Internet videos are an essential way to publicise your firm’s products. Of course there are numerous other kinds of marketing approaches available from article writing to blogging, from public relations to RSS. Although, nothing says “cool, connection, and creativity” like a web video.

Each month more and more firms of all sizes are generating promotional videos about their services. They are not only posting them on their business websites, but they are adding them on their own blogs. To gain worldwide twenty four seven visibility, videos are being published to numerous video-sharing websites like You Tube & Kwego. And why not ? it’s very inexpensive, easy-to-do, and can have a vast difference, in many cases, on the traffic it sends to your companies website.

There are various other reasons why videos are a useful way to advertise your business.

Online videos enjoy a far reaching circulation: Videos by their own nature are easy to “package” which means they are great to fit into an assortment of different distribution circulations. You can add them on your organisations site or blog, you can even save them onto your computer machine and show them time & again at a chosen company show. You can post them to loads of World Wide Web video-sharing social websites. You can burn them onto DVDs & give them away or sell them. You can even distribute them via email. If your are looking for a creative agency dedicated to empowering your business with high quality online video marketing, visit www.vidify.co.uk today.

Professional videos are a superb way to advertise. As our experience with technology changes, so do the methods in which individuals like to interact with others. Most people are visually oriented meaning that is how they best understand and cooperate with their world. This makes videos online the perfect company strategy to talk to today’s consumers.

These are just a few of the countless reasons why online videos might be an excellent way to market your businesses products. Discover more about this topic to see how you may well leverage your valuable time, finances, and energy to speak to your target audience in an inventive & interesting way.

Way back in your early school years, you were probably taught to use the tag “he thought” in your stories, to tip readers off that someone was thinking. If you substituted something more innovative, like “he pondered” or “Harry deliberated”, you might even have scored a big red tick.

If you liked to read as well as write, you probably cottoned on to the fact that there are other ways to indicate thoughts - such as using italics. (It’s not likely that a teacher pointed this out to you. Usually, teachers considered their job done once they’d taught you about “he thought”.)

Great! Off you went, liberally sprinkling italics all over your stories to show what was going on in your character’s head. Occasionally you might have used italics AND “he thought”. No way the reader could get confused then!

Neither of these two methods is the best way to show thoughts.

The single most effective way is to show what your characters are thinking is to blend their thoughts into the narrative flow. Instead of moving into the present tense, stay in the past tense. (Unless your entire story is in the present tense, of course.)

Let’s use a few examples to show the difference.

Using The Present Tense To Indicate Thoughts

Chris slowly descended the stairs, all senses alert. What if someone attacks me? I won’t be much use to Laura if I’m dead.

He stopped on the bottom tread, holding his breath and peering into the gloom. Over in the far corner, something moved… or was he imagining things? No, something did move. Chris was sure of it. He swallowed. I wish I had stayed at home.

What’s wrong with this? The constant switching from past to present tense and from third person to first person is annoying to the reader. The “flow” is much smoother if the tense and person remain the same - unless clear signals are given to the reader. In this example, the writer has not even used a simple tag, “he thought”, to prepare the reader.

2. Using The Tag “He Thought”

Chris slowly descended the stairs, all senses alert. What if someone attacks me? he thought. I won’t be much use to Laura if I’m dead.

He stopped on the bottom tread, holding his breath and peering into the gloom. Over in the far corner, something moved… or was he imagining things? No, he thought, something did move. Chris was sure of it. He swallowed. I wish I had stayed at home.

This is an improvement. Now that we’ve inserted “he thought”, the reader has clear signals. They’re prepared for the change in tense - they know that most thoughts are in the present tense.

Tip: When you use the tag “he thought”, try to get it as close to the beginning of the thoughts as possible. Note in the example above, I’ve written:

No, he thought, something did move.

NOT

No, something did move, he thought.

This is because readers commonly take in chunks of text when they read, rather than reading one word at a time. The closer the words ‘he thought’ are to the beginning of the thought, the clearer the signal to the reader that things are changing.

3. Using Italics

Chris slowly descended the stairs, all senses alert. What if someone attacks me? I won’t be much use to Laura if I’m dead.

He stopped on the bottom tread, holding his breath and peering into the gloom. Over in the far corner, something moved… or was he imagining things? No, something did move. Chris was sure of it. He swallowed. I wish I had stayed at home.

The use of italics is another clear signal that we are reading someone’s thoughts. They are a valuable tool - if they are not over-used. What you are reading here is just a small sample of text, but there are quite a few italics.

Imagine if the character did a lot of thinking. (Which is probable. Most of us are thinking all the time as we go about our daily business.) In every second paragraph there would be another sentence in italics.

So, some of you may be thinking… is there really a problem with that?

Yes, there is. Italics are used for other purposes apart from to show thoughts. Some authors write page after page of italics to show a dream, or put the whole prologue in italics. Italics are often used for emphasis, too (as we saw in Part #1 of this article). If your readers see italics, they may subconsciously give more emphasis to those thoughts than you’d intended.

A good rule of thumb is this: Use italics for thoughts that are especially significant in some way - or such strong thoughts that you want to see them emphasised in the mind of the reader. This might happen at times of great stress or fear for your character.

Now we’ll move on to the best, least intrusive way to show a character’s thoughts… blended into the natural flow of the text.

4. Blending Thoughts Into the Narrative

Chris slowly descended the stairs, all senses alert. What if someone attacked him? He wouldn’t be much use to Laura if he were dead.

He stopped on the bottom tread, holding his breath and peering into the gloom. Over in the far corner, something moved… or was he imagining things? No, something had moved. Chris was sure of it. He swallowed. He wished he had stayed at home.

As you can see, in the final example, the flow of the narrative is not interrupted by changes to tense or person, tags like ‘he thought’ or use of italics. The reader is not disturbed in any way… but we are well aware that we are deep in Chris’s viewpoint, and we ‘know’ what he is thinking.

If you wanted to emphasise the fact that there was indeed something moving, and that Chris was scared, you could include italics for one sentence: No, something did move. You would keep it in the present tense, because it’s almost like Chris vocalising a thought… as though he were talking to someone else. In this case, your final version would read:

Chris slowly descended the stairs, all senses alert. What if someone attacked him? He wouldn’t be much use to Laura if he were dead.

He stopped on the bottom tread, holding his breath and peering into the gloom. Over in the far corner, something moved… or was he imagining things? No, something did move. Chris was sure of it. He swallowed. He wished he had stayed at home.

In the end, it’s up to you. You’re the author. You know how you want the reader to interpret your words. Just keep telling yourself: “Make it smooth!”

(c) Copyright Marg McAlister

Marg McAlister has published magazine articles, short stories, books for children, ezines, promotional material, sales letters and web content. She has written 5 distance education courses on writing, and her online help for writers is popular all over the world. Sign up for her regular writers’ tipsheet at http://www.writing4success.com/

Public Speaking is a challenging skill. It is TOUGH! For some of you, it’s probably the hardest thing you will ever do; and I can sympathize. Standing in front of the employees and coworkers that you want, (or need) to impress, all the while hoping that you remain clear, memorable, persuasive, entertaining and fun isn’t a piece of cake. It is TOUGH, TOUGH, TOUGH!!

Public speaking is a difficult thing on its own; however, imagine being in a leadership role and speaking in a language which is not your first language. These people have a second layer of challenges about which to worry. When someone is speaking English as a second language, they are also worried about their accent, pronunciation, intonation, grammatical errors and whether or not they are being perceived as a knowledgeable person despite their choice of words.

The U.S. Census Bureau reported that in the United-States, 1 out of 5 people speak a language other than English. Many of these people are hired in at mid-level management. By 2030, demographers predict that English as a second language learners will account for approximately 40% of the students in the United-States. In some areas, that projection has already been exceeded. For instance, in California, 60%-70% of schoolchildren speak a language other than English as their primary language. It is therefore clear that many people are faced with this situation since a good majority of North Americans speak English as a second language.

Accent is one of the major concerns for ESL speakers, especially for someone in a management role. Many accent reduction techniques and courses are out there, but my advice is to embrace your accent rather than to run away from it. Be true to yourself: if you have an accent, don’t try to cover it up or camouflage it. An accent is a great way for you to differentiate yourself. You want people to remember you for who you are. About a year ago, I was training a gentleman from India. When he spoke in a social and conversational way his accent was easily detectable. The strange thing was, when he presented in front of a group he would put on a Deep-Southern accent. He sounded like a cross between Gandhi and Uncle Jesse from the “Dukes of Hazzard”. When questioned about this, he said he thought he would be more respected and understood if he sounded like an American. Well, his approach totally backfired because the audience was more interested in his fake accent than in his words. In today’s world, everyone has an accent; we all come from different parts of the globe and we all have different ways of saying things. Accents can even be an asset since some audiences find them charming and aesthetically pleasant to the ear. You will be your best when you let yourself completely be who you are. You will sound natural and it will be a pleasure to listen to you.

Another concern that might arise is the apprehension resulting from the proper choice of words, or grammatical errors and syntax. Many times, people feel that since they are in a leadership role, that they have to use complex and technical words to be taken seriously. Finding the right words to express yourself in a language in which you are less comfortable can be a challenge. Regarding this, my advice is two-fold:

Firstly, don’t try to chew off more than you can swallow - use a vocabulary that makes you comfortable and that you understand. An audience will be much more impressed with a presenter that uses logic than with a presenter that uses a lofty, pretentious vocabulary.

Secondly, use gestures, facial expression, and a “conversational” way of speaking. This will result in a warmer and more comfortable presentation. In addition, the audience will feel like they are communicating with a friend and that will make your talk much more effective. Your choice of words will consequently become less important.
Finally, an audience will be far more tolerant and responsive to a confident, happy speaker, therefore embrace your culture and don’t be afraid to let your audience see where you’re coming from!

Martin Perras, martin@leadersinstitute.ca, is a Management Consultant and President of The Leader’s Institute Canada, http://www.leadersinstitute.ca.

He offers management training and consulting to companies in the US and Canada. He can be reached at 1-800-872-7830 x103.