When you talk on camera, people are not only listening to what you say, but watching your body language. In fact, most of what you communicate happens through your body language, not through the words you say, which means that the way you present yourself on camera can make all the difference between how someone perceives you and whether or not you hold their attention. In this video we’ll give you some tips and ideas on how to best use non-verbal communication to hook your viewer’s attention and communicate the message you really want to portray.
As a YouTube creator, the words that you speak are actually only a small part of the communication that’s happening in your video. Your nonverbal communication, your body language, actually do a lot to hook your viewer and hold their attention so that you get more watch time, your videos perform better in Search, and Related Videos.
Daniel Read and I have been shooting a course together called Find Your Voice about how to feel comfortable on camera, how to present your authentic self, and really build a deep human connection with your viewers. There’s an entire lesson in that course called body posture and nonverbal communication that is really important, and we’re going to talk with you about some of the tings we talk about in that lesson that will help you guys really keep your viewers’ attention. What are some of those things?
1. Eye Contact
If you’re talking, but you’re kind of always looking around, and then you come back to the camera and you look around. Have you ever walked past a painting of “Mona Lisa”? She keeps watching you down the whole hallway. Like, it doesn’t matter where you go, she’s always looking at you.
Creepy.
In the same way, if you’re looking at the lens, no matter where your viewer is, in front of the monitor or however they’re watching the content, you’re always going to be making eye contact with them.
And that holds their attention, because they’re like, “oh, he’s talking to me”. Not just reading a script or something like that.
And, in fact, if I was having a one-on-one conversation, I can only make eye contact with one person at a time. If you’re making video content, you can be making eye contact with a million people at once! It’s so huge, so powerful. So make sure you’re looking at the lens.
That’s where that eye contact happens.
2. Openness
You never want to have things crossed. If you’re constantly crossing different parts of your body. Like, that’s just conveying negative signals. So you want to have nothing crossed. You always have this open-type of thing.
I like to call it “the hug factor.” It’s allowing people, if they were to come up to you, they could sneak in there and grab a hug if they wanted. Whereas if I’m crossing my arms, no, you’re not hugging this. Right? So, like, it’s just a much more open atmosphere if you keep everything open, don’t cross yourself while you’re on camera.
3. Smile!
It’s the most important thing ever. People want to see that you’re having a good time. So if you smile, they’re going to have good time. Everybody’s going to have a good time. Smile.
But not in a creepy way. And don’t overdue it.
Yeah. Let me profoundly elaborate on that. There’s two types of smiles. There is a smile that you plaster on, and if you were to just zoom in on my mouth, it looks like I’m smiling. But if you zoom in on my eyes, you wouldn’t actually know I was smiling.
And, going back to the eye contact, people are looking at your eyes so you want your smile to actually originate here at the cheeks. They should be able to see those little crows feet by your eyes! They’re proof that you actually mean it when you’re smiling. Like, this is the proof that you’re actually having a good time.
So if you guys want to learn more about nonverbal communication and how to hold your audience’s attention and how to create a natural human connection with your viewers, check out our course called Find Your Voice.
I would love to hear from you guys in the Comments below. What have you noticed about creators that you watch that hold your attention? What are they doing consistently with their body language and how they are communicating non-verbally with you. And then, also, those of you guys who are intentionally paying attention to that while you’re on camera, I would love to hear your tips and advice as well.
And if this is your first time here, I would love to have you subscribe to Video Creators, because every week we’re making videos like this– and not like this, even– to help you guys grow your YouTube channel. And if this is your first time here, I would love to have you subscribe. Every week we’re publishing videos that just help you guys grow your YouTube channel, spread your message, and ultimately change lives.