I can't believe I made a New Year's Resolution to film, edit and produce a short video about greeting cards each week for The Greeting Card Project on YouTube. I've now made 5 videos and I'm amazed at how easy it is to find reasons to send cards each week. I thought I'd just be buying one card a week, but most weeks I'm purchasing at least three. It's been really fun visiting different card shops and buying greeting cards for friends and loved ones. Here's a summary of the videos I've made this month. Click on the images to watch them.
In my latest video I learned to get specific about why viewers should watch my videos. I'd come from a business lunch in London with the Department for International trade and a small group of diverse businesses where I'd been asking them how they connected with their customers. Did they send cards for instance? I really do feel like businesses miss a trick just sending emails at Christmas time. These days greeting cards stand out more than ever and are a powerful way of connecting on a personal level with clients. We all prefer to buy from people rather than companies.
The week before, I explored a shop in London and visited Top Drawer Spring at Olympia trying to track down a tenth birthday card for my son. I created a homemade card for him which he loved. After watching the video of it he he said he wanted to keep it private, so I've removed, edited and reposted the clip. One of the things I've had to get good at is remembering to take nice thumbnail photos before I write and send the cards. It's one of the top tips I picked up from YouTubers Tomohawk and NettyPlays: Spend time making good thumbnails.
My son often helps me to film The Greeting Card Project and we had a lot of fun making Week Three together. The out-takes were amusing, so I thought it would be interesting to include them to see if they generated more engagement and more shares. It's still early days, so it's hard to know for sure, but those that did watch the video enjoyed it. It is fun. I also noticed that the simple act of sending the cards for three weeks has had a positive effect on my well being.
It's been 17 years since Jo created Blue Eyed Sun and took her first range of Glass Enamel greeting cards into Malarkey's on Bond Street. The owner at the time ordered her largest special offer and the journey of the business began. You never forget your first customer and it was great to include them in The Greeting Card project this week. I was also reminded that there's something really exciting about popping a greeting card into a post box.
I've been wanting to do The Greeting Card Project for a couple of years and I kept putting it off because I wasn't sure if people would be interested. I've decided that it's going to be a personal exploration and that what others think of it isn't my primary goal. The simple truth is I want to send more cards. I want to spend more time focussing on my friends and loved ones. I also want to see if the simple act of sending more cards will change how I feel and how I engage with the world. I do love sending cards. I have done since I was a child. Spending time being grateful and thanking people for Christmas gifts was really lovely and I feel closer to my friends and loved ones doing this. It was also exciting and nerve wracking to make the first video.
The first month of the channel had 1,232 views with viewers watching over 50 hours of The Greeting Card Project for an average of 2:26 per video. The channel gained 39 subscribers and accumulated 40 likes.
If you do watch and enjoy the videos please pop over to my YouTube Channel and subscribe. I need to get to 100 subscribers in order to get the specific URL for the project (at the moment it's just a random string of numbers). I'd also love it if you followed the project on my personal Twitter account @JeremyCorner
Read more about my year of video here
