Are You A Nervous Video Marketer?

I am!

For years conventional wisdom has “encouraged me” to add videos into my marketing. Those of you to whom video marketing is second nature will wonder what my fuss is all about.

Using A Smartphone For Business

I am of the generation that a mobile phone (or smartphone as they now are) is something you use for emergencies.

  • If I’m out shopping and discover I’ve locked myself out (or some such minor disaster), I want to ring my sister who has spare keys.
  • Should my Dad be taken ill, I’d want to know immediately.
  • If an offline client has a major disaster with the software I wrote for them, I also want to know now, so I can get back and fix it. It’s a matter of pride that I can’t actually remember when they have needed to invoke this – but it’s why I am using a mobile phone for business.
  • That’s about it.
  • I do NOT want to know what my “friends” ate for breakfast.

More controversially I do NOT want to receive phone calls from business prospects. Not because I don’t care about these people. But because I care about them enough that I want to be well prepared to answer their questions thoughtfully – which I can’t do if I’m in the middle of the supermarket or with traffic noise in the background.

So why else might I use a smartphone in my business? (Note I said might!)

Using A Smartphone For Videos

using a smartphone for videos

Although I know my smartphone has video and camera capabilities I actually have no interest in them – other than to take a quick video of Bailey destroying an indestructible £9.99 toy within 5 minutes.

Just for a laugh. I didn’t plan to sue the manufacturer.

I also enjoy taking quick snaps of my grand-daughters playing with a new toy or doing something else “cute”.

But the thought of taking a selfie for marketing – photo or video – is complete anathema to me.

I am so camera-shy as to be paranoid. It was a relief to me to return from a two week holiday in the USA with not a single photo of me anywhere.

Photos For Social Media Profiles

The huge time and effort expended into finding a single usable photo me for this blog and my various social media profiles can only be understood by someone else as camera-shy as I am.

A few years ago I had professional photos taken for business purposes, at “enormous” expense. Of these I found just one that I was prepared to release. It served me well for several years but time moved on, and when I finally met an online friend and he said “Ooh, I wouldn’t have recognised you from your Facebook profile picture”, I gave in to Facebook’s nagging that it had been a long time since I changed my profile picture.

Too right, Mark Zuckerberg. Are you going to pay for more professional photos for me?

Someone actually took the present social media photo of me when I was with my Dad on a relaxed family occasion. It was fine, except that there was a lampstand growing out of my head! To all those friends who rallied round to help me try and remove the background without removing my hair too – a big thank-you 🙂

Of course the inevitable comment arose: “It would be quicker to just take another one against a white wall”. Trust me, if I thought it would have been quicker I would have done just that. My friends are used to me asking them at every get-together to take a photo (or ten) of me that I can use for Facebook. Then binning them all.

Am I Alone In Being Camera Shy?

I know I’m not, because I have one dear friend who is really pretty and I’d trust her with my life, but the thought of getting the two of us in the same picture drives her husband to despair. One or other of us will always have our eyes shut or be pulling a stupid face.

So armed with that background knowledge you might imagine what a challenge it would be to do a “Who is Joy Healey” video for my marketing.

The Pros And Cons of Video Marketing

I know the logic behind it:

Google likes videos  I can’t argue with that one. And I have started using other techniques kindly suggested by others who are sympathetic to my fears. Perhaps as I get better with those, they’ll be easier and faster, but full face – forget it!

It builds trust for your prospect to see your face Believe me, I am so nervous on video that I look shifty and I wouldn’t buy from me. My offline clients would tell you I’m actually one of the most trustworthy people they have ever worked with. However even remembering a 20 second script has me glancing away from the camera in fear, at a shaking bit of paper I’m clutching.

It doesn’t matter if you are nervous on video – Your prospect sees you’re nervous and thinks, well – she’s so bad at it and can still run an online business, it will be a breeze for me. Err – well some people might think like that, but if I alight on a business method that implies I need to be making videos all the time, it immediately shouts out to me “Not duplicatable by my target market of newbies and technophobes”.

It’s quick and easy – For some people it might be. I promise you, I have been making short introductory videos for over TWO YEARS. I can actually date the first one, because I tried doing it in a luxury hotel celebrating my son’s wedding. This was an occasion when I imagined I would be relaxed and happy. Well, I was until I tried taking a video of myself. After literally hours expended, on and off, over the last two years, every “Who is Joy Healey” video has ended up in the recycle bin, then firmly deleted – for all the above reasons.

I just checked through my blog, and my first “brush” with video editing was almost 3 years ago, August 2013. Time to say “enough is enough”? (Oh, and no need to go to look for my first attempt – it’s “no longer available on YouTube”. Goodness knows where it went LOL.)

My Video Challenge

Nevertheless, there are so many people insistent that video marketing is the way to go that I set myself a challenge this morning.

I got up early so that I had an hour to make that “Who is Joy Healey?” video. Surely in yet another hour I could come up with a 20-second video?

What could possibly go wrong?

At the time of writing – I have some 20 second videos, but whether they meet the same fate as all the others is as yet unclear. Reasons below:

Tips For Nervous Video Marketers

Slightly tongue in cheek because these are so basic that most people will despair of me 🙂

Know which way to hold your smartphone. Being upside down doesn’t look professional. It turns out there’s a little preview of how you will appear on your screen. Check it before you start – sod’s law says the only half-way usable video you make will be upside down, and many folk may find it easy to turn a video recording the right way round. But I hadn’t a clue.

Wait until your 2 week old cold has completely cleared. Some people with husky voices sound sexy and attractive. Others just sound as if they’re about to expire. Guess which category I fell into 🙂

Your smartphone has limited “hearing ability”.  I was so focused on not looking shifty that I forgot to check you could hear what I was saying. Best to get that right first, before going for a “live take”.

Know that you can buy cameras and microphones to improve recording. I genuinely believe in spending money in my business – to make my life easier – not to stress myself even more.

There are courses you can take. I know, but I’d rather get more proficient at  something I actually enjoy doing.

Do not attempt a video before going shopping. After the whole experience I was literally so stressed, shaking and nervous that I went shopping and almost walked in front of a car (accidentally).

Biggest Tip Of All For Nervous Video Marketers….

Forget it!

How NOT to be a nervous video marketer. Share on X

When I say that, I don’t mean to pour cold water on the training, kindly-meant and helpful advice I have had. I know there are some marketers who are brilliant at video marketing. My friends Kim Willis and Peter Beckenham spring to mind, both in different ways.

But truly, if you feel as bad as I do about video marketing there are probably better uses of your time. Why not use that time to focus on your real skills and the things you actually enjoy doing? Thanks also to Donna Merrill who might not even realise it, but she helped me have the confidence come to this decision to “Be Me”.

I could have used that hour (and all the other wasted hours before it) in:

  • Writing an article
  • Promoting the free eBook I recently wrote on Time Management in Home Business. There’s an irony there.
  • Doing a PowerPoint presentation
  • Repurposing a blog post (maybe even as a video!)
  • Preparing an image for social media marketing in Canva
  • Scheduling tweets or Facebook posts using Buffer
  • Engaging with friends and followers on Facebook and Twitter
  • Learning how to do any or all of the above better

Did Anything Good Come Of My Video Marketing Effort?

Yes!

It inspired me to write this blog post for other nervous video marketers and – because I feel so passionately about it – it’s one of the fastest blog posts I have ever produced.

Over to you…. please comment below with your thoughts about nervous video marketers.