Hey! This is The Daily Overpass. My name is Eric, and I make Apps.
Now today let's answer the question: 'Should You Put Your Face in Your Videos?'
Okay so today I want to talk about a comment we got on episode 492 from John
Dupree who says, John and I hope I pronounce your surname correctly. It says:
A possible topic slash question for a future video. Any experience with the
importance of showing your face online? I learned the lesson hard when doing
YouTube video, but I started experimenting with it in other contexts.
Such as video advertising, banner ads and even the pre-roll that shows on my
Google store entry has my ugly mug introducing the video. John you don't
have an ugly mug, and I've done the exact same thing with the with the Google Play
entry, just to see how that worked. What is weird, is that my own YouTube channel
is about computer programming. Seeing a face adds no real value, but the face
makes such a big difference on view rates. John I totally agree with this, it
really does. And John, I've watched some of your videos too, and I think it's much
more engaging when you show yourself on camera and not just show the coding,
right. And it's something I found again and again, and you're right logically it
makes no sense. Especially as computer programmers we're kind of like, we're
not that, it's not that big a deal of us to see the person talking to us. I
mean we could listen, but it really makes a huge difference. I mean I have one
experience, where a few months after I started doing the weekly videos. I
started getting a bit more used to being on the camera. I did a I had two small
projects I was still contracting at the time, well I was taking on not full-time
contracts but just sort of like a few jobs here and there. And one of them was
this bit of SharePoint work. So I had to do this SharePoint website thing. Right,
and I had to give a demo of it, and I was gonna basically send them a link, so I
can get their initial feedback on it, but I thought well I'll just start up
Camtasia, and I'll do a video. And I just did a quick video saying here's how it
works, you click on this, you click on that, and it was much faster than if I
had wrote a bunch of documentation on how everything works. Or if I just sent them a link and
said how everything works. So what I decided to do was rather than just
record the screen, I decided to use the webcam too, so have my picture up in the
corner. And they came back with so much good feedback on that. They said: "We
"We feel like we completely understand what you were
saying," because I would stop you know you'd be I'll be typing
stuff and I go okay, you click on here this opens up this section, and I'll say
okay ,the reason I thought about doing it this way was because of this, or whatever
else. Or if there's something say. The users might be confused about this,
because you notice you click on here it does this, so this is something you might
want to think about. And it was just an unlisted video, which I sent to them, and
it was circulated all over their company, it was a very large company. And I had went
in for the first meeting with them so we could discuss, you know, releasing the
application, and it felt like everybody already knew me. Everybody was already
coming up to talk to me, because they had seen my face on camera. I thought it was
gonna be short group of people. I mean I was wearing a baseball cap, I would have
dressed up a little bit more, but just the fact that my picture was on there,
was just a huge benefit. And I think it was just that engagement of it.
I mean and I found that so many times I do that with clients. I did a video about
this last year, how I said, if I do a demo video, like we're at the, we're not
at the beta stage yet. I can't send them a bill just yet, because it's just gonna
crash all over the place and we're not ready. But I can show a video where me
clicking around on stuff. I will do the the video, the phone on-screen, but me
talking at the same time, so we can have that interaction and and they just
it's almost like having a conversation, but one that they can go back and do
again and again. And we do the same thing for SOP's. Like if we have a task here
within the company for the for a VA to work on, that's something that we'll do.
I'll record it on Camtasia because it's faster to record it. You talk to the
screen, and they can watch it over and over again, and it's just see how things
work. And I think I think we're getting to the point soon where documentation is
gonna be replaced by video in many cases. In fact that one project I did the
SharePoint, they basically said that they were going to do all future projects
that way. And it's not just that client. I may have had several clients tell me
that. I've had one client, another large company where their head of IT, who I
wasn't even in conversation with, sent me an email saying: " Hey we were watching
your video on how to use our new App, and you know you really opened our eyes
to how things can work. And I thought dude, all I did was a record a
video. And if my face wasn't on it, then it would have you know, they just didn't
feel as engaging, because there are certain times where you just want to talk
and look at them. So if you're gonna do that, and I highly encourage anybody out
there who's gonna start a YouTube channel, or if you even doing
documentation for users. Think about doing this, giving a documentation in
video format. Don't be overly formal about it, just like you're having a
conversation. And when you're doing stuff, like even if you're typing, if you're
coding whatever, stop and look at the camera and say: " Okay this is why we're
doing this part because this, this, this, and then and just do that and it's great.
One of the benefits of doing camera work and doing stuff on video as opposed to
in-person face-to-face, is that you can make eye contact much easier. That's one
of the things I find. But John, excellent question. I encourage anybody who does
videos, to yes, try to put yourself on camera, because I
think it's a huge benefit. Let me know what you guys think. Maybe you guys are
tired of seeing my ugly face every day. But anyway that is it for today. I'll
talk to you guys again tomorrow.