Lessons
Lesson Info
Where to Share Your Vlogs
Let's get into where to post your vlog. I'm gonna talk a little bit about brand first. I know the last live was about brand, but specifically brand is, to you as an individual. And I've been talking about this all as an individual, so vlogging from a person. Now you can vlog from a company, but you're not gonna be, it's not gonna be as strong of a video as a vlog because people want to be tied to a person. They don't wanna be tied to a brand. So you gotta think about your brand. If you have a photography business, while your vlog might be on the personal side of the business, and part of your vlog is running that business because people'll be more inclined to follow you as an individual than they will to follow a brand. When it comes, I mean, this is something that I wanna bring up. Social handles are hard to change later. If you go through and start doing it under one name and then try to switch it later, it becomes a big pain. So this is what I was saying earlier. I started under Won...
derWorks doing a travel vlog, and it was the hardest thing to try and switch everything to JevenDovey. I had a lot of confusion from my followers. I lost a bunch of followers. It was kind of a mess. It worked out in the better in the end, but once you have that clear goal of what you wanna do with your vlog, set your social handles, all that, and make it, I suggest making it personal to yourself. So make it about you. Secure on all networks even if you're not gonna use it. So if you don't use Twitter, still secure your name. Like I was saying, I have JevenDovey on every social network even though I don't use every social network. Make it easy. So I was saying, I put it on myself. This goes back to what I was saying about my WonderWorks brand. So, WonderWorks was a travel coupled brand. That can't change much because it was... Oh, yeah, so there you go. So WonderWorks can't change because it was a travel coupled brand, whereas JevonDovey can go wherever I go. So if I decide to change what I'm doing, I don't wanna do travel or adventure or filmmaking anymore, and I wanna get into knitting, it's gonna change because it's tied to my name. It's not tied to Jevon Dovey makes awesome films. It's JevonDovey. So, if you want to change your brand, then it's tied to you as a person. Vlogging is a personal kind of video content. So you want to just tie it to yourself. Now this is something new with Facebook. They have Watch pages, and it's actually tied to my JevonDovey. So that's why I have that there, but if you have any other brands, make sure they tie back to your original brand. So, let's talk about YouTube for a second. I am a YouTuber, I do everything on YouTube. This might not be the forum that you want to produce your vlogs at or put 'em at. But let me just give you a few things about YouTube, why I choose this platform out of all of 'em. It's one of the most popular ways to share vlogs. It's the second biggest search engine in the world, and the first is Google. And if you type something in on Google, the second thing you see is YouTube videos. So that alone give you the ability to basically produce things that are very searchable. And if you type in how to vlog on Google, I think my video pops up number two on Google right now. So, it's kinda crazy, the power of the search engine, and that's why I say, create content that people are searching for 'cause if you create a video about a Canon 50 millimeter lens, well, people are searching for that, it might pop up on Google, it might pop up in YouTube, but YouTube gives you that ability to basically be in that search engine. Other platforms don't have that ability. Couple numbers that are kinda crazy: One billion hours of YouTube content is consumed every day. That's more than Netflix and Facebook combined. And then 400 hours is uploaded every minute. So you can tell how much content is just coming on YouTube. It's a big platform. Facebook, so Facebook is kind of changing the way things work. So if you have a big brand on Facebook, so say you have a Page that has a lot of followers, you might wanna do your vlog on here because you already have an audience. And then they are coming out with something called Watch page soon. I don't think, it's not available to the public yet. You can't go and sign up for one. I recently was given one, which is great, so I get to test it out, but it's basically their solution to YouTube. So it's a searchable engine within Facebook. We'll see if that takes off or not, but that's a potential. With your pages, obviously, if you have a group of people that follow you already, and you produce vlogs on that, it's giving you more engagement with the followers that are already engaged with you. And you can boost it. You can put a little bit of money behind what it is that it is that you produce, and send it out to all the people on your Page. So, that's something to consider if you have a following on Facebook, I suggest maybe starting there versus starting from scratch on YouTube. I post everything on both YouTube and Facebook, but my main focus is YouTube for sure. Instagram, everyone's on Instagram, and people have big followings on Instagram. Stories are great and IGTV is OK. I don't really like it but. (chuckles) (people in audience chuckling) It's interesting 'cause I don't know. If you have a big following on Instagram, it's harder to drive engagement. It's harder to make money, I feel, off of Instagram than it is, say, YouTube. There's just so much more opportunity on YouTube to drive income. I'm not saying that Instagram's bad, but if you're gonna be doing Instagram Stories, you need to be doing it all the time to keep it in front of people's face. So, you're vlogging might be more of just doing Stories, and I've seen some really cool creators that have done more formal vlogging but on Instagram. So they do more cutting and all that and then post it later. So it's not just from your phone. They actually shoot with cameras, they shoot B-roll, all that, and they cut actual stories out of it and then post it, and those guys have, they've made some really cool stuff. And a lot of them have actually transferred over to YouTube now. I think there's different ways to engage your following. But if you really wanna go down this video path, I suggest YouTube. There's just so much opportunity, and it's such a community, and that's kinda the key is. But, if you are already have a big audience, create that content where your audience is because if you go to your Instagram following and say: Come find me on YouTube, nobody's gonna go over there. I've seen this on some big creators where they have hundreds of thousands of followers on Instagram, and they start a YouTube channel, and nobody will come over and watch their videos. So, create the content where your audience is. Build that engagement, build that trust in them, and then they'll start following you everywhere. So if you already have a following somewhere, start there. And 80/20 rule, when it comes to social media, this is just in general, if you are putting your time into one account 80% of the time, that's when you can actually build an account and actually put more effort into it. I like to think of it like, if I'm doing YouTube, I'm gonna do 80% of my time on YouTube and 20% on all my other social networks because I wanna put my focus into one. As soon as you start spreading yourself thin, you're gonna lose your engagement everywhere. So, when do you want to post videos? So I didn't have a schedule for a while. I now post twice a week, Monday and Thursday, and now my audience has an expectation. So now I'm driving more followers, I'm driving more engagement because I've set up a schedule. So, I've seen some channels where they will post once a week. They post every Monday, and you grow faster when you set yourself a schedule. So that's something to think about if you're gonna start a vlog. Just set up a schedule. Maybe do it once a week, every Monday. It's also peace of mind when you do that to, you know you have to get a video done by Monday, and then you don't slack on it. Title, keywords, and thumbnail are all important, especially in YouTube. In other social networks, this isn't as important, but that's the search. That's how Google is going to classify where to put your video compared to other videos. So you gotta think through title, keywords, and thumbnails. And you don't wanna be clickbait-y. So I'm not gonna put like: The craziest adventure ever when I was in Belize, and then it's me sitting on the beach, just drinking a cocktail. That's not fun. (chuckling softly) So you don't wanna clickbait, or you don't wanna say like, this is the best camera ever! And then it's a terrible review of a camera. So you just want to create content that people are expecting to find on your channel. This is my channel. I have kind of a consistent look across what I'm creating, what I'm doing. These are more recent videos. Shallow Depth of Field for Cinematic Footage. That's gonna talk about how to use your aperture. Or Beginners Guide on the DJI Mavic Pro 2. You know exactly what you're getting from that. A Motorized Slider that can Come Anywhere. You know exactly what you're getting with that. And your thumbnail and your title has to make sense 'cause then people will click on it. And you have to have nice thumbnails. Otherwise people won't click. So you try to put a person in it sometimes, sometimes text. I kinda just play around all the time with figuring out what works for my channel. It's constantly evolving. You're kinda always just thinking though. How am I gonna get more views on something? But the key with any vlog is trust. So you want to build your trust with your audience 'cause you're talking to real people.
Ratings and Reviews
Susan Wiebe
Thanks Jeven for an informative look into vlogging. I am a pastry chef & am embarking on this journey, so there was some very good tips on where to start. Looking forward to your next course. Sue Wiebe