The first decision you have to make when you're going to present online is, are you going to do it sort of the easy coward's way of just having your voice and a bunch of pictures? Or are you going to do it the honest way, and a more powerful way, which is to show yourself speaking. Now I'm talking about any online presentation, whether it's a recorded YouTube video, whether you are doing a webinar through some sort of webinar service, Skype, talking to people a Google Chat, there's always the chance to sort of hide behind graphics. I mean, this is just a little video loop behind me. But I'm not trying to use that as the only thing for you to look at. Because I want you to see me so you can get a sense of why we think is important.
It's just easier for people to follow your concepts, your message if they can see you at least part of the time. So that's the first decision you've got to make Because if you make the decision to just sort of speak and read from a script, it's going to be really hard not to bore people to death. Now, I'm going to give you tips that will apply to a lot of different situations, including those where people can only hear you. But I would urge you right now, make the decision to use video for yourself. And if you're not using video, ask yourself what are your reasons if your reasons are, oh, I don't like to be on video. Or I'm not a good TV person out those are bad reasons.
If you have a message and you can communicate it with some conviction, some passion, you can be fine on video. Because anyone who can speak well in person, people can see that why not let them see you in a video format to online. So if we're going to do a video let me give you a few tips. The way people mess up the most is Just with a few basic technical flaws they start with, anytime they're doing video, whether it's a webcam, whether it's Skype, whether it's Google Chat, and here are the problems. They start off with a camera too low, and it's sort of looking up their nose. No one kind of looks good.
Like that. And it's very easy if you're using a laptop, or even a desktop and the camera is six 812 inches below here, you don't look awful. Here's a simple solution, get a stack of books. Get some old phone books, if you still have those, get some other books and simply raise your laptop. Raise your desktop to the point where your camera is at eye level. Now I'm not in a super fancy expensive studio now but my camera is at my eye level so it looks more like a TV show.
It looks more professional. than the typical sort of Skype video. So that's the first step. Now the next area where people really go wrong, is they have a window behind them. So there's more light behind them than there is in front of them. So what that does is that darkens out your face people can't see your face, you look like a shadowy criminal figure solution is relatively easy.
Close your blinds, or aim the camera to a wall where there's no window behind it. And then what you need is some light in front of you. Now I do have professional lights on here, but there have been times when I've simply used lamps taking the lampshade off as long as there's more light in front of you, focused on your face than behind you. It's going to be easy for the camera to pick you up and you'll look your best. The third big area for trouble for most people is the audio if you're using the microphone, Built into your computer, it's going to sound tinny, tinny, echoey. It's just not going to be great.
So what I would recommend is by, you see it right here. This is a lav microphone short for a lavalier microphone. You can buy one at Radio Shack for 20 bucks, you can get one on Amazon for probably about nine bucks. It's not expensive. But this way the microphone is only this far away from your mouth. If you're speaking and sitting at your desk, then it's going to be more like 234 feet away from the microphone and that's what creates that echoey sound.
When you have good audio quality. It makes it so much easier for people to listen to you. When the lighting is right and people are looking up your nose. Everything is less distracting, you can come across as professional, competent, authoritative. It's just easier to listen to so would urge you take a few minutes, come up with these things. I realize you can't buy a microphone like that, but you could place an order right now.
And it could be there two days if you're using Amazon Prime, but I'm not pushing Amazon using any service you want. Get a mic anywhere, but you can very quickly elevate your computer and make sure you don't have a blind behind you put light in front of you do those steps and you will be so much happier with how you look and how you sound for when you are presenting online. So go ahead and try to change your own configuration right now. Either in your office, your home, your laptop, on the road wherever you are, try to get a configuration so that when you record yourself on video, you are comfortable with how it looks