You asked, we listened. You asked for more information on how you can help spread the word about your experience. So, we’re offering regular tech tips. Each tech tip shares a free and unique social way to share your story and experience the stories of others. This week, we’re covering how to record your own video. The process is quick and simple. And, knowing how will help you share your story and participate in our video entry contests–like this one!  Let’s dive in, here’s how you can record your own video.  There are a few different ways you can record your own video to share.

1. Smartphone
2. The Photobooth program on a Mac
3. Movie Maker on a PC 

We’ll start with the first option– recording video on your phone.

Video with your iPhone

First, go to your camera application and find the option to choose whether you’d like to take a picture or video; scroll over and select the video recorder.

Pro Tip: An important aspect of recording video on your phone is to hold your phone horizontally. This will help the video fit better on computer screens when played. Hit the red record button once you’re ready to record your video. Hit the red stop button once you are done recording. Connect your phone to your computer with the standard Apple USB cable and you can transfer your finished video to your computer with iPhoto or by manually dragging and dropping the files. Check out this guide on transferring video from your iPhone to your computer.

If you have a Mac

If you are a Mac user you can record a video very simply with Photo Booth.This application comes standard with Mac OS X. It’s fairly simple, just select the video option once you’ve opened the application, hit the record button and you’re all set. The video option is the far right button in the left corner of the picture below.

If you have a Windows Computer

If you’re a Windows user, you can use the program Movie Maker, which can be download for free here. Note that you’ll need to have a webcam connected to your computer or a built-in camera to record video. Start by opening up and going to file, then select record. This will open up the device menu and you will want to select ‘Web Camera’. If you’d like more detailed instructions on recording video in Movie Make check out this guide.

Click here to check out other tech tips that will suggest some fun and unique ways to share your story. Be sure to share the videos you create on Facebook and Twitter too!