You will be able to choose a format that fits your comfort on camera and the idea you are telling.
A lot of people reach this point in the course and quietly decide it is not for them. They can see that short video works, and they cannot imagine putting their face on it. Maybe they are shy, maybe their employer would not like it, or maybe they just do not want strangers to recognise them at the hawker centre.
That is a real concern and a common one, and it does not rule you out. Talking to camera is one format among several, and many small business accounts that do well rarely show a face at all.
It is worth being honest about what you give up. A person speaking directly to the lens is the closest a video gets to a conversation. Viewers see your face, hear your voice and judge whether they would like to deal with you. For a service business, a financial adviser, a tutor or a freelancer, where the buyer is essentially buying you, that judgement matters a lot.
So if you are on the fence, try it before you rule it out. It usually gets easier after the first few videos, and you do not have to be polished. Plain and clear is enough.
But if talking to camera is not possible or not right for you, there are other formats that work well for small businesses.
Hands and process. The camera looks down at your hands doing the work: piping icing, pinning a hem, marking a worksheet, packing an order. This is often the most watchable format there is, because people enjoy watching skilled work. Mei Ling films most of her videos this way. Her face rarely appears and her hands are recognisable to her followers.
Screen recordings. For anything that happens on a computer or phone, record the screen and talk over it. A freelance designer showing how a logo develops, or a tutor working through a problem on a tablet, can make a whole account this way.
Voice-over on b-roll. Film short clips of your product, shop or process, then record your voice explaining the idea over them. B-roll is footage that shows something related to what you are saying, used to cover and illustrate the spoken track. You will film plenty of it in lesson 5.2, Shoot more than you need, in short takes. This format lets you script carefully and record the voice somewhere quiet.
Text on screen. Short lines of text appear one after another over a simple background, a product shot or a looping clip, often with music. It suits lists, quick tips and opinions, and it is fully watchable on mute. Check the rights for any music you use, which lesson 5.3 covers.
A particularly useful format for a small business is the reply. You show a comment or question on screen, someone asking "Can you do eggless?" or "Is tuition worth it for P3?", and then answer it in the video.
This works for two reasons. The question on screen is the hook, already written in the viewer's own words. And it shows that real people are asking you things, which is a quiet form of proof. Lesson 7.1, Comments are a second piece of content, looks at how some platforms let you reply to a comment with a video directly.
You can do this format talking to camera or not. Priya, who prefers not to film herself, puts the parent's question on screen and answers it with her hands working through an example on paper.
Each idea in your backlog suits some formats better than others. A process idea, such as how a cake is stacked, suits hands and process. An opinion suits talking to camera or text on screen. A how-to for software suits a screen recording. A question from a customer suits the reply format.
So decide the format idea by idea, starting from what the idea needs. Then, once a format works for a kind of idea, reuse it. When your hands-and-process videos always open the same way and use the same angle, viewers start to recognise your posts in the feed before they read a word. That recognition builds over months and is one of the quiet advantages of a small account that sticks to a few formats.
Farah, for example, settled on three formats: hands-and-process for how a garment is made, a mirror shot without her face for how to wear a piece, and text on screen for her opinions about workwear. Her followers know what each kind of post will be within a second.
For the activity, take three ideas from your backlog and decide which format each one will use, with a sentence on why it suits that idea.
For three ideas in your backlog, write which format you will use and why it suits that idea.
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