TJ Walker shares practical tips for looking professional on video calls. Raise your camera slightly above eye level, add front lighting, use a plug-in microphone instead of your laptop's built-in one, and consider an earpiece. Quality equipment costs surprisingly little: backdrops run $48 and decent microphones start at $6.
Questions this video answers
June 22, 2015.
An inch or two above the eyes.
About $6.
$48.
mediatrainingworldwide.com.
Chapters
Is your personal communication brand consistent? Oh, look, nobody's perfect. And if you go on some of my websites, you may find a picture that's seven years old and outdated. So I don't want to say that I'm somehow perfect. But there's one big glaring thing that I find many people do who are normally very attuned to the needs of their image, their brand. They have great logos on their website, their business card, if they still have a business card. The packaging of their books are beautiful. When they're up on stage giving a PowerPoint presentation or any other presentation, they're powerful and they look dynamic and their clothes are great. Everything is in sync. The one area where I find a lot of communicators, especially professional communicators, weak is when they are communicating through live Skype video or other broadcast video means like a WebEx or a GoToMeeting. And these days with Google Hangouts and so many other meetings conducted through video, why have such a negative image for yourself when it's so easy to make yourself look your best? Now people say, well tj, look at you. You're in this big fancy TV studio. Easier for you to say, no, I'm in a closet. Right now. This is just a little TV screen and a $48 video backdrop. Now you don't have to go to that extreme, but I do want to give you some tips on how to communicate more effectively and to look and sound professional when you are on a Skype video. Meeting, conference call, webcast, webinar, Google hangouts. A few basic tips. For starters, have the camera an inch or two above your eyes. Most people have it on their laptop. It's looking up their nose. Does that look good? It looks horrible. So just get a stack of books and put your laptop on top of a stack of books. That's for starters. The next thing you need light in front of you, not behind you. If you have your window behind you, you're going to look all shadowy and like some sort of a ghoul. Don't do it. Next thing, invest in a microphone. This is not a wildly expensive microphone, but it's a lot better than the built in microphone on my computer. So have a plug in microphone. You can buy one for $6 on Amazon. So let's not make a big production out of this. And those are the basics. Decent lighting in front of you, elevate the camera and a decent microphone and you are going to be far better off and look better and sound better than almost anyone else on the webcam. On the webinar, or anything else. Now, if you want to get a little fancier, what you can do is get an earpiece. If I'm doing a Skype conference or an interview, I'll put this in that way. I I don't have to have the speakers on, and there's less distortion of sound, too. But those are a few basic tips on how you can come across in a professional way that is consistent with your brand. If your brand is kind of a slob, sitting around looking grungy, then don't change anything. If you want more tips on personal communication, communication in the workplace. But that isn't just about going on the Today show. We have a whole range of online courses for you, now available@mediatrainingworldwide.com the link is below. These are online courses. You can do them anytime, anywhere, and they're quite affordable. Please check them out.
