How to run a clipping campaign

To run a clipping campaign, pick one goal and one place to send viewers, decide how many views you want and for how long, hand over your footage with a short brief, then give creators at least a month to cut and post clips while you watch which moments travel. This guide is for the buyer (a podcast, brand, startup or creator promoting their own content), not for someone earning money making clips.

A clipping campaign is a funded run of short vertical clips cut from your long-form footage and posted by independent creators from their own accounts on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube, paid by the views those posts earn. Your job is to make a few decisions well, then read the results honestly.

Step 1: Pick one goal and one place to send viewers

Start with the result that will tell you it worked: more listeners, signups for a launch, followers on a founder's account. Pick one, because every other choice follows from it.

Then pick where a curious viewer should go next: one handle to tag or one link for every caption, pointing at that goal. Before anything posts, note where things stand today (followers, searches for your name, visits, signups) to compare against at the end.

Step 2: Decide how many views and for how long

Clipping is bought in views. It is typically priced between $1 and $3 per 1,000 views, so once you know the views, the budget follows. Three things help you size it:

• The moment. A launch or a new season deserves a bigger push than a quiet month, and brings fresh footage.
• Your footage. More views need more distinct moments, not the same short video cut over and over.
• Time. Plan for at least a month. Slower signals like searches and follows tend to move over two or three.

The easiest way to misjudge a clipping campaign is to end it too early. A one-week test mostly measures how fast clips were made, not whether clipping works.

Step 3: Gather the footage

Creators can only cut what is there. The best footage is long, unscripted and clearly recorded: podcast episodes, interviews, talks, livestreams, panels, and demos where the product does something worth seeing. A polished 30-second ad leaves little to work with. More in what footage works best for clipping.

An hour of good conversation is enough to start, and a few episodes give creators room to choose. Before you hand it over:

• Trim it. Anything you would not want seen out of context should not be in the footage.
• Check the rights. Music you do not own and other people's videos playing inside yours need clearing or cutting.
• Send the best version. Raw files beat compressed uploads, though links work too.
• List who is who. Names and handles of everyone on screen, so captions get them right.

Step 4: Write a short brief

A brief is the short set of instructions every creator on the campaign works from. Keep it to one screen. The longer it gets, the more the clips feel like ads.

• The tag or link. Written exactly as it should appear.
• What is off limits. Topics, people and claims that must never appear: pricing, competitors, unreleased products, a line said off the record.
• Your logo, if you want one. It keeps your name attached when a clip travels without its caption.
• Disclosure. Creators are paid to post, so clips are paid promotion. The FTC's Disclosures 101 for Social Media Influencers says a video's disclosure belongs in the video itself, not just the description. Never ask anyone to hide it.

Do not use the brief to pick the moments. The ones you love and the ones that travel are often different, and finding the second kind is the creators' job.

Step 5: Decide who runs your clipping campaign

• An agency runs everything after a sales call, a proposal and a contract, often on a monthly retainer. The least work for you, and usually a few weeks before the first clip.
• A marketplace lets you fund a budget, set a payout rate, and approve posts yourself as creators join. The most control, and the most hours.
• A self-serve service takes your order online. You choose the views and upload your footage, and the seller finds the creators, checks the clips and counts the views.

Whichever you pick, ask three questions first. What counts as a view? What happens if the views fall short? Can you see every clip and the account that posted it, and have any clip taken down?

Step 6: Launch, and what the first weeks look like

A good seller reviews your footage and brief before anything posts. Clips then go up through the month as they are made, so views build over the campaign rather than landing on day one.

The first weeks are uneven. A few clips earn most of the views and many earn very little, which is normal for short video. Your job is to watch: open the clips, read the comments, and flag anything that breaks the brief.

Step 7: Read the numbers as clips go up

Look at views clip by clip, not just the total. A fair count uses only views on live posts, read from the platform itself, from the moment each post went up. Views a video already had never count, and neither do bot views. Here is how clipping views are counted and how to check.

Then group the clips. Which topics, speakers or kinds of moment keep winning? One clip that takes off can be luck. Three on the same topic are a pattern.

Views tell you the clips were seen, not whether it mattered. For that, check your baseline and ask new customers where they heard of you, since many people see a clip on their phone and look you up later.

Step 8: Adjust, one change at a time

• Send more footage when clips start repeating the same moments.
• Send more of what wins. If one topic or guest keeps landing, prioritize footage with more of it.
• Drop what never lands. A topic that fails across many clips is telling you something.
• Tighten the brief if clips drift from how you want to be shown, and take down any that cross the line.

Hold other spending steady, or you will not know what moved the numbers.

Step 9: Judge it at the end

1. Did you get the views you paid for? If not, was the shortfall rolled forward, refunded or lost?
2. Did the baseline move? Compare follows, searches, visits and signups with where they started.
3. Which moments worked? That list tells you what to film next, whatever you decide about clipping.
4. Are more people finding you than before? If yes, keep going or scale up. If no, look at the footage and the next step before the volume.

Where Seenfold fits

Seenfold is the self-serve route. You choose the views you want a month, upload your content with a short brief (your tag, anything off limits, and your logo if you want it), and independent creators clip it and post it on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube. It's as easy as that.

If your content is ready and you know how many views you want, you can start today, with no call to book, no contract to negotiate and no proposal to wait on. Every clip, its creator and its views are on your dashboard, any clip can be taken down, and anything undelivered when your plan ends is refunded. See how Seenfold works.

Questions

How long should a clipping campaign run?

At least a month. The first weeks show which moments travel, and slower signals like searches, follows and signups usually take two or three months.

How much footage do I need to start a clipping campaign?

An hour of good, unscripted conversation is enough to start. New footage as you record it keeps clips from repeating.

Do I need a big following to run a clipping campaign?

No. The clips go up on the creators' accounts and are shown to people in their feeds based on what they watch.

How much does it cost to run a clipping campaign?

Clipping is typically priced between $1 and $3 per 1,000 views. The budget follows from how many views you want and how long you run it.