Video Posts – Part 1 – The Challenge
Video posts have gotten quite popular around the blogosphere and ever since I did my first video post, I have already started to plan out a few more. The topic of video posts is large so I’m going to cover it in two segments, the first is the challenge and the second is the advantages. Today I want to start by talking about the challenges of video posts because it looks easy but it can take time if you like to make your videos look good, so lets begin.
1 – Video Posts Take Time – Its true that a 4 minute video could take an hour to put together mainly because of the time it takes to record the video and edit it. You have to willing to put forth the amount of effort into editing the video to make it not only look better but also so that you can include such things as names of people or urls onto the video frames.
2 – Small Things Matter – Small things such as the lighting, how fast you talk, the tone of your voice all make a difference. The lighting of a room can lead to a video looking dull or if the light source is behind you then it makes you look like a silhouette. Things such as how fast you talk also result in how well your message is communicated to your audience. You have to watch for these things with videos.
3 – Body Language Adds Into The Equation – When you blog, theres only the text aspect that your reader sees but when you have video, your body language becomes a part of your message too. How your body responds to a message can send your reader a sense of connection to the message. If you’re body language is low and you look disconnected then it shows that you’re not truly committed to the topic at hand.
4 – Using Your Voice For Emphasis – This is something that goes unnoticed but some bloggers use bold terms or italicized terms to emphasize something but when you have a video camera in front of you then the emphasis to such items depends on how you stress it by using your voice.
5 – Third Party Noises – I call this third party noises as it can be anything from noises resulting due to action of people around you or environmental noises such as birds or rain, etc. You have to watch for these as you want to be able to hear yourself during the video playback. There was a video that someone had posted where you could clearly hear the vacuum cleaner in the background and that causes a diversion of attention which you want to avoid.
All in all, it depends on how camera shy you are and that really decides how well you are able to “act” in a video post. I hope you liked this post and stay tuned for Part 2 tomorrow that will discuss the advantages of video posts! I really wish to incorporate more video posts so hopefully you will see more of those from me shortly!
Video posts do certainly take a fair amount of time…they also take a bit more effort than just typing (you have to get out and set up the camera and tripod, perhaps prepare your backdrop or clean your desk then transfer the video to the computer to be edited) and sometimes multiple takes are required
Video posts do take more time and effort specially since I start laughing during the middle of it so I usually take 5-10 retakes!
Clean my desk. That will take me hours! haha
I think my biggest problem should be finding a good place to shoot a vid. And I don’t have a good video camera!
Haha! I’m a neat freak and so my desk is usually really clean. I would just record at my desk since thats where my computer is and thats where the magic happens!
My body language is bad. i am sure i cannot make a good video
I guess you have to let your viewers decide that for you. So, I’m hoping to see a video from you soon but then again, wait till you see the post containing the advantages.
It’s fun to make video posts. They don’t need to be perfect. The more practice you get with editing them the faster the process will get.
I’ve started to get more and more into video blogging as I have progressed into blogging. It’s actually a lot more complicated than it would look by the end result. I think the hardest thing is coming off natural in your discussion, while keeping things exciting for your viewers. Practice definitely makes perfect on these
You made a nice point about body language. In most video posts I’ve seen, people just sit there and talk lifelessly.
Thanks! I think its would be interesting for me to do a video post in a setting where I’m not sitting so you can see how much I move my hands!
True stuff Enkay, it does take a little bit more work. However, I think once you find your groove and can act natural in front of the camera…you’re pretty much in there.
Being able to get your personality across in a way people can connect is key. And it also depends on what you are going for, do you want something super professional or something more laid back? Will it be scripted or off the cuff?
I’ll be checking out the rest of the posts on this as well.