The Rise Of Vlogging — How It Can Benefit Your Business
Yes, it sounds very weird… Walking around talking to a camera is very odd, but it’s becoming the norm in society. And when executed correctly it can work wonders for your personal brand or business.
What is vlogging?
A video blog or video log, usually shortened to vlog /ˈvlɒɡ/, is a form of blog for which the medium is video, and is a form of web television. Vlog entries often combine embedded video (or a video link) with supporting text, images, and other metadata. Entries can be recorded in one take or cut into multiple parts.
In simple terms; a video directed and centered around one persons life. But if you actually think about vlogging, it’s not as weird as you think.
Just look at the foundation social media is built on, it’s built and geared towards people — and businesses — showing aspects of their life, each platform shows a different level of someone’s — or a businesses — life.
For example, The godfather of social media; Facebook — It’s taken a bit of a culture change over the years. At first it was the place to share drunk photos and organise party’s. Now, It’s a little more toned down because your mum figured out how to use it.
Instagram — more for the glamorous side of your life, your new watch, new car and some of the highest points in your life. Mix that with some level of photography skill and there you have it… Instagram.
And then we get to Snapchat, — the newbie — let’s be honest, it’s for showing the darker times of your life or behind the scences. Why? Because it’s gone after 24 hours. Snapchat is filled with hangover pictures, weirdly enough, it shows a progression through your night out and the next day.
And this actually brings me to the point of this article, documenting… YOUR social media is a documentation of your life.
Vlogging & the figures
First lets take a look at the figures behind vlogging. Casey Neistat, easily one of YouTube’s best and one of the most creative vloggers. 6,300,799 Subscribers and 1,460,161,804 Video Views — as of 18/01/17 — This is built up mainly by vlogging along with other video content such as mini documentaries.
Vlogging gives viewers an insight to someone’s life at a very personal level, more of a personal level than social media does, and because human beings are very weird, we love looking into other people’s lives.
Below is a slideshow of some of the most popular vloggers and their figures, see for yourself, it works!
Now you have a bit of an insight as to how popular vlogging is. Although, It’s not all that easy, you can’t just go out and buy your camera tomorrow and expect millions of viewers and subscribers overnight.
Like any other social media platform, it’s all about building a community, connecting and more importantly; creating quality and captivating content. When you put that into a business sense, it makes it ten times harder.
So, how is this going to help your business?
As said above, vlogging isn’t easy, — although it may look it — it is far from. You have to record your day, make it interesting enough to compete with the likes of the channels in the slide above and you’ve got to stay consistent. Staying consistent is one of the biggest contributing factors that makes vlogging so popular, you can see the day-to-day life of someone, which captures the audience because you’ll want to go back and watch the next day.
The idea of vlogging seems ridiculous, and when you switch it up into a business sense we’re talking off the scale ridiculousness. But for this to work you have to think outside of the box a bit.
For example; — lets make up a company — Windy Pipes Plumbing. Windy Pipes Plumbing have been using SEO and AdWords for years, it worked for them at the start, but the results have started to slide a little bit.
Okay, how can Windy Pipes Plumbing use social media to market their company?
One idea could be to have the boss walk around vlogging, day-to-day operations and daily life within the business. For this, you would have to provide a bit of value to the viewers; e.g. business tips. Just general business tips about how to build up your business and the struggles of starting out could be a good approach.
Be sure to include your brand in the videos. When I say include your brand in the videos, I don’t mean “HI I’M JIM FROM WINDY PIPES PLUMBING, CHECK OUT OUR NEW RANGE OF TAPS, FITTED FROM £40!”
Just subtle, here and there. Links to your website in the appropriate places, over time you will build a community — if your content is good enough — and this start to build interest around your business. Chances are that if they’re watching a vlog about the boss of a plumbing company then they have some sort of interested in plumbing or business.
Another approach could be to put a camera in your van, again, tie this together with an individual taking the camera out with them as well and vlog the day of a tradesmen. Oh, and that’s the perfect title ‘The Day of a Tradesmen’.
As micro-content you can post snippets of the vlog to other social media platforms, such as a snippet of a funny part of the day.
That’s the end of today’s vlog
There are so many different ways you could execute this and bring value to your business. Whilst vlogging may not lead to direct sales; it helps build your brand, and could lead to future sales or business.
If you use the right micro-content to post to other social media networks then it will build your brand and following across the board. If you want to get real effective, you can back this up with social media ads — Facebook Dark Posts — to get right to your target audience.
Don’t get me wrong… This approach will work better for some businesses than it will for others, and the personality and likability of the person vlogging will dictate whether it’s a success or not.
But with the right person and the right execution, this approach can definitely bring your business some value.
