Do you want to increase the popularity of your blog, gain more visitors and strengthen your relationship and authority with those existing fans?
One of the most effective ways to do all these things is to add video to your blog.
How To Add Video To A Blog
Not only is video highly engaging and difficult to look away from, it’s also highly persuasive and very personal. For building a ‘personal brand’ in particular, this is one of the very best ways to let your visitors get to know you.
Creating Your Vlog
A vlog is simply a video blog. The best way to create a vlog is by creating a YouTube channel, which you can brand to be in-keeping with your site. YouTube lets you upload videos which you can then easily share on social media and embed into your content.
Next you’ll need to create your videos. To do this, all you need is a camera (your phone camera is likely good enough if it can record in 1080p) and you’ll need a topic. In terms of topics, you can actually be very successful by making video versions of your most popular articles.
You can then either upload your footage ‘unedited’ or you can upload it after making it look more professional with software like Adobe Illustrator, Movie Maker, iMovie, etc.
Tips for Creating Great Looking Videos
Are you too shy to step in front of the camera? Keep in mind then that you can easily create content for your videos using PowerPoint presentations, or animated ‘whiteboard’ software. As you get more comfortable with video you can ease yourself in front of the camera.
Alternatively, if you’re going to film yourself talking, take some time to look at popular videos in your niche to see what they do and how they do it.
A few general tips that will help you to be a success are:
- Think about lighting and ideally try to be lit from the side. This is called ‘Rembrandt lighting.’
- Consider your audio too – filming with a mic is the best option if possible.
- Dress smart but don’t look like you’re trying too hard.
- When reading, pause between each sentence. You can also just talk naturally which will come across as friendlier and more natural.
- Think about your background and try to set up a corner of a room that will look professional. You can even try hanging a poster with your logo on it for added bonus points!
Content Ideas for Videos
When vlogging, you don’t want to simply turn on the camera and start talking. You’ll want to be prepared as far as the content of your video.
Preparation for video is going to be a little bit different from text blogging. After all, you can always hit the backspace as you’re typing your blog post. In contrast, you’ll have to stop and start over again with video if you’re not prepared.
Fleshing out your topic and creating a basic outline of your content in advance will help keep you on track as you create your video. There are a few content ideas you can use on a regular basis.
- Repurpose Existing Blog Posts: If you have an existing text-based blog you have a wealth of content ready for video. Take a look at a few of your most popular posts, and repurpose the content for video. Add a new twist or an additional perspective to update the post.
- How-to Tutorials: You can get across a point, a how-to, or an explanation of anything in a video much easier than you can with written text.
- Interviews: Using Google Hangouts, you can interview influencers and power players in your niche, then upload the videos to YouTube and share the video on your blog.
- Share Existing Videos: Are there YouTube videos out there that you like, and want to share with your audience? Why not share the videos on your blog? Simply write an introductory paragraph or two about the video, then embed the video into your post.
Don’t just throw up meaningless videos; have a point in each video that you create. Have a call-to-action for each video that you put on your site.
As you post videos and upload them to your site, you’ll find that it adds more depth to your blog and brings in lots of new fans!
Ciao,
Kemya
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