Lesson Info
25. 5 tips for a Better Video
Lessons
Class Introduction: How to use YouTube to Sell your Products
05:52 2Myths of YouTube Success
04:58 3Why Video can Help your Business
05:45 4How to Identify the Goals of Your Videos
04:07 5Set Up Your Home Studio in 2 Minutes for Free
13:54 6Demo: How to Set Up Your YouTube Channel
29:21 7What kind of Videos will Sell your Work?
02:19 8About the Interview Format
05:38About the Vlog Format
03:38 10About the Talking Head Format
12:54 11Frequency Best Practices
07:51 12Which Format is Right for You?
15:20 13How to Develop Content that Sells
14:53 14How to Crush Self-Doubt
10:51 15Demo: Upload your First Video to YouTube
04:36 16Guest Expert Joeli Kelly: How to Optimize your Uploads and Get Found
30:00 17How to Talk about Yourself
07:21 18How to Start your Video
06:18 19Sample: VlogBrothers
07:00 20Why Nonverbal Communication Matters
13:00 21How to Expand your Content Ideas
14:59 22Generate a never-ending list
14:20 23How to Make It Easy
10:45 24How to Make Sales
17:57 255 tips for a Better Video
08:29Lesson Info
5 tips for a Better Video
So I wanted to end with five tips for better videos. Because, okay now we have your content plan, you know what you're gonna talk about, you know to focus on your audience, hopefully you have a really clear idea on who that audience is coz she's your buyer. And you have in plan hopefully soon you'll have in plan a system for how you can keep creating the content consistently. You've seen how easy it is to shoot a video and upload a video. But we can boil it down to making a good video, it's about your energy, it's about talking to your customer, it's about being natural and not being weird. So here's five really specific tips. The first one we've talked about already. You wanna look at the camera like a person. Don't look at your screen. Don't look at your own face. Don't look at the face of the person who you're interviewing. Look at the camera like a person and connect. If you look at all your own favorite videos on YouTube that are like head on shots, they're looking at the camera, ...
in all of them. All of the best videos, they're looking at the camera. You feel like they're looking into your soul and you feel like you already know them better. So look at the camera like a person. And, lighting. Get as best a lighting as you can get in the situation that you're in. So, be near an open sunny window. When I say open I mean the blinds are open not that the window's blowing on you. Be near a sunny window but out of the direct harsh light. Shoot at the times of day when the light is softer like the morning and the later afternoon. The lights gonna be a little better but that also depends on where your house is and where you live. And, if you live in a place that's always dark and dreary then buy a lighting rig set up. Your lighting is gonna make your video so much better. If they're dark and grainy, people won't watch them and they won't get the detail. So the third thing is you wanna eliminate the background noise. So we didn't talk about this a lot. We talked a little bit about the mic and how the snowball mic eliminates, you know it doesn't pick up the other background noise. But you can also do this by sending your dogs outside unless they bark at your door. Also do this by waiting till the kids are asleep or sending them to daycare or a babysitter. When I say eliminate the background noise, I mean get rid of the people who are gonna walk in and talk to you or the dogs that are gonna bark in the background or what always happens to me is my neighbor mows his lawn (laughs) right when I sit down to record. And, he'll start it up so I'll be like "Well that's okay I'll wait an hour" but if I wait too many hours I lose the sunlight, right. So it's just like I'm just sitting there like watching him mow his lawn. Are you done yet? Please be done because the lawn mower is just like (imitates lawn mower sound) the whole way. So I turn off my AC. We're in the summer we have a window AC unit, and a fan above me and if I forget people will say I heard a (imitates fan sound) in the background the whole time. So go around, listen. If you eliminate the background noise, your voice is gonna come through clearer and people aren't gonna spend the whole time wondering "What is that noise? Are there kids screaming in the background? Has she left her child unattended?" You wanna get rid of all the distractions. And the forth one is you wanna plan ahead while staying natural. So these are not mutually exclusive at all. So when I talked about the content calendar and I talked about batching and I talked about being prepared. You still wanna talk about what you can be enthusiastic about. My podcast name is explore your enthusiasm because that's gonna lead you to make better business decisions. You're gonna end up with a business you like and a video channel you like. If you are following the things that are making you like get enthusiastic to talk about it, your videos are gonna come out better. You're gonna be talking about topics you love. Your audience is gonna be more engaged. You're gonna work with customers you actually like because you are excited about the thing you are excited about. So that's what I mean while staying natural is follow the things that make you enthusiastic and don't be so planned that if something else comes up you're like "Oh it's all ruined!" Make sure that you're just going with what is coming up so that you can stay natural but have a plan so that you do it. So the plan for me is the day that I record. I always record on the same day at the same time unless the neighbor mows his lawn. So because that's gonna keep me consistent and then I can talk about whatever but I have students who they can't figure out what to talk about so what they need to do is plan everything they're gonna talk about and maybe they're a little more flexible about the day or the time but they need to plan exactly what they'll cover or else they'll never sit down to do it. So know yourself, plan ahead. And then the last thing is just keep experimenting. Exactly what Ann was saying you're gonna definitely fail. But remember confidence is knowing that you'll be okay even if you fail. Even if you fall down, even if you spill coffee on your self, even if you totally flub all the words or you say your own name wrong which I've done before. You want to know you're gonna be okay no matter what and the only way to get better is to experiment. So when people are like "Is this format better or is this format better?", I don't know. You have a different audience, you have a different style, you sell a different product. You will know when you try it and you do it. So you can experiment with everything from your video format to how you title them to how and where you shoot them to what you talk about to the calls to action you make. That's when you can mess around with a lot. Like I said if your email list is already super effective at making sales, it might be the most effective thing for you to do is to get more people on your list. That's certainly how my business works. In most of my videos and podcasts, I'm just getting people on my list and then my list is introducing new things that they can buy and also giving them on-going content. But that is a flow that I know works for me but I didn't know that in the beginning. So if I just say buy something in a video, I don't usually sell as much as if I send it out in my emails. So you're gonna just need to keep experimenting and knowing that it will be okay absolutely no matter what. And it's okay if you don't have immediate results. You can always keep playing with it. Does that sound good? So those are your five ways to make sure your videos are awesome. Do we have any more questions? This would be the time. So I want you to go back to the first page in your workbook and I asked you "What is keeping you from doing videos? and "What questions do you have about videos?" What did you write down that we didn't cover? I just covered everything coz I just magically know every thought that you had? Yes, I'm getting a lot of nods. And if you're online and you have a question, send it in now so that I can answer it. Well I think it's really interesting that at the beginning of the day I wrote down like just setting up systems and it seemed really overwhelming and I think you've covered all those things and yet I'm magically overwhelmed. I think it's just a lot to process but I'm really excited about all of the content and sort of taking the pressure off of having it be perfect. If people wanna find more information on you, where can they listen to your podcasts and things like that. It's all on my site taraswiger.com so I'll actually show how to spell that here at the end. But I'm on Instagram and Twitter as Tara Swiger. My website links to everything. It's taraswiger.com It has the most recent podcast episodes and it will link you to iTunes and YouTube so go there there's ever0ything. Sign up for my email list. (laughs) That's the thing to do. So at this point hopefully you know how to set up your studio. Right, you're gonna pull out your phone and shoot your video. That's how you're gonna set up your studio. You'll also know how to shoot a video with energy and confidence. We're not gonna be afraid of messing it up because you're definitely gonna mess it up and it'll still be fine. You'll also know how to get your energy up when you're feeling depleted and low. And, you also know how to optimize your YouTube channel and your videos. So how to write those descriptions, those tags, those titles, the thumbnails. All to get you found and to get people sticking around and watching more and more videos. And, you know how to make the sale at the end by making a call to action that invites people to either learn more and go to your site or to just buy your product right away. So with that hopefully we've covered everything that you were wondering about before and now you can just go out and make totally awesome videos. And this is where you find me.
Class Materials
Bonus Materials with Purchase
Bonus Materials with RSVP
Ratings and Reviews
Linda E
Tara Swiger was amazing! Clear, concise and so informative. I loved this course! I am so inspired to get going with my You Tube videos and feel confident with her plan of actions. Thank you Creative Live.
Jennie Powell
Tara made so many excellent points and has made me have a long list of actionable points to help to grow my YouTube presence! She has such a clarity of expression and a friendly manner that I find very easy to learn from.
Lori Rochino
Great video, lots of notes were taken as I got a lot of takeaways to use for my new Youtube channel. Thanks, Tara for a great class!