain a consistent structure that viewers come to expect, with multiple elements designed to maintain interest:

1. Opening Context: A brief 1-2 sentence introduction (e.g., “This pack is from the year 2000” or “This is episode 45”)
2. Visual Movement: Flipping the pack to create motion
3. Branded Jingle: “Should I Open It or Should I Keep It Sealed?”
4. Pack Opening: Revealing cards one by one with commentary
5. Gradual Zoom: A slow, almost imperceptible zoom toward the final card
6. Music Shift: Intensifying music as the reveal approaches
7. Final Reveal: Showing the last card with a dramatic reaction
8. Result Announcement: “Wow, you actually got something good!” or “Oh, you should have kept it sealed”
9. Changing Voiceover Stinger: A unique closing comment that varies with each video

This format creates multiple hooks that keep viewers watching until the end:

• The mystery of what's in the pack
• Whether he'll get a valuable card
• What funny line the voiceover will deliver at the end

Flynn builds additional tension through narrative continuity across videos. When he gets a streak of good or bad pulls, he references it: “We're on a luck streak. The last three videos we've hit, which has been insane. Let's see if we can keep that luxury going.” This creates a storyline that spans multiple episodes, encouraging viewers to follow the entire journey.

The result is impressive viewer retention. “I'm getting, you know, in general, a forty-five to fifty percent watch rate after millions of views. That's huge,” Flynn explains.

#4: Create Viewing Rituals

Flynn strategically established his content as part of viewers' daily routines by posting at the exact same time every day: 8:30 PM Pacific. This consistency transformed his content from optional entertainment to a daily ritual for his audience.

“It's gotten so routine for people that when I go at nine, people comment with, ‘Oh, my gosh, I thought something happened to you. They're like, I thought I thought you got in an accident or something.'”

Flynn receives also comments like, “Time to go to bed now. Thanks, Pat,” indicating his videos have become an end-of-day ritual for many viewers. This level of integration into viewers' daily lives creates powerful ongoing engagement.

#5: Analyze and Adapt

As your series progresses, pay attention to which videos perform better and why. Flynn noticed his highest-performing videos often had specific elements, like showing himself at a card shop with a visible price tag on the pack he was purchasing versus opening a standard pack at home.

Flynn tracked both successful patterns and audience reactions, incorporating more of what worked while maintaining the core format. When viewers began commenting on his “club thumbs,” he turned this into a recurring element rather than ignoring it.

He also built on the success of his original series by creating a second related series. “I've now added a sub series to the channel that kind of keeps that story going,” Flynn explains. In this extension, he gets the valuable cards from his main series professionally graded, creating another suspenseful reveal weeks later with the same cards.

This approach creates an extended story arc that keeps viewers invested in the journey of specific items featured in the original series. Flynn is now developing a third installment where he will sell the graded cards, creating a complete narrative arc for each valuable card he pulls.

Other Notes From This Episode

• Connect with Michael Stelzner @Stelzner on Instagram and @Mike_Stelzner on X.
• Watch this interview and other exclusive content from Social Media Examiner on YouTube.

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✋🏽 If you enjoyed this episode of the Social Media Marketing podcast, please head over to Apple Podcasts, leave a rating, write a review, and subscribe.

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