There’s a whole bunch of ways to make videos and with all the latest technologies at your disposal it’s now pretty easy to put a video on YouTube

 

There’s a whole bunch of ways to

make videos and with all the latest

technologies at your disposal it’s now

pretty easy to put a video on YouTube 

Many videos are shot simply using their

mobile devices and uploaded straight to

YouTube using a variety of applications,

which can do a pretty amazing job, in

fact.

But if you trawl through the YouTube

catalog you’ll find that the quality of the

videos does vary widely. In a way, that’s

the beauty and fun of YouTube: its sheer

anarchic nature. And it would be pretty

boring if all the videos were the same

and all had the same production qualities

with perfectly polished video and sound,

all conforming to some arbitrary

standard.

Now I’m not saying you too can’t

produce crazy, wacky videos if that’s

your style and it fits in with your

particular niche. If such videos are

engaging and fun for your viewers, then

by all means go for it. 

But for me, I tend to make informational

or instructional videos and they need to

have certain qualities in order to be

effective. In short, they need to be clear,

concise, easy to understand and provide

information that’s of value to the viewer.

And as part of this process you also

need to remember to put in a bit of

yourself into the videos. This can mean

putting yourself in front of a camera and

simply talking or simply narrating a

screencast video.

What doesn’t work so well is posting up

a self-running PowerPoint presentation

to a music soundtrack. It’s simply not

emotionally engaging to the viewer. 

sure you know the kind of thing I mean –

a presentation is whizzing past you to

loud or simply inane music and you’re

left with a mainly stunned emotion at the

end of it – if you even make it to the end

before switching off!

People will start to turn away pretty

quick with these types of videos and they

simply won’t come back. There’s simply

no level of trust built up between you

and the viewer when you do it this way.

The viewer will feel that you’re not

credible and may even feel insulted that

you won’t put yourself in front of them

and show your personality in some way.

And this interaction is important.

The audience needs to know that they

can trust you and like you and what you

have to say. This is what keeps them

coming back for more. And this is what

will ultimately lead to more sales!

So whatever you do, follow this simple

rule:

Tip: Use your own face, or at a bare

minimum, your own voice in all of

your videos.

Other points to note are:

1. You don’t need to be Mr Magnetism

when presenting your videos. I

know I’m not! So don’t try to be

something you’re not. So use your

own personality. It may feel a little

weird at first if you’ve never done

it before, but the more you do it, the

easier and more natural it will

become.

2. Speak clearly and concisely into

the microphone. Many YouTube

videos have very poor quality

sound, and strangely poor sound is

almost more distracting to me than

poor quality video, particularly

with screencast videos. It sounds

such an obvious point I know but

you really can lose visitors over it.

(I have a list of microphones I

recommend in the Appendix section

to suit all budgets).

3. If you’re doing a screencast video

remove all clutter and distractions

from your desktop – so lose the 300

icons and the picture of a naked

woman from your wallpaper! You

should ideally have just a ‘My

Computer’ icon at the top left and a

pastel-colored screen, and that’s it!

4. Make sure there’s no outside traffic

noise, kids running around, or other

distractions.

5. Prepare a detailed script and do a

couple of run-throughs first.

Remember, you have as many takes

as you want! Too many um’s and

ah’s can be extremely distracting.