Small Business Talk
The Podcast to Grow your Business Faster
7 Tips to Overcoming Video Phobia
Show Notes
So, you are not comfortable with doing a video. Does that mean you have a video phobia? Before anything else, a phobia is a generic term for any kind of anxiety disorder that amounts to an unreasonable or irrational fear related to exposure to certain situations or objects – in this case, exposure to video.
Honestly, I have spent four years trying to do video because I consider myself having a video phobia, but then one day, I decided it had to stop. I stopped calling it a phobia, and I started doing videos. It was not easy at all and yes, I probably got a long way to go, but practice makes perfect, right?
So let’s start with seven tips.
1. Start Small
Start small, and do one thing at a time. One topic with maybe three dot points. Three things that you know but maybe your customers don’t know. The three things you get asked all the time. What do you keep saying over and over, and over?
2. Just Keep Going
Another good tip, and tip number two, is to keep going. Make sure that you keep going. No matter what, keep going, because you can always edit it out. If you’re stopping and starting, you’re breaking the flow, and it’s not going to help you. And if you personally can’t edit it, you can always get it outsourced. There are lots of different ways to get editing outsourced, which are quite cheap. There are also lots of ways that you can do it yourself. Now, if that’s not your side of genius and it’s going to take a long time, it’s probably better to get it outsourced.
3. Use a Caption Service
75% of videos are listened to without sound on. And they might stop and get the sound if they’re happy with it and if it looks great, but they won’t if they can’t read the captions. What are we up to?
4. Have A Great Lighting Effect
So with video, a really good tip is to make sure that you have great lighting and sounds. It can make you look good on the camera and your appearance in the video will look so much better. If you look better, you’ll feel so much better too. If you can only have one, sound is far more important. People will put up with not so good audio, but they won’t put up with bad sound. You know what it’s like when you’re trying to listen to something where you’ve got the wind blowing, and it’s shocking.
5. Just Start
We’ve all got to start somewhere, and no, you’re not going to be as good and polished as somebody who’s been doing it for a long time, or somebody who’s just really talented at it. And practice does make perfect. The more you do it, the better you’ll be.
6. Consider Using a Teleprompter
If you forget what it is that you need to do, there are lots of different ways that you can get Teleprompters. On the phone is great. You can adjust the speed, you can write up a whole script, you can do dot points, but it means that you’ve got the confidence of knowing that you’re going to do it. If you don’t practice, you won’t get better. If you don’t know what you’re going to say, you won’t get better.
7. Make Sure Your Topic is Relevant to Your Audience
It’s great to let people just know about things that you are interested in, but if it’s not relevant to your audience, then really, what is the point?
7 Tips to Overcoming Video Phobia
So let’s do a recap. Get started, one topic, keep going, edit, sound is better than lighting, just start, and make sure that it is relevant to your audience and that you publish it. We all have to start somewhere, so go easy on yourself. Start doing the videos, do some practice and set it up. Do more than one at a time. If you’re worried that they’re all going to look the same, well, do a costume change. Change the shirt. It’s not that hard. You just need to do it. And that’s from somebody who’s taken four years to get this far. The difference is the mindset.
Once you decide that you’re going to do it, then you do it. So SBT audience, enjoy your journey.
Listen to the full episode of Small Business Talk episode 188.
You can also find the video versions of the Small Business Talk Episodes on YouTube.