The Two Easiest Ways to Record Yourself on Video
Video, video, video. Video! Video? Video. Also, more video.
In a world of Netflix binging and streaming wars, all signs are pointing us towards more video.
Marketers have flagged the trend for years, but the pandemic brought it into our homes in a fresh new personal way.
Thankfully, the lack of access to backstage sets of TV talk shows means we’re used to seeing each other in our living rooms.
And now platforms and audiences alike are all looking for more video content to supplement the offers, blogs, newsletters, tutorials, and helpful content of days past.
Turn On That Ring Light. Record. Edit. Post. Promote. Repeat & Improve.
That’s the mantra of a modern day marketer.
Why is video so popular in marketing?
Video is on the rise. Here are some stats explaining why:
- In 2020, 96% of consumers increased their online video consumption (HubSpot’s State of Video Marketing Report)
- Online videos will make up more than 82% of all consumer internet traffic by 2022 — 15x higher than it was in 2017 (Cisco)
- Viewers retain 95% of a message when they watch it in a video, compared to 10% when reading text (Insivia)
- 84% of people say they’ve been convinced to buy a product or service by watching a video (Optinmonster)
- 79% of people say they’ve been convinced to buy or download a piece of software or app by watching a video (Wyzowl)
Okay, so how do I get started?
Here are the two easiest ways we’ve found to record yourself on video for your audience – or as a quick tutorial for your coworkers.
They’re fast. Easy to edit. Easy to share. And make it easy to move on to the next to-do.
1) Just talking? Use Zoom
(Mostly) gone are the days of GoToMeeting, join.me, and Cisco Jabber. We all have Zoom accounts now. The easiest way to record?
Start a meeting with just yourself, and hit record.
We recommend hitting ‘Record to the Cloud’ to save that precious hard drive space for accidental screenshots and inspirational quotes from Oprah.
Afterwards, download the file, save to your file storage system of choice (we use Dropbox Business) and send out a link.
Or – if you’re using this for marketing, upload it to YouTube and embed it on a blog post, like we did at the top of this article.
2) Sharing your screen? Use Soapbox
Sure, sure, you can also use Zoom for this. But we’ve noticed that your head gets really tiny and the screen gets really big. And that’s not really ideal.
When you want your smiling face AND the content to shine, you can use a free tool by Wistia called Soapbox that gives your face and your screen a nice ratio.
Just fire up Google Chrome, download the ‘Soapbox’ extension and then click the little blue video camera in the top-right corner when you want to record.
Make sure you can easily find the screen you want to share, then hit “Start Recording,” and choose it out of your many open tabs and windows.
Now, the bad news is that you won’t be able to see your face while you record. But, that’s actually kind of good news.
As long as you know where to look and have indeed showered in the last 48 hours, you’ll probably act a lot more natural – rather than staring at your own face staring back at you, wondering whether the pores on your skin are properly lit.
When you’ve recorded, you can watch the playback and do some scrappy editing to tighten the clip.
Then, just snag the link Soapbox generates and send that out to your trusty colleagues.
Or – if this is for marketing, download, then upload to Youtube and be on your way.
You can also use tools like this video editor online to do some heavy lifting before you share your file with the world.
How do you get in the mood to record video?
Try to loosen up and be a bit weird without turning off the camera. The bloopers are easily our favorite stuff:
We like to celebrate how strange we are. That way the polished professional stuff doesn’t seem so intimidating.
When in doubt, record. Allow yourself a few tries, then publish it. Get it out there. You’ll get more comfortable the more reps you get in.
The best time to start? When you were tipped off by that time traveler four years ago who said we’d all want video content in 2021.
The second best time to start? Right now.
