Types of Video Blogs

April 11, 2011 Blog Tips, Blogs

There are many ways in which you can use your blog to market items, engage in self-promotion, or even simply for your own enjoyment.

While the opportunities insofar as video blogging is concerned quite literally number high as the stars do, we’ve compiled some information regarding the more common uses of video blogs to give you some ideas on how you can utilize this method of information sharing to better your wants and needs.

1. Product reviews. This is one of the more common uses of video blogs and for good reason – they’re popular with consumers.

   People love to read information about products from members of the public who have already bought the product itself. It’s a free source of information that the consumer can trust to be honest – that is, the person who is airing the review isn’t being paid to advertise the product.

   Product reviews are useful and will definitely garner your website a lot of attention if the video blogs you offer are thoughtful and comprehensive in nature.

1. Personal posts. In addition to being enjoyable to make, personal posts allow your viewers to get a glimpse of who you are beyond the products and self-promotion.

   Video blogs got their start in personal posts, where people would put up video snippets of their travels for friends and family to enjoy. Of course, the market expanded from there.

   Personal posts are a great way to add a very individualistic touch to blog

1. How To Videos. If you are selling a product that requires some explanation or set-up, including a how-to video on your video blog is priceless.

   While having written explanation is necessary and helpful, nothing beats being able to hit “play” on a video and see somebody else putting the bookshelf together, cooking the steak, or applying the eye shadow. Many video blogs are entirely dedicated to the art of “how to,” and the sites that are good at this receive a lot of hits.

1. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ). If you sell a product or do how-to videos that result in your inbox overflowing with questions, it’s not a bad idea to consider dedicating a video blog to questions you get most often.

   This will help your viewers and also show that you’re responsive to the communications you receive. Additionally, it does you the favor of answering the questions you get most often so the constant battering of your inbox will cease, or at least slow to the point where if you get the occasional question that addresses something that your video blog has already covered, you can reference the video blog.

2. Opinion Videos. If you favor a particular brand of makeup, or a certain airline carrier, or always use the same monkey wrench, explaining to your viewers why you do so will be helpful.

   Most of us do have brand loyalty to some degree, and telling your viewers why you like this particular kind of cheese above all others gives your viewers a window into your thought processes.

   Of course, you don’t want to seem overly promotional (unless, of course, you are promoting the brand in question), but telling why you like that certain version of whatever is helpful to the viewer. If it’s helpful, the viewer is likely to come back for more of your videos.

Creating Irresistible Videos

The following fact is a little discouraging to those who are trying to create quality video blogs but is nonetheless true: the average viewer on YouTube watches a video for seven seconds before deciding whether or not to keep viewing.

This means that you need to establish your video as worthy of a viewer’s time within those seven seconds. That’s not a whole lot of time to work with, if you’re trying to get your viewer to stay with you.

While many people who start video blogs do so primarily for the hits, it’s hardly worth the time, effort, and even money expended to create video blog posts if nobody stays and watches the fruits of your labors.

Also, hooking viewers is a good way to get repeated visitors as well as the almighty “subscriber,” or somebody who actively seeks out your video feeds.

So, how does the entrepreneurial video blog producer get up to snuff with those seven seconds?

There’s no real magical formula for this, unfortunately – you very well could have the best video blog post in the history of mankind but the viewer doesn’t stick around because his or her internet connection is slow or they just aren’t feeling up to watching a 5 minute segment about basket weaving on that particular day.

You can’t control everything, but there are certain tenants that you should start with if you want your viewers to hang around after those elusive seven seconds.

• Plan it out. Don’t just set up your camera in a dark corner and start talking at it. If you really want your viewers to take you and your camera seriously, you also need to take it seriously.

  What is the point of this blog? Are you doing a personal segment, a how-to, or are you answering questions?

  You don’t necessarily need to sit down and script out every word that you’re going to say – in fact, we recommend against this as viewers can usually tell if you’re reading off of a piece of paper and generally find this less than inspiring – but it helps to take a bit to think about the point of the post, where you’ll start and where you end it.

• Don’t go for the elaborate opening. While it’s certainly appealing and fun to sit around and make a theme song for your blog, we recommend against taking up 20 seconds of your viewer’s time with cutsey logos and Yamaha keyboarding.

  Most viewers are more interested in what you have to say rather than how well you can rhyme. If you must have an opening, keep it to three seconds or less. Remember the seven-second rule – if the entirety of the seven seconds is taken up with useless intro, the chances of losing your reader goes up exponentially.

• Pay attention to your audio. Unless you’re filming in the bowels of a library, no room is silent. (And, frankly, no library is entirely silent either).

  You need to be aware of the sounds in the room you’re filming in. If the background is nothing but chatter and construction noises and thunderstorms, your viewers are going to have a very hard time understanding what you say.

  Spending a few minutes to figure out where the optimal, silent area of the house (or wherever you’re shooting) is located can be the difference between thousands of viewers and none. On this note, be sure not to play overbearing background music over your words.

  Many video blogs have guitar riffs that are louder than the person speaking, and this is unfortunate. If you live in an area that’s constantly loud or you just can’t seem to get rid of high levels of background static no matter what you do, consider purchasing a microphone. This will help ensure that the audio that gets to your viewer is the audio you want them to hear.

  Posted by Blogging Underground Bonus

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