ABCs of best practices online
Posted by iamacamara on July 3, 2008
‘A’ is for:
Subscribe to and combine feeds from multiple web sources and receive them on your desktop or your inbox. RSS – really simple syndication – makes it possible to monitor media: blog entries, articles or entire publications as frequently as you wish. The CBC and BBC offer the best news feeds online under vast arrays of subject matter. This is a way to have a daily digest, made up of as many subjects and from as many sources as you can stand, custom delivered. A great way to filter and organize information.
- Audio
For decades, I have wondered why even the best and most expensive consumer video cameras have lousy in-board sound/microphones. I pestered Sony on this matter for an entire year. Still no answer.
When vlogging, interviewing or podcasting, consider using a unidirectional mic. For very little money ($25) you can vastly improve the quality of your recording and, hence, the playback. This way, you can also avoid irritating background noise (cats yowling, toilets flushing etc.) while making your voice as clear as possible.
To improve your speaking ability on- or off-camera, try exercising your mouth muscles, tongue and palate with the same vocal warm-ups that actors and singers use.
This one is easy to remember. Sing through the vowels in alphabetical order, first slowly and one at a time: A-E-I-O-U. Make sure to stretch your mouth around each vowel. Repeat twelve times. Then break up the vowels into staccato sounds and speed up, pushing each breath out from your chest: aaaaaaaaaaaa-eeeeeeeeeeee-iiiiiiiiiiii-oooooooooooo-uuuuuuuuuuuu. This will sound like panting or throat singing. Repeat twelve times and don’t forget to breathe in at regular intervals.
- Attribution
Always provide citations for quotes, images and information borrowed from other writers. Not to do so constitutes plagiarism.
- Awareness
Always read the terms of service, usually in squinty-print. Know what you are giving up, in privacy and content, before you sign up.
‘B’ is for:
Originally known as the web log, the blog has become the online self-publishing tool of choice. A website of one’s own or a shared repository for people with common interests, the blog can accommodate text, comments, widgets, audio and visual files.
A blog like this one, from WordPress or Google Blogger, offers open source code, so you can make frequent changes to the content and design. Proprietary blogs, such as Typepad are corporately owned. They are more flexible and generally look better, but they come at a price.
Social bookmarking, that is. It goes hand in hand with blogging and allows readers to find your posts, and you theirs. It is a record of websites that you can share according to mutual interests. These are identified in the tags you create and associate with each URL you bookmark.It is easy to create a del.icio.us account and begin identifying and posting your bookmarks.
‘C’ is for:
- Content
It’s chaos out there: spiralling galaxies of thought and deed in an expanding universe of words and images. The signal-to-noise ratio of content online is enormous. Don’t add to the noise.
Like all good writing, good writing for social media adheres to some basic rules and tenets, with a few twists. Melanie McBride’s 5 tips for (better) social media writing is an excellent, concise place for the Canadian communicator to begin. For more indepth advice, complete with interesting background information and references, check into Jakob Nielson’s notes on web writing.
Regardless of the medium, take care to guard the quality of the content you post. Edit, edit and edit again, for spelling, grammar, style and tone. If you have nothing to say, don’t post.
- Camera-readiness
There are lots of make-up tricks you can use to make yourself look your best on-camera. With just a few bits and pieces, you can slim down your nose, highlight your cheekbones, widen your eyes and keep your entire face matte and cool looking. Ladies Who Launch Magazine has a few.
Pose yourself in a not-too-cluttered background in adequate, even light and position the camera so that it tilts (slightly) up to your face. This is a flattering angle. You want a head and shoulders shot, a medium close-up: not so close that your features are distorted, nor so far away that they don’t read. Rehearse!
