Do you remember the first time you had to be on camera? I remember freezing. I think I was probably even drooling, not in control of my facial muscles, never mind my brain. I was not able to make a comprehensive sentence. I had conquered my fear of speaking in public and I was quite comfortable in front of large audience, but the camera was a new factor that completely had turned my confidence around. Such a challenging experience.

Like all challenging experiences, I learned. Being on camera is a skill. I worked it. I practised. Mainly, when you are on camera, the best tool you have is to trust that you have everything inside. That you will happen to say the right thing. That internal dialogue needs to be fully on your side. Instead of thinking: « Well, I will probably mess up, I will more likely forget my text and, oh, my hair is in my face, I wonder if my facial hair shows with the reflection of the sun behind me, I could maybe trip as I walk with my phone in my hand, etc. »

Instead of going on and on about what could go wrong, you want to adopt a different strategy. In your head, you want to focus on what you want to happen. Visualize yourself at the end of the video doing a fist pump as you totally nailed it. You are amazed at how well it went and that somehow you just happened to have the right angle, say the right things, words were flowing easily, you were eloquent and fun and mostly, you looked relaxed and natural. Get into it with a mindset that you will rock it!

Melissa Shank exploded our minds at CAPS Vancouver Experts Who Speak to educate us on up-to-date tips and tricks to create content-quality, professional looking videos using your cell phone. She taught us the secret recipe to get our videos ranked at the top of YouTube and Google to obtain more views instantly, increase exposure and traction on Facebook feeds and touched on pre-production and pre-video prep. We all have the same power to click “Upload” and we can all be the next sensation.

Here are my notes:

WHY IS IT IMPORTANT TO DO VIDEOS?

Google did a study and found that once you received a stimulus to buy something, you do a lot of research and need social proof in order to start believing in you before they buy. Having many videos will help you sell your product because it will bring people to their ZERO Moment of Truth (ZMOT) when they decide to get your product and talk about it. Then eventually, you get to the Ultimate moment of truth (UMOT) where they sell for you and you don’t even have to do anything anymore.

THE 3 TOUCH POINTS OF CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT

You want to make sure you talk about one of these three. If not, then there is no value to your video and you won’t get any engagement. Make sure it is either one of the following:

• PASSION
• VALUES
• EXPERTISE

TRIGGERS OF INFLUENCE:

What makes people do and buy: They need to get to know you before they buy from you.

• Start with Pain points – tell your story to create:
  • Likeability – people need to like you, they need to relate to you.
  • Authority – Trust-ability: positioning you as an authority. Give your best work for free. – create a series of videos for free so that people start seeing right away what you do and position you as an expert.
    • Give them a video series that they get over the week. It takes about four videos that they will watch with a week interval, and then they may buy a small product from you.
• Position yourself as a social media influencer. You can make a lot of money when you position yourself as a social media influencer. If you are passionate about something, you can talk about it. You can position yourself as an authority. Interview other people, or companies, connect with business owners, etc. and talk about their stuff. Added value.

CONTENT – CREATIVITY – CONSISTENCY

• We get all fired up, then we get busy and give up. We need to plan in advance and have the videos planned out. You can break it down quarterly, then pre-record content and plan for the next quarter. Maintain what you have and always look at new things you will have going on later. You have to focus on the pre-promotional videos to advertise your events, products, services. We spend lots of time to prepare for our services and not enough planning on the promotional pieces.
• Build anticipation when you launch a product or an event. Tell people in advance that it is coming.
• Be regular as to when you post, create expectation. Or have a regular show, same release day or release time.

THE SECRET SAUCE: *****’SHARE’ STRATEGY

• The best well-kept secret: You have to have a strategy for people to share your live video. Make sure you have a reason for people to share it. Have a team of people on your side that will share it for you. Tell people in advance to all share your video. When Facebook or social media see that live stream is being shared, they explode the visibility. Share it everywhere, make them happen all the same time, right away in the next hour after posting so that it will explode.
  • How do you do this? Always have something to give away. Look at the persona of the audience. If they love Tim Hortons or Starbucks, give away stuff that fits your audience. You can give a book for free, share this and you can get my book for free today… I have a copy for you, but you need to share my video, and then you say, on your video: « Okay, I’ll wait, do it… okay thanks, now here is the link to get the free book. » Make them share it…
  • Watch it grow. Pay attention to the exposure you get right after. Develop a ‘share’ strategy and even if you don’t have people watching while you are recording, your visibility will grow quickly. Have people in place to share your videos right away.
  • Invite people to your video so that they will share it if they were in it…
  • Share and you can win THIS. (you can even strategically pick the winner to see who is very socially present).

Always post the winner, make sure you post and message them separately also so that you can mail them their prize.

• BOOST
  • You can also boost your video in the end so that it gets to the right category of people. Boost at the end of the day or the next day when you see that it is not growing really fast. Organic growth are great so let it grow first before you boost it.

INTRO VIDEO

• Before you step onstage, you can have the master of ceremony or a volunteer introduce you or choose to have an intro video which is 100% better. If you have a video to introduce yourself and what you do, you are making sure that you are being introduced with the type of energy that you need before you step onstage.
• Have an opposite sex’s voice introduce you in your video. Different voice. Turn your attention to the screen for the introduction. Then you show the video that positions you as the expert right from the beginning. Tell your story through imagery. Use pictures to convey your story in your intro video. This video can also be used for promotion and change the ending from: “join me in welcoming her…” to “click here to sign up” to “contact her to book her for your next event. You can use it to promote yourself. Here is my INTRO-REAL,
  • Create a worksheet to produce your video. Script on one side, then the image on the second column, what do you want to see when they say each point of information.

LIVESTREAM

• Do you give a little bit or a lot on your live stream? You can use live stream to tease or you can give a lot of information. You don’t need to sell anything on the live stream, you are just being seen and eventually will convert into sales. There is a place for professional videos too. Livestream will make you more likeable, to get know you more. If you don’t comfortable, you could even record it in advance.
  • Socilivestream is a program that you can record in advance and it imports your video so that you can schedule and post it so that people will think you are Live. Livestream always wins in the algorithm so when you play their game, the social media will know that you are not ‘really’ live but still will reward you by giving you more visibility than if you were simply posting a recorded video.
  • You can also have a theme to start doing live videos and practice with something like posting a video every day about someone you thank for making an impact in your life.

Live is THE WAY to go. It is very rewarding. You get a lot more visibility.

DIFFERENT PLATFORMS.

Always post on your BUSINESS page first and then share it on your personal page. Facebook and YouTube are not playing well together. Google and YouTube do. Take your content individually on each platform.

Vimeo has a better privacy protection than YouTube. You can post exclusive material.

Also, on Vimeo, you can replace a video that is there already (while you can’t do this with YouTube). You can use Vimeo for housing Videos for your website, etc.

Dropbox to send clips and videos even from your phone.

HighTail (used to be YouSendIt) for sharing videos with other people and even make notes and dialogue with different people working together.

It is best to have many different short videos to pop up, instead of having just a few long videos. When people do a search on you, a huge series of videos pop up. When you google your name on YouTube, you want to see a huge series of videos. Make them Googleable. Connect your dots. Always post a link to your website so that people can find you and get to your ‘homebase’ your website.

VidIQ (on Google Chrome only): Vidiq.com/vision you can know exactly all the stats about a video and see how a video is doing, views, tweets, comments, likes, etc.

Time: If you have an audience post a little longer videos.

Facebook: 10 minutes mark for Facebook Live, get people a couple of minutes to tune in before you get into starting your message. Create a show for yourself. Give a name to your show. Have an entrance. Get an intro and an extro. Know how you get in your video and know how you get out of it. During your intro, you give them for people to show up and tune in. Make sure you have a plan and you know exactly what you will say, what you will talk about and how you will end your video. Have a tagline, here is Melissa from MS2 TV helping you live the life you want.

TOOLS:

• IOGRAPHER tool to hold your phone, it allows you more stability and allows you to force filming in landscape-mode. You can even get a tripod to go with it or different lenses.
• MEVO camera. Multi-camera that you can get different frames or visuals. You can have different close-ups and move them or zoom them around.  Check it out on YouTube.
• If you use a microphone, take some distance. Test your volume.
• Go see your live streams stats to see how much reach you got, what you did, what time, so that you learn when and how to do it next time.
• Have a header that you can change. You can have pictures, logo so that you put it on a cover page. Then people click on it.
• Always click the DO NOT DISTURB button on your phone before you go live.
• Be on a wi-fi or use your data if you don’t trust the wi-fi will last or be stable.
• You can use an omnidirectional microphone that will catch audio in front of you. If it is just you, then you can turn your microphone towards you. You can have a normal professional microphone and even tape your logo on it. You only need a 5 feet table and Velcro the box on your phone holder. You have your show when you are ready to go.
• You can use a wide-angle lens to put over your camera so that you have a wider angle for what you are filming.
• Amazon, B&H Video. To get tools and gadgets.

BE CONNECTED WITH MEDIAS

Make sure you follow all the radio stations, local shows, television shows and be connected with them as they always look for Experts. They are very hungry for contacts. They are looking for people all the time, every day to put on their shows.

• See the example of Casey Neistat who produces a daily blog. Check him out as he does videos for social media. He has a huge follow up on YouTube. He tells people to subscribe. Make sure you do that too, to have a following that will subscribe to follow you.

TEAM UP

Who can you team up with that will profit from your videos and that you can also get exposure and visibility so that you would make a video about why you like their product, why you like to shop there, why you like what they do, etc. and then share it with them and enjoy the visibility that you get from it.

YOUR ASSIGNMENT

• Produce at least 2 videos monthly and get comfortable with it.

Melissa Schenk from Toronto is passionate about the power of video. Energetic, creative, and a leader in her field, Melissa is a TV Personality, Producer, Speaker, Business Consultant and Author.

She has worked with CTV, CNN, the Shopping Channel and NBC.

With more than 19 years of experience in on-air television and online video production, she will show you how to craft powerful messages that speak to customers, educate prospects, increase conversions and build brand equity.

Melissa’s company MS2 Productions is a high impact online video marketing agency that cost effective brands, networks and markets for corporations and businesses with the next generation of media, video marketing, corporate storytelling and of course LIVE STREAMING!