Guide To Start Vlogging Successfully

Many would have thought that Vlogging is the newest trend, and its popularity has become a hit just in recent years, but that is probably a false assumption. Vlogging has been a common activity for decades passed. It actually started to earn acclamation in the early 2000s because video equipment like cameras became less expensive, and the advancement of technology has provided people an easier experience of uploading and watching vlogs, which is what we called the age of the internet.

Now, what is Vlog by the way? According to Wikipedia, a vlog is a shortened term for a video blog or video log. It is a type of blog for which the mechanism is through a video, and also considered as a form of web television. Vlog recordings often combined embedded video or a video link with a good description, images, and other metadata. It is most likely accessible on video-sharing platforms like YouTube, but nowadays, other major social media networks are adapting this means such as Facebook and Instagram, which makes vlogging as one of the topmost activities on the internet, may it be for personal entries or promoting products.

How To Get Started

Without any argument, vlogs are the most critical content of the moment. You might be thinking that you need to start vlogging, at the same time, you have this uncertainty that you are too late to learn how to vlog. There is an estimation of about 400 hours of video entries uploaded every minute on YouTube. That fact will make you wonder about how to become a standout? But if this has still piqued your curiosity and you’re enthusiastic about starting vlogging yourself, here are important learnings before you begin your Vlogging journey.

Choosing The Right Niche

The first and most basic step is to determine what you aim to vlog about. Think about what interests you the most or what topics you are confident to use. It’s not necessary to imitate others just because they get the most views and share, but make yourself unique. It’s generally great to stick to one special niche so people will not be confused.

The chances are uncertain. Just choose something you’re passionate about and that you believe other people would enjoy watching.

Learn from existing Vloggers in your chosen niche

For example, you have chosen cooking and baking, then check out what other content creators are executing in this space. Simply search on YouTube or by typing a similar term into Google.

For sure, you’ll notice that there are lots of cooking and baking Vlogs out there. It also pays to investigate some popular vloggers, which helps you learn what techniques they are using that are so successful. The best vloggers often apply clever editing skills to have the most excellent outcome.

Decide where to host your Vlogs

After you’ve done some research, choose where you want to host your Vlog. You may want to self-host it on your website if you have one or decide to create, you might also consider using popular platforms like YouTube or on your Facebook page. Creating a YouTube channel linked to your blog or website is a very popular method.

Determine what type of vlogger you want to portray

When you’re done checking the background in your vlogging range, work out how to distinguish yourself from the competition. A common suggestion is to play to your strengths. If you have a great sense of humor, you can apply it to your video and become a funny vlogger that is usually effective for entertaining your viewers.

Use the best vlogging equipment

Even if you have planned profoundly, it will all be wasted if your video contents quality comes out all hazy and pixelated. Various vloggers have been successful just by utilizing nothing more than a smartphone or a webcam.

In order to make your Vlog appear more professional or to support some types of vlogging that need action or movement, you might want to reconsider spending for a quality camcorder, a DSLR or mirrorless cameras.

You’ll also need accessories like a tripod or mini-tripod mobile vlogging. And also, camera lighting which is a key tool for indoor vloggers.

Be smart developing the finer details

The last step before you pursue beginning vlogging is to be very particular with the finer details. These aspects include choosing your Vlog’s name, how to inform or create an excellent introduction to your friends and followers that you have a new vlog, content list, and how you’ll build your audience.

What Are The Most Essential Vlogging Elements?

The Camera

The most basic requirement with Vlogging is the camera. Don’t worry as you do not need a crazy-expensive camera to create good content. Some vloggers use a smartphone that would do just fine. They usually have a great camera for taking videos, and they also come with a suitable mic for recording sound.

Many video bloggers also use nothing more than the built-in webcam on their computer. For “talking head” videos, in which you’re required just sitting in front of a camera, that be all you need. Your audience will notice and enjoy the higher-quality video, as it will present an atmosphere of professionalism, which will expectantly keep viewers interested and watching.

So, what camera should you buy? There are many options out there, even for shooters on a budget, as you’re not earning money on those videos yet. You can choose an entry-level DSLR, compact camcorder, or even a mirrorless camera. The camera you select will depend on your expertise level and the kind of video you’re recording.

Capturing Video Audio

Nothing ruins more videos than lousy audio. A recent survey showed that good sound is more important to people than good visuals. Most viewers can overlook standard lighting and sub-par video quality, but if the audio is terrible, then they likely won’t hold around longer. The smartest and easiest way to enhance your audio quality is not to use the built-in microphones on the camera or computer if you’re using a webcam and using an external microphone. A more reliable way is to record audio from an external microphone to a compact recorder, circumventing the often disturbing audio pre-amps observed inside portable cameras.

That’s you’ll want to invest in a competent external microphone. One alternative is to append a shotgun mic to your camera’s hotshot to capture high-quality sound efficiently. Lavalier mics are also an excellent choice for recording audio but need the extra step of attaching the mic discreetly to a piece of clothing before shooting any video.

Lighting

In most cases, natural rays from the sunlight make anyone look magnificent on camera, so perhaps think about setting your production near a window or area where you can get some of that light. Utilize a reflector to fill in any undesired shadows.

However, the sun is difficult to manage, so for uniformity and efficiency of setup, an assemblage of LED lights attached to your camera or stands can be a useful supplement to your setup. LEDs are excellent choice because they stay cool and don’t attract much energy, but if LED kit is not possible, think of using household lights or standard work lights purchased from any hardware stores.

Whatever the lighting option you prefer, make certain to bypass mixed lighting conditions. For example, if you are utilizing sunlight, ensure to use only daylight adjusted lights as supplements; otherwise, you are going to have a difficult time getting the color of the light looks natural in post.

Post-production

When it comes to editing your production, there are various video editing programs available. If you are a Mac user, iMovie comes equipped with most new computers, but you can easily download it. For PC users, Windows Movie Maker is pre-installed or downloadable for free. There are as well many consumer-level editing programs that should have all the capacities you need to set together a great vlog that include Cyberlink PowerDirector, Magix Movie Edit Pro, Corel VideoStudio, and more.

Moreover, it wouldn’t be a defective idea to obtain yourself some extra storage as working with video can speedily take up space. Additionally, it’s always best to save your videos on a separate drive from your system drive to maximize productivity.

Subtitling/Captioning Tool

Having subtitles and captions to your videos is an important factor in making your content understandable and credible. With video traffic projected to reach 82 percent of all internet traffic by the coming 2022, the rising trend of the value of captions and subtitles reveals no signs of reducing, and with good reason. Their application improves accessibility significantly, presenting it easier for people globally to view and appreciate contents, supporting those with hearing problems, and in the generation of watching content on the go, it also anticipates that those without headphones can still watch and understand the content. Ultimately, subtitles and captions get content more SEO-friendly and discoverable amongst the plethora of content available on the world wide web.

You can add your subtitles manually, or you can use auto-captioning features of Youtube and Facebook. But it will surely take a long time to edit and checking wrong transcriptions. You can use auto video subtitles generating tool that is popular nowadays. It has 90% accuracy transcribing speeches into text and amazing features that allow you to customize colors, fonts, and preferred position of your subtitles.

How to make people notice your videos

Making people watch your video can be challenging, but there are many steps that you can practice to maximize your possible audience and get more people to click play.

Use an enticing thumbnail

Many people will get to notice first is the thumbnail on the player before they begin watching. It is the part of the information that encompasses all the people that come over your video but don’t play it.

Optimize your video

YouTube, by fact, is the world’s second-largest search engine. All of those searches are powering an impressive amount of views. To optimize your video search, you require to work on your descriptions. YouTube can’t crawl into your videos like Google spiders through your website.

Here are a few tips:

• Write at least 250 words description of that describes the topics of the video.
• Use your keywords in the first few sentences and apply it at least 3 to 4 times in the description’s body.
• Begin the title of your video with your keywords
• Never forget to add tags. Tags help you show up in the relevant videos column when people are viewing other videos.

Make people subscribe to you

The ultimate purpose of a vlogger is to get subscribers. Subscribers are more than people that appeared to view your video. They are those individuals who appreciated your video that they want to see more. They are expecting that you will provide them something great again. What’s more, media outlets and product brands partner with vloggers will use subscribers as their key metric when assessing opportunities. So make sure you embed your subscribe button everywhere.

Get your camera and start rolling your film

Along with those points above, be always confident to share your thoughts and creativity. Never hesitate to upload your content for the world to watch and see what happens. With hard work, persistence, and patience as you partake in your process, you can positively build loyal audiences who will love and share your vlogs.