7 Vlogging Tips For Business Success

7 Vlogging Tips For Business Success

Vlogging has taken the world by storm over the past few years. It’s just a form of blogging, using videos instead of text to reach out, build an audience and share information. Many businesses today are creating a video blog to reach new customers and to build deeper relationships with them. Video is growing fast and has been proven to generate better engagement than text or photos.

The bottom line is that your future customers are watching videos, and maintaining a video blog is a great way to reach them and keep your brand in front of them on a regular basis. Below are seven vlogging tips that will help you from this powerful medium.

1. Create High-Quality Videos

It all starts with your content. You don’t have to be a perfectionist or anything – that will likely just cause you to hesitate and put off releasing new videos. But quality is important. With affordable DSLRs, digital camcorders and even smartphones with amazingly sharp lenses – not to mention high-clarity desktop and wireless microphones – there’s really no excuse for not having high-definition videos with clear audio, even if you’re just learning how to vlog.

But quality isn’t just about having HD videos. Quality also means creating content that provides some value for others. Your videos should educate, persuade, inspire or entertain. Knowing your customer will help you zero in on the types of content that you should be creating. You’ll get better at it as you go, so the more you practice, the better, but don’t just keep throwing mediocre content up on YouTube without making any efforts to improve.

2. Publish Videos On A Consistent Schedule

One of the most common vlogging tips you’ll see is to publish often – daily, if possible. That’s excellent advice for some vloggers, but it isn’t always necessary, especially if you’re just getting started. If you have the resources and time to create daily vlogs, then, by all means, go for it. But you don’t necessarily need to publish a new video every single day to get good results.

Consistency is the priority, so try to stick to a regular schedule for your audience’s sake. A good place to start is by putting out one video per week. If you’re mostly just shooting with a smartphone, that should be very doable, and your audience will be more likely to stick with you when they see that you’re active.

3. Batch-Produce Your Videos

While you should stick to a regular publishing schedule, that doesn’t mean you need to create those videos at an even pace. In fact, you’ll probably be a lot more efficient if you record your videos in batches. Recording videos in batches can save you a ton of time by reducing the downtime that often takes place before, during and after recording each piece.

But creating the videos isn’t the only time to use a batching process. It’s usually easier to edit and even pre-schedule all of those videos in batches too.

4. Promote Your Video Blog With Social Media And SEO

Don’t be a company that just creates some videos and then heads back to business as usual. Creating and publishing videos is just the beginning. You’ll also want to promote them on various social media channels and your website.

Short video clips can work well on Instagram and Twitter. Live mini-vlogs can be fun on Snapchat. And some longer videos can work well on Facebook. Don’t just share links to the videos, though. Upload the videos right into each platform, along with some text and hashtags in the description.

Your social media efforts should also include a social listening strategy to help you connect with your customer base and to keep your finger on the pulse of your industry. If posting on YouTube, be sure to include keywords in the title, description and tags to attract more internal traffic as well as from search engines like Google and Bing.

5. Connect With Other Vloggers And Influencers

Another great way to get traffic is by connecting with other vloggers and influencers on social media. Find influencers in a related niche – one whose audience would enjoy your content and products but who is not a direct competitor – and make friends. Try to help them in some way. Build a relationship with them.

If you have a marketing budget for social media influencers, then go ahead and contact them with an offer. Many influencers will have email contact info right there on their social profile page. And who knows – as you spend time studying and reaching out to these influencers, you may pick up some vlogging tips from them along the way.

6. Connect With Your Audience

As with any commercial activity, it’s important that you seek to understand your audience and target customers so that you can genuinely connect with them. Marketing to Generation Z – or GenX, baby boomers or any other demographic – requires a unique approach. The best way to meet the needs of your customer base is to get to know them and to interact with them as sincerely as possible.

Your video content shouldn’t just be a series of big media advertisements intended to be passively digested by the masses. Don’t make commercials. Use the power of vlogging to offer more transparency between your company and customers. Let them get to know you and your team through your vlogs. Don’t just sell them stuff. Reach out and make friends and let them into your world.

7. Keep Your Content And Interactions Positive

There’s a lot of negativity out there on the Internet, especially in blog and vlog comments and on social media. When you combine anonymity with a lack of accountability, you have a perfect storm for rude and obnoxious behavior. But try not to let it get to you or cause you to react in like fashion.

Many companies have done irreparable damage to their brand by lashing out at critics and trolls on their social accounts or by releasing content that was seen as hateful, bitter, immature or degrading in some way. Be careful to keep your videos positive, uplifting, fun and inspiring.

So there you have seven vlogging tips that will put you on the right track as you learn how to vlog and take your first steps into video content marketing. If you have any questions, want someone to guide you step by step through the vlogging process or need some help with other aspects of your marketing strategy, Lucid Advertising is a full-service marketing company that has served small and medium-sized clients like you in and around Pensacola FL over the past decade. Contact us and let us know how we can help you.