An authentic voice isn’t always polished. People who speak from the heart occasionally stutter, and sometimes they say, “um.” Don’t worry about it. Leave those things in your videos.

It’s okay for a couple of reasons. First, audiences don’t even notice it. Okay, if someone says something like, “you know,” four times in the span of 10-seconds, people will notice. They rarely notice the occasional verbal misstep because that’s simply how we all speak.

This is your video so you’re dissecting it word by word. Audiences don’t watch and listen that way. Stuttering and stammering is what we hear everyday, so hearing the same in a video only sounds like natural conversation.

Second, because it does sound natural, the content of what’s being communicated comes off as much more genuine than a polished answer. Unless you’re a great actor or experienced politician, sounding sincere while delivering a practiced answer is nearly impossible.

The best thing to do during your videos is to speak from the heart, hum, and let your passion show.

–Tony Gnau

This entry was posted by Tony Gnau and is filed under Storytelling. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.