The internet is a funny place. It’s really hard to keep up with the constantly changing digital landscape. Plenty of creators see success on one platform but struggle to build momentum and continue to grow.
In the autumn of 2024 I was brought on board the WeeblsStuff team to help fix this very familiar issue. For the uninitiated, Weebl is a staple of internet humour. Here’s a taste:
I’ve been a fan for many years and was super excited to notice they’re still active. They’re still posting to YouTube and going live to Twitch. Weebl himself wanted to hand-off the social media work, letting him focus on the creative side of animation.
My job was to help the team by editing social video versions of pre-existing video content – taking the horizontal animations and making them work in the portrait frame, adding captions and within the time limitations of TikTok and Instagram Reels. The goal was to reconnect with existing Weebl fans on the apps and introduce a new generation to the madness.
For added fun, we’re also going to launch a Kickstarter campaign for Weebl’s synthwave project, Savlonic.
– The Process –
We can’t just post the horizontal video to portrait channels and expect to see results. Viewers expect more than that, especially when Weebl is best known for their recognizable characters. Here are the steps for each video. I had a couple of weeks to get some videos in the bag before I started posting. So what’s actually involved with the edit?
1. Find the clips
Isolate 1-3 points in the video that would make good social clips. Just because we can post several minutes of video, doesn’t mean we should. I’m looking for several sections, around 30 seconds each, that work as standalone clips.
2. Make it loop
The next step is to cut them so they loop seamlessly. Ideally, a viewer wouldn’t immediately know the video had started again. I discovered recently that the reason I was hired for the job was, compared to the other applicants, I had the most experience with music content. Making sure the clips loop seamlessly is so important. Some videos will loop fairly seamlessly. Others need work, usually in the form of cross-fading the final beat into the very first one.
3. Framing
In order to work as a portrait video, we need to reposition the frame. Weebl provides 4K videos, so there’s plenty of resolution to play with. We can zoom quite a lot without losing quality. But a straightforward zoom doesn’t always cut it – you need to take it angle-by-angle. Below are some of the options for positioning.
In that third example, we also have the option to centrally frame the original image and have a blurred background underneath. Sometimes this looks great, sometimes it doesn’t. It’s a vibes thing.
If the background colours are flat, I have the option of adding a flat colour background and it’ll look like its part of the original image. That way I don’t have to zoom-in too far. You can see on the image comparison here, the first image (left) shows the framing as I exported the video. The final image (right) shows the flat background colours I added so it appears to take up the whole frame.
Very occasionally it’s necessary to animate the frame to move with the action.
4. Captions
Finally, we need to add text. There’s brand guides, of course – for example we use a different typeface for Savlonic content compared to classic Weebl animations.
Occasionally we’ll add some lite animation to the text. For example, the quick zoom-in text in the Narwhals video; or the blurry fade-out in Savlonic videos when words are held for a long time.
When positioning captions, it’s important to consider the user interface elements that are also on screen: video description, comment and like buttons, etc.
As you can see in the image, these all take up real estate on the screen. The last thing you want, after going to the effort of creating captions, is to have them hidden under buttons or text. That wouldn’t look particularly professional either.
This is in addition to typical caption considerations such as making sure the typeface is legible, and the text doesn’t block out important parts of the video.
– Results –
Here are the results from my first month of posting to the Weebl Channels:
- TikTok followers increased from 5,600 to 23,000
- 4.9 million TikTok views in 28 days, compared to 29,000 in the 28 days prior.
- Kickstarter campaign 140% funded (£27,000). Target achieved within 3 days.
Jan 2025 update: recapping the first 3 months:
- TikTok following increased from 5,600 to 50,200
- Weekly TikTok videos regularly get 100,000 views, with 3 surpassing 1 million. Even the weakest performing videos still have 12,000 views.
- Instagram was a slow burn but having reached 1,000 followers in December 2024, we are now fast approaching 20,000.
- This was reflected in our views – typically we’d get 1,000 – 4,000 views on Instagram. Having broken-through the 1,000 followers ceiling, our highest-viewed Instagram Reel is now 2.4 million.
The comments were an interesting blend. Some folks were really excited to see the familiar content on this new platform. Many took a trip back to Weebl’s YouTube channel to catch-up on the new videos.
Clearly we reached our first goal of reconnecting with fans. Not only were they excited to see Weebl on the new platforms, many also commented on how perfectly they suited this new environment.
Others were seeing Weebl’s animation for the first time and loving it.
Pretty exciting results so far, and that’s just the first month. I’ll be sure to update this blog with any lessons we learn along the way.
To keep up with results in real-time you can visit:
If you’d like to explore options to repurpose your own content, keeping up-to-date with the evolving online landscape, get in contact.
LT Content Marketing 
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