Tips for Talking to Camera as a NEW YouTuber

the reason why you might not have filmed videos yet is because you feel uncomfortable with speaking to camera whether you are uncomfortable with your voice how you're going to communicate or how you're going to come across in today's video I'm going to share some tips to help me get comfortable on camera so that you can start filming your first few videos with confidence let's dive into it now the first piece of advice that I have for you to get comfortable with speaking to camera is preparing by writing what I mean by this is oftentimes when

I'm filming if I don't know what I'm talking about or I approach filming without a plan this is usually when things start falling apart because I have no guideline to support me and I start overthinking it and I start panicking about every single detail because I feel lost to prevent that from happening what I like to do is I like to actually script out my videos in advance now on one Spectrum a lot of people like to script out their videos to the T it's very detailed it's basically word for word what they're going to

say I used to do that when I started because I was afraid of going Off Script and I was afraid of making a mistake and I wanted to feel safe but over time what I have realized is the best method that helps me the most is actually a bullet point method where it's not too loose where I don't know what I'm saying at all but it's also not too strict so I actually can go with the flow while I'm filming this eases my anxiety knowing that I have a guideline but it also helps me create

that space to do things on the fly so that I don't feel bad if I do go off script not only this the reason why I feel the bullet point method is more effective is because I can clearly see the key ideas easily when I have a fully scripted Out video it's really hard for me to visually see the key points versus when I break it down into a bullet point list in my mind I know that there are at least these few Focus points or these few key things that I need to hit in

the video and because I can easily see that on my script it's harder for me to actually get off track for me I'm a super visual person and so because I can't actually visualize and see the key points and the key buckets that I want to hit in my video I then start overthinking and this is where things start to fall apart when I start filming alternatively if you are an even more visual person than I am what I would recommend actually is having sticky notes and writing the key points that you want to get

across in your video this can be the key tips or the key takeaways that you want to say in your video by having these sticky notes and putting them in front of you whether it's on a table or on a wall it's going to help you stay on track when you're filming and also make sure you get your key points across at the same time while I believe the bullet point method is highly effective in terms of preparing to speak to camera I also believe that you should spend the most of your time fleshing out

the hook that you have for your video This is the first one to two sentences that you're gonna open the video with when I script my videos I'm very very focused on nailing that hook and actually writing that out in full and the reason why is because the first first 15 to 30 seconds of your video is probably the most important thing that you want to nail and so I'll spend a lot of time actually doing that and to make you feel better about it when I'm filming the intro actually takes me the longest sometimes

it might even take me five to ten takes just to get the intro right and this is coming from someone who has over 600 000 subscribers and have been doing this for years and so if you are stumbling a lot in the first few sections of your video I would like to say that that is normal I actually make the most mistakes and I Stumble a lot in the first section of the video but as I get into the groove of it and as I get more comfortable by making those mistakes I then start to

ease up throughout the video and actually filming videos becomes easier and easier near the tail end and so if you are someone who is stumbling a lot in the beginning of your videos just know that that is absolutely normal and that should be happening because you want to get your intro right another thing to know is as you are writing your scripts for your video videos whether they are YouTube videos or Tick Tock videos or reels videos you also want to make sure you are saying your script out loud and talking as if you were

actually filming while you were writing a lot of times we don't realize that our writing voice is very different from our actual speaking voice and so it becomes a disconnect when you start filming because your script might be super sophisticated but that's not actually how you talk it feels very unnatural and so that's why for me every time I'm scripting my videos I'll actually say it out loud as if I was already filming and make sure that my script matches my actual voice this has helped me a lot when I actually get into the filming

stage to make sure that my script is aligned with who I actually am and how I'd like to present myself because oftentimes when I read a script and when I'm referencing a script and it seems really really meticulous or it seems really really professional this is where I feel a disconnect to the camera and so that's another piece of advice for you as you are scripting out your videos now the second piece of advice that I have is a powerful mindset shift that I made that made me infinitely more comfortable on camera and that is

to not speak to teach but speak to share what I mean by this is when I first started out creating videos I put a lot of pressure on myself to be perfect I felt like I had to meet a certain expectation it wasn't necessarily because I was afraid of filming and of being on camera I was more afraid of putting my ideas out there for judgment what I ended up doing was I ended up saying to myself hey you know what I'm not here to teach anyone anything I'm just here to share my experience share

what has worked for me share my story a powerful thing that Alex hermosi said when I saw him speaking on stage once was he talked about the importance of not creating how-to content but instead create how I content so instead of saying how to do this it's really shifting it and approaching it as how I did this this makes you feel a lot more comfortable because now you're coming from a place of experience not necessarily from a place of meeting someone's expectation that you need to teach them certain things when you actually speak from experience

speak from your stories speak from the mistakes that you made and you have that mindset shift it can be incredibly powerful of really lowering your guards when it comes to speaking to camera another shift that I made too was a lot of times I was really afraid of being on camera and speaking to camera and filming videos because in my mind I was like oh my gosh this video is going to be shown to thousands of people on the internet and that really stressed me out and when I was filming videos I got into my

mind about that of oh my gosh this video is for hundreds of people I need to get this right I need it to be perfect yada yada but what I did instead is now whenever I film my videos I actually filmed them for my past self what I mean by this is I think about that one person that I'm trying to help with my video but to take it a step further that one person that I'm trying to help is my past self Vanessa from years ago who was struggling with this same topic and when

I actually think about me filming a video to myself as my future self it actually helped me become a lot more comfortable and it lowered the pressure and noise and so next time that you film really do these three shifts speak to share not speak to teach speak from experience how I not how to and also speak to your past self and no one else I have a feeling this is going to be a very powerful shift that you make so comment below if you do end up doing this and let me know how it

goes now moving on to the third piece of advice that I have when it comes to feeling more comfortable with speaking to camera and that is practicing on low commitment and low effort platforms now what I mean by this is let's say you are someone who is really uncomfortable with your own voice or actually articulating your thoughts well I would challenge you to instead of typing things out to actually have a whole week where you send voice memos whether that's your friends your family yourself your team actually get used to the act of speak talking

to something even if it's not speaking direct to camera with the camera on I really believe that actually practicing talking and speaking in general can do a lot of good when it comes to you being comfortable when you actually do start filming to camera now if you want to take it a step further what I would also do to challenge yourself is every day I would either start the day or end the day with just filming a video diary so you could have your iPhone out and you can start talking about how your day went

and the three top takeaways that you got from the day or maybe even talk about what you're grateful for or what you're struggling with you're going to be able to gain two valuable things number one you're going to be able to practice actually speaking to camera in something that feels very low commitment and low effort because you're not really posting it anywhere the second thing that you're going to gain from doing this exercise is beyond just getting the practice you're going to be able to get all these clips of you documenting your journey so if

you ever want to look back on your journey you're going to have all these clips where you reflected on your biggest takeaways your biggest struggles and a lot of times you might want to share these clips in the future I know for me I am so grateful that I did a mini video diary at the lowest point that I hit in my business and in my life because now I'm able to use that video and Inspire my audience and I'm so glad that I documented parts of my journey my only regret is that I wish

I documented it more and so if you are someone who is already uncomfortable with being on camera I highly recommend you challenging yourself to doing a video diary because it's going to benefit you not only in the short term but also in the long term as well now Beyond practicing with voice memos and private video diaries if you want to get your feet wet with filming to camera specifically showing your face and Publishing it another idea that I have is to start filming tick tocks or Instagram reels but with a Twist so what I'd like

you to do is I'd like you to take any Carousel posts that you might have done or a quote post that you might have done and actually film an Instagram reel or Tick Tock where you're showing your face like this reading off of the slides this is a really great way for you to get introduced with speaking to camera but also having the safety net of actually reading text out loud because now you're not going to have that fear of going off base or not knowing what to say and also a benefit of this is

you actually get one extra piece of content that you're able to post on your socials I've seen a few people do this on their Instagram and their tick tocks and I feel like it is a brilliant idea so make sure you try this out so that you get introduced with the idea of filming to camera now moving on to the next piece of advice that I have for you and that is understanding your filming strategy one thing that is really important to understand is most people look like they're confident on camera but really they just

have really great filming strategy and they also edit their videos and so for example one thing that has helped me a lot is when I'm filming videos for YouTube let's say I'm not doing one continuous perfect take I actually film my videos in chunks and so this also helps you make sure that I can reference my script time to time but what I end up doing is when I'm filming I will say the first few sentences of my script or what I want to say and then I'll stop recording and then I'll review my script

and then I'll go back to camera and start recording again now if I make a mistake I'll either keep filming or I will delete the clip and so what ends up happening is I've got a bunch of different clips that have Micro things that I have said and then what we end up doing is we end up editing the entire entire thing by stringing all these clips together and that's how you get a full video it's not me hitting record and speaking for the entire time it's really a bunch of micro clips that I'm filming

and in between those clips I'm referencing my slides I'm getting a drink of water I'm breathing and then we're able to just edit all those together and that's the final result that you see and I think it's really important that you understand the videos that you're seeing on the internet are there because that person was proud enough of the video to post it meaning they likely have made a ton of mistakes they likely edited the crap out of that video and you're not seeing the true behind the scenes of all of their mistakes now speaking

of mistakes I'm going to show you a clip of me filming this video that didn't make it to the Final Cut but it's very obvious that I am struggling and that I'm making a ton of mistakes while filming a lot of us underestimate the power of editing when it comes to filming videos and you have to trust the post-production process and you have to trust the Post filming and you have to trust the editing process as you can see from that clip I make mistakes I pause but I still keep going one of the things

that's going to make you lose momentum is when you overthink and when you feel the need to restart all over again from the beginning just because you made one mistake a lot of us underestimate the power of editing when it comes to filming videos and you have to trust the editing process as you can see I make a lot of mistakes in my videos but you will never see it on YouTube because people don't want to watch that but it doesn't mean that they don't exist and so one thing that I have trained my mind

to do is to trust the editing process and when I make a mistake I pause and then I try to start it over again instead of feeling like I need to start from the beginning back then when I was a perfectionist if I made one little mistake in a clip I would refilm the entire video all the way from the beginning and this really was super inefficient as I've gained more experience in filming and as I've trusted the editing process a lot more now I'm not as rigid and I'm not as a perfectionist as I

was before and if I make a mistake and if I fumble I just collect myself and I keep going speaking about the power of editing and trusting the editing process the next advice that I have to share with you is fake it until you make it now this might be controversial advice but when I started filming my videos for YouTube I was really insecure by how my voice sounded and I felt like I was talking too slow and so what I did for a lot of my videos especially in the first year of my YouTube

channel I actually sped up my videos at like five percent extra or ten percent extra and so that's why I sound a lot more confident on camera than I actually did it's really because I sped up my videos now over time as I got more comfortable with my own voice I stopped speeding up my videos and now my videos are at normal speed so if you are struggling with that and you feel like you're talking too slow give it a try try to increase the speed of your video videos by maybe five percent seven percent

max ten percent and see whether or not you like the results of your videos being sped up slightly not to mention speeding up your videos for short form can also be a really effective way to keep someone's interest I know for some of my videos that I film for short form content whether that's reels Tech talks or whatever we do get our Video Editor to speed up my voice slightly so that the video is a lot more engaging so there's also a strategic side as well when it comes to speeding up videos now moving on

to my next piece of advice and that is understanding talking to camera filming in general is a skill it is a muscle that you have to keep flexing I know for me even as someone who's been doing this for four plus years for me if I don't film for a while and I get back on the horse I make infinitely more mistakes versus if I were filming every single day every single week over time I make less mistakes because I'm comfortable on camera now again this doesn't mean mistakes don't exist but I just want to

emphasize the fact that when you film more you do get more comfortable it's very similar to any skill that you want to practice whether it is dancing whether it is Fitness whether it is writing singing running anything that you do and so you have to treat filming like a skill and you shouldn't beat yourself up over it if you don't get it perfect the first time or if you haven't filmed in a long time and suddenly you're making all these mistakes to camera not only this I also think it's important to put into perspective effective

who you are comparing yourself to and what you are comparing yourself to if you are someone who is comparing yourself to me and you're watching this video and you're like dang it I can't be confident like Vanessa you have to realize that you're comparing your first draft your first try to my 200th video that I've done on this platform and so my advice to you is whenever you want to compare yourself to other creators just to see how they're doing and what the Benchmark is my recommendation is to not look at their most recent videos

and instead look at their earlier videos look at their first few videos that's going to make you feel a whole lot better and it's also going to make you realize that everyone starts somewhere I know for me I compared myself to Evan Carmichael and back then when I was starting my channel and I was looking at his newer videos I was feeling like absolute crap about myself but it wasn't until I actually filtered his videos from oldest to newest and I saw how his first few videos were I then realized that wow everyone has their

humble beginnings and you cannot get massive success without those humble beginnings so I might as well start now the same thing with MKBHD he is a very very popular Tech YouTuber and I always reference him because I find his journey so inspiring when you actually look at all of his oldest videos he filmed a lot of videos before he was successful over a hundred videos and you can see the Improvement as he went along Sean Cannell is also a really good example of this if you actually look at his first few videos he is so

different on how he communicated in his first video versus how he communicated in his most recent video and so again you have to understand that being on camera is a skill and if you have never done this before you should not be beating yourself up if it's not perfect and as I said earlier even if you were looking at their videos that they posted on the internet you have to remember that that was a video they were extremely proud of that is basically mistake free and so nobody is posting their bloopers is online and so

you also have to keep that into consideration even if you're looking at their first few videos as well now moving on to the next piece of advice that I have for you and that is do not create time pressure for yourself when filming what I mean by this is filming alone is a pretty stressful process okay you're going to be making mistakes you're going to feel frustrated with yourself you are going to forget your script or there's going to be other external conditions that frustrate you maybe someone who lives in your household is being way

too loud maybe your pets are making a mess in the background or maybe your camera is about to die and so there's a lot of things that you can't control that end up happening while you're filming that creates a lot of stress and when that happens you get into your head and you start overthinking and then that's when things start to fall apart and that is inevitable I have spent hours and hours filming videos and the entire process was extremely grueling and this is even after four years of experience so know that it's going to

happen but what you can control is making sure that you're blocking off time in your entire calendar for that day to dedicate to filming a mistake that I've always made when it comes to being a Creator on video is I would always slot filming in like it was any other event so I would slot it in during the days where I would have meetings where I'd have to see my friends after work where I would have dinner plans or whatever else and so that meant that with that limited amount of time that I set for

filming if I don't get it right then we don't have a video or I would feel very pressured to finish in a certain amount of time and so now I've really changed my strategy where anytime I need to film I block off my entire day just to make sure that I account for any hiccups that might happen during the day and also to rest I think a lot of people underestimate how taxing filming can be and so that's why I tell my family I tell my friends I tell my team that if I'm filming that

day I probably won't be able to hang out I probably won't be at 100 battery level because it takes a lot of effort to actually film and be your best self on camera a lot of people don't realize that when you're filming videos you're not talking like you would be talking talking to your friends and family for example this is me talking in the same voice that I would talk to with my friends and as you can see it sounds really natural like we're having a conversation but it's not the same it's very conversational it's

very natural it's very lower energy whereas when I speak to camera for YouTube I'm using a louder voice it's as if I am performing and this takes energy out of me and so you can't assume that filming is going to take the same amount of effort and time as doing an admin task like writing an email or putting together a slide deck this is not just physical labor it is also emotional labor as well to be someone who's talking to camera and so you have to allot time for that and make sure you're not creating

time pressure for yourself and making sure that you're organizing and structuring your day accordingly to dedicate to filming and recharging afterwards every time I finish filming I just lie on the couch there I can't do anything else after filming because it takes a lot of my energy and so I want you to know this as a Creator to an another creator of what to expect when you start filming videos and to not feel guilty or feel shameful if you feel more tired than usual and you've questioned why you can't finish everything else that's on your

list it's because it's not natural and it's not normal and you want to be able to regulate your energy especially if you're going to be filming on camera that being said though on the topic of speaking in your natural voice like this to your friends and family and also having a Creator voice one advice that I have for you is to watch other creators videos and to use that as inspiration to find your own voice there are some creators who are very conversational like this and it's as if we're just hanging out just the two

of us and that is something that people really love is when you're really connecting to the camera and speaking authentically and vulnerably and at the same time there's YouTubers like me who have a lot of energy in their videos and that's just how I like to operate and so what I would want you to do is I would want you to actually observe the different ranges of creators that exist and really ask yourself and start taking notes what are the things that they do extremely well what are the things that they don't necessarily do well

in your opinion and what would be the perfect style for you and maybe it's not even a style maybe it's just how you are but what's important is to actually look at the different range of creators that exist because there is one way to do it which is the way that I do it but there's also a whole nother set of ways to actually talk to camera that might speak to you more don't feel like you need to copy my energy copy the way that I do it copy the way that I speak in order

to film videos you want to make sure that you're able to actually get enough sample sizes of different creators doing different videos having different Paces for you to find your own style and as you get more experience you're going to be able to really settle in to your own identity and to the own flow that you want to have for your videos now moving on to another piece of advice that I have for you that has been game changing for me personally is figuring out whether or not you are more confident speaking to camera sitting

down or standing up for me I am sitting down right now but I actually film videos a lot faster when I am standing up and this was very surprising to me and so a lot of people are different and I believe I actually even did a poll to my audience asking them when they film videos whether they prefer to sit up or sit down and we saw saw a different range of people actually feeling more confident standing up versus sitting down and vice versa and so my recommendation to you if you can is when you're

filming your videos try to experiment with different ways that you are posturing yourself whether it's sitting on a couch sitting on the floor or standing up and speaking out loud these are different things that can really improve your filming and make you feel more confident that's very unique to the individual so try that out and let me know what you find in the comment section below now moving on to the next piece of advice that I have for you to feel more comfortable on camera and that is managing your state what I mean by this

is if you know you are filming try to make sure you put yourself in a positive State before doing so whether that is drinking a cup of coffee actually going out for a walk eating something that's more light instead of sluggish or starting your day with filming right away before you actually hit your desk and see all these emails and see all these texts coming at you you want to make sure you protect your energy prior to filming and really try your best to put yourself in a good state where that's listening to music pampering

yourself putting on your best outfit doing your hair I know for me my secret weapon is doing my hair putting on makeup and putting on a really cute outfit these are things that help me feel confident being on camera for you it might be something completely different but I want to say that filming is a very sacred activity and you want to make sure that you are putting your best foot forward and in order to do that you need to be surrounding yourself and doing things for yourself that make you feel happy that make you

feel an expansion that make you feel open and that make you feel confident for example what you don't want to do is let's say you own a business you don't want to be letting a team member go before you have to film a video You're Gonna feel like crap or you don't want to be hanging around people that lower your energy or that are just going to give you bad news or maybe you don't want to be reading the news that can be quite depressing sometimes prior to filming you want to protect your headspace and

so that is one thing that I have to say that has really helped me is understanding how important that is and it goes back to my previous point about blocking my entire day for filming I own a business and whenever I have my filming days I block it off in my calendar I set up my status on slack to let my entire team know that I am filming and the expectation is on my filming days I will be responding to messages it's not just because I'm busy it's because I need to protect my energy and

so keep that in mind and really hold that sacred to you as a Creator so that you can be your most confident self when you are on camera now so far in this video you've really heard all of my tips on how I became comfortable on camera but I'd love to hear from you what has helped you become more comfortable on camera comment below and let us all know and by the way if you are someone who wants to go beyond just being and feeling comfortable on camera and actually doing the Tactical steps of starting

your YouTube channel make sure you click this video that I have here that walks you through my entire step-by-step process thank you so much for watching and I will see you in this video next [Music] thank you