Tackling Camera Shyness on Social Media

1. Introduction: Are you nervous about putting your face on TikTok and Instagram? Are you scared of being judged, saying the wrong thing? Maybe feeling a bit embarrassed? I used to feel all of those things too, but fast forward a couple of years, and I've been able to get 160 million views on both of those platforms. You can, too. How? Well, I'm going to show you. The good news about camera confidence is that it is a skill. It's something that we can practice that we can work on, and in fact, there are just a couple of simple tricks to get over camera shyness. Camera shyness on social media is a lot easier to get over when we understand what the role of social media video is today. Camera confidence on there is completely different to camera confidence on say traditional television. I'd also say there are important differences compared to public speaking as well if you have experience of that, or if that makes you feel a bit shy, too. I am a broadcast journalist, I am a public speaker, and I'm a content creator, so I'm going to be walking you through the specific tips and tricks that are going to help you tackle camera shyness on social media video, which is informed by all my other training as well. In fact, my first skill share master class was a staff pick. It's helped so many people with little to no video training, make their first video, or make the kind of social media video that they had never been able to make before. I really hope that this class can help you on a similar journey, and in our next video, we're going to be looking at what we'll do for our class project. 2. Class Orientation: This is the class orientation. This video is all about what we're actually going to be doing and what the class project is that we will be making. The class project that we're going to make is actually very simple. It's going to be a short video that we prepare for ourselves, where you get to practice a script that I have given you the template of. This is all to start building that really important skill set of camera confidence. I know it might sound counter intuitive to put yourself on camera if you're feeling nervous about being on camera, but I promise this is like exposure therapy. Do not get better at skill, you don't get to address your fears unless you actually give it a go. This is a safe space. The only place that your video ever needs to go or ever needs to be seen by other people is if you want my feedback. That's why when you do the video, you can then upload it to Skillshare, you can upload it to this class, and you get feedback directly from me. I wish I could have had feedback like this when I was making some of my earlier videos, trying to work out what kind of style I was going to have on TikTok and Instagram. That is an opportunity that I would love to be able to give you at the end of this class. More on that later, first of all, we're going to talk about why people might be feeling nervous when they put themselves on TikTok and Instagram and explore some of the data that debunks a lot of myths associated with camera shyness. 3. Why we get scared of making TikToks and Reels: So in this video, I'm going to try and set the scene about what we know when it comes to TikTok and Instagram and making short form social media video, and why some people might be feeling a bit less comfortable doing that. I'm going to begin by using one of my favorite things. Data. Data that I gathered myself as a journalist, training other journalists how to make TikTok videos and Instagram reels. When I asked some of the journalists who weren't platforming their work on Tktoc and Instagram, why they weren't platforming their work on Tktoc Instagram, these were the answers that they gave. You'll see that two of the main reasons why journalists struggle to put their videos onto platforms like Tok and Instagram is because they feel like it takes too much time. They also feel like they don't have the required video training to do so. I'm not surprised by that. In fact, if you're not a journalist, you might be surprised at how little video training a lot of us get the chance to have. And we have such busy day jobs. I'm also not surprised that people said they feel like they don't have enough time. But the thing is with more video training, especially learning how to script write properly, you do end up taking less time to make TikTok and reels. This is actually why I made my first skill share master class, which is all about the basics of script writing for social media video as well as a guide to editing. But look, there is a third reason and it is that they are camera shy. It is that they feel like they don't have enough confidence to appear on camera. I think this is particularly interesting and valid for non journalists as well. You might assume that all journalists feel comfortable being on camera, but that wouldn't be right. There are lots of us who feel far more comfortable writing or maybe appearing on radio rather than on TV or on social media video. I am actually one of them. I feel far more confident and comfortable actually. It's not always about confidence, it's comfort. I feel far more comfortable doing radio or writing than I ever do doing this. Doing video and doing social media video was probably one of the most alien skill sets that I had to develop early on in my career. Because the thing is, if you know anything about the collapsing news media industry or about the relentless content competition with social media platforms, it is that if we don't platform our work on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, et cetera, no one is going to see it, or the probability of the people who need to see it seeing it. Just radically decreases. If you use social media video correctly, you have a chance of reaching way more people than traditional television or radio or print media ever can. For example, as a writer and a journalist, it's existential for me to put my work on these platforms to make sure that the audiences who I do my best to serve actually get to see it. It's about making our work as accessible as it possibly can be. Short form videos like tiptops, and reels do so much better when there is someone's face in it. Actually, years of data even from news websites and still photographs that are associated with news pieces, tell us that people are more likely to want to click on a story if they see a human face in the photograph associated with it. Simply put, we are people and we really like seeing and connecting with other people. It's face to face. That's why this isn't only about making video. This is about putting our faces and ourselves, our true authentic selves on the video as well. The good news and the fun that you can have with all of this is that the more video you make, the more relationships you are going to build with other people. The bigger a community you are going to make around your work, the more connections you were going to establish with people who are interested in the things that you do or make. These are powerful benefits for any industry. It's not just journalism. I thought it might also be helpful to share with you some things that my followers told me. I posted online that I wanted to build training around tackling camera shyness on social media, and I asked for any experiences that people might like to share or reasons why they don't feel confident. These are the many different responses that I got. Some people told me that they really don't like the way their voice sounds. Lots told me that they struggled to feel relaxed, and part of that is because they're scared, they're going to say something wrong or even offensive. A lot of people are anxious about what people in real life might think of their videos, often more so than how people they'd never met would think of their videos, like anonymous Internet strangers. Some were worried about their content looking superficial or like they were showing off. Some are worried that they appeared to be rambling when they were making content and that they didn't have the kind of fluency that they would like to have or the kind of fluency they perceive other creators to have. That is a lot to break down and you may have found that you identify with one of those statements. You may have thought, Oh, yeah, I agree with all of those reasons. Not only would I say that all of those anxieties or worries are things that we can overcome, which is great. I would also say that they're quite valid. By that, I mean it is right that you are concerned or even just thinking about the quality of your work. It is absolutely right that you want to make the best quality content that you can. It is a good thing that you want to be represented fairly on social media and that you want the content you make to be of benefit to other people. It's important to acknowledge that a lot of these anxieties come from a really good place. Tackling camera shyness is all about addressing some of the fears that are actually behind that barrier to camera confidence. That is what this class is going to be all about discussing, opening up, tearing apart, and introducing a new world of camera confidence to you. As a result, the next couple of videos are going to address some of these concerns one by one. I'll be giving you some specific tips and even exercises to address and overcome these, and I hope that gives you a bit of encouragement too. 4. “But I hate how my voice sounds!”: I hate how my voice sounds. There are a lot of people who don't like the way that they sound on TikTok videos or Instagram Reels because there's something that they don't like about their voice. Did you know that the way our voice sounds to other people may sound different to how it sounds to us? This could be down to two things. One of those things is what's physically going on, and the other thing is connected to our perceptions around the voice. Let's start with the physical. When I am speaking right now, my voice is coming out into the air and I'm hearing it in the ether, in the air around me. I am also hearing my own voice in here through all the flesh, all the bone, it's resonating throughout my mouth? Some people think that means I hear my voice with slightly lower frequencies compared to how you are hearing my voice. Obviously, when a smartphone or a camera is recording you, it's picking up the voice in the air as well. Some people believe that voice has slightly higher frequencies to what you might be listening to yourself. Now, That is one theory. It could be that you don't like the way your voice sounds in a recording because of a perception that you have around your own voice. I had to work with a very good example of that when I interviewed my own dad for a BBC documentary once. I will never forget when he listened back to his own voice when the documentary was broadcast. He was really surprised and shocked at how he sounded. He'd never heard his voice recorded before. The reason he was shocked is because he clearly had an idea that to speak on the radio meant that you needed to sound Posh. I'm not surprised because I think the majority of voices that we do here on the radio are pretty posh. My dad doesn't have a posh voice. When he listened back to himself, he thought, Oh, my goodness, I really sound like the opposite of Posh. From my perspective, obviously, I didn't have a single problem with the way that my dad's voice sounded. The most important thing to me, my journalism, my documentary, was that my dad was his authentic self. On top of that, our radio stations should be sharing voices with us that are representative of the entire country and not simply a small subset of people. That had nothing to do with the content of what my dad was saying. That was all connected to his own perception of how he thought people are supposed to sound on the radio. There is no one way that people are supposed to sound when it comes to any broadcast format, but especially not social media. Social media is all about being as authentic as we possibly can. It's all about putting our true selves forward. It is never about pretending to be someone else or doing the accent you think you hear more amongst content creators. Another great example of this actually comes from social linguistics, so you may have read about the uptalk phenomenon before. When people are saying a sentence and then they go end at the up of it, it almost sounds like they haven't finished what they're saying. Maybe they're going on to say something else afterwards, or maybe they're searching for your approval. It's a common linguistic feature that you see in content creation. I actually once wrote an article all about it. There are some people who think that's really annoying. There are some people who associate that with the way that young women speak and like it's a bad thing. It's not a bad thing. Linguists have even described it as linguistic innovation and certainly from a social media perspective. When people are doing that, they are keeping you interested because it feels like the sentence isn't finishing. If we're thinking about retention rates in video, that is again a good thing, not a bad thing. Again, that has nothing to do with the content of what someone is saying, that has nothing to do actually with their voice. There's nothing wrong with their voice. There are just perceptions out there of some people finding it annoying or thinking that it's not a good way to speak. Do not let judgments, your own or other people's interfere with how your voice truly is. I would say the most important thing to think about is being understood. Generally speaking when that comes to speaking on social media, that just means not really rushing your words, it's speaking a little intentionally, a little bit mindfully. That is all about making sure that anyone can understand you, including people for whom your language is not their native language. You're helping them understand what you're saying. In conclusion, there are really two important things to take away from this class. One. Our voices are always going to sound a little bit less familiar to us when we hear them in a recording. That should happen because we are used to hearing our voices in a certain way and it is always going to be jarring when we hear our voices in another way. The more you hear that version of your voice, and the more that voice also becomes your own voice as well. That's what's happened with me. The second thing to take away from this class is that the most important way for your voice to be or for you to sound is like you. Don't let anyone's judgments or let anyone Misconceptions frankly about how people should and do sound on content creation affect how you speak to your audience. People want to hear your true voice, so let's show them. Oh. Extra SSG tip. If you're happy with your voice, feel free to skip straight to the next class. But if you'd like to work on feeling more comfortable listening to yourself, then I have some extra things to take away. The first is that I recommend you record yourself. Your smartphone should have a kind of voice memo app where you can record yourself doing anything. And I would suggest going on your favorite news website and reading out some articles out loud to yourself. When you're finished, have a listen back to it and ask yourself. Was it easy to understand? Did you sound like yourself? If either of the answers is no, try again. But if the answers are yes, well done. You've already gotten a lot more familiar with how you sound, and it should be a lot less jarring when you work on a future video. 5. “But I look weird!”: I look weird. There are some people who might be lacking a bit of camera confidence because they have seen themselves in social media video, and they think, Whoa, do I really look like that? Firstly, it's the same thing as the voice issue. We are not used to seeing ourselves recorded. If you are not in a job where you've had to record yourself on video loads or you haven't grown up doing it. Of course, that's going to be weird. You are right to find that experience really unfamiliar. Again, we do get over that bit when we simply make more video of ourselves, so don't worry about that at all. When I make content, I basically put the same makeup on that I would if I was going out to do some shopping. I make sure that there isn't any spinach in my teeth or something that I wouldn't want to be there. That's it. I don't really do anything special when I put myself on video other than just make sure that I'm happy with how I look. Does that mean that all of my anxieties or concerns about my appearance that I have irrelevant of whether I'm on camera or not? Does it mean that they will disappear when I make social media video? Of course not. But the reason that I don't let them stop me from making video is I think of this. I think is my appearance actually remotely important for what it is that I'm doing? Is how I look part of the high quality content that I want to make. At the moment, the content that I make is mainly about languages, language learning, or it might be connected to my journalism. I want people to finish watching that video, having learnt something new and interesting and fun. I don't want them to finish that video simply thinking sop weird or thinking Soph good. I don't want them thinking that because that's not actually relevant to the work that I make. I want my video to be judged by the quality of its content, not how I look, and actually reaching that threshold of looking presentable. Reaching that threshold of looking as I am comfortable looking in public, means I can actually forget about how I'm looking. It means I can focus on what is important, which is making a good video. One of my followers shared a really nice idea with me, if you like it, which is that she introduces a ritual, that's part of her content creation that might be connected to her appearance as well. For example, putting on a certain lipstick or a certain mascara, or putting on a hat, maybe you want the hat to be part of your gimmick. Most people know me for wearing a head band. It's never occurred to me that the head band is part of my content ritual. Maybe it is and I never even realized it. Some actors even spray a particular perfume when they want to go into character. It could be that you want to bring one of these things in to help you get yourself going before you make the video, a little bit of self encouragement like you may have once done before a school race or before an exam. The last thing I want to say goes back to the voice thing. We're not familiar with hearing ourselves recorded, and so it sounds weird. Remember that depending on how you are recording yourself, whether it's a smartphone, a camera, whether it's a selfie camera that's filming you or a rear camera, the way you look is going to change. By that, I don't mean that anything about you is changing. I mean that it's either going to be showing you a mirror reflection of yourself. Or a true representation of yourself. None of these mirror flipping or inverting that happens. Just like we are most used to hearing our voice in our own heads, as it were, we are used to looking at ourselves in a mirror. When we record ourselves with a camera that is not showing us our mirror reflection, but is actually representing our true self, that can seem jarring because we're not familiar with it. Rest assured, it is how you have always looked to other people. You're you're totally allowed to think, gosh, I look weird, unfamiliar. Actually it's how you've always looked. There's nothing to worry about or overthink about. It's how you look. The way we look between a mirror angle and the true reflection. It isn't much at all. I have an asymmetrical face. I know that there is a slight difference when I see these two versions of myself, but they're both me. It's absolutely fine. Again, you get used to it the more that you film yourself. The wonderful thing is that this class project is going to help you do that. It's going to provide a safe space for you to film yourself and get a bit more practice and familiarity with how you look and how you sound on social media video. Once you make a lot of videos, as I have done, you actually realize after a while, now I'm sitting here and thinking about it. When was the last time I actually thought about my voice, or my appearance when I made a video? I can't tell you the last time. It is an anxiety that disappears, so don't worry about it. Let's move on to the next video. SSG Extra tip. If you're happy with how you look on social media video, then please skip straight to the next class. If you'd, however, like an extra exercise to work on helping you feel more confident and comfortable on camera, then I've got this for you. I recommend you record a video of yourself telling an imaginary listener about where you grew up. You are going to film this video on your smartphone, and the video needs to last at least seconds because we want to make sure you get good practice out of it. So feel free to really get into the description. Once you're finished, watch the video, and think to yourself, you know, A your teeth clean? Do you look like you're sitting comfortably? Do you look like you're enjoying yourself, or you're interested in what you're saying? They are honestly the most important things. So if the answers are, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Wonderful. If the answers to any of those questions are just asked and no, try recording it a couple more times, see if it helps you feel a bit more confident and comfortable. Once you've done this, you have already built more camera confidence or preparing you for making a future video? 6. “I’m worried what people I know will think”: I'm worried about what people I know will think. This is a really interesting one. I completely relate to it by the way. Let's get into it. If you are worried about what people you know in real life will think about the videos that you make. The question is why? Let's take, for example, some of us who might be worried that people think we're showing off or being superficial. Think about it. If your work is reflective of you, if it is authentic to you, and it is representing you in a way that you want to be represented, what is there ultimately to worry about? Is it superficial or showing off to share your work with other people online? I really don't think so. If anything, I think it's profoundly humbling. You have the courage to open yourself up and share something that you're likely very proud of to lots of people. Some of those people are people that you already know, and some of those people are complete Internet strangers who could become internet friends. But they are all people who are probably going to make a judgment about what you're doing. Hopefully, they are going to see you share your work, and think, that's cool or think that's interesting. I don't believe that any of that is about being superficial or showing off. In my experience, I can tell you that the people who do think it's superficial or showing off have never made a video in their entire lives. If you go back to one of the earlier videos in this class, and you will also know that that means that other people probably are very unfamiliar with their work. Because if you're not putting your let's say journalism, for example, if you're not putting that out on TikTok and Instagram, then the general public are not going to know about it. Anyone who has made content, anyone who's involved in the content creation industry knows that there is so much pleasure to dive from sharing part of yourself out there with other people because of how much you get back. Content creation isn't just about you talking to a camera or you talking to people online and it being a one ended conversation. This is very perhaps not face to face, but certainly face to comment section. I have had so many really fun conversations in comment sections with people who've watched videos of mine. There's a great connection that you can build out of it. It's an exchange. It's a relationship between creator and audience. A tip that I would like to share when it comes to feeling more comfortable with the idea of people you know watching you would be to watch content yourself. You might not want to introduce this into your smartphone diet forever. But for the purpose of this class, and for the purpose of you getting a bit more familiar with content creation, I want you to make sure that you are scrolling on TikTok and Instagram at least for an hour a day. You need to be watching people, you need to be getting familiar with content creators in all the different kinds that they come. There are some people who seem to do it for a living. There are other people who are They're like just normal people who also happen to make some videos on the side. Some people thinking of some of my favorite creators, some of them are doctors. They're spending all day doing this really tough job, and somehow they managed to find the time to make an interesting video for me and for all of their followers. I think the minute that you see people take pride in their work like that and be willing to share it with other people. For me, that's always been infectious. It's always made me think, I love how they did it. I would love to emulate them and I would love to share my work in a similar way. That's more relevant and fitting for me in my style and my identity. You definitely feel more encouraged to do it when you've seen other people do it, especially other people like you. So make sure you are spending time actually watching and consuming a lot of social media video. When you see a video that you've enjoyed, think, I wonder what their mom thinks of that video. I wonder what their brother or sister thinks of that video. I wonder what their boss thinks of that video. Now I'm thinking of the people whose content I really admire. I think all of those, that circle around them would also love that video as well. If you're making content that is high quality and that you're proud of, The people around you are going to think the same thing. Remember, if you're still at a stage where you're feeling like your video quality isn't quite there. I'm not talking about the camera shyness. I'm talking about perhaps you don't feel like your scripts are totally there yet or you feel like you could do with some editing help. Remember, I have an entire skill share master class, all about script writing and storytelling to make impactful reels and tik tok. Please watch that as well to compliment everything that you're learning in this class. Now in the next video, let's think about what people we don't know in real life might think of our videos. 7. “I’m worried what strangers online will say”: Video is all about addressing the great unknown. What will people who have never met us in real life think about our videos? Why might that make us feel a little bit anxious? First of all, it would be really negligent of me to ignore the fact that making social media video often opens you up to hateful comments. This is something that happens to everybody regardless of how much effort they've put into a video or how high quality the video is. I hope to do all of those things with my videos, and I still get loads of hateful comments. Because I am so committed to putting out video that represents me because I'm really proud of the videos I make. They take a lot of research time, a lot of script writing effort, et cetera. When I get hateful comments, they tend to be quite varied. It could be that someone just doesn't agree with the premise of the video. My videos tend to actually be quite impartial explaining a bunch of facts. Some people really don't like the existence of some of those facts. It's not even that they're necessarily disagree with me. A lot of the time, the hate isn't directed to me, but it might be directed to something else in general. At times, there's loads of hate comments directed to certain groups of people, often marginalized groups of people, and that's awful. And I try and delete them as quickly as I can. I have also had plenty of comments about how I look. I've had comments about my weight. I've had people telling me, Oh, you look skinny and I've had people telling me you've put on weight, every possible option I have been told. I've had comments made about my teeth, I've had comments made about my hair. I've lost count of all the weird comments that people have made that they really didn't need to make, but they did it anyway. I have had a lot of sexual harassment and sometimes that has come in comments or videos more often than not that actually comes in private DMs. When it comes to dealing with that, or when it comes to thinking about Do I want to keep putting these videos out? I with all the good, I get this bad stuff too? The thing is, it's very well documented. For example, if we take online harassment of women, it's really well documented that one of the outcomes of that is that women are less likely to put themselves out in the public eye, they're less likely to have a digital presence for fear of that kind of harassment. That means that online harassment of women leads to fewer women wanting to platform their work? That is awful. When I think about the possibility of I could really let some of these people get me down. I could really let some of these people and the things that they say stop me from sharing my work. Stop me from building a community, stop me from doing journalism or making original content that I am proud of, and that will get me opportunities in life. I have had book deals, I have had possibly even job offers and promotions that I am not sure would have happened if I wasn't platforming my work in the way that I do on social media video. Isn't it scary to think that the opinions of people who I've never even met could have stopped any of those opportunities from being available to me? That's the first thing that I really wanted to make clear. Turn your frustration with misogyny or the hateful comments that you get. Into an appetite to hold social media platforms accountable, for example. That's how I use some of this energy. Don't let it stop you from making content because then they win, and we don't want them to win. I come back to the point that I've made many times throughout this master class, which is that if you are proud of your work, if you have made it high quality, if you've made it to the quality that you are proud of making, it shouldn't matter what strangers online have to say, especially people who aren't even putting their real face and their profile picture or their full name, and they are saying something really nasty to you, like what they think doesn't matter. I would say things have gotten a bit better recently, particularly on Instagram when it comes to protecting yourself from some of this. Because if we can minimize it, that is helpful. I have found that some limits and features that platforms offer can really help. With Instagram, they have a feature that means the only people who can comment on my videos are people who follow me. When I click that button, when I introduce that feature, the amount of nasty comments diminished overnight. Don't knock some of the protection features that platforms have. They could really help. A lot of this particular video has been talking about negative comments from Internet strangers. It's really important for me to say that I when I think about my whole content journey, I overwhelmingly think about positive feedback. I overwhelmingly actually think about the Internet strangers who I have reached, who because of a video that I have made, I certainly don't feel like as much of a stranger to them anymore. I can't think of any other way in today's society to build as many meaningful connections as possible as quickly or as well, than through algorithmic social media video. That is really cool. And I appreciate that what I'm saying here is take the positive feedback and ignore the hate comments. I know that can seem a bit confusing. It's like, so I should listen to what these people are saying, but not these people. It's honestly about working out what works for you. In this video, I've explained how I've managed to conceive of all of this, how I think about the hateful comments against all the positive feedback. I do take constructive criticism seriously. I think it's important to be able to see feedback that is not nasty, but might be challenging you on something that you've done. It might be room for improvement. I would encourage you to be open to that. Ultimately, whatever is going to help you make the highest quality content possible is a good thing. I hope that's constructive feedback. I also hope that's compliments. I hope that's lots of positive engagement for you as well. In the next video, we're going to address something completely different, which is people who think that they might actually be too old to make social media video, and I'm going to explain why that is completely wrong. 8. “I’m worried I’m too old to make social media video”: Worried I'm too old to make social media video. I can't tell you how many times people of really different ages have said it to me. I've even had people say this to me who are younger than me. I'm about 10:30. I can't believe that there are people who think that they could be in their late 20s, and that's too late to make TikTok or Instagram reels. That could not be further from the truth. People's social media diets are different, and I first want to say that I think the majority of people who I follow online are older than me. First thing to think about is how everyone's social media diet is different and that will be based on their demographics, which includes their age, but also includes things like where they live, where they're based, their gender, for example, I have to say that most of the content creators I follow, or if you said to me, who's your favorite creator, and I start thinking of the people I really like, All of them are older than me. They're either maybe near my age, or they are significantly older than me like ten years plus. The reason we think that social media platforms are associated with young people is because audience trends and data tells us that social media is where young people flock to. That ignores or distracts us from the fact that it's also the place where people of all generations flock to. A good example of this is about news consumption. Back in the early days of platforms like TikTok and Instagram. They always used to say, A, young people are getting all their news from platforms like YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok. Yes, that's the case, but also, guess what? Loads of adults who aren't young people anymore are also getting their news or a lot of their information from these platforms too. There was some data from PU this year that actually surprised even me. This is data and research that they did in the USA. Where they found that at the moment, people aged 35 to 49 are actually more likely to make a TikTok video than someone aged 18 to 30. What we are seeing is, yeah, young people have a really powerful audience stronghold on social media platforms, but the people who are creating content on there, so not only commenting or lurking or following, but creating actually often tend to be slightly older demographics. I think that's surprising because when you are a bit older, You know yourself a bit better. You've been able to express yourself comfortably in the working world. I don't think it's surprising that that then lends itself to having a little bit more comfort and confidence, explaining your ideas or speaking to people on camera. Anecdotally, I'd also like to share that, in my experience, when I've been training people, when I've been encouraging people in all different industries to consider incorporating Instagram and TikTok into their lives, It is not an age thing, it's an attitude thing. There are plenty of people my age. There are plenty of people who are younger than me who do not feel comfortable making tiktok and inscrim reals. There are loads of people who are way older than me, who feel really comfortable doing it because it's an attitude thing, it's not an age related thing. That is the data and also the anecdotal experience. The last thing I want to say is if you are a little bit older, We need you. We need your expertise online. We need your experience and your wisdom. We desperately need higher quality content on social media. If you've spent any time scrolling on social media feeds, you know there is a lot of low quality content out there. You know that there could be a lot of mis and disinformation. I urge you to consider yourself as being part of the change, being part of making higher quality content for all of us, not only younger audiences, but all digital audiences who want to go to these platforms for really good engaging educational and informative content. That hopefully can be a little bit entertaining too. That is it for all of the reasons that people feel a little bit worried or don't feel super confident when they're making TikTok or reels. I really hope I've helped to try and debunk some of the common misconceptions about all of this. Drum role, we are now going to make our class project because you're ready. You've learned pretty much everything there is to know about why people feel camera shy and how we can combat that. Watch the next video to find out how we're going to make our class project. 9. Tips for delivery & style: Getting ready to record our class project, and you are first going to have a short exercise to do before we get filming. The short exercise is to help you get more familiar with speaking on camera and how we deliver a script. Now if you're thinking, a script, I have to write a script for these things. You can, if you want to, I recommend it, and script writing is part of my other skill share master class. I really recommend you watch that as well to learn how to write a good script. But one of the trickiest things about speaking on camera or delivering a script is that When you normally talk to someone else, you're looking at another person and you are having a nice conversation. It can be quite hard keeping up the momentum and the expressions and the normal delivery when you're just looking at a lens. Anyway, all of that is to say that a little bit of acting is involved at this point. I find it very helpful to imagine that whatever I'm recording myself on, whether it's a camera, whether it's a smartphone. Is that there my friend? You will get more familiar with that, the more that you do it. I know at the beginning, it just sounds a bit weird. But it's all because of what happens when we think we're speaking to a friend. If you were in a cafe right now speaking to your best friend, your whole body would be relaxed. Your voice would be engaging. It would probably be a little bit excitable because you're with someone who you love. And you're just chill. I don't know how else to describe it. You're chilled out. It's not the way that we hold our posture if we're on TV, or if we're doing public speaking, where instantly, I wanted to sit up a bit straighter and I wanted to be a little bit more formal. That is not what we do in the content creation space or on social media. If the most important thing is to be authentic and our true selves, then the style tends to be a lot more familiar because that's what the platforms are asking of us. Going to do a little exercise to help you feel familiar with this way of speaking. You might also hear people talk about this as intonation. The right intonation that we should be having when we speak on social media. Remember what I said when we were doing the voice video, the most important thing is you sound like yourself. Don't think about imitating how Sophia talks to a friend of hers. You should be thinking about how you would speak to your friend. G to practice it with this exercise. On the screen now, you are going to see a sentence that I am going to readout three different times in three different styles. After I have done it, I would like you to do it. You have an option. You could just do it to yourself. Perhaps you actually want to film yourself saying these things so you can start getting familiar with how you look on social media video and how you sound. The sentence we're going to be using is, when I first started learning Japanese, I found it really difficult, then everything changed. We're going to do it in three different styles. The first is if I was delivering it totally monotone. We want to avoid this because we want to add color in the way that we speak. But first, we need to know what monotone is. First is monotone. The second is I'm going to pretend like I'm delivering this sentence as part of a big speech that I'm delivering somewhere important. Public speaking style. The third way I'm going to deliver the line is if I was speaking to a friend as if I was making a social media video. Let's give it a go. When I first started learning Japanese, I found it very difficult that everything changed. It's really hard for me to do that actually. But what I tried to do there was completely deprive that sentence of any color or interest. That is the opposite of how we want to sound when we speak on social media. We want to sound like how we sound when we are interested or intrigued by something because that's how we want the audience to feel. Second delivery, public speaking style. When I first started learning Japanese, I found it really difficult, but then everything changed. That is not how I would talk to someone face to face, but did you see that was more like how I would deliver a speech to a large group of people who I need to speak a slightly bit more slowly to to make sure that they hear all of my words. I might not be audible, I might have a microphone. It had a lot of intonation. It had a lot of color and pause between what I was trying to say. But I don't think that felt familiar. I don't necessarily feel like that was building a connection with you on the other side of my camera. Now it's time for the third delivery. I'm going to be delivering this line as if I was speaking to a friend and as if I was making content. When I first started learning Japanese, I found it really difficult. But then everything changed. That is far more familiar, far closer to how we want to sound when we are delivering content. When we do social media, especially, we really want to guide the listener to the point that we are eventually getting to. We do that in public speaking, but in social media, you can afford to be more familiar. You can afford to sound more like you're simply having a conversation with someone. I want you to practice delivering it all three times. I want you to do the monotone, the public speaking, and the familiar way. Feel free to give that personal familiar way a couple of goes. Do it a few different times. Get familiar with the way that you would like to sound when delivering a script with that style. In the next class, we're going to do the class project. 10. Let’s film a practice video: Now it's time for the class project. We've learned that there are lots of reasons we might be feeling a bit camera shy when it comes to making a tip top video or an Instagram real, and that a lot of those anxieties are based on very, very justifiable reasons, and that a lot of it is down to a lack of familiarity with filming ourselves and being used to seeing and hearing ourselves on a social media video. This is all about just getting some practice in. What I've done for you here is prepare a template for you to write a script on, and that is available to access on the class page. You will then record a video delivering this script, and you will upload it to Skill share where I can give you feedback on it. By the way, feel free to do whatever you want with the video. I will completely understand if you don't want anyone else to see it, this is a safe space for you. However, if you put on Skillshare, Everyone's going to be nice and it's a way to get feedback from me, which is a really important opportunity. I also want to emphasize, you can upload that video in any format. I don't mind if it's totally unedited. If you've got a few fluffs and second tapes and mistakes in it, I don't mind. You can also edit it if you wanted to. It's another opportunity to get editing feedback from me if you'd like that as well. This's completely up to you. Anyway, I am going to give the script a going myself so you can see how I do it. I've just got the script down here. I'm not editing this but now, you're going to see all my own fluffs and mistakes because I think it's important to share them. And be transparent about all of this. I've got the script down here on a laptop. So I'm going to be looking at the line and delivering it to you. The scripture begins with, what is the best piece of advice that you have ever received? What is the best piece of advice that you have ever received? I'll start. My name is Sophia, and I am a journalist. I have to think about the best piece of advice I've ever received. The best piece of advice I have ever received was from a really good friend of mine who's called Mega, and she told me that every good story needs jeopardy. I had no idea at the time, but that advice hasn't only helped me through doing reporting and making my reporting interesting in taking the audience with me. It's actually helped in pretty much everything I've done. It has helped when I've delivered presentations. It is relevant whether I'm working on non fiction or fiction. Every story needs jeopardy. It's the best advice I've ever received. What about you? What was the best piece of b? I knew I'd fluff it. What about you? What was the best what was the best advice that you ever received? What about you? What was the best advice that you ever received? That is all done and it didn't actually take me very long, either, which is really nice. I hope it doesn't take you too long as well. I recommend that you write out the whole script for yourself so that you can focus on the delivery rather than trying to think of the blanks to fill in as you go. If you want some framing advice, you'll also find it in the same document that the script is in for this master class. If you want even more framing advice, there's plenty more of it in my storytelling master class. Give that a watch as well. Now it's time to film yourself. I'm going to leave you to it and when you are done, feel free to upload it to Skillshare so I can give you some feedback. Now it's time for our conclusion. 11. Conclusion: Oh. You made it a few hours ago, you had all of these ideas and doubts and anxieties about making videos on TikTok or Instagram or frankly any social media platform. It's possible that you still do, and that's completely fine because in this class, you've only been able to make one video. It's now time for you to fly the nest and make many more. With every video you make, you'll find a lot of these doubts and anxieties slip away. You'll realize that a bunch of them aren't anything to actually worry about, and you'll also realize that some of the negative consequences that you were worried about actually aren't that bad. You will realize that you also develop quite a thick skin when you put yourself out there and make content like this. So I promise you, the best is yet to come, and you've set yourself up for that because you've done this class. Just a few hours ago, you had doubts, you had worries. You had things that you were thinking about, maybe even overthinking about when it came to making video on TikTok, on Instagram or indeed any social media platform. You likely still do have some doubts and concerns about making video on social media. And that's fine because in this class, you only got to make one. Now you can fly the nest and you can go forth and make plenty more and get increasingly familiar with doing what I have just absolutely adored doing for the last five years, which is making high quality impactful content online. Above all, you tackling your camera shyness is the first step in your work, reaching millions of people around the world, telling wonderful stories and even possibly changing their lives, improving their lives, and how exciting is that? Please remember to upload your project so that I can give you some feedback because I really would love to give you some feedback and don't forget to review this class. Please follow me for more. Perhaps you'd like to watch the other Skill Share Master class to really get to grips with impactful storytelling on platforms like TikTok and Instagram. If you want to make sure that you always see my content, make sure to follow me at Sophia Smith Gala on TikTok and at Sophia SGala on Instagram. Thank you so much for watching and I really hope it's helped you feel a little bit more camera confident.