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The dreaded camera.
It steals your confidence and instantly turns you into a mumbling, mumbling, restless mess. You may have spent years of your career speaking in front of conference rooms, boardrooms or on stage with every audience engaged and eating out of the palm of your hand. But as soon as the camera turns on, you’re frozen and ineffective.
If you can relate to this phenomenon, don’t worry, you’re not alone. Virtual calls and video cameras have been known to steal the presence of amazing speakers and leaders.
Unfortunately, those in-person communication skills you used to connect with an audience and make a room don’t necessarily translate to a virtual environment. And gone are the days of strictly face-to-face communication. Virtual communication is here to stay.
Just as your business innovates and adapts, so must your communication style. If there’s one thing my work in Hollywood taught me, it’s the importance and power of a dynamic camera presence. Working in this presence is no longer a “nice” thing to do, it’s a need.
You have a beautiful opportunity in front of you. If you can connect and charm in front of the camera, your virtual meetings, marketing videos and webinars will be 10x more effective in helping you achieve your goals.
Related: 7 Essentials to Look Your Best on Video Conference Calls
6 Benefits of Improving Your Camera Presence
What do you have to gain as an entrepreneur or business leader if you work to improve your skills in front of the camera?
1. Increase your confidence
Being a leader means being someone who is comfortable following. Confidence is a calmness and stillness within oneself that permeates the room. Being confident means being the person others look to for answers, guidance, and inspiration. The more confident you are in front of a camera, the easier it is to connect and send a powerful message.
2. Improve your credibility
Leadership scholars James Kouzes and Barry Posner, authors of the best-selling classic “The leadership challenge,” have spent decades surveying people around the world about the characteristics of admired leaders. The responses to these surveys have been surprisingly similar across nations.
Honesty and credibility are always the top characteristics listed in effective leaders. This speaks to the fact that leaders must be believed in order to be followed.
Your presence on camera may be the only chance customers or employees get to see you in this digital and hybrid age. As a subject matter expert, entrepreneur or business leader, you may be the go-to person in your industry.
Nervousness or lack of camera presence can negatively affect your credibility. People may wonder if you are trustworthy or know what you are talking about. On the other hand, a powerful camera presence improves your credibility.
The bottom line is: trust makes people to want hear your message – credibility makes them to believe this
Related: 4 Tips to Get Your Brand Communicating Through Video
3. Connect with your team
Thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic, we now live in a global marketplace where employees can work from anywhere. This is the good news for many. But the bad news is that, according to Pew Research, 65% of workers (who are now telecommuting all or most of the time) say they feel less connected to their coworkers. And this employee disengagement is the main driver of low retention rates, which could cost American companies as much as $406 billion annually.
The bottom line is that employees who don’t feel connected to their peers or management have a higher risk of turnover, lower productivity and lower quality of work.
It’s hard to connect with your team on Zoom calls or webinars if you’re uncomfortable in front of the camera. Having an engaging camera presence can help your team connect with you when you’re not face-to-face. You can lead by example and show your team the connections tin move to camera Whether it’s making eye contact, maintaining open body language, or using gestures so people really feel you’re there, being connected as a leader will help employee morale, productivity, and retention rates.
Related: 4 Simple Psychology Tricks That Will Help You Connect Better With People Via Zoom
4. Increased commitment
When someone disables you, they disable your call to action (CTA), no matter what it’s about. You may have important information to share with your customers, inspiration to share with your team, or critical data to share with your industry. If you’re stiff and boring on camera, your messages will be lost.
People often assume that engagement tools alone can solve this dilemma when, in reality, these tools must be combined with your own powerful presence and energy.
How you say that something is even more important than what you say. Delivery is one of the most important communication modules. Those who have become skilled in front of the camera manage to keep their audience engaged from start to finish.
5. Become a thought leader
Maybe you want to become a thought leader in your industry. Video is an essential tool. Whether you want to create videos for social media or accept opportunities to speak on webinars, panels and keynotes, you’ll need to be comfortable in front of the camera to be accepted. If you are working on a thought leadership plan, improving your speaking presence should be part of your preparation.
Related: 10 Tips on Becoming a Thought Leader
6. Sell more
Your website may look great, but text on a static page will never have the sales power of a video. Here are some key takeaways from a recent Biteable marketing survey:
- 61% of marketers see video as a “very important or extremely important” part of their marketing strategy.
- 30% of marketers see video as a more important part of their strategy than their website.
- 74% of marketers say video has a better return on investment than static images.
- 68% of marketers say video has a better return on investment than Google Ads.
If you’re not marketing or selling with video, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity. Seeing how you tell a story about why you started your business or share a powerful case study of a customer whose life changed after trying your product can help you sell more. It gives you a chance to make an emotional connection in a way that words often can’t. Create at least one powerful video for your business and use it to attract social media followers, visitors to your website, and loyal customers who will attract 10 more customers.
Related: Research Says This Type of Video Closes More B2B Sales
Final thoughts
Now that you know the benefits of increasing your video presence, it’s time to get down to business. Create an improvement plan, arrange a time to practice, set up a video camera and do it! The more opportunities you have to be in front of the camera, the more comfortable you will feel.