General FAQs

Who is ShoutOut aimed at?
ShoutOut is for organisations or individuals. We have multiple products with very specific use cases. We have large enterprise customers as well as SME’s. It can also be used by individuals wanting to increase their social media presence or for events such as weddings and parties.

How much can I customise my videos?
You can customise your intro, outro, overlay and music. Enterprise customers have many more customisation options.
If you are a video message customer, we simplify the process by asking you to select a template and then add text. However, from the ShoutOut dashboard, you can upload or create your intro, outro and overlay if needed.

Can I upload my own music?
Yes, you can, however, you must not share videos that include commercial music publicly. It is against our T&Cs, against the law and not fair to the performers and writers. Remember intellectual property theft is not a victimless crime. The ShoutOut music library is licensed and can be shared publicly.

Can I record any length of video clip?
Good question and the answer is no in most instances. We have limited ShoutOut Video clips to under 25 seconds to stop videos getting too dull and we have limited compilation videos to a length of 20 minutes for the same reason. However, you can make multiple compilation videos if you need to. We also have an extended clip feature for premium subscribers that enables longer video uploads.

What happens if someone records portrait but the template is landscape?
Don’t worry ShoutOut automatically converts it and uses a moving out of focus border. It’s like what they do on TV when dealing with portrait videos.

How do I get people to record a video?
You need to send out the invite URL but you also need to be really clear how you communicate what you need. We recommend sending an email with clear instructions about what you want along with the timescale and also add some instructions in the contributor text. If you are concerned people will not participate it’s best to ask them to record one clip initially and build up to asking them to answer a few questions in a Q&A video.

What do you mean by trim?
When a participant records a video they can trim the start and end to remove them switching the camera on and off. You can also trim clips from the ShoutOut dashboard if your participant has messed it up or if you want to shorten their message. When editing videos you can also trim multiple sections to get rid of parts of the recording you don’t like. ShoutOut can automatically add a shot change to hide the edits. This is a powerful feature to edit down individual clips to make more impactful videos and compilation videos.

Is it really easy to use?
It really is! We have spent a lot of time making it super easy to use. It's worth reading through the help text at the start though, just so you understand the logic.

What is a Project?
A Project or template defines the look and behaviour of each video and compilation video. You choose the intro, outro, music and video overlay for each template as well as options like name captions and clip recording. Each template has its own associated URL that gets sent to participants to record a video clip.

What is the difference between a video and a video clip?
A video is a clip that has been combined with the template so it has the intro, outro, overlay and music that the template has . A video clip is a video recording that has not yet been combined with the template. This can be used for B roll, a compilation video or turned into a video by selecting “make video” in the edit menu.

Can I add subtitles?
Yes, if you are a creator subscriber and above you can create editable subtitles automatically from the "subtitle" tab from the edit page. You can also select subtitles to be added automatically in the template menu.

What happens if the overlay covers someone’s face?
You can move the name caption or make it longer or shorter via the video’s “edit” page.

On one video clip they are singing and playing an instrument that clashes with the ShoutOut music, what can I do?
You can ask ShoutOut to automatically fade down the music for one clip but pressing the "mute music" button on the video thumbnail on the "edit clip" page.

How long can my compilation video be?
The maximum compilation video duration is approximately 20 minutes. You can see your completed video duration on the compilation page.

How do I send people the final video?
There are a couple of ways. You can click on the downloadable link and send that or you can download the final video from the download button on the video page and send the file or upload to social media or YouTube.

Can I add any text to the videos?
Yes you can. To add text to the video clips you receive, just open the ‘edit clip’ tab, navigate to "text" and add the text you need, you can position the text, change font, size and add a background colour. The text will be added to that clip in your compilation video. You can also upload photos, video clips and our stock footage and add text to that. This is done via the clip section on the video page.

Can I upload photos and other videos to add to my compilation?
Yes, you can do both and also choose from our stock footage. This can be done from the upload button on the clip section on the video page. Remember you can also trim still images if you want them shorter.

Can I share photos on social media?

Yes, if you enable upload photos, then the photos uploaded can be shared on social media

Can I use ShoutOut to capture UGC for other videos?
Yes, we have worked with a few companies who wanted to capture UGC for big budget videos. You simply ask for video clips then download to use in your post production process. ShoutOut can also be used to record interviews remotely using a video conference system like Webex or Zoom to conduct the interview. It’s a great way to be able to check framing and sound quality by exporting a few test clips before recording the main interview. 

Why does my iPhone video look lower quality than normal?
Apple products like iPad and iPhone compress the video files considerably when accessing the camera directly from ShoutOut. It’s not just us they do it for everyone!
The way to solve it is to record your video clip using the camera app then import into ShoutOut.

Why don’t you have camera filters and autocue etc?
There are so many companies doing a great job of making camera apps, autocue and filters that we felt it best that you use the ones you like then just import the file into ShoutOut. We wanted to make ShoutOut easy to use for everyone with no app to install.

How do I make the tutorial videos bigger, they are really small on my screen?

You can click on the little icon on the bottom right of the tutorial, to make the video expand. The video tutorials are also in a tab on the official website.

How do I add automatic B-roll to my compilation?

Add your chosen clips to the B-roll timeline and then tick “Add B-roll” after you click “Compile”.

How can I edit my compilation after it’s done?

Click on the three dots under your finished video and click “Re-compile”.

What orientation/direction can my templates be in?

Templates can be made in Portrait, Landscape, Square and even Square cropped, in case you have a landscape project, but need it to fit in a 1:1 resolution. This option is perfect for Instagram users.

Can I add photos (in the photo tab) to the compilation?

When you upload photos to share they currently can’t be moved to video clips. However, you can upload photos as video clips and these can be added to compilations. You can even select the default video length the photos get turned into. So if you want photos in videos upload photos via clip upload and not a photo upload.

Can we use the music of a video clip for the whole compilation?

Yes, when you make a compilation the music automatically lasts the whole compilation. If the music is too short it will loop. You can automatically fade the music down for individual clips or the intro and outro by selecting the mute music icon on the clip or video. You can also mute the camera sound by selecting the mute audio icon.

Are we able to add voice-over to a clip, once uploaded?

That is on our list but not currently, we are looking at some fancy stuff in that department. Now you can record the VO with the clip though. 

How do we use the b-roll feature?

So, record and upload some videos - for example some testimonials. Then, record and upload some b-roll clips. Next, go to the b-roll section and add your b-roll clips to the timeline in the order you want them.

After doing this, select the videos you want to turn into a compilation. Select “add b-roll” then “make compilation”

A video will be created with b-roll automatically added using our algorithms. You can make changes and recompile if you don’t like it.

Does ShoutOut have a chroma-key green screen feature to change our backgrounds to meet our needs for marketing etc?

We don't have the option for this currently. You can currently record video on another camera app with a green screen and then upload the clips into ShoutOut to get all the music and branding and great features we offer. Green screen is on our list and can be available in a few months. We have found that uploading a custom overlay frame does a similar job, the restaurant could upload any custom frame that appears around the person making the video including restaurant name, website, images etc which is a really nice effect. 

Am I able to upload a video recorded elsewhere to have subtitles and branding added?

Yes absolutely! You can upload it via “Upload clip” on the dashboard or set the upload link to upload multiple clips. The uploaded clips will appear in the clips section. To combine with your template and add subtitles and your branding just select “make video” under the clip. This will add editable subtitles automatically. You can of course turn all your branding and music off in the template builder, if you don't want it added when you make a video.

If a compilation has 10 videos, will the intro and outro be added just once, or 10 times?

If you add multiple videos to a compilation, ShoutOut will remove all the individual intros and outros and only have one intro and outro on the compilation. I should add, it also evens up the audio levels and smooths the transitions.

Regarding social posting, since the app is uniquely suited to create short form content, do you allow direct posting to Facebook reels/stories, instagram reels/stories and Tiktok?

Yes, we can post to TikTok natively and Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter. Reels and Stories we are working on and need to tweak to the API. As you can imagine all our integration partners, especially social platforms, are changing features regularly so we are always playing catch up to keep up to date with these changes. It keeps us on our toes! It's great to see how the social landscape is changing to embrace short form video more and using ShoutOut to create social videos. It’s a really nice use case, especially if you want corporate branding, content approval from other members of a team, and also to open up other people to contribute your social content. 

Any live examples of what of our customers will see when trying to get a video testimonial from them? 

Yes, please check out the website and tutorials. There are some examples there.

Is 1 project = 1 video? 

A project is a video design template and individual upload link URL, hashtags etc. You can invite multiple people and create multiple videos and compilations in each project, these will have the same branding. You can also change the branding on individual videos within a project if you need to.

Do limits apply to the length of each completed video? 

There is a 7 minute limit via the upload link for each video clip. A “Q&A” video can have multiple clips and you can upload longer clips via the dashboard for branding zoom calls etc.

What happens if we don’t like the automatically created video? Does it still use our monthly limits? Can we edit the video after completion? 

Yes, it will still use up the automated video creation limit, however you can just upload clips and check them before turning them into a final video. If you don’t like the compilation you can select ‘recompile’ and edit before making another compilation.

Automatically created videos: I understand we can assemble them into compilations. Is there a length limit on video compilations? 

I think it's around 40 minutes, but it depends on a few variables like the amount of videos in the compilation, but it's over half an hour. 

I know ShoutOut wasn’t designed for this purpose, but could I use it to create short explainer videos for Youtube?

Yes, you can! We do our tutorials that way and put them on a playlist. It’s a super quick way to do it. You can also brand up zoom calls, which is a great way to create a video blog. For instance - screen record a video, upload to ShoutOut, add my own branding, add an Intro, Music, Outro, etc. When the video is done, download it to your computer.

On the finished videos, do you display any of your own branding?

There is no ShoutOut branding on the videos, although you can switch on a branded end card if you want to.

Where specifically on the service do you display your own branding? 

We have a small logo on the upload link and the same on the video page. 

What is the maximum time limit for a video that we can make?

To clarify, each video that you record in ShoutOut (individually) can go up to 7 minutes. You can, then, combine them into longer videos, which we call compilations. These are not bound by the 7 minutes limit. 

Do you have any tutorials on how to add subtitles to a video? 

Yes, ShoutOut creates subtitles on every video by default, you just need to make them visible in the edit section or make them visible by default in the template settings. There are lots of video tutorials here: https://www.shoutout.social/demo

What file formats are the video files downloadable in? Can video dimensions be adjusted? (ex: 16:9, 1:1, 1.91:1, 4:5, 16:9, etc?

The videos can be downloaded as MP4 and yes you can create videos 16:9 9:16 1:1 and what we call square fitted, which is a 16:9 video within a square frame, often seen on Linkedin.