Vlogging for Business: Build Your Brand with Video

1. Introduction: Vlogging has changed my entire business in the connection that I had with my audience and the revenue that I was generating. It was just an enjoyable type of content for me to create. [MUSIC] What's up, beautiful people. I'm Erin, and I'm the owner of Erin on Demand as well as a YouTuber and I help small business owners and companies using video and creative content. You may have seen my work on my YouTube channel where I have grown over 250,000 subscribers. You should take this class if you are trying to build community and connection with your audience so whether you're a small business owner who's just getting started all the way to a corporation who has a very established business brand or audience. Vlogging can be a very powerful tool to use to build more connection. In this class, I'm going to share with you some of my best tricks, tips, hacks and strategy so you can get out there and start vlogging today. By the end of class, I hope you have an outline of your first vlog and have started shooting it and feel really confident to actually upload it and get out to the world. One thing I hope students walk away from this class with is the confidence to pick up the vlog camera. If you are feeling a bit overwhelmed or intimidated, just know that the biggest part of successfully vlogging is just being yourself, which really is what makes vlogging so special. I can't wait to see your final vlogs in the project gallery. You can feel free to use that to share your steps along the way or to ask any questions on things that you may be struggling with. I am so excited for this class, so let's get into it. [MUSIC] 2. The Benefits of Vlogging: Welcome. I'm so excited that you're taking this class. Now, let's get into it. Before we even get into how to create a vlog, I'm going to share with you why you should care about clogging for your business. What is a vlog? A vlog is a video log or a video journal. It is a video that shares an experience from start to finish. This can be a day in your life or behind the scenes of a team meeting. It's telling the story with video, but it's sharing an experience. That's what makes vlogging different than any other form of video content. Usually vlogs are more personable, they're from one person's perspective or they're building a character in the storyline where video content in more of a traditional form is more informational or it can be perceived as a bit more formal. Now even though vlogging has been around for a while, I have noticed that there is an untapped market with larger businesses and corporations using vlogging to grow their business even more. I think a lot of larger companies and corporations aren't taking advantage of vlogging because it seems a little too simple. I think that a lot of larger companies feel the need to have large productions and do things so big, and vlogging is really a very personable experience, is the bare bones of video. You're telling a story, everything isn't perfect, everything isn't super perfectly shot or chopped or cut, and so I think a lot of big companies want their video to be associated with a very polished look when that's just not what vlogging is. A lot of small businesses are coming and really taking over the vlogging industry because they're fine with this scrappy, cool, edgy look when it comes to video and they're using what they have to make it happen. There are many different platforms that you can upload your vlog content to, such as YouTube, Instagram video, or even LinkedIn if you're doing more long-form video content or you can have short-form vlogs such as Instagram stories, Instagram Reels, TikTok, Snapchat, or whatever the next hot thing is. Vlogs can be uploaded anywhere video can go. I upload my vlogs onto YouTube, so I am a bit partial to it, but all these tips and strategies that I'm going to share with you can be applied to whatever platform you choose for your vlogs. Let's get specific about some of the things that vlogging can do for your business. It is going to rapidly increase the connections that you build with your audience because with vlogging, especially depending on the type of vlogs you choose to create, it's going to show more of your personable side and those are things I call them connection points that your audience can grab one, two. For me, when I'm cooking breakfast in the morning and my audience is like, "Oh my gosh, I love your dishes," or, "Oh my goodness, this breakfast looks so good." These are things that are not necessarily pushing my business or pushing my content, but they are growing the connection between my audience and me, and that ultimately is growing the trust and eventually it's going to pour into the business. Vlogs really break the wall between you and your audience or you and your customer, and they make you more human. Even if you aren't a small team or the face of your own brand or company like I am and you do have a larger business with more team members, there is still a big opportunity for you to take advantage of vlogging. You can build personalities and storylines on what goes on behind the scenes of your business, which a lot of businesses don't do and it would be a really cool way to break down that wall and really show your audience more of an inside out view of your company. People always tell me that once I started vlogging, they felt more comfortable engaging with me and engaging with my business. We really did see an increase in the numbers of members that were joining, of strategy calls that were booked just because I started vlogging about them. Speaking of which, vlogging does help you sell without being salesy. I would show myself in my day in the live vlogs making my slides for my live lessons in my membership club, I would share advice that I was giving my members, I would share clips from my strategy sessions with some of my clients, and it was really showing my audience the value that I provide for people who are paying me. It made them more comfortable with pay me as well. It really helped grow the business and we saw that through the numbers. With that, you can use vlogging to build a lot of hype around a launch because you can take your audience behind the scenes from start to finish of a launch. For me, I launched my first product called the Top 3 Notebook. It was a method that I had started in my vlogs on a whiteboard and I would write my top 3 priorities on that every day. Then my audience started doing it a lot, they were tagging me in it, and so we realized that that was an opportunity for us to create a product. When we decided to create the product, we announced that to the YouTube community and they followed along the entire manufacturing journey from when I was designing it to when I got the first sample order to when we got the full order and it built so much excitement. We actually use our vlogs to guide them to a wait-list to which we had sold out of the product within the first day or two of the launch. Having that pre-marketing strategy using vlogs was an incredible way for us to market the product and sell it before it even hit the market. Finally, vlogs are just fun, they are so much fun to create, they're so much fun to watch, and they're really going to show your audience a different side of you. I know for me, when I was doing a lot of sit-down videos, my audience would think that I was a bit more formal than I actually am in real life. Once I started vlogging, that was when I felt like I really was having fun with my audience and they were getting to know me and my business a lot better. Let's quickly talk about some things that vlogging can't do so you don't have the wrong expectation. For one, it is a long-term game, so I wouldn't recommend thinking about vlogging as something that you can use to quickly market or quickly grow your business. It is a bit tough to tie vlogs to direct revenue metrics, but from my vlogging experience, I did see an increase in revenue although it's hard to boil it directly down to the vlogs. Vlogging is good for anyone who has a story. Anyone who has a story that you want to tell from your perspective or from the perspective of your company, even as specific as a team member in your company, vlogging is for you, is simply a story being told from someone's perspective who's interesting and wants to share. The biggest thing about vlogging is just being open. If you're someone who is excited to share a story, who enjoys showing your own personality and your authenticity or if you have a team that enjoys doing that, then they may be a great team to build characters in a storyline around. I think blogging can be a great option for you if you are looking to humanize your brand, build a strong connection with your audience, and if you're looking to market in a long-term game without being too salesy. I want you to consider your business goals and think about how you can use vlogs in your marketing strategy. In the next lesson, I'm going to share with you what makes a great vlog and some common mistakes people make along the way. [MUSIC] 3. Good vs. Bad Vlogs: Before we get into planning your vlog, let's talk on a high level of what makes vlogs good versus not so good. There are four main things that I think every good vlog needs to have. The first thing is setting one main intention and not just aimlessly filming your day. Even though it's a vlog and it feels like hardened and personable, people still want to get something out of it. They want to hear a story or they want to get to the finish line, and if they feel like the vlog is not going anywhere, they are very likely to click out of it. An intention can be anything, from information that you want your audience to know, to maybe one main theme of inspiration that you're trying to get across in your vlog, or even the process that you take to prepare something, whether it'd be a work meeting or the food that you're about to make. It can really be anything as long as you keep the end in mind when you start vlogging. Another thing that I think makes for a really strong vlog is showing and telling. It's a technique that I use to show something visual and tell something engaging. I find that a big mistake a lot of vloggers make is doing one or the other. Let's take the work party example. A mistake that you could make is sitting down in front of the camera and just talking about the work party. Or another mistake you can make is getting video clips from the work party and not saying anything at all. The showing and telling technique is going to allow your audience to really go on the journey with you, whether it's as you're planning the party or at the party itself and the experience that your coworkers or your team are having as they're in the party. You want to make sure that the storyline is very clear, so that the show entail brings it all together. The next element of a very strong vlog is having a beginning, middle, and end. A big mistake I see a lot of people make is just meandering without a storyline, and a vlog should always have a story. Later in this class, we're actually going to go more in-depth on how to structure the beginning, middle, and end of your vlog, so that your audience maintains interests for the entire video. Let's keep going with this work party example. A properly structured beginning, middle, and end could look something like this. You start the vlog showing the empty space that you're excited to prep for the work party. The middle of the vlog can show all the hard work, the decorations, all of the things that you're doing to make this space look incredible for the work party. Then the end can show your guests arriving and the great time that they're experiencing at the work party. Now compare that to if you just dropped into the work party as it's going on and you're trying to get footage of the actual work party. It's going to be so much harder for your audience to really engage with that, because there has been no storyline or build-up to that moment. Whenever you are creating your vlog content, think of how can I flush this out as a full story with a beginning, middle, and end? The fourth element of a strong vlog is building a personality. You want to have a character who your audience feels some level of attachment to, some level of connection to that can really carry the vlog from episode to episode. For a small business, like myself, who is the face of the company, it's a little bit easier, because typically, it's the owner who is the face of the vlog. If you are a larger company, you can do multiple things. You can have one main person vlogging that your audience really forms a personable connection with, or you can show a team and have a full team vlogging to show their team dynamic and build multiple personalities with the vlog. I don't recommend having too many people vlogging on behalf of your company, because you really want to deepen the connection with one or a few people. When you have one or just a few people running the channel, you can really control the narrative of your company a lot easier, because you can select someone who captures the energy and the essence of your brand without being nervous that someone might get on camera who doesn't accurately represent your company. I want you to find some vlogs that you admire and pay attention to what you like, what works, what doesn't work? Try to figure out what strategies they're using and how you may be able to use those on your own channel. In the next lesson, we're going to start the planning process and talk about how to figure out what you or your company should even be vlogging about. [MUSIC] 4. Finding What to Vlog About: [MUSIC] Now let's talk about how to actually come up with ideas for your business's vlog. When it comes to vlogging, a lot of people do struggle with wondering what's interesting about themselves. What's interesting about me? What's interesting about my business enough for me to feel confident to vlog about it? I even struggled with that too. When I started my channel, I didn't vlog because I was still living at my parents' home. I was building my business in a corner of a room and I just didn't know what would be interesting to me. I was seeing a lot of other entrepreneurs who had cool office spaces and who were really a lot further in their businesses than I was. I felt that there was not really much for me to capture, but I really realized that there weren't a lot of people showing at the stage that I was and that was all the more reason for me to pick up my camera and show that side of entrepreneurship. I really encourage anyone, small business owners, even larger business owners who struggle with feeling like what makes me interesting enough to vlog or just feeling overwhelmed by, maybe if you have a large company you feel overwhelmed with who to even pick to run your vlog channel. I just want to encourage you that there is always something or someone interesting to document about your company or your business's journey. The golden rule about vlogging is that anything really can be interesting. It's really about how you frame it, how you show and tell it, and the audience that you're really trying to connect to. The bottom line is it's all about connection and as long as you have that, you're definitely on the right track. Finding things to vlog about can be easier said than done. In this lesson, I'm going to walk you through some tactics and strategies that you can use to start getting your wheels turning on what you can make your company's vlog about. First and foremost, start your brainstorming by thinking about what you want to accomplish with this vlog. I don't want this to get confused with you setting your intention for a specific vlog video. I want you to think big picture about what you want this vlog to do for your company overall. Do you want this to share behind the scenes and let your audience in on what's going on in the back end of your business? Or do you want this to show the product development process? Or do you want this to show the lifestyle that using or having your product can create for your target audience? There's so many different ways that you can take your vlog. Brainstorming the big picture idea of what do you want your overall vlog channel to do is really important when you're planning out the individual vlogs. Don't feel like you have to put yourself in a box of picking one thing. You can do all of these things with your vlogs, but just make sure that you know that going into vlogging what your company's goals are so you can make sure that your vlogs align. Now one important thing about this is you want to see it from your audience's perspective so when you are choosing what you want your vlogs to do for you, you need to keep your audience in mind of what they would want to see. For example, if you are showing more behind the scenes footage, are you trying to make working at your company seem cool so that you can get more applications in, or are you trying to get more people to purchase your products so your vlogs emphasize more of your behind the scenes of the process of your product. It's just worth thinking about what is the main goal and what would that audience want to see. Figuring out your big picture and doing this exercise can be really helpful because once you know who you're talking to, it is so much easier to come up with more ideas on what they would be interested in hearing. After you've created your big picture goals, write down every task associated with that. This is really going to help you think of more specific content ideas that you can break into single videos. Doing this is probably going to open your eyes up to the fact that you are interesting and that you do have a lot of content that you can vlog about. But I want you to keep in mind whether you are a small business owner or a larger corporation, that you don't have to only show stuff that is super businessy. If you're a small business owner, you can show yourself going to grab a coffee or making one at home, or if you're a larger company, you can show you and your teammates in the break room just chatting. It doesn't always have to be so motivated with this super strong businessy feel. You don't want your vlogs to feel very formal. You want them to feel casual and lighthearted so adding those other elements are really going to help you further build that connection with your audience that we've been really emphasizing throughout this class. You may have written your list and you're still looking at it like, there's still not much interesting about it. Maybe you feel like you're so in the routine of doing these tasks that there's just not really an exciting approach to it. I say start with a vlog where you are excited about whatever it is that you're going to be doing that day, or start with the most exciting approach you may have to your job. Maybe you do it a little bit differently than other people. You can share it from that angle. It's not necessarily about sharing every single thing that you do throughout the day, it's more about being able to craft a story around the things that are interesting. Another thing you can do is share your list with a friend or someone that you're close with, who can share with you what they think is interesting about what you do. This is going to help you really see what your audience may want to know. I know for me when I started vlogging, I was starting my membership club and I would show myself making the slides for my presentations in my club and so many people were really into that which I thought was boring. But when it's someone who's watching, who's maybe never seen that before or doesn't have experience doing that, their fresh eyes are going to think what you're doing is pretty cool. If you're also thinking that you just do the same things over and over again, another cool thing about vlogging is that reiteration actually builds more connection and trust. A lot of my audience expects me to wake up in the morning and write my top three priorities for the day down every single day. They know that about me and when you do things repetitively on your vlogs, it makes your audience feel like they know your routine now and that they've deepened their connection with you. It's okay if you feel like some things in your vlogs have been repeated, you don't have to reinvent the wheel for every single vlog. Looking back when I started vlogging, I really wanted my audience to know that you don't have to be perfect to get started. That was really my goal with the vlog was to show that I was starting from the ground up and I wanted people to see what entrepreneurship looks like from a very early stage. Another big goal that I set was to share about my products and services in the vlogs because I knew that the more comfortable they were with me and getting to know me, that was a really easy way for me to get them comfortable with the products and services that I offered. Based on my big picture goals, some of the tasks that were on my list were shown there in the live videos. I wanted people to know what my day-to-day routine looked like. I also wanted to show people how I planned for meetings, what I did inside of my meetings, or how I created proposals for my clients. These are all things that one would inform them, but also would make them feel comfortable with me, which were both of the goals that I had. Another way you can plan your vlogs is to step out of your day-to-day routine and think about some exciting events or activities you have planned for your business. I know for me I love doing brand photoshoots and that's when I go get my makeup done, my hair done, plan my outfits out, and I go get new professional photos from my website and for my social media. When I do those, I love to vlog because it's super exciting. It's not my day-to-day wake up, fix breakfast, it's something different. Another tactic is when you think about a vlog idea just write it down. Even if you aren't vlogging in that day but you may do something that's interesting, or you may talk to someone and then they tell you that they love that you do something or love something about you, write it down so that way you don't lose that thought and you can incorporate that into a future blog. A really encouraging thing is that the more you vlog, the less you have to plan your vlogs because it's going to start to become second nature to you. You're really going to learn how to tell the story, how to tie things into your business, how to show your personality, and be authentic. In the beginning, it may feel a little weird, it may be a little bit awkward, but as you practice and as you do it more, it becomes second nature. In the next video, I'm going to share with you my planning process and how I flush out ideas so I'm ready to shoot. [MUSIC] 5. Planning the Content: [MUSIC] Now let's get into planning the content for an individual vlog. It might seem like vlogs are off the cuff, but that's actually not the best idea, especially if you're just starting. Some of the benefits to planning your vlogs ahead of time is, one, that it prevents you from rambling. A lot of people turn the camera on and they get stuck, what do I say? Or they start talking too much. There's really no goal in mind. A big reason why you should plan is to prevent unnecessary talking and unnecessary footage. That runs into my next point is, it will prevent you from over recording or under recording. You want to have the right amount of footage to be able to have fun when you're editing it, or just to make sure that it's enough footage to tell the story properly. But you don't want to run into having too much footage where you get overwhelmed with editing and trying to figure out how to make it all make sense together. When you plan the vlog out, this is really going to help you keep your thoughts, your visuals, and whatever it is you're going to be talking about very organized. It also just takes the pressure off. When you first start vlogging, especially at beginners, it can be overwhelming to think about what shots you need to get, what you need to say, are you sticking to the story line? When you have everything plans, it just makes it so much easier to get the vlog done and know that you did it well. I have always planned my vlogs. I would do a rough outline and honestly, when I first started vlogging, I did my top three priorities for the day, every day to keep me on track. But that was also a mini vlog outline for me. When I would write the top three things I needed to do for the day, those were also the main scenes or things that I was going to show in my vlog. It kept the audience interested because when I wrote those things down and showed them that, it let them know when I was getting ready to do for the day, and it kept me on track. When I'm planning vlog content I really pay attention to the questions in the comments that I get from people in my comments section. I use that as qualitative data to know what my audience is interested in, what they like to see. If they comment about something particular in one video, I tried to pull elements of that into others and into my planning process. A lot of times it helps to pay attention to what your audience is looking for or gravitating to in your content. When you have your audience in mind, it's also important to think about the attention span. That can play into how long your vlogs end up being. Now, there are some vlogs and very successful vlogs that are 30 minutes, even an hour long. Your vlogs do not have to be that long. But really the most important thing is making sure you're able to tell the story and that you don't have any parts that you're going off in major tangents online. As much as you can condense the vlog, do that, but that doesn't mean that it has to be a short video. I would say a good sweet spot for a vlog is 10-15 minutes in general. Now I'm going to share with you one of my vlog outlines to help you see how I plan my vlogs. I like to use a platform called Notion to plan out my videos. This is the custom template that I've just really made my own. This is the title of the video. It's a vlog on a Brand Photoshoot & Tips for a Successful Shoot Day. I'm going to quickly share it with you guys, some of the things that I like to do before I actually get into the outline. The first thing is I always change this status depending on what part of the process I'm in, so once the outline is complete, I'll switch it to this. This is a vlog and here's that goal/intention thing coming back up. This one, I select either personal, it's inspirational, or maybe it's intended to educate. This vlog is actually more of an educational vlog. Then I also select the content pillar that it will fall under. Branding and marketing day in the life, this is definitely more of a branding and marketing vlog, so I'm going to click that as the content pillar as well. It's really important for me to organize my content like this, because it just helps me stay on track with my big picture goals. It helps me make sure that my content is something that my audience would be interested in. Typically if it doesn't fit into my content pillars or if a goal or an intention doesn't really align with what this video is about, it's an easy way for me to actually read out content that wouldn't be beneficial for my audience. It also helps me be able to see how much of what type of content am I creating. If I want to make sure that I'm evenly hitting on different things, I can see that through my plans. Now we are into the actual video outline. Now for the intro, this is the most important part of your video because this is where you're going to capture your audience's attention and you're going to hook them in with whatever the story line is that you are seeing through throughout the rest of the video. In my vlogs, I like to start with some music. I think music is a great way to get your audience engaged. It's a great way to show personality. I also like to put some quick shots from throughout the vlog at the front of the vlogs. They can also get a glimpse of what's to come in the rest of the day. Then I wrote some notes on what I'm going to say directly to the camera to make sure that I'm clearly communicating the goal or intention of this video. All of that is included in the intro section of the outline. Now that brings us to the middle of the vlog where it's time to start planning the scenes is what I like to call them. This is where you're executing whatever the goal or intention that you set in the very beginning of the vlog. This is where you do want to have a variety of scenes because being a one spot for too long can bore your audience. You also don't want to move too fast because it can be difficult to keep up. At the end you want to make sure you close the door to whatever it is that you opened or set out for this video to accomplish. The great thing about vlogging is, even if you didn't accomplish everything that you wanted to put into the vlog or everything you told your audience you were going to do, it's okay to just tell them, I didn't get this one thing done, but today was still a good day. Vlogging is really about being honest in whatever the result of the experience is. Lastly, in the end of the vlog, I like to always include a call to action. This can be join my membership club. This can be you can purchase my products with the link in the description box or it can be something that's engaging your audience, asking them a question. What are some tips you have for other people who are doing brand photo shoots? What has saved you some time? There are many different ways that you can incorporate calls to action. But at the end of a vlog, that is an incredible place to add the action for your audience to continue on engaging with your business or brand. Now, I know if you are a planner or maybe if you're a little camera shy, you can be very tempted to script out your entire vlog and I will strongly encourage you not to do that. It's going to take away the authenticity you're going to feel so bound to your script that you can't even just be your natural self. When you're concluding your vlog, there are many different ways that you can end the story. Really, that is your video style that plays on your vlog style. Some people smash the camera with their hand and start playing music as soon as the camera blacks out. Or you can close the door of the work meeting once everyone is inside and that's the end of the video. Or you can talk to the camera and do a recap of the day. There are so many different options. That's why I really want you to watch different vlogs, not just for the entertainment of it, but to also see the different styles that people implement into their vlogs to make it their own. If you are trying to get started on your outline and you're looking at this document and it's just blank and you are like, where do I start? I would say the simpler your outline in the beginning, the better. The biggest thing you want to capture is the main points or the main story line. What I would do is, I will write down the title or the main goal of the video. Then just brain dump everything that's associated with that topic and then you can start to organize it. What about this thing or process do I do first? What comes after that? What's interesting about it? What should I make sure that I include? Just bullet point, your outline doesn't have to be super detailed. It can really be, okay, if you want it to be six minutes long, maybe you make six different points or six small different scenes that you want to make sure you include in the video and then just leave it at that. All of these other things you can fill in after you've begun to record because you don't want to get too overwhelmed. Now when it comes to integrating your brand or your business into your vlogs. I honestly think that's what makes vlogging so special is because you can do it seamlessly without going too overboard or seeming too salesy. What you're looking over your outline, I really want you to think first about your audience and think second about your business. I know it sounds a little bit crazy, but when you put the audience first, that's how you start to build the trust with them. They don't feel they got need to be up with you because they don't feel you're trying to sell to them. Once you master that, that's when it also becomes easier for you to sell to them. Because by your content just having your business integrated into it, it's naturally going to cause them to become more curious and more invested in what you have to offer in your business. Now it's time to create your outline and your shot list, and we're going to start shooting the vlog in the next lesson. [MUSIC] 6. Shooting Your Vlog: Foundations: Now that you have your vlog all planned out, it's time to shoot the vlog. Now I'm not going to shoot a vlog live on camera today because that would take quite a bit of time, but I am going to share with you some of my best tips and tricks to make your vlog shoot as smooth as possible. Your first question might be, what should I film with? You can literally film with whatever you have. If you have an iPhone or a smartphone all the way to a fancy camera, like a DSLR, you can shoot with whatever. The biggest thing is making sure that the quality of the image is very clear. Now, I shoot with a point-and-shoot camera, it is a Canon G7 X Mark II. I've been vlogging with this camera for about two years now and it is incredible. It's very light and compact, but the quality is amazing and it just gets the job done. I also use a mini tripod that I can easily hold in my hand to just get more stabilized shots, but if I need to set it down, it's easy to sit down on top of things so that I can get different types of shots. Just make sure you have something to stabilize your camera so that there's not too much movement to where you're making your audience nauseous or just making it feel a little too rugged by having something to stabilize your camera with. In terms of sound, that is probably the most important part of any video. You want to make sure that the sound quality is good. I use the mic that is on the camera already, but there are a lot of attachable mics that you can put on your smartphone and it's really going to up the production quality. Even if you don't want to buy a camera, you want to have a smartphone microphone because when you're out and about and you're on the go, there's a lot of noise from wind or the streets if you're outside, so having good audio is really important and some cameras come with a great audio already. Ultimately, vlogging is not about the equipment you're using, is about the content. When it comes to making sure you're mastering your content, you're going to want to use that outline that we just did in the last lesson. This brings me to my whole philosophy on shooting to edit. When you shoot to edit, you make editing so much easier for your editor. [LAUGHTER] I have taken on this philosophy and basically what it means is when you go out and you are in the field and you're shooting the video, you want to get a variety of types of shots. Say you're walking up to your company and that's a part of the beginning of your vlog, you may want to get a wide shot to start, and then get a point of view shot of your feet as you're walking in, and then maybe get a face shot of yourself while you're walking as well. That way when you go into edit, you have things that you can cut to show this transition that you're creating. So shooting to edit ultimately means that you're shooting your video with your editing in the back of your mind or at the front of your mind, however you want to think about it. When you're thinking about how this is going to be edited and what shots are going to look right around each other. This is also going to be helpful because ultimately, you're shooting in order of how you want the video to be cut or be edited instead of having all of your talking points in one section and then having all of your B-roll in another section, you want to try to do everything around the time in that scene. Like I said, if you're walking up to your company's building and you're talking about your workday, you don't want to just have the workday clip and then at the end of the day, you get all the shots of you walking up to the building, you want to do everything in the order at which it's happening because again, when you're vlogging, you're documenting your journey authentically. You want to share the steps of that journey visually, literally, and figuratively. You want to share the steps of that journey as you're going and it's going to make it so much easier in the edit as well. How much video do you really need to shoot in order to make a really good vlog? It's hard to gauge honestly and give a super specific amount that you need to shoot in order to have the right amount of footage, but a rule of thumb I like to have if it's going to be a 20-minute vlog, I would recommend having about an hour worth of footage. It's always best to have more than not enough because at least if you have a little bit more, you can have more fun with your shots, maybe you can speed things up and do some of the other tips that we're going to share in the next parts of this lesson, but it's better to have a little bit more. I would say if you're going for a 15-20 minute vlog, you want to aim for 45 minutes to an hour worth of footage. A good vlog is not just you sitting in front of the camera talking to the camera, you want to get a variety of shots because that's going to help the audience feel like they're experiencing these moments with you. Here are a few different types of shots that I like to integrate throughout my vlogs. The first one is an establishing shot. This is usually like a really wide shot of a location or a place that you're at to really set the scene of where you are. You have to be considerate that your audience is just clicking on your video and they don't really know what to expect. If you even think about movies, most of the time, movies start off with very wide shots of whatever city they're in and they go in into this house and you see this journey of zeroing in on this one specific location. The next type of shot is a wide shot or a full body shot which is where you're going to be a bit more why you're going to see the person's entire body or whoever is in the shot, you're going to see their entire body. These shots are good to show action like if you're walking or if you are doing something, it is good to use wider shot so people can see what activity you're doing with your body. The next shot type is a medium shot. This is probably what you're seeing right now, a shot of the upper third of someone's body. These are great if you're talking directly to the camera because your audience can see your mouth moving, they can see enough of your body to get a feel for your body language without it being too close to where they are like all up in your mouth and your nose hairs. A medium shot is a great shot where you're actually talking to the camera. Then lastly is a tight shot or a close-up shot. Obviously, there can be extremely close up shots or there can just be regular close-up shots. A close-up shot is going to show some detail. These shots are good if you are putting on a watch or doing something interpreter, you're typing and we can hear the sound of the keyboard. It might be great to get a close-up shot of your fingers while you're typing. Tight shots really bring that detailed touch and make it feel like they're right there with you. [MUSIC] 7. Shooting Your Vlog: Other Techniques: [MUSIC] Another tactic I use to keep my vlogs interesting is B-roll. We've touched on B-roll a little bit, but I do want to give you a few more tips to make sure that your B-roll is really good. Basically, B-roll is just additional footage that you're going to get for the vlog that you're not necessarily talking directly to the camera in. One big tip is to put your camera on something stable where you're getting B-roll. It can be a stabilizer, maybe you're moving it but it just looks really smooth. Or you can put it on a still tripod, very shaky B-roll just looks very low quality. Please, even though your vlog is on the go, you still want to make sure that you maintain a level of high production quality. Now how to spot B-roll and what's worth shooting for B-roll versus what's not. I like to just look around myself and just take in the environment. If you're walking in a crosswalk, you probably see the crosswalk light turn to from stop to walk. That is a great thing to capture, to make your audience feel as though they're there with you. Or maybe you are making coffee in the teams break room, you want to grab a wide shot of the break room just so that we know where you are and what that space looks like. B-roll is not always super tight shots, I think a lot of people make that mistake when they're shooting B-roll is they're always getting the tight shots. But you do also want to take a step back and just look at the space overall and capture that as well. It's going to make for a great establishing shot or a great way to help your audience know exactly where you are. Now after years of creating vlogs, I now make a B-roll shot list. I would recommend doing this honestly in the early stages of creating vlogs because it's going to help your vlog have a lot more sharp variety, especially when you don't really know how to look for B-roll before you get into the moment. I would recommend making a B-roll shot list and just writing, get a wide shot of the space. Get a close-up shot of me typing on the keyboard. You want to write down the type of shot you want to get and what the actual shot is. Another tactic I like to use to add some interests to my vlogs is speed. Now I like to change and vary up the speeds within my video clips, so just make it more fun. One way that I do this is through time lapses. It is a setting on most cameras. It's definitely on the iPhone. What it is is basically a series of photos that are taken over an amount of time. Once it finishes, it comes together and it looks like a really sped up video. It's a really cool effect that you can use to show a process or really show anything in this really cool effect. Timeless is definitely add a lot of interests to the video because most of the time stuff is in regular speed. When you add that punchiness of that quick speed, it really pulls the viewer into the video. Another thing you can do is slow motion. If you're doing something like pouring a cup of coffee or something that you can add a slightly dramatic effect to. But most importantly, the thing about speed is that it changes the pace of the video. It changes up the monotony of everything feeling like it's in real time and it adds this visual drama that pulls your audience in even more. Speed doesn't just have to be in terms of the actual clip. It can be how quickly you edit and how quickly your cuts are. If you choose a really fast song to go into your vlog, you may have really short half second clips that are going to the beat. Or if you have a really slow and soothing song, maybe you use more longer clips and really have a slower paced video. Maybe if you have a few different types of music or a few different scenes in the video that feel a bit different, you can adjust the speed of your cuts in that way. With all that being said, even with all of these shots and things that you can add to make your vlog feel more interesting. A big part of your vlog is going to still be talking head video, which is pretty much just you talking to the camera. Honestly, talking heads can get boring. One way that you can keep your talking heads interesting is making sure you're talking in complete sentences. I know this sounds weird, but when you can speak very clearly, but also with enthusiasm and personality, it helps people enjoy listening to you. I will also say, speak how your audience is, and that's why for larger companies, I think it's great to have one or a few designated people to speak in your vlogs and to really built that personality because you want to talk the language or in the way that your audience talks, it should be natural, it should be very authentic. That's another way to make sure that you're talking heads are interesting is just speaking in a nice casual tone that your audience can understand. The third way is using B-roll over some of the parts that you're talking only to the camera too. Maybe if you have a time lapse, if you're working at your desk and you're doing a little recap of your day at the end, you can pop that time lapse in over you saying that so that you're talking heads still has a little bit of oomph to it. Then lastly, you can also chop your talking head up. You can take out any unnecessary parts of rambling or you can chop it pretty quickly so that your vlog looks choppy, which sounds really weird to say. But sometimes when it looks choppy, it makes it more interesting. Then actually, one more tip is if you're doing talking heads to change locations, maybe in one part of the talk, you're sitting at your desk and the next part, you're outside of the building or in the lobby. Then the next part you're in the break room, and it just adds a little bit more interests and instead of sitting in one spot the entire time talking to the camera. To the brand or business who is nervous to let their hair down a little bit and just be a little bit more free not as but end up or as professional as you're used to being. I would say that relatability is the best marketing tool right now. Being able to tell a story and be relatable to another person is the goal. I like to think vlogging as me talking directly to one other person on the other side of the screen. Honestly, when I talk to one person, I'm talking to them like my normal self. That's how I want you to think about vlogging, is that you are having a conversation with one other normal, chilled, relaxed person who doesn't need all of that to really understand and relate to you. That would be my tip for anyone who is a bit nervous about loosening up, because the loosening up is really going to make your vlog more relatable and more exciting to watch. Now I know that might've been a lot of information, but honestly you guys, the best way to learn how to shoot vlogs is to go out and shoot them. The more you practice, the better you will get. Now it's time for you to go shoot your vlog and really see what you can do. Remember your first vlog does not have to be perfect. The thing is going back, looking at what you got and seeing what could I have gotten more of or what could I have done less and then applying that the next time you go out and shoot. In the next video, we're going talk about editing your vlog. [MUSIC] 8. Editing Your Vlog: In this video, I'm going to share some tips with you on how to collaborate with an editor if that's the route you're choosing to go. It's really important to still edit your vlogs even though they are a bit more raw and on the goal than traditional marketing videos, because you want to still make sure that they have one, a good intention and two, that they're easy to follow and to some extent structured. I know they feel off the cuff, but when you can make your vlog as easy to follow as possible, that makes it so much more enjoyable to watch and that really happens in the editing stage. There are many different options to take when going through the actual editing process and deciding who's going to edit your video. On one hand you can edit it yourself, there are so many different resources that share with you basic and advanced editing tricks that you can implement into your vlogs. Or you can find a freelance editor on something like Upwork or Fiverr or if you're a larger company, you may have an in-house editor that you want to work with on this project. I've done it all. I started out editing my own videos and then moved into working with some freelance editors, and now I have hired an in-house editor, which is my husband. The first tip I recommend when you are working with an editor is doing your best to try to set them up for success. By that, I mean, you're going to want to send them all of the footage you've shot, your original outline, any edit notes that you want them to have to know how you want the video edited, and then also some inspirational videos on maybe the field or the type of edit you're looking for. Because there are a million different ways that you can edit a video and you want to give your editor as much direction on what you want as possible. This is definitely important when you're starting out working with an editor that doesn't really know your style yet. You definitely want to make sure that you are pretty hands-on in preparing them with all of the information, the tools, even maybe the music choices that you want them to include in the video to make sure that you get what you want. Once the editing or post-production process begins, this is when I like to start thinking about music. Music is going to add such a cool dynamic to your video that no shots, no talking to the camera is going to do. It's going to add a totally different element to the video. You want to think about what mood are you trying to create. Are you looking to inspire your audience? Are you looking to get them energized? Are you looking to get them mellowed out and more calm? Whatever type of mood you're trying to get your audience in with this piece of content, you do want to start looking for music that goes along with that. Now, I will warn you. It can take a while to find the perfect song. Finding the perfect song is not something that you want to rush through. It may take you as much as a couple of hours to sift through lots of music, non copyrighted music or there are several music platforms like musicbit.com or Epidemic Sounds that have great selections for people who are vlogging. You want to go through that and take your time and really try to pick the best music as possible. Another thing I like to do with music is if I do find a few songs that I like, I will put multiple songs in the video and see if it seems right with the footage and if it doesn't feel right, switch to the song, because the song is going to really set the tone for the video, for the different scenes that you have so you do want to make sure you pick a great choice. Adding text to your vlog is another way that you can amp up the production quality in the editing process of the vlog. I love adding text to my vlogs. I will add a title at the beginning then maybe says, "Day in the life," or reinforces the title like, vlog photoshoot day. Just adding some texts in the beginning to reinforce the message or the goal or intention of the vlog is super helpful. Another way you can incorporate texts into your vlogs is timestamping them. If you're going through your entire day, timestamp, it's 7:30 in the morning when you wake up or it's 8:00 eight in the morning when you get into the office. This meeting you have is at 2:00 PM. You're timestamping to keep your audience up to speed on where in the day are you? Time is a non factor when you're watching video, so helping people know where you're at in your day is very helpful and engaging. Another thing I like to do with my vlog is putting texts on screen for different transitions. If I'm walking up into a meeting, I will put strategy call meeting and then I'll put the time that the meeting starts as I'm walking into the building. Or if I'm about to cook dinner or go out for lunch, I'll put whatever time it is at that moment and put lunch as a text on screen. You can incorporate the time stamps and a title or something that shares what you're doing using texts. Then another way you can use texts is if you're embedding some informational content into your vlog, so back to the brand photoshoot vlog that we talked about in the outline, I had some key points on tips that I wanted to share with people to make their photoshoot day more successful. For those types of things, I will add that text onto the screen just again to add value, to reinforce the message. If people want to take notes on those things, it's right there on the screen for them to access. If you do want to add text to your vlog, this is something you're definitely going to want to include in the edit notes so your editor knows exactly what it is that you're looking for. I included in my outline, in the edit notes, I'll put, add these five points as text on screen, and then I'll write exactly what those points are so that the editor knows exactly where to put them. Another way you can work with your editor on this is have them send you the full video before they add any of the bells and whistles to it. Just have them send you a rough cut, is what we call it, where there may not be any music, there may not be any texts on screen, but you just need to see how the video is flowing, what it looks like. Then from there, you can send them specific timestamps of where you want certain texts, where you want certain music to come in and go out. That's really going to make the editing process a lot easier as well. Because unlike traditional videos with vlogs, again, you don't know how long they're going to turn out, so it's good to get that rough cut before all of the bells and whistles are added, so you can tell your editor exactly what to do. You may be thinking, how will we get the video back and forth? Do you have to constantly export it and then upload it to YouTube to see the first draft? Sometimes it does take a little bit of time to figure out the workflow between you and your editor to condense the amount of time that it takes. One tool I love using is Frame.io. Frame io is a great tool to collaborate with your editor. You can make notes right inside of the software so that your editor doesn't have to keep exporting, uploading and sending you these large files. You can see the cut and make notes right inside of the software. I highly recommend Frame io. When I'm looking over that rough cut before I send all of my final edits to the editor to just polish the video up and make it everything that I want it to be, another thing that I look for is rambling. Again, I keep going back to this because it is so easy to ramble when you are vlogging. Sometimes your editor may be scared to take out certain talking points where you're going over the same thing over and over again because they don't know if you want to keep that in. But as you build a relationship with your editor, they will begin to learn as you show them, no, cut this whole two minutes out. We don't need this, I already mentioned this. Or you can even start to see how you can talk a little bit more succinct so that you're not constantly rambling. But I like to look for rambling when I'm re-watching vlogs. Another thing I'll do is let a family member or close friend or someone close to me watch the video as well and I will watch them as they're watching the video. That helps me even more with tightening up the video because I can see when they're chuckling, I can see when they start to look at their phone or when they start to get bored. That's another great tip to let someone else watch it, because sometimes we can be sensitive about our own content and it can be tough to cut things out that you've worked hard to shoot. My last tip is that when you are working with an editor, don't be scared to be honest with them. You have to tell them things that they're doing great, things that maybe aren't your style if they've chosen to do all these funky and crazy transitions and that's just not what you want. You have to be open and honest with them because at the end of the day, you want to make sure the content truly reflects you and the message you're trying to get across. I just encourage you not to be scared, to be honest with your editor and really make it a collaborative experience for the both of you. Now it's time to create a final edit of your vlog, either on your own or with a collaborator. I'm going to see you in the next video where we're going to share how you can send it out to the world. [MUSIC] 9. Preparing to Post: [MUSIC] Now, you've shot the vlog, you've edited the vlog. What's the point of all of that if you don't share it with the world? Now, I'm going to share some tips on uploading, re-purposing, and measuring your video success. When it comes to uploading your videos specifically on YouTube, there are a few best practices. One being making sure your thumbnail stands out. You're going to want to make sure that your thumbnail is very clear and it tells a story, it needs to have some emotion to it to drive people to click on the video. Another tip I have for your thumbnails is not to make them have the exact same wording on them as your title. Your title can have very SEO-friendly words. What that means is search engine optimization. You're going to want your title to have words that are searchable. For me, maybe a word like marketing tips for beginners would be extremely searchable. But in the thumbnail, it's not always the best idea to have marketing tips for beginners there as well. Maybe you look really shocked in the thumbnail and say, biggest mistake ever or something like that to emotionally drive people to click on the video instead of reiterating the message that's in the title. My biggest tips for your thumbnails and optimizing that YouTube video before someone clicks on it is making sure your thumbnails are captivating and making sure your titles are search-friendly. I do use a couple of tools that help me figure out what type of titles to use for my videos to, like I said, capture the SEO-friendly words. One of the platforms I use is called TubeBuddy and the other is called vidIQ. Both do a lot of similar things where they're going to help you figure out great titles for your videos based on how popular they are on YouTube versus how much competition there is. It's going to help weigh searchability with the amount of videos that are on the platform already. It will recommend to you, yes, you should upload this video, or no, this may not perform the best on your channel, which can be very helpful. I will say, don't only listen to that, do what you feel is going to be best for your audience. But it is a good way to gauge the performance that your video may have on YouTube. It will also help you figure out what tags to use in the backend of your video, which is something you're going to put in when you're uploading to also help with your videos SEO. Again, if you're doing a vlog and you're sharing some marketing tips, it'll be great to have some tags that say marketing tips, marketing tips for beginners, that is going to populate in vidIQ or TubeBuddy for you, so they're going to tell you what are some of the best tags to use based on what your video is about. They're both really helpful platforms. I will say that with YouTube, you do want to take your time when you're uploading the video. Take your time with creating the thumbnail, with picking up the title, making sure you go through every single step in the backend of adding tags, adding your description box because all of these things are going to contribute to what YouTube thinks is your searchability. The more you reinforce one message in one video, the easier it is for you to really understand that this video actually is about marketing tips and will help them recommend it to more people. I know it takes a lot of time to create the vlog, but you don't want to shortchange these really key details that are going to help your videos get out to more people. With all of the hard work you put into this content, you don't have to only put it in one place. I encourage you to re-purpose your videos onto other platforms. If you are vlogging for YouTube, maybe make a condensed one-minute version of the vlog and upload it into your Instagram Reels or upload it to TikTok, upload it to whatever platform is great for short-form content. Or if you have one really killer tip in your vlog that you think would benefit the rest of your audience, you can repurpose that into a caption or into an Instagram story and have some polls around it. There are so many ways that you can not only re-purpose the content, but also use that re-purposed content to push people back to your full video where you're telling the entire story. When it comes to re-purposing your content, it is good to get as many views upfront as possible. If you upload your video, within that first hour, you do want YouTube to see that, maybe people are coming from Instagram, maybe people are coming from your Facebook page, you want YouTube to know that people are coming from other platforms to watch your video. This can trigger YouTube to push your video out to more people. What we call it as view velocity. The sooner your video picks up its velocity of views, the easier it is for YouTube to know that this is valuable content and they're more likely to push it out to even more people. When you are re-purposing, really consider pushing to your biggest platforms or whatever other social media platforms you use as soon as possible, and then you can also re-purpose, again, the next day or the next week, or even the next six months, you can keep a tab of what content you posted and just refresh it. Because, again, thinking long term in six months, maybe someone never saw the video that you posted six months ago. If you want to post an Instagram Reel on it again and push people to watch that YouTube video again, you can absolutely do that. Let's talk about measuring the success of your vlog. When it comes to looking at your metrics, it can be a little bit overwhelming, especially on YouTube because they give you so much information. One of the main metrics I like to look at especially for vlogs is the watch time, and this is how long people are watching your video. YouTube will calculate your average watch time. Now, if your video is 20-minutes long and people are only watching one minute of it, that tells you something. I try to read my analytics beyond what the numbers say, and I will go back to that vlog and say, what did I do in that first minute that could've just cause somebody to click off of it? Maybe your thumbnail is misleading, maybe you're doing a day in the life and you show a big mansion on the thumbnail, but then that's not what they see when they click on the video. You do want to be careful with misleading with hopes of getting views if they're not going to translate into genuine views. Looking at your watch time can really help you see what are people really engaging in. Also, if you have titles in your video or text on screen, a lot of people will take their mouse and scroll and see what's to come. Having text on screen is going to help increase your watch time or music. These are all things that I've baked into this class to really help you have the best-performing vlog that you can. But it is good to look at your watch time, that's one of the most important analytics you can observe. Another way you can use your metrics is once you have a few vlogs under your belt, it's good to go and look at which ones did get the most views? Which one's got a lot of comments? Which ones had the best watch time? Go and inspect the different things that you did for those high-performing vlogs, maybe your thumbnail was the best in that one because your text was the most clear on that thumbnail, and since then you've been using this weird cursive font that no one can read. It can be as simple as the font that you're using in your thumbnails that can drive a lot more traffic to one video versus another. Look at your videos that perform really well or even if they're just performing a little bit better than some of your videos, and take those numbers and use them to compare, but also to just create better content over time. Choose whatever metrics makes the most sense alongside of your business goals. I honestly recommend only looking at one or two metrics because it is very easy to get overwhelmed. Also, in the beginning, you want to just enjoy having fun with making the content, you want to get your feet wet with learning what your style is, you're trying to collaborate with an editor possibly. There are a lot of learning curves that you're going to experience when you're creating a vlog for the first time. Also, don't be too hard on yourself if your analytics don't necessarily completely reflect the work that you've put in. Again, this is a long-term game, so you're going to want to create more and more content, and just improve it over time. Now, the time has come, it is time to push "Publish". I know that can feel so scary, but you just got to do it. Go ahead and push "Publish", and share with the world what you've been working so hard on. [MUSIC] 10. Final Thoughts: [MUSIC] Congrats, you have made it this far. I hope you enjoyed this class and that you've got so much out of it and most importantly that you are feeling confident to go out and start vlogging for your business. Vlogging has brought me so much joy and honestly so much money. I cannot help but to share with people the power that vlogging can bring into your business. It doesn't have to just be for fun. It can be fun and for your business. My last bit of advice is suggest making your own. Your vlog can be however long, however short you want it. The biggest thing I want you to take from this lesson is to have the confidence to just show who you are, what your brand or your business represents through vlogging. The best rule is that there are no real rules. These are guidelines and strategies that I have discovered have helped me grow, I have lots of success in vlogging. I'm sure along your journey you're going to find some things that make your vlogs your own. Be sure to share your final vlog in the project gallery. If you haven't gotten that far yet, just share with us where you are in the process. We cannot wait to see what you create. Thanks so much for attending this class. I hope to see you on YouTube as the next vlogging superstar. Bye for now. [MUSIC]