Not everyone loves their own voice.  If you or your client is not super thrilled with your voice as the narration for a screencast video there are many places you can get Voice Over Talent to make your video seem so much more professional. Below is a short video showing you what is available and how much is will cost you.

Having great audio quality is really the most important part of a good video and even if you like your voice you may not have a high quality microphone or a quiet place to record.  A Private Camtasia Coaching student of mine recently use a professional voice over talent for his company’s video and thought it came out great. He went to http://amazingvoicetalent.com/ and got to listen to lots of voices until he found the pleasant female voice he liked the most.  He sent her a script and she came back with a price quote.

The ability to hire and direct voice talent through the Internet has dramatically changed the voice-over industry. Today, many voice-over talents either have a home studio, or at least, equipment with studio quality, and have in turn become voice producers. They can record and edit the work themselves, and deliver the recording as mp3 files, almost always under very tight deadlines. In this video I show you examples of what you might pay.

One reason you might think twice about using a voice talent is if your narration may change over time.  If you think you will have changes and updates down the road you might have trouble finding the same person to make the changes and you’ll have to start all over with someone new. Even small changes, after they have sent you the audio may be quite expensive.

Best,

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I like how smoothly it shows video, the option to have a streaming video of the presenter in the upper corner and how quickly the software downloads.  I have yet to have any glitches in using it. It also has a nice option to show your PowerPoint notes while you are delivering the Webinar without the students seeing them. Below I have created a link to a webinar I just watched called “Moving from Physical to Virtual Classrooms”.  The webinar content would be great for anyone who is currently a trainer and wants to start delivering their content via the Internet and it gives you a nice overview of the features of Adobe Connect.  And for  you VAs, listen closely to how the Moderator introduces the course.  She lacks some personality but she gets the job done and probably gets paid very well to assist with the webinar.  If you would like to learn more about helping clients with their webinars and other on-line events check out my Virtual Event Specialist class.  It is open for ongoing registration.

Thanks!

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students is where they can find good quality graphics for their videos.  Below I have a list of some of the many places on the web to get great photos and clipart.  Some of the places are free and some are paid. Most likely you will find one or two places you like and return to them over and over.

My favorite place lately has been Presenter Media.  My fellow Camtasia trainer Lon Naylor turned me on to this site and I am having tons of fun looking through their graphics of little naked Martian type people with various props.  

Photos

• Flickr
• Getty Images
• Juniper Images
• Fotofolia
• Dreamstime
• Microsoft Online Library
• eLearningArt
• Big Stock Photo
• Scapeware 3D
• Turbosquid
• Pxleyes
• ThinkStock
• Stock Exchange
• iStockPhoto
• SMAD JMU EDU
• Morgue File
• Image After
• WikiMedia Commons
• Pic Findr

ClipArt

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Do you need ALL this stuff.  Heck no, but now that I am making some good money I’m having a lot of fun reinvesting in my business. I just bought two new desktop computers last month that run super fast because I HATE waiting a long time for videos to render.

If you are interested in adding video marketing to your VA business, this Wednesday, June 23rd, from 12-6 EST I am teaching a Video skills Workshop showing you how to market your own service business using video with all free tools. To check out what I am teaching there go to  http://www.vaclassroom.com/video-clinic 

Take Care,

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Last week I was interviewed by my friend Angela Wills, of Marketers Mojo, about how I make a living providing video services to clients and whether I felt it was worth the investment to keep upgrading Camtasia, which seems to come out with a new version ever year.

After Angela sent me her questions for the interview, which were very good by the way, I started thinking about my answers from the point of view of a VA who had already spent quite a bit of money on training. How important is it to have the latest greatest version of something? And what about this whole video thing anyhow?  Is that a service that is worthwhile to specialize in at all? If you want to know what I had to say you’ll just have to head on over to her blog and listen to the interview at http://www.marketersmojo.com/6131/michelle-schoen-2/ 

I also talk about this Thursday’s (April 29th) Free Webinar that I am delivering with my Camtasia buddy Lon Naylor. We’ll be showing some of the videos we just created with Camtasia 7 and letting you know if it is time to upgrade. To sign up for that go to http://bit.ly/learncam7

Here are the questions she asked me:

Tell us your story? How did you get involved in using Camtasia for clients?

Do you think a virtual assistant should invest in every new version of Camtasia that comes out?

Who do you think would be a good candidate to provide video services to clients? Can you describe them for me?

You and I talked about creating products with video as well. Do you see that fitting as a possibility for VAs – creating their own products?

- What is screencasting?
- Why do clients want videos? For marketing (salespages), for tutorials,
- What kind of work can a VA get with Camtasia? Video editing, Webinar recording, repurposing. Putting parts of videos together for a client.

Is Camtasia strictly for screencasting or can it be used for editing live ‘person’ videos?

What is included in your course?

The cost of Camtasia is $299 can you justify that for us?

By the way, after you listen to the interview, let me know in the comments section, if you have any thoughts or questions about providing video services to your clients . Hope you’ll enjoy listening!

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He already has really good slides.  A nice mixture of images and bullets on a casual template.  He has delivered this presentation many times live so he is very comfortable with the delivery. I did give him some pretty good suggestions as to how to really “sell” his product at the end by creating some urgency and scarcity by only selling a limited number of products for the first 20 people who sign on. But after we ended the call I thought of a couple of more items that I have seen done really well on a Webinar and kept me more attentive.  

One is about how you can get things a little more interactive without actually opening it up for free flowing questions. If there are appropriate moments for you to ask the audience a question that they can reply to in the question box that helps them stay attentive.  Maybe things like

• Type "me" into the question box if you have had difficulty with …..
• Type in the number of sales reps in your organization who….
• Type "yes" if you have ever had to….

And one more suggestion i gave him was about social proof-
Right at the beginning of the Webinar, if it is appropriate, acknowledge by name and company some of the people who are on the Webinar.  It helps with social proof for others to know how many people are on (don’t mention numbers if it is just a small crowd) and if there are other well known companies or individuals on the call.

If you are a VA helping your clients with their Webinars add these “Best Practices” to your lists and if you want more training in this area please check out my Virtual Event Specialist Certification course where I tell you EVERYTHING you need to know about helping your clients with their Webinars and Teleseminars.

Best,

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What I can tell you is that it has some really cool Libraries of extra things you can use in your videos and some callouts I really like. I’m going to start using it right away for my client’s videos and Lon and I will be incorporating it into our new Learn Camtasia course launching around the first of April.

Here are a couple of the videos from YouTube showing you just a few new features. And, By the way, if you purchased Camtasia within the last month or so I heard that you will get an automatic upgrade to Camtasia 7 so don’t sweat it.  I know some of my students just bought Camtasia through my Camtasia reseller link and will be e-mailing me about the upgrade.  I believe Techsmith will let you know as soon as you register your product so don’t forget to do that.

I had to add one more, last minute, addition to this post when I saw my buddy Lon Naylor’s in depth review. He goes through all the new features and give sit a thumbs up or down. Check it out at Screencast Profits.

k

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1. Don’t use a 3.5mm jack-plug el-cheapo mic.  The 3.5mm mic is analogue, the sound is sampled inside your computer and typically electrical noise from the motherboard is introduced into the audio.  This raises the background noise level which lowers the audio’s perceived quality.  Also – cheap mic typically have poor-quality microphone components which distort your voice

2. Do use a USB mic or more expensive specialist hardware.  $60 USB microphones are far superior to 3.5mm mics.  My Microphone cost me $100 and it is much, much better than my first one that cost $29.

3. Only record in a quiet room.  Background noise like birds, traffic, rain can’t really be removed.  You can try with a tool like Audacity but the general rule is that you should always start with the cleanest audio recording you can.

4. Practice your script beforehand – this way you’ll avoid ‘ums’, ‘uhs’ etc.

5. Do some practice recordings to check for plosives (the popping sound you hear when you say the letters “p” or “b” to close to the mic)   You can edit these out with an audio editor but generally you want to practice moving your mic so the source recording has the fewest number of problems . If the plosives (above) are a problem, you can try using a pop filter.

One of my first problems when starting recording screencasts was knowing just how ‘good’ a mic could be.  Over at TechSmith (the makers of Camtasia) they have recorded the same voice to 6 microphones of varying quality.  Now you can easily hear how a better mic really improves the voice recording. These are the microphones they used

• Samson C03U – $210.00
• Lapel Microphone – $49.95
• Logitech QuickCam Communicate Deluxe Webcam – $79.99
• Blue Snowball – $99.00
• Logitech Headset – $39.99 
• Audio-Technica AT2020USB – $249.00

I use the Audio Technica AT2020 and got it for about $100 on Amazon. 

FYI-I make professional screencasts (see my portfolio) and also offer Camtasia classes (LearnCamtasiaFast.com) The next Camtasia class is starting on March 15. Make sure you sign up for my list below or to the right to get notified.

Best,

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A recent question came up in a forum I belong to about the possibility of recording a live Webinar one time then replaying the recording at a scheduled time again as if it is live. I have done this for a client, but I probably would not repeat it unless there is an easier way. So listen to my process below then let me know if you have a better idea.

The Scenario

I had a client who was selling a social media product and had a group of Philipino telemarketers cold call businesses in order to fill a Webinar audience up every week  After delivering and recording the Live Webinar several times, he chose the one recording that sold the most products and decided to try to run the recording every week as if it were live.  He only wanted be available to answer questions as they came in to the chat and at the end of the Webinar. 

How I Tried It

We attempted this in GotoWebinar. In theory it seems easier than it turned out to be and I found it more than a bit stressful. To do this you have to have the replay video ready on your computer. Then in GTW, you have to “Show your screen” at the exact time that you press Play on the video and the phone speaker has to be right up against your computer speakers so people can hear the audio coming out. Then you have to really monitor it closely because things like your screensaver coming on (from lack of mouse movement) or a popup, etc. can give it away that it is not live.  Also you can’t allow anyone to ask questions verbally during the event because if it is supposed to be live someone should be addressing them.  But the client can come on at the end to talk to the audience as long as there is no real “wrap up” at the end of the recorded call.

What Went Wrong

The first time I did it, for some reason, I got kicked out of GTW.  Maybe because there was no actual screen activity for almost a hour- I don’t know. But next time I moved my mouse around every 15 minutes and didn’t get kicked out.The client used the cat to answer questions that came in so that was the only part that was live.

In Conclusion

So, in reality, it can be done but it definitely has to be very well planned if you want your audience to really think it is live. There was just so many steps to do all at the same time to kick it off that I had a real headache when I was finished.

I would love to know if there is a better way than the way I was doing it. If you know of any please comment.

BTW- I recently added the ability to audio and video comment so go brush your hair, smear on some lip gloss and fire up that webcam if you dare.

Thanks for reading,

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