When asking a question in your video blogs, do you pause to allow your audience to think about the answer? Videosocials.net Co-founder, Mark Bullock, explains the importance and the effectiveness of those pauses.
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Transcript:
Why would you want to ask a question on video and then pause before continuing?
Hi, I’m Mark Bullock. I’m the Co-founder of Videosocials.net and phoneBlogger.net. And I just consciously realized something that a few of our members do and I’ve gotten feedback from myself that I do, and that is asking a question, which of course draws the viewer in because you’ve asked them a question. Our mind automatically goes to want to try to answer the question. But what we typically do is we don’t pause for a moment and let that mental process on behalf of the viewer start working.
What am I talking about? What is all this for? We want to have a conversation with our audience. I’ve said this many times in many different ways. In doing so — when we’re having a conversation, we ask a question to someone — and questions are wonderful things, even on video, because your audience temporarily forgets that you’re not there with them asking that question. So it gives them an opportunity to engage mentally with what you’re saying — the message that you’re bringing across. That being said, if you’re not giving them that moment of pause, you’re interrupting their natural process by which they would be connecting with you and they would be further engaging with the content.
So a little bit of a secret that I use, and I wasn’t even consciously aware of it is, as you may know, I’m 300 plus videos into this and I’ve done 99 out of 100 of them completely extemporaneously. In other words, I don’t have notes. I don’t write anything down. I don’t even sometimes know what I’m going to talk about when they… when the camera light turns on. So I’m having to think. And that process of thinking… Toastmasters has taught me to not use a bunch of connective words in the middle, which I still do once in a while. But what I want to get across is, because I’m thinking, I’m asking questions to give myself time to think about what I’m going to say next. The end result is I’m further engaging with the audience and I’m seeing other members do this and it came up today and I just wanted to bring it up while I had it fresh of mind.
So when you ask a question, are you taking a moment to pause to allow them to think about a response to further their engagement with your content and you?
Again, Mark with Videosocials.net and phoneBlogger.net. And if you found this valuable, I encourage you to take a look at Videosocials.net/academy. Take care.