Pitch Yourself! - 5 steps to create your personal video message

Start With WHY - 4 reasons for personal video messages

1. Powerful first impression. Video is a very powerful medium - if not THE best - to make a remarkable first connection and impression to someone new in todays age of digitalization. The receiver gets an impression of who you are, how you look like, how you speak and bit of your personality. A perfect ice-breaker for any topic.

2. Pitch your idea. With a short video you can not only pitch your concerns or ideas, but really integrate the other person by stating why it is important, that he/she receives and watches your video message. Show what's in it for them.

3. Showing appreciation. By putting effort in creating a personalized video for someone actually shows much of appreciation and acknowledgement. If it is someone you are about to get to know then the reply rate is phenomenally high. If it is someone you know, you can continue the relationship in a very positive atmosphere.

4. Unique action. Finally, a video is one of the most exciting and joyful way to contact someone. It makes you unique and your message special. A video gives you many possibilities to express yourself.

The use cases

1. If you want to apply for a job, video is one of the most creative medium to do so. It might sound like a no-brainer, but because so few people do that, this method still stands out a lot.

2. Video is a very good medium to reach out to people asking for a favour, especially when you don't know the person well. Keep in mind to state a clear benefit for both sides. And please don't do sales with that, otherwise you will destroy your reputation.

3. If you become part of a new (digital) group, you can use video to introduce yourself and present your values and purpose to the group.

Here is an example for a video message on YouTube: https://youtu.be/ouCUXriRprE

5 steps to an authentic video message

1. Be authentic!

1. Don’t overthink it! There is no perfect video and there is nothing to screw up. Because creating and sending a video is already very unique you can only make you a plus. Just follow the steps here.

2. Be yourself! Talk as if you are introducing yourself to someone new. Make short notes about the content you want to deliver and just tell them to the camera.

3. If you don't feel comfortable talking to a camera, imagine you introduce a person to an audience - this person has your name and the exact same vita.

2. Clear structure!

1. Be concise! The video should not exceed 2 min. As said before, everyone's time is valuable and not to be wasted.

2. Get the attention! Say why you "chose" the person and why he/she can solve your problem.

3. Get to the point! Explain what you are up to and drop the keywords in your concerns.

4. Say what you need! What is the next goal of your connection? An appointment, an online-meeting, a call, documents, contacts, feedback, etc.

5. What's in it for them? Make clear what the benefit is in getting in contact with you. What can you deliver in exchange, what would be interesting for them?

3. Simple technical stuff!

1. Camera. Keep it simple! Today almost every smartphone can create appropriate picture quality.

2. Microphone. Good sound is very important, because you transfer your content there. Isolate yourself from any sound distraction or use an external microphone. There are plenty of good and low-budget microphones out there.

3. Tripod: steady your picture. Show professionality when you move freely while talking into the camera without a shakey picture.

4. Lighting: record your video in a bright surrounding. Light source not in your back and not too bright into your face.

5. Cutting/Editing. Of course you can make it very simple without any editing. I recommend you to use one of the free ones to cut it down to the core or add text. This will increase the WOW-effect even more.

6. YouTube-Channel. A YT-Channel is free and easy to set up. Here you can create a clean and trustworthy link to your video. Don't ever send the video as a file, because it occupies data space and looks suspicious for the receiver, especially when getting a video from someone unknown!

4. Create a great text message!

1. Reason reap results! State a clear reason of your contact, otherwise they might think this is spam, especially with the video-link.

2. Let the video-link speak for itself! Combine the message content with the video-link "Here is my personal YouTube-video message to you: [link]" - This will get their attention.

3. Focus on what you want! State a clear call-to-action in the end - getting an appointment!

4. Be concise! Don't exceed 3 text lines! The German "DREIZEILER"

5. Some tunings
1. Video description. Use the video description section in YouTube to add information, web-links, non-sensitive document-links, references to other videos etc.
2. Cutting
1. Even if you can speak freely, use the power of the video. Video cuts gives micro-impulses to the audience, which is highly addictive, because our brain is curious what comes next.
2. Cuts can shorten the video a lot, as you bridge speaking breaks
3. Make very tight cuts, so that the audience jumps through the video
4. Make reasonable cuts: topic after topic, otherwise it is annoying to watch
3. Caption
1. Use captions to underline what you say: show keywords
2. Captions are simple to place and shows your effort putting into that video (depending on the video program)
4. Music. Add a loyalty-free music to spice up your video. Music will add the right atmosphere to your message and is not to be underestimated!

Please feel free to ask for details or leave me a feedback to improve my content!

Thanks a lot!

Tyson