Aside from being there, the best way to teach someone how to do something is through an informational video. This is where screencasting comes in. Screencasts are the digital recording of a computer screen output. In other words, its a video recoding of exactly what is happening on your computer screen. You can see the mouse moving, windows opening/closing, etc and can also add audio narration to describe exactly whats going on. There are two benefits to this:
- Your viewers will be able to play back the video as many times as needed, pause when needed, etc. until they’ve mastered the skill. For example, when we hired a new intern, our web developer created a screencast to show her how to navigate through our blog and how to accomplish specific tasks.
- By showing you’re an expert in your field, you’ll gain the trust of clients and encourage them to do business with you. This is where screencasts can come in handy.
There are a few screencasting programs available that we recommend you use. Some work better than others, and they all vary in price. The company TechSmith is the creator of a few different screencasting programs. Jing is free and available to download at any time, but only records up to 5 minutes of video and can only be uploaded to screencast.com. Snagit, Jing’s big brother, is relatively inexpensive and doesn’t have a time limit on recorded video. It can also be instantly shared to YouTube, Facebook, and more. If you’re looking for the full screencast package with professional editing, look into Camtasia, which can be a bit pricey depending on your purpose. If you’re looking for other free screencast software, look into screen-o-matic which allows you to record up to 15 minutes of video.
