Internet video and video blogging are rapidly becoming the most popular forms of media on the web. Bloggers worldwide are trading in their keyboards for webcams and enjoying a new found popularity for their sites and engaging more effectively with their audiences and subscribers than ever. With so many bloggers heading down the video blogging (or vlogging) route, how can you make your vlog stand out? The following article highlights the 5 steps you need to follow to make your video blogs popular enough to dominate your niche.
1. Be a Thought Leader
If there's one thing that separates a popular blogger from all others, it's the concept of being a thought leader. A thought leader is someone who is very knowledge in their subject area, and someone who is first off the mark to tell the online community about exciting news, and industry developments in their niche. To put your video blog ahead of the rest, you need to do the same. Making your video blog a reliable source of knowledge information, and ensuring that it is constantly showcasing up to date news in your niche, will help to make your video blog extremely popular on the web.
2. Be Yourself
Many video bloggers feel anxious and apprehensive about creating a video blog. To combat this they always try to act like a popular vlogger they follow online, and attempt to mimic their mannerisms and their successful content. Ladies and gentlemen this approach never pays off. Just be yourself. If you're not confident being yourself on your vlog right away then don't worry, it'll come in time. At least if you're being yourself users will be able to connect with you and engage with you as a person as well as a vlogger. When you try to be someone else on camera your content comes across as clunky, artificial and basically deceitful. Users can spot a fake a mile off, so don't do it. You'd actually be surprised how much being yourself could increase the popularity of your video blogs.
3. Hit the Big Three
There are really only three big tips to aim for when you're trying to create successful video blogs; be entertaining, be informative and be educational. These three factors are what all popular online video content boils down to. You might find it difficult to hit all three areas in one video, but if you can manage to make your content tick even one of those boxes, or perhaps two, then your vlogs will start to pick up a lot more popularity online.
4. Do Your Homework
To be the best, you have to learn from the best. Do your video blogging homework. Go check out other vlogs in your niche and also popular video blogs outside of your niche too. By getting a feel for what makes certain vlog pop and other vlogs flop you'll soon pick up techniques to improve your own content. While you're hard at work studying other videos, it's always worth checking out your own vlogging episodes as well. Give yourself a tough analysis in every video to see what you can do better, what you can try to do in your next video, and how you can make each vlog better than the last.
5. Practice = Power
There are those who are born with a brilliant on screen presence and demeanour, and then there are those who start out timid, awkward and shy. No matter what category you fall into, to make a successful video blog and dominate your niche, you need to constantly practice. Try recording a few takes of a video a day and really practice the content you want to record. Perhaps even make a recording schedule where you can practice a few days in the week then record your episode on the weekend. Having rehearsals and practices will help you learn your content, and give you plenty of time to perfect it and improve it before you upload it to the web. The more you practice, the more powerful your impact in the vlogging world will be.
Summary
By utilising these 5 tips for video blogging dominance, you can begin to start making your video blog the most popular Internet video in your niche and vastly increase your blog's subscribers. With video content becoming not only more popular, but also more interactive, you can be sure to help your blog receive more social interaction, shares, likes and comments, just by making use of the power of Internet video.
Andy Havard is the top Marketing Executive at Skeleton Productions, a video production company based in the United Kingdom. Read more about Andy here.
