Are you making your own screencasts?  Frustrated that they’re not generating the actions you want?  Here we present 8 tips borne of 4 years screencasting experience from teaching 100,000 users a month at ShowMeDo and explaining client’s products inside ProCasts.

1. Avoid built-in and 3.5mm (analogue) microphones – built-in and analogue mics introduce background hum.  Often built-in mics pick-up fans and the heavy thump of fingers on keys and mics with 3.5mm plugs introduce background hum which is hard to remove
2. Use a USB mic – digital microphone connections bypass the built-in analogue circuitry and so avoid the introduction of background noise, this makes your final audio sound much more professional.  More expensive mics and equipment give superior results.
3. Edit out the dull bits – nobody likes watching a spinning hourglass, wiggling mouse or slowly-painting window.  Use a video editor to remove all the deadwood, your viewers will thank you!
4. Know your audience – think about your audience and their needs.  What’s the shortest message you can give that covers most of their questions?
5. Have a plan – you’ve thought about your audience, now question what they need to know and how you’ll teach them.
6. Storyboard – sketch the scenes to clarify what you’re making.  First sketch what you want to achieve, then plan each scene.  We often sketch what we’ll see (especially for animations) and write comments telling us what is happening and what is being communicated
7. Use annotations to give supporting information – extra text on-screen in call-outs can give useful background information that’s secondary to the narration.  Plan them when story-boarding to help reduce the narration.
8. Keep it short – the shorter it is, the more will watch it.  30 seconds to 1 minute is easily watched, 5 minutes often feels like a chore.  Shorter is better, aim to get across 90% of the information in 1-2 minutes compared to 100% in 5 minutes and you’ll be on the right track.

Would you like a free eBook that covers all of this information (and more)? Our Little Book of Screencasting is in the works, to receive a notification when we release it send an email to: ebook_notify@procasts.co.uk

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Looking for a professional screen cast? Get in touch today via www.procasts.co.uk.

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