FKB Media YouTube Reset

I’ve recently been tinkering with my YouTube Channel with the help of my assistant, Natalie. I’m a fan of self-reflection and taking your own advice. One of the services that I offer is media training - how to communicate your message effectively and succintly to your audience. As I wrote in my previous blog, this YouTube life is new to me. My background is in producing television news, but I am learning that producing content for social media is a whole other game. One of the things that I picked up in my research is that you have to try different things in order to find your groove. Although, successful YouTubers make it look so simple, there were a lot of missteps before getting to that point of success.

When I first launched my channel, I thought it would be simple to memorize my points and speak to camera - which is the opposite of what I tell my clients. I tell them the worst thing you can do is try to memorize what you’re going to say because it doesn’t come off as natural as you would like it to be. So then, I decided to try using autocue. Now if you’re not a seasoned anchor, autocue is not as easy as it would appear to look. You could tell I was reading the script, and once again, it didn’t come off natural. I also went back to what I would tell my clients, you are the expert, you should know your topic, why would you need a script?

I realized that I was lacking in confidence. For 20 plus years, I was used to being in the control room, behind the scenes. I was never in front of the camera. So, this switch was more of a learning curve than I thought it would be. Some other advice that I would tell my clients is to watch themselves afterward in interviews with an objective eye - it’s a difficult thing to do. I wasn’t doing it. I would record my videos, check that it was technically fine and send it off to Adanna or Natalie to put together for YouTube. I wasn’t watching it back with a critical eye. I also wasn’t getting critical feedback. Sure, people would tell me that they loved my videos and advice. But I wasn’t getting feedback on what I could be doing better. Until a good friend listened to my podcast Chatter That Matters interview with Tony Chapman .

He felt that I came across far more natural and knowledgeable in that interview than on my YouTube Channel. And I agreed. So, I talked it over with Natalie and we reviewed various styles of presentation to see if there were other formats that appealed to us. We recognized that I worked better in an interview style format, I needed someone to prompt me with questions, it was more natural for me. We made a few tweaks, looking at the camera, not looking at the camera, keeping in the question prompt, taking it out, adding graphics, removing them, adding banners, it was like a scientific lab experiment. When we emerged, I loved the results! There are a few tiny things that still need to be adjusted, but I like where things are going with it.

Subscribe to my YouTube channel - FKB Media - and follow my journey - you’ll also learn a lot from my great tips about all things media. Give me your feedback in the comments - constructive ones only please!

I’m a work in progress.