4 Brilliant Tips for Speaking on Camera

On-Camera Skills

August 22, 2022

- min read

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4 Tips You Should Seriously Consider for Speaking on
Camera and Putting Your Best Foot Forward

While speaking on camera, we’d advise you to laser-focus on these four points:

Maintain Eye Contact. Don’t Look Here & There
Write Down a Script but Don’t Memorize it
Don’t Try to Be Someone You’re Not
Smile

Maintain Eye Contact. Don’t Look Here & There.

Would you rather watch a video where the host/presenter is looking here and there – feeling unconfident and shy?

Or would you prefer watching someone who’s staring right in your eyes – smiling and presenting his/her best foot forward?

We asked our team – and they obviously went with the latter option.

You’re making a big mistake by not maintaining eye contact – and we don’t just mean maintaining eye contact in videos – but in every aspect of your life.

Being interviewed?

Or clarifying things with your parents or significant other?

It’s really important to maintain eye contact.

While speaking on camera, you can maintain eye contact by staring at the lens. Doing so will help you feel and look more confident + knowledgeable. You’ll be making a great impression on your audience – but it’s not the only thing that matters.

Along with maintaining eye contact, you also need to focus on elements like writing down a script, not changing your personality, and more.

Let’s look at the second tip you should consider while speaking on camera.

Write Down a Script but Don’t Memorize it.

In our “The State of Video Marketing for Real Estate in 2022,” we shared a pretty impressive statistic – 75% of real estate agents, on average, write down a script prior to recording a video.

And it’s not just real estate agents.

We asked our Data Scientists to dive deep and find out whether it’s just real estate agents or if people across all industries prefer writing down a script first.

And we found out – a majority of people across almost every industry write down scripts prior to recording videos.

Writing down a script can help you build up your story or at least plan what you’ll be talking about. And we’re not asking you to memorize the script from head to toe – no, if you do that, you’ll end up taking numerous takes.

When you memorize scripts, you think about the next line that you need to speak about – and may end up forgetting everything. If you’re a beginner, you’ll probably end up forgetting a line or two or even more. It’s a good practice to create a rough draft of the script with relevant bullet points of topics you’re looking forward to covering. And that’s what you should memorize.

Writing down a script will help you spend less time filming, convey your story, grab your audience’s attention at the very first go (as you’ll know what you want to speak about), and get your message across.

Don’t Try to Be Someone You’re Not.

Many people try to fake while talking on camera. If you’re a beginner and try to do this, chances are that your audience will see right through you.

If you like to have fun all the time, then don’t try to portray yourself as a serious high-school teacher – just to showcase your expertise and vice-versa. If you try to fake your personality, your audience will see right through it.

If you want to engage with your audience, speak from your heart. Don’t 180-degree your personality. But that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t make even the tiniest changes.

Balancing is the key. If you don’t like to crack jokes, that’s okay. But at least, try to have a bit of fun – just so you could engage your audience – but that’s also dependent on the context of the video.

Smile

One of my favorite YouTube creators is Alex Cattoni – the founder of “The Copy Posse.” One of the reasons why I really love her content is that she has an incredible smile – and she smiles while talking to her audience.

Here’s one of her videos:

Smiling will make you look better. It helps you make a great impression – as it makes you look friendly, approachable, and someone with a positive attitude.

When your audience sees you smiling, they’ll find you more likable. And they’re highly likely to like you back.

Just think of YouTubers who you like a lot.

Ask yourself – why do you like them?

While their content would be one of the reasons why you like them, think about the presentation.

When you laser-focus, you’ll find out that they smile a lot. Not every time you’ll love a YouTuber – just because they smile. You can’t smile in a video that is based on a serious topic.

But smiling will help you seem more approachable and likable.

So – just go ahead and smile.

Put Your Best Foot Forward!

When you combine these elements and focus on other tiniest things like practicing, having the right posture, talking to your audience like you’re their friend, etc., you’ll be creating genuinely engaging videos that your audience would not be able to resist.

If you don’t feel confident, you should give our “5 Brilliant Tips You Should Consider to Appear Confident While Talking to the Camera” guide a read.

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