YouTube or Blogging: Which One Is Better for You?
Which platform should you choose for creating content?
Today, there are a lot of platforms to create content from YouTube, having your own blogging website, Medium, to Instagram, TikTok, and more.
If you can’t decide which one to start with, in this post, we are going to compare blogging and having a YouTube channel, their main advantages, and disadvantages for helping you to decide which one is better for you.
Hey guys my name is Cem, I’m a content creator on YouTube here and here, and here on Medium. If you’re interested in learning more about content creation, make sure to subscribe to my 2nd channel.
Where Should I Start Posting Content?
Let’s first begin with the thing you shouldn’t do (at least at the beginning):
Don’t try to be everywhere.
It’s hard to grow from scratch. It takes time. Therefore, in the beginning, you don’t have to be on every platform.
Because if you start posting content on YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok at the same time, you’ll not only lose your energy but you’ll also lose your focus.
Every platform has its own learning curve and algorithm. Just pick one, and stick to it. After you start getting views, and subscribers, after you see some success, then you can start posting on a second platform you like.
Should I Start A YouTube Channel or A Blog?
These two are the most compared ones for content creation and both of them have their up and downsides. Keep reading and find out which one is better for you.
Starting A Blog
If you love writing, starting a blog website can be a good idea.
Advantages
- You own your space: On social media platforms, you own your content, but you don’t own your subscribers. Let’s say you have a large audience on Instagram. What happens if Instagram changes its algorithm, gets shut down, or suspends your account whatever the reason is? These problems don’t exist on your personal website, because you own it.
- Creating Content is Faster: Creating a blog post is usually faster than creating a video. Because you just write and publish, however when you create a video, you need to write a script, record it, edit it, optimize it, and finally upload it. In most cases, this takes much more time than writing a blog post.
- You’re not on Camera: Some people are camera shy and they don’t want to be on the camera. Blogging can be a good alternative for them. In addition, since you’re not on the camera, you can write and create content from everywhere. However when you’re on the camera, usually you need a specific place for shooting your videos.
Sounds good? But there are also downsides:
Disadvantages
- Difficult to be discovered: Unfortunately, today ranking your blog website high on Google is very hard, and therefore so is getting views. This means your blog website is dependent on external traffic.
- Setup Your Website: In the beginning, you need to set up your website by yourself and this will consume a lot of time. And if you don’t know how to set up your website, then first you need to learn it (which means more time-consuming), or you need to hire someone.
- Costs Money: Starting your own blog website is not free. But writing on Medium is…
Medium
Medium is a great alternative if you don’t want to deal with the downsides of blogging that I’ve mentioned above. Some advantages of writing on Medium are:
- Writing on Medium is free
- Medium has a built-in audience and once you publish your posts they will start getting views immediately
- You don’t have to deal with SEO
- You can earn money with the Medium Partner Program
- Everything is ready on Medium, no setup is required, you just create an account and start writing.
If you want to learn more about Medium, let me know in the comments below so later I will write about it in other posts.
Starting A YouTube Channel
What about starting a YouTube channel?
YouTube is owned by Google and today is the 2nd largest search engine in the world. However, everybody gets a chance to grow an audience on YouTube thanks to its recommendation algorithm.
Advantages
- The YouTube Algorithm: The recommendation system is a great advantage for any creator on YouTube, even if you start from 0. If you understand properly how the algorithm works, your videos will get viewers, even some may receive millions and millions of views.
- Built-in Audience: YouTube has a huge audience of millions of viewers and you don’t have to worry about finding viewers for your channel. Later if you prefer, you can redirect your subscribers to your own blog or anywhere you want. YouTube is a powerful tool for content creators.
- Various online money earning ways: YouTube gives various ways to earn money from Adsense to affiliate marketing, from sponsorships to membership, and more.
I’m creating videos on YouTube for more than 3 years now and I really enjoy doing it. If you don’t enjoy creating videos, then I don’t recommend you to start.
But even if you enjoy creating content on YouTube, there are some downsides:
Disadvantages
- Creating videos is time-consuming: Creating a regular video takes time. Because there are additional steps like writing a script, editing, optimizing, and so on. Fortunately, if you have limited time, you can create YouTube shorts (videos up to 60 seconds only) and they can be produced very very fast.
- Being on camera can be difficult for some people: Another downside is being on camera can be hard for some of us, especially if you have a camera-shy personality. What I can suggest here is to create faceless videos if it suits your content type. For example, on my first channel, I created faceless videos because they were programming videos and it was possible to create them without myself being on the camera.
So what do you think? Would you prefer starting a blog, writing on Medium, or starting a YouTube channel? Let me know in the comments below.
Liked the article? Medium is a great platform that hosts thousands of great articles without showing any ads. Since Medium is ad-free, readers who love this platform can support it by becoming a member.
You can become a Medium member here and have unlimited access to every story on Medium. If you use the link right above, it will also support me as a writer, because I’ll earn a small commission from Medium. Thank you!
