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Arizona, United States |
The advent of video sharing services and social media has given rise to a huge boom in the number of people who are choosing to documents their adventures as they travel around the world. It’s great to want to share these experiences with others, but sometimes the message gets lost along the way. Here are a few ideas to make sure that your efforts to document your travels don’t leave your followers wondering what you were talking about.
Getting a Durable Camera
The current generation of cameras includes models that are built to be rugged and go anywhere. With options like the GoPro, you can document even the most reckless activities with a first-person perspective and in real-time. These cameras are cheap and provide decent quality video while operating under extreme circumstances. There are also versions built to help you document moments like underwater adventures, and as people who have done videos documenting things like sending balloons into space have shown, not even the sky is the limit anymore.
Get a Good Camera Too
There’s a good chance that you’re not just going to be documenting crazy, on-the-go activities. For those times when you wish to sit in your hotel room and explain things to the audience, you ought to use a higher quality camera that’s intended for the purpose. Most digital SLRs, like the Canon and Nikon cameras that people use to take photos while on vacation, now also support video recording. These cameras are relatively cost-effective, usually in the $500 to $750 range, and they provide excellent quality recording. The Nikon D3300 is a good example of a camera that fits these requirements. As an added bonus, you were probably going to buy one anyhow just to take pictures, so your camera can pull double duty.
Captioning
Captioning has historically been thought of as something aimed at individuals with hearing problems, but even folks with good hearing can benefit from a video that has captioning available. Finding a captioning service to do the work is easy, and your followers will benefit from always being able to read what’s being said. This is helpful in a lot of situations. For example, if there was high wind on the day that you filmed something, your voice may end up being garbled. Likewise, different accents can be challenging for listeners to follow, and these watchers will benefit from having a captioning option available while viewing a video.
Transcripts
On-page transcripts are always helpful. Some video bloggers don’t want to give away the milk when they’re trying to sell the cow, and for this reason a transcript doesn’t necessarily have to detail everything from the video. Even a simple summary can go a long way toward helping visitors make sense of what a video is likely to be about before they click the play button. As an added benefit, this type of text can be helpful in improving how your page ranks for search engine results pages when someone starts seeking information related to your video content.
GPS Data and Maps
People who follow travelers online are often looking to explore those same spaces on their own. Thankfully, many cameras now allow you to attach a GPS receiver in order to embed that data into your pictures and videos. My personal favorite is the Canon GP-E2. This data will be there as metadata, and in many cases photo and video uploaded services will detect this information and ask if you’d like to display it. You can also add elements that employ the data, such as maps, to blog and social media postings when you upload a video, so your followers can then visit the same places when they commence their own treks.
Conclusion
There’s a lot more to documenting a trip by video than simply pointing the lens at something and recording. You can add a great deal of value to your videos by employing a few basic services. Not only will this make your work look more professional, but your followers will appreciate the effort.