Creating a professional online persona on social media takes some careful planning to portray a professional and authentic self. In this blog I’ll talk about my reflection on creating my first Introductory video to compliment my own online persona.
Appearing authentic on screen is not about lying or being fake, it is about performing a conscious but genuine presentation of ourselves. You get to take full agency of what that genuine presentation is, but it is still a performance on screen.
In my introductory video, the first thing I need to identify is my audience. For me, that is potential clients and potential employers. I want to tell my audience that I can do the work, I will do the work and that I will fit in with their organisations culture.
• Can I do the work – I will edify myself by ensuring I clearly state my achievements, and where I am at in my career. I have over 20 years active experiences in IT Management, I’m a student furthering my studies in Cyber Security and I am currently employed in the industry.
• Will I do the work – I go beyond requirements, I do what it takes to get the job done. I am confident and pay attention to detail. This will be represented in the quality of my performance and the fact I’ve got an introductory video which very few people have in their digital portfolio, at least in the IT industry.
• Will I fit in – I conduct myself professionally. I am honest, have good interpersonal and communication skills. I will provide good value for money. I dress professionally but not too overdone and I’ll share a little bit about myself so my audience can gauge how I might be to work with in person.
When it comes to the production, I used the general rule of thirds to appear more natural and comfortable to the viewer setting myself as the primary focus. I’ve set up the frame to provide some space around me in the video in framing to ensure I’m not zoomed in and appear intimidating.
I present to the camera to make eye contact with my audience and use appropriate body language to appear more engaging with my audience.
In my video to keep the audio consistent, I’ve recorded all my audio in the one setting to avoid inconsistency in room acoustics which can become distracting.
I’ve filmed in a clean and asthetically pleasing setting without distractions of clutter that may allow the audience agency to make judgements based on what’s in the background. Also making sure the setting is quiet enough to record high quality audio is important too.
Most of the lessons I learned from filming my introductory video have been around finding the most appropriate setting. I found it helpful to wander around home and the office with my mobile just taking pictures of potential locations to get an idea of what it would look like. I found myself liking a Muriel in our elevator foyer which is featured in my video. I did have to film early Saturday morning to avoid elevator dings and office noises though.
Another lesson I learned is to practice my performance more or allow time for editing. Things like excessive ums and ahs have later been noticed and can affect the professionalism and confidence of the performance meaning I’ll need to re-record or heavily edit this recording before I’d be comfortable uploading to the public.
