CapCut for Business Creator Spotlight: JT Barnett

JT Barnett is a lifestyle content creator. He's turned his love of content creation into a business where he's able to create content and mentor businesses and other content creators on how to use the power of visual storytelling to grow their business and content creation skillset. For Barnett, CapCut has been a vital tool for him, his business, and his content creation process.

Now that CapCut for Business is here, it has unlocked new potential with features tailored for businesses. We sat down with him to discuss his content creation experience and how CapCut for Business has the opportunity to help content creators in the future.

The Beginning of his Content Creation Journey

When he was younger, Barnett started filming things with his friends and family to document his daily activities. "I had a Flip camera in elementary school, and then another digital camera in middle school that I used to film home movies and me and my friends skateboarding," Barnett said.

From there, he continued to progress using new editing tools like iMovie and eventually Adobe Premiere. He started learning more about what it takes to edit content that best tells a story.

Barnett was a talented professional hockey player, and like any athlete, keeping your body in great shape is of the utmost importance to help elevate your performance. During his hockey career, he started to film his workouts that were tailored to hockey players in hopes of growing that client base.

"I started filming my own workouts, and I was specifically catering it to hockey," Barnett said. With that experience, his next venture was a natural progression as someone who prioritized physical health.

This sparked the idea of creating a business and pursue content creation full time because of what he was able to accomplish with his personal training content. He got more into personal training and started to create more video content to attract more clients. By creating content tailored to personal training tutorials, he saw an increase in client demand.

Since the content he created was so effective in providing valuable fitness instruction for his clients, he thought that this could be something worth diving more into. Eventually, he found that the content creation process was more rewarding as it brought him joy in being creative and thus decided to pivot into becoming a content creator where he could utilize his expertise to help build his own brand and tell his own story.

"I didn't love the actual fitness as much as I loved being able to make content that related to people," said Barnett. With this change, he saw another opportunity; work with brands to create video content that connected with their audience.

Working With Brands

For Barnett, getting the chance to collaborate with brands and help tell their story was something he was excited about, especially since he found that to be an outlet for his own creativity. As his own business started to grow, the opportunity to collaborate with brands to shape the way that they approached video creation was a natural progression.

"I realized that brands needed help with that," Barnett said, so the idea of working with brands became a new goal. He's been able to work with brands such as Orgain, Liquid I.V., and other brands in the consumer packaged goods (CPG), retail, and wellness space to create influencer content and assist in developing lifestyle content to meet their business marketing needs.

With his success collaborating with brands, he's been able to focus on his own business and growing his list of clients because of the reputation he's been able to build. For him, his content needs to help support the goals of his clients, which usually revolve around both brand/product awareness and conversion.

Regardless of the content's goal, one common thread always exists; its ability to effectively tell a story.

"With storytelling, we try to follow an arc that we've seen be successful. It needs to have a hook, it needs to have a setting or challenge, and it needs to have a resolution," said Barnett.

"Brands are coming to us in hopes that we can help them build their community," Barnett said. So for Barnett, the content he creates for clients aims to generate both brand awareness and drive conversions.





Introduction to CapCut

As Barnett began to learn more about editing using a variety of other editing tools, and starting in 2021, one tool stood out to him as he began his content creation journey. For him, CapCut was the ultimate solution for his content creation process because it helped fill very specific needs, like being able to add captions to content, edit on a mobile device, and being able to collaborate with his team.

"CapCut has been crucial for my business," said Barnett. He mentioned that overall, the editing process takes up the majority of time spent on his content creation process, but with CapCut, he's found it to speed up his time by up to 50% so that he can prioritize other content creation aspects, like coming up with additional creative ideas.

"CapCut has made my editing way more efficient," Barnett said. He mentioned that the features in CapCut, like auto captions, its cloud capabilities, and CapCut's mobile interface, have let him speed up his workflow process, thus allowing him to create content quicker than ever before, and deliver content for his clients to share at a faster rate. This allows him to create more content for his own business and his clients so that he can continue to grow his network of clients and his own brand simultaneously.

Barnett says that the only editing software he uses today is CapCut. Its ability to provide seamless integration into his workflow, the way that he edits and shares files with his team, and the workflow between platforms has won him over.

Content Ideation Process

The content creation process starts with Barnett thinking about what he wants to say. The first step is to jot down content ideas using notes on his phone. He finds inspiration from everything, like the conversations he has with people, and the movies and shows he watches. When creating content for his clients, he also obsesses about their audience to best understand what content might resonate with them. From there, the real idea begins to take shape as he begins to craft the right story arc for the particular message he's trying to convey.

For Barnett, storytelling is his main focus for his content, especially since the majority of the content he creates is short-form video. He needs to make sure that he creates a hook that's both effective and inspires viewers to keep watching and engage. With CapCut, he's been able to elevate his ability because of what our CapCut features provide him, from editing techniques to graphic elements to workflow. All of these things have helped him create content that is scroll-stopping.

Collaboration for Barnett is crucial in helping him grow his business and connect with his team. The new CapCut for Business feature around team collaboration has him excited about what's possible, especially since his business and clients are expanding. With CapCut, he and his team are able to work on the same project more effectively, especially with cloud file sharing.

Barnett also discussed some of the ways he likes to incorporate specific techniques into the content itself so that it engages the audience. When asked about certain creative techniques he uses in his videos to help grab a viewer's attention, Barnett said, "Zoom effects, coloring, sound effects, and music." Incorporating these elements into his content has helped Barnett gain an engaged following and helped grow his business.

CapCut for Business

Barnett feels that the new CapCut for Business features can help provide content creation efficiencies for small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs), especially for businesses who might lack resources to get their content off of the ground. One feature that caught his attention was Ad Script.

"I think it's cool for people who don't have a copywriting background, or those solo creators who want to be more creative and know they need to make content but don't necessarily have a content creation background," Barnett said. He feels the use of Ad Script can help jumpstart the creation process and lay a foundation for the right type of messaging for content.

When asked about what CapCut for Business feature he prefers, Barnett said, "I would say Business Templates." The feature, especially with its visual elements, excited Barnett.

"I like the visually graphic style of Business Templates. They're great to use for announcements for things coming up and for short-form content use," said Barnett.

Business Templates are a great resource to help support SMBs to create visually captivating content and for those SMBs that need to rely on graphic elements to help tell a story.

Looking to the Future

2023 has been an exciting year for both CapCut for Business and for JT Barnett. We are excited to continue to improve our features to help to empower business even more. We can't wait to watch Barnett continue to evolve his skills and see what he creates using CapCut.

You can start exploring our CapCut for Business creative solutions now: capcut.com/business, or download the app on your device or desktop machine. You can follow JT Barnett on TikTok at @jtbarnett.