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In the Sunday Blog post “Faceless Communication: What Your Voice Says About You”, we discovered a number of qualities your voice can signal about yourself. It goes to show that voice is powerful indeed. In the digital world, voice provides a more engaging and human form of connecting with others.
So what about video? I mean, if you speak on video, that includes your voice, and it usually involves putting yourself on camera as well. With the element of nonverbal cues and body language added, isn’t video even more engaging, more human? Why bother with audio-only communication at all?
Voicebox, and other audio-based platforms, aren’t meant to take over the entirety of social media. They merely unearth a fairly underground facet of digital engagement (ie through voice). So being the new kid on the block, where does voice fit into a landscape dominated by video?
There are plenty of reasons why you might opt to share your voice without your face. To name three of the biggest ones:
- You don’t want to be on camera. I’ll be the first to raise my hand here. Being on camera doesn’t get me up in the morning. The rise of video-based social media has made me even more reluctant to post than I was before. Folks may want to keep private, have low self-esteem, or have several other reasons for not wanting to be on video.
- You don’t have the time. Even though a lot of video content today is short-form, it doesn’t necessarily mean quick. A lot of videos involve so many moving parts, from setting to content to editing. It can easily take more time to say something on video that you could otherwise say through audio.
- You want people to focus on your words. While talking to a camera can bring the focus to your message as well, there are still visual cues involved with that. Forget about videos shot in more complicated settings. The fact is, if our eyes and ears are working, they may not focus on the same thing at the same time. An audio-only piece of content will bring more focus to what you’re saying.
As consumers of content, the mode of communication matters as well. On text-based platforms, you’re more likely to get off-the-cuff or quick remarks. On video-based ones, you’re more likely to need time to sit and watch the content. Video-based has also proven to include a great variety of content. You could be watching a video on how to start a business, then next watch a video of a viral dance.
Voice generally offers a more thoughtful discourse than text while being more accessible than video. This isn’t to say text can’t be thoughtful or that video can’t be accessible, but the middle ground is the middle ground for a reason. Sometimes you want to read text, sometimes you want to watch a video, and sometimes you want to listen to a voice. There is benefit for both consumers and creators in that variety.
Tuesday Deep Dive is a series where we discuss in more detail a specific point made in the previous Sunday Blog.