Ever since the dawn of Youtube and video streaming in general, vlogging has been an important part of the digital advertising industry and connected TV channels in particular. At the first glance, there is nothing hard about vlogging – just sit back, relax and talk about your life while drinking a cup of hot tea…or, at least, that’s how it looks to a common consumer.
At VlogBox, we know how much effort and dedication the creators are putting into their vlogs. In reality, making a great video takes a lot of time and patience. One has to choose and master all these little vlogging tips and tricks that make video blogs look so simple and natural, starting from good performance and finishing with successful picking of the perfect visual and sound effects for the video.
A nicely done and creative vlog can attract many sponsors and provide creators with an opportunity to earn for living with their art. Apart from this, a high-quality vlog allows their creators to deliver a message to a specific audience and of course gives a huge impact . Nevertheless, creating a successful video blog still requires attention to a lot of specific details, often unobvious for a beginner. This is why we’d like to share a list of the 5 most important vlogging tips and practices for successful vloggers on the connected TV and other video marketing channels.
Vlogging Tip #1. Carefully consider your audience and your goals
One of the most basic vlogging tips beginners often tend to forget about is careful analysis and consideration of their audiences, their interests and needs. Ideally, it should also reflect your own interests and align with your business goals so that your audience and your vlog would be in tune with your main business. Keep in mind that these fundamental decisions and insights will then serve as a ground to all subsequent decisions and strategies.
Start with ‘why’
Start with the golden circle of the ‘’what, how, and why” of what you are doing, where ‘why’ is the true purpose of the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of your business. Most video creators will agree that the first and foremost ‘why’ of a video blog is to be fun, helpful, or entertaining for their audience. To perform well in this task one should first get to know and understand their subscribers and the unique value of their vlog. Try to answer the questions ‘what is your unique vision?’ and ‘what is in it for the user?’. Finally, ‘why should anyone care?’. Once you have the answers, it should be way easier to build all the subsequent plans and strategies – and the best way to start is to carefully consider your audience.
Pick a niche
Now that you have a certain vision of your what, how, and why – it is time to get more practical and pick a certain niche for your vlog. Of course, you may choose to cover a wide range of topics, especially if your area of expertise is rather diverse. Nevertheless, picking a concrete niche and targeting a narrow audience is always easier compared to a huge competition among thousands of generalists all trying to stand out. Consider your interests and expertise as well as relevance to your business. Perhaps the most important tips on vlogging here would be to pick the topics you feel most confident talking about and then dive deeper into the industry in order to build expertise and authority. Remember that the golden mean between your business goals, knowledge, and values should become a perfect niche for your video blog.
Get to know the audience
After you came up with the niche, it is time to think of the audience, or rather audiences you are going to vlog for. People interested in your videos could differ a lot from each other, but there certainly should be specific segments united by one or another common features. These can be people of a certain age, living in the same area, or having the same level of income. Consider your current clients as well as your competitors’ audiences to get a more precise vision of who your target audience segments might be. Depending on these insights, your choices like topics, vlogging frequency, or even tone of voice may vary in order to build a better connection with the specific segment.
Build a solid connection
Having a helpful vlog with relevant information is enough to spark an interest for your audiences. However, if you want to build a solid long-term connection, your videos should resonate with your viewers – their lifestyle, values, and even current moods and attitudes. There are several tips for vlogging which could help you create such a relationship. First of all, you should always remember that you are talking to the actual people, even though it might be hard to imagine while standing in front of the camera. Next, watching the final video should feel like you are talking to a person, and the closer such a person would be to your real viewers, the better your video will perform. Finally, choose a style and mood for your videos – formal or informal, serious or entertaining, etc. Maintain that specific style throughout your videos to keep the vlog consistent and user-friendly.
Vlogging Tip #2. Take your time for good planning
Now that you know your goals and audience, you finally got a solid ground for building up a strategy and planning your videos. Although at first glance vlogging might look like a simple hobby, video creators often spend years mastering this art and learning the best vlogging tips and tricks. And the first trick each successful vlogger talks about? To have a good plan! Take your time and consider the following elements of your future blogging strategy:
Brainstorming relevant topics
Get ready to add new points into your professional routine, as from now on your blogging career demands a content calendar with new topics added regularly and consistently. Which is why it is certainly better to take your time and brainstorm possible ideas beforehand. You can then assign each to a certain time period and, thus, always have content even for the moments deprived of inspiration. Having a plan will also help you gain additional confidence, as you’ll always have a back up in times of difficulties. Besides, getting a habit to review it from time to time can certainly serve as a source of inspiration. The more time and effort you’ll put into your strategy, the more refined results your business will get at the end of the day.
Scripting your videos
This doesn’t necessarily include writing down each word you are going to say, but rather means that you have an idea and a clear vision of how to communicate it to the public. Simply, make sure that you know what you are talking about. Some brief pictures or bullet points are often enough to give you a good starting point for filming, but writing a script is also a good option for many types of vlogs, so the choice is always up to your specific strategy.
Being consistent with your topic and goals
Before, during, or after your filming – you should always remember your goals and what exactly your channel is about. In simpler terms words – don’t forget about your ‘why’! And staying consistent won’t be a problem once you are passionate about your blog’s core idea. To visually aid your vlog’s development, try mapping your channel. What is the main focus and what are the similar topics that your vlog will tackle? How does it fit your audience and your goals? Always keep the integrity of your vision and your channel will work as a seamless experience.
Maintaining the quality
You can build up any strategy you want, but the truth is what will really define your career as a vlogger is the quality of your content. Make sure you put enough effort into each and every detail of your work – and it will bring its value. People always notice high-quality content, so making it your priority is honestly one of the finest vlogging tips you could ever get.
Pitching your voice
One of the key tips for blogging is to pitch your voice, meaning to pick up your right authentic voice which would resonate with your audience. The core idea is to learn what fits each of your audiences best and pick the balanced tone between these segments and your authentic voice. And if you want to have a sustainable audience, don’t forget about consistency. Not only should you maintain your unique voice, but you should also deliver new content on a regular basis and keep it consistent in terms of style and content.
Vlogging Tip #3. Practice and experiment!
There is no faster way to find out what works best for your business than to learn it in practice. Which is why we recommend starting out as soon as possible, trying different techniques and strategies, testing new gear, and learning new vlogging tips and tricks empirically. Start with recording sounds with your phone instead of a camera to enhance audio quality, and your desire to improve will eventually lead you to perfection. Our recommendations include:
Invest in technical gear
A proper technical gear would include audio and video recording equipment, as well as some additional toolkits, such as a tripod or lighting system. A good beginner camera would support Full HD and 4K video quality and optical image stabilization. If you plan travel blogging, consider parameters such as weather resistance and weight to make your trips as smooth as possible. An external microphone is also an important investment as having a good sound quality often defines your impression on viewers. Combined with a lighting system, great audio equipment will make your videos stand out in terms of both sound and video.
Simply start!
We know how challenging it might seem to start your own vlog, especially without financial support. However, we also know that it is often enough to have some creativity and honesty to get seen and that huge investments don’t necessarily equal huge success. Which is why we would like to encourage you to simply start! Use a microphone from your smartphone, get some light, and put your camera on – that would be enough for your first video. You don’t have to buy expensive tools for starting out, it is rather the connection with your audience that makes a blog stand out – even without additional investment.
Remember your goals
Keeping up with your general strategy is one of the most important vlogging tips when it comes to building more specific plans and scripts. What do you want to achieve with this vlog? Always check out with these primal goals before getting into more concrete tasks, such as scripting a video or coming up with new topics. Whatever your reasons for starting a vlog are, they should always define your everyday tasks and approaches.
Get the energy
Vlogging is always about sharing, and you cannot share when you don’t have the energy. If the creator is passionate and enthusiastic, their audience is also getting happier and more excited about their ideas and plans. This is the reason why it is important to ensure that you have enough positivity both for yourself and people around you. If you are having a good time, people catch this up and level up their moods too. Listen to your favorite song, meet your best friend or watch motivating movies to keep yourself up and keep inspiring others.
Stay passionate
The creative process is always about passion and inspiration – you can’t rationalize or predict them. These are above any logical explanation – passion is something that keeps us engaged without any reason, and it often makes us create our best masterpieces. The more fun you are having while doing your art, the more positive your customers would feel about it and the more enthusiasm you’ll have to maintain your creative career. Always make sure you’re excited about what you do, and your fans will immediately catch this up!
Vlogging Tip #4. Optimize and improve
The most important step – to start a vlog, is finally taken, but the crucial thing now is to not let yourself relax too much and keep improving your work. Timely optimization of your strategy and its application is often a vital step for many businesses at the dawn of their development. If you have your own YouTube channel, it might be helpful for you to know how to boost YouTube advertising strategy from our previous post. It is also important to remember that at this stage your skills still need practice and improvements, so make sure you’re not staying in one place.
Be natural
You might have noticed that the best vloggers out there don’t look like they have a script or plan. It all looks natural and personal as if the whole video was an improvisation. Our recommendation is to practice performing in front of the camera in order to battle up this fear and feel comfortable in front of your audience. Try adding some humor or your favourite stories to make your video more relatable and better connect with your viewers. Don’t be afraid to be yourself – after all, it is all about creativity and self-expression.
Align with your audience
Whether you have some control over this process or not, your content will always draw the specific audience it appeals to. This can be defined by your topics, style or tone of voice, but your audience will always naturally be the one it resonates with. Therefore, if you want to unite a specific group of people, creating customized content is the best way to achieve this. Whatever your audience segments are, your vlog should match them and your business goals.
Choose what works best for you
After some time testing and experimenting, you should finally notice some better-performing formats and techniques for your personal blog. Some vloggers might find it easier to improvise, while others need multiple takes to get the most successful video. In any case, what works better for others won’t necessarily make sense for your particular case, so it is always up to practice to single out your best ways. Stay open and optimize, up until you are satisfied with the result.
Stay trendy
While it might seem tempting to stop once you get an appealing result, we strongly recommend you to continue research and develop even once you’ve reached your primary goals. Keeping in touch with what’s new is always a good practice, especially if you want to become a leading expert in your industry. People love keeping up with the trends and your audience trusts you to be their mediator. Always keep them connected with the recent trends, and your viewers won’t make you wait for appreciation!
Vlogging Tip #5. Master editing
Even if you are the rare case of the director where the initial footage seems already cool enough, the importance of the subsequent editing is hard to underestimate. First and foremost, it can help you to eliminate unintentional mistakes and uncertainties. Besides, it will allow you to get more integrity and crafty details that will truly turn your video into art. Editing gives you an ability to emphasize important aspects of the real life and share your experience in a fun and understandable matter.
Speed up!
Getting rid of unnecessary details might feel heartbreaking for the first time, but will eventually show its value. Unless you are already a well-known vlogger or have a ground-breaking theory, it is unlikely you would keep a lot of viewers with a 30-minute video of you talking about one subject. Which is precisely why you need editing – it can help make your videos more fun and entertaining, shorten up lengthy pieces and enjoy your viewers’ undividable attention. For instance, some of the longer processes might need a time-lapse effect to keep your audiences interested, while others might need to be slowed down to make sure each detail gets the necessary attention.
Include graphics
Taking advantage of video formats not only includes filming real-life scenes and people. The great thing about video and editing is that it allows to incorporate graphic effects and elements to help viewers follow your vlog ideas. Using graphics can often help you explain and visualize your ideas, as well as improve the overall impression from your video. Consider hiring a freelancer if you’re unsure of your skills and never forget to maintain quality.
Finishing edits
Even the finest video clip needs finishing touches, so never underestimate the power of final details. Cut out fluff, extra noises, and pauses. Add music, titles, and engaging thumbnails to engage your viewers and keep their attention. You can also add subtitles as well as translations to the different languages, which will be especially helpful if you want to widen your audience geographically. Come up with an appealing transcript combined with relevant keywords to boost the engagement even more.
Conclusions
Even though there are already hundreds of bloggers out there, vlogging for CTV channels such as the most popular CTV platform in the USA is still an appealing opportunity for many creators within the constantly changing industry of digital marketing. Although it might seem like a simple task at a first glance, real video blogging is a complex art that often requires a deeper knowledge of vlogging tips and tricks. At VlogBox, we believe that even a novice can start a business with the following vlogging tips beginners should know about. Our recommendations include:
- Aligning your audiences’ interests and your business goals
- Creating a successful vlogging strategy that would resonate with both
- Taking your time to practice and experiment
- Constant improvement of your video making skills
- Mastering editing
Of course, there are lots of other things one could improve in the course of building a video blogging career. However, these are the most fundamental tips on vlogging to start from, especially for novice, and optimizing these first should be a must for any serious vlogger. Our VlogBox team encourages you to keep up your good work and build the future of video marketing together!