I spent the better part of February (after having the inspiration for this site and corresponding social media) mulling over how I wanted to present information. I’ve finally started to solidify some things and I wanted to document it to see how I might evolve over time.
Decision 1: style
I knew right away that I didn’t want to appear on videos like most people do
a. that’s so mainstream/normal and I like to be different
b. it allows me to be more flexible with my content
Decision 2: audio
I also knew I wanted to do voiceovers myself or with other people, so we can pronounce things in realistic ways and offer a fun tone and personality. This way I can really lean on the “dose of humor” part of my initial vision (as noted in my first post).
Decision 3: video/background visuals
With no camera on myself, then the question was: what sort of background should I use?
a. I could focus on the content and have no background or a static one. This felt too stodgy and academic for my style.
b. I could use an image or series of images to illustrate the concepts being discussed. Getting the right kind could be a challenge and I want to make sure I don’t run into copyright issues, so I prefer to use my own content. Making sure my content reflects such a wide variety of topics might prove too time-consuming and difficult.
c. I could use videos or a series of video clips to illustrate the concepts being discussed. Similar to (b), getting the right clips on my own might be too much effort.
d. I could use random videos. I rather liked this idea because it’s quirky and weird, which is right in line with how I like to do things. Ultimately I decided to blend this with (c) for video clips that may loosely tie to what I’m talking about. I was tempted to use completely random background videos, like the clips I took while diving in Bonaire last year, and I still may choose to do that, but for now I’ll try to make the clips tangentially related to each post until I either can’t anymore, or get bored.
Decision 4: content
Then I needed to decide how I wanted to present the words I would be talking about. This actually led me to the next decision pretty quickly, since I needed to know the capabilities of the tool(s) I would be using. It was easy to decide to write the Chinese characters in simplified, the pinyin, and of course the English meaning. As much as I can, I’ll keep them vertically in order so when you look down, you can see the 3rd word of each line is the character, pinyin, and English that correspond to each other. If the phrase is long then I’ll have to find a good way to split it up. TBD on that.
The other piece I considered was including the traditional Chinese characters too, but I decided not to (one to save space, two to save time looking each up, and three to stay authentic to who I am — while I can read a fair amount of traditional characters relative to the simplified ones I know, I did not grow up with them and my family roots do not tie to any of the places that use traditional)
Decision 5: tools/platforms
Next up was which video editing tool(s) to use. I created accounts on Instagram and TikTok and tried both tools. I’ve used Instagram reels before and I like it; TikTok is new to me and I actually never created an account until this one. When I attempted their video editing tool, it was not intuitive enough for me, so I chose to stick with Instagram. I would then repost that video over to TikTok.
Now I was ready to start creating! I started to go through all my videos to pick out ones I consider “b-roll” footage that could serve as an interesting background on my posts. I also made an effort to record longer clips so I have more to work with in the future. Since the first word that inspired me was 琴, that had to be my first post. I happened to have a clip of when I last tried playing the piano a few years ago, so I pulled that in. I actually started it accidentally on my personal Instagram account, so I had to recreate it in my other one (unless there’s a way to transfer that I don’t know about?).
Decision 6: branding
As I was wrapping up editing, I decided last-minute to add “branding” by including text pointing back to my account name:
学秦语
#learnQinese
Maybe one day I’ll get fancy and actually have a logo, or use a watermark? For now the text is easy, simple, and clear.
I also tossed in a thank you at the end, which I think is a nice way to wrap things up before it loops.
Decision 7: tags
To try to get the right audience, I wanted to make sure I had a comprehensive list of tags, so I looked at what other accounts with similar content are using. I assembled a healthy list of those to be used with posts, and of course will add others specific to the content of each post.
Decision 8: caption
In line with inserting some personality and flair, I used the caption area to point out some behind-the-scenes context. I also made sure to mention this blog, in case anyone might want to read more.
Decision 9: blog
I had considered leaving the end of the video with a mystery, something open-ended like a question… and then users could follow through to this blog for the rest of the content, but I didn’t want it to seem like I was forcing them to come here to get the full product. However, if things develop beyond the initial video content, I would want to point people here. This already happened with my first video on 琴 (on Instagram, on TikTok), which I have now discovered is used in 2 other instrument names! I can’t add it to the video so I’ll explain it in the blog post.
Decision 10: social network
Now that I had my first post, I started to follow some accounts and <3 posts with content related to Chinese language and/or culture. I waited until I had a post just in case they saw me follow/like and decided to check me out. Of course, I don’t expect to really get traction until I’ve built up a library of content first.
And there you go! 3 weeks in a nutshell. The nerd in me made sure to post on Feb 29, since it’s a leap year and I won’t get that chance again until 2028. 😉