Lessons

Lesson Info

About the Talking Head Format

Okay, so the last kind of format you could do is, I just call it talking head. It's what we're used to. I think many of us think of when we think of YouTube, which is just a person's face talking at the screen. It is especially good if you are a teacher, or you provide a service where you're the expert. Because you just talk about what you want to talk about, which is why I do mine. Because what I sell is teaching. So in my weekly video podcast, I just teach a tiny little lesson, not quite what people get in the classes, but it lets people see, "Oh, I do want to work with her. "Oh I do want to go to that class," or "I want to hire her to come do this class," or "buy her online class." It's also really great if you, if your audience is interested in product reviews. So the sample we're gonna do is actually from some of my students. Their show is called Geeky Girls Knit. And they're knitwear designers, so they design patterns, and knitters buy the patterns and knit them. And knitters lov...

e reviews, and I know there are lots of knitters in the chat room. They will say yes, they love reviews. So they want to know what book you're using, what yarn you're using, what needles you're using, what are you knitting right now? How long did it take you? What did you think of it? So just talking at the camera each week about what you're working on is really effective at building a relationship with those customers. So this is a super short clip of Dami and C.C., they're mother, daughter. Well mother, daughter and they're just making a little joke, and I thought it was great for showing what their relationship is like. Okay. I was making a joke, you were supposed to laugh. (woman laughs) (huffs) This is episode two. (laughs) So everybody vibes with that mother daughter like, oh, you're embarrassing me. So they just talk about their knitting. They sit in a variety of backgrounds behind them, as they've been moving and traveling around. And they've been doing it for years, so people have watched Dami grow up. She just recently turned 18 and, they have this relationship with their viewers who are interested in their lives, and what they're working on. So when they launch a pattern or a collection, it does really well, because those people are waiting for it. So they just announce it, and we'll talk about it a little bit later in the call to action section. I'll show you an example of how they do an announcement that leads to sales. So I did another sample from LouLeigh. She's another client who, she has a fantastic New Zealand accent, so it's part of the reason I picked it (laughs). But she is just a solo show, so its just her and she sells these awesome hand-sewn project bags to people who are artists and crafters and want to have their knitting or their crochet or their stitching in their bag with them, so that's what she talks about in her show. What she's working on, her own reviews, what she's really loving, and we'll just hear a little sample of it. Which is the collection from Kofteboken, which is a Norwegian book, and it's a collection of traditional Norwegian cardigans. And I've already talked about this book before and how I want to knit everything in it. But I'm knitting the one on the cardigan. One on the cardigan. I'm knitting the one on the cover. (speaker laughs) Yeah, and to be honest, last time I showed you this, I was onto the torso section, where I was knitting lots of squares. And I'm still onto the torso section where I'm knitting lots of squares. So I thought I would show you the inside (laughs). Okay, so that's just a little bit of what, it's just, right, when I said, it can be casual. You're just talking about the thing your customer wants to hear about. That's what her customer, who buys her bags, and puts their project in her bags, they want to know what she's working on. So very casual, very just being herself, and it works great. So if you don't want to be alone, in front of the camera, and just be the expert talking to the camera, it's really great, 'cause you can do it with two or three people, you can do a whole round table like this, and you just have a conversation. So it works, you're gonna have less technology challenges if the person's right there with you, but there are several really popular shows where they're in different locations, and they're kind of Skype-chatting with each other, and I have included in the resource guide the technology you can use to do that, or do interviews with people who are in a different place. You can use Zoom or Skype, and record it in a way that's split-screen, so you're both always on-screen. And if your audience wants reviews, products, books, this is great. You just show them what you're working on. And you know, everybody's concerned about creating ongoing content. Well if your content is coming from either your life, like a vlog, or it's coming from what you're actually working on, you're not gonna run out of content, 'cause your life is gonna keep happening, and you'll have new things to share each week, so it makes it really easy. And also, if you're a teacher, and you look directly at camera, and you speak to people with your expertise, it's going to build your expertise, like they're going to trust that you have the authority. A, because you're gonna say the stuff you know, and B, because you're gonna show up consistently, and that consistency builds trust and authority over time, and it gets people to understand what it would be like to work with you. So like, as a personal trainer, you said you're great at answering your friends' questions, if you answer your friends' questions, but just right to the camera, people are gonna totally get what it would be like to work with you, and why they should pay you. So in that way, it can lead to sales, because they're like, "Ooh, ooh, I want that. "I want to pay for that." So the same thing is true with any kind of service provider that works one on one with people, or even one to may with people. You want them to see what they're gonna get when they pay for it. Does that make sense? Awesome, any questions about that format? Can you talk about doing the Skype and the split screen in more detail? Or is that something we should just, look into on our own. So her question was, will I talk about Zoom and Skype in more detail? It's just, you just set it up, like I mean, if you go to Zoom or Skype, you can set it up, and you create an account, and it connects with somebody. And then they have options for what the screen looks like, but I've linked that up in the resource guide, like just where you go. There's not a lot of there's not a lot to do once you have an account. It's kind of like just making a phone call to the person. You can use your own camera in your laptop, and they can use their own camera in their laptop, and that's kind of it. Did you have a different question? When you create this split-screen video, you could just, same thing, you just upload it into the YouTube channel? Absolutely, absolutely. Okay. So it's gonna, well and I use, there's a app called Call Recorder if you're using Skype, I'm pretty sure I've linked to that. So it gives you the option of what you want the screen to record as. Does that make sense? So it's like, you can pick split-screen, you can pick their own camera, or your own camera. And then that's gonna create a file, just like if you shot it on your phone, or you shot it on your computer. It's gonna create a file that you can upload to YouTube. And you do want to use a technology that records it in the way you can upload it so that you don't have to do a lot of crazy editing. You don't want to be splitting between cameras, in your editing yet (laughs). Yeah? And you don't suggest YouTube live? Yes, I love YouTube live (laughs), definitely. This is actually a great time to talk about that. So are you guys familiar with, you can go live on YouTube? Just like you can go live on Instagram or Facebook. This is gonna be especially good for either a vlog type of like, "Here I am at Creative Live." or just a talking head, like I could go live and just talk at my phone. The thing is, if you want to do it live on your phone, you have to have at least 1000 subscribers. At least the last time I checked. So that go live option won't show up, and I'll show you where that is in the next segment. We're gonna upload a video to YouTube from my phone, and in that, I'll show you how to go live on YouTube. Right then, but it's really excellent for, you create the video, people who are your subscribers get notified you're live, and then the video just posts on YouTube. So if you're not gonna do any editing, and you want to do a talking head or a vlog, you could just record live and it would go up. Now we're gonna talk in a little bit about consistency and having a schedule. So and also, towards the end of the day, we're gonna talk about how to make this really easy by batching it all together. So I batch and pre-record, so that I already know it's gonna go live, and I don't have to do it in the moment. But if yours is much more moment by moment, or if you're doing something crazy like daily videos, the YouTube live is awesome. So a couple times I've done challenges, like all during the month of April, I did a video every single day in the month of April, so I used YouTube live for that. I didn't pre-record (laughs) any videos, like I did the video each day, so it's really excellent for that. For videos online, is it okay to create content on different formats on the same channels? So combining all of the formats? She I just on top of things. Yes, you can switch it up at anytime (laughs). The most important thing, and we'll talk about this in a minute, is to be consistent with your posting schedule. Because people will come to watch you, just like we watched Fuller House on Thursday nights each week. Like they want to watch you regularly. But the format can absolutely change. And what I recommend is picking a format for your first couple videos, and then picking a different one and trying that. I wanted to talk about all the different formats, because people get one vision of what a YouTube video looks like, and they think, "Well I can't make that." So maybe your vision is like a, PBS documentary style, and you're like, "I don't have the skills to do that, "so I guess I can't do it." I wanted to show you examples of people who are doing it without that level of videographer skills. Also, sometimes people think, "Well, I have to talk right to camera, "and I have to be really engaging." And no, you don't, you can do another style. You can do an interview show, you can just do a vlog and show your perspective if you don't want to be on camera. So I want you to try different formats over time, see which one gets the most views and comments and which ones your audience likes the best, and then go with that. Or, if one format totally, you hate the idea of ever doing it again, then just forget about it. You don't have to. So if any of these three that I said sound horrible to you, just know you don't ever have to do it, I promise. But you can switch at anytime. What's your favorite format and why? (laughs) I do my show, Explore Your Enthusiasm, started out as just an audio podcast. It started out as me just doing the voice, so I could stay in my PJs and have my hair a mess. And people asked me to, I was using Periscope, which is live streaming, they asked me to "Oh live stream a recording of your podcast, "I want to see what it's like." I was like, "It's me looking at my computer, "like reading from the script." Or it's kind of reading from the script, it's not very interesting. But those videos did so well, and then they were like, Periscope would delete them after 24 hours, so they asked me to put them on YouTube, but that's how I started doing YouTube regularly. So it's just me, basically talking through my episode each week. It's like a mini lesson, it's like a tiny little version of what I might say to a client or a student when they ask a question. And so it's talking head. It's just straight to camera, talking to the person. What I do, we'll talk about this in a bit too, I envision my customer, or my student, who has this question. I look at the camera as if I'm looking at her, and I answer her question just like she's right there on the other side of it. And so that's why I like talking head, 'cause it lets me do the thing I do naturally anyhow, which is talk to people and answer their questions and kind of bounce off them. But I do, like I said, when I travel, sometimes I shoot some vlogs, but those just require so much more editing, that is, I'm just not a details person, and editing requires some detail work. What would you recommend for selling? What perhaps is the best format for selling a product or-- So I think we can use all three of these formats to sell your work. There are a lot of of other formats online, or on YouTube, that you'll see people doing. I think all three of these can be used really effectively if you are keeping your customer in mind, and you're leading them to the next step. So we're gonna talk about your customer, and what kind of content you're gonna create for her in just a second. And then in the next segment, we're gonna talk about leading her, and I keep saying her 'cause lots of our customers are women, leading your customer to the very next step, to actually buy after they've watched. So as long as you use those skills, any format's gonna work. As long as you are not, like talking about something she doesn't care about really. That's the only way to mess it up, is if you talk about something that has nothing to do with your customer or your company, or anything.