Vlog vs Blog – Which Is Best for My Brand?

Blogging and vlogging are very effective strategies for brands and individuals who want to generate the maximum amount of traffic for their websites. Be it amateur blog owners, beauty gurus on YouTube, or experienced professionals in the field of social media marketing – everyone is trying their hand at promoting their businesses, or promoting themselves through the two mediums.

For many well-known bloggers and vloggers, it is their primary source of income, and way of making a living. You can see for yourself how the top vloggers attract huge numbers of views and subscribers on their YouTube channels. However, how does one decide on the perfect medium to convey their thoughts and impart their knowledge?

Factors to Consider When Choosing to Blog or Vlog

• Topics / Keywords

You can provide instructions, information, news updates, marketing, and customer reviews with a vlog or a blog. However, vlogs work best with subjects and images you can show viewers. For example, you can make a video that shows people exactly how to apply attractive makeup, make fun crafts, or assemble your company’s products. Vlogs are also great for interviewing guests or showing people all the amenities in hotels or at tourist attractions.

Blogs are best when the information you need to convey is long or complex. You can include convenient headings so your readers can see exactly what each article is about immediately. If some readers are looking for specific information or doing research for their own vlogs or blogs, they can find the information quickly and easily without having to sit through a video.

• Skillset

To create a blog, you need to be a good writer. Spelling and grammar mistakes will make anything you post less credible to readers, so you’ll need to take the time to proofread your posts and correct any errors. Many blogging platforms like WordPress, Blogger, or Tumblr are free, but you should still have some knowledge of web design to make your blog attractive and interesting. You can also pay a third-party company to design your blog.

SEO or search engine optimization is an important skill for bloggers. When you use Google or another search engine, it ranks the most popular pages that contain the words you searched for first. These commonly searched words are called keywords. A meta description or one-sentence summary of your article can also increase your search engine ranking and attract more readers. These are the basics of SEO, but it can be very complex. Many businesses hire SEO experts to get the highest possible search engine rankings.

With a vlog, you won’t have to be a good writer, but you’ll need some charisma. Vlogs should be exciting and entertaining, and no one will want to watch a video if the host reminds them of their most boring high school teacher. If you don’t like to appear on camera or talk to a large group of people, write a blog instead. Even if you don’t write a script for your vlog, you should still put together a basic outline. Hosting guests, making a how-to video, or showing off the amenities at a mall, hotel, or restaurant will take some planning ahead.

• Who Are You Creating the Content For?

Online videos are easy to share, and they appeal to a range of people. For example, a vlog about making furniture at home could be interesting and entertaining even to someone who doesn’t have the tools or space needed to try it themselves. Similarly, many people who don’t have time to go on vacation watch vlogs about exotic places instead. Also, watching videos is faster than reading articles, and multitasking by cleaning or getting ready for work at the same time is easier.

Blogs appeal more to people who need detailed information. With a blog post, you can list all the sources for your article so that readers can check the facts. It’s also easy to include links to other helpful information. Vloggers can name other websites, but viewers could misspell the sites or make other mistakes, keeping them from finding the right sources.

• Costs and Overheads

Vlogging is usually more expensive than blogging because it requires sophisticated equipment. For a quality vlog, you’ll need one or more microphones, a good camera, and a quiet place to make your videos. Some vloggers make elaborate sets or use a green screen to project different backgrounds. Others use advanced sound mixing equipment along with separate camera crews or sound specialists. Some vloggers even use professional makeup artists. With a blog, you only need a computer and access to the internet.

Also, traffic from vlogs is harder to monetize since viewers can’t click on interesting links as easily as they can with blogs. You can still add links in the comments to your videos and mention affiliated products, but tracking is more difficult. If you mention your newest product in your vlog, there’s no good way to tell how many viewers plan to make a purchase. On YouTube, you have to become a partner to get revenue from third-party ads, but the feature isn’t available in all countries.

• Video Hosting

To post videos on pages that aren’t part of your business’s website, you’ll need to use a video hosting site like YouTube or Vimeo. You can take advantage of the traffic on these sites to get more viewers and customers for your business. You also don’t need much knowledge of SEO to make your vlog popular. Instead of SEO, most vlogging sites rank videos by the number of likes and shares they get from viewers.

However, your content has to comply with all the rules on these sites. If it doesn’t match the site’s standards, your channel could be shut down. For example, YouTube doesn’t allow hateful content, threats, harassment, violent or graphic content, nudity, spam or scams, or impersonating another channel.

To take advantage of all the benefits of vlogging and blogging, you can host a vlog and a blog. It’s easy to type transcripts of all your videos so that people who have poor hearing or who just don’t like videos can enjoy your content. You can also add short, entertaining videos to your blog to keep people wanting more. Blogs and vlogs are both great ways for you to make money and promote your business.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Blogging

Blogging, in the most simplest terms, is like an online log where the author can document their experiences, share thoughts and information, and give advice. Publishing blogs has become a norm for businesses as they provide a great platform for engaging with potential consumers.

Blogs are easy to set up, and there is no specific technical knowledge that is required to do so. If you are using blogging platforms like WordPress, Blogger, etc., they can be activated without any monetary investment. Blogging does not require a vast array of equipment. The only things you might require are a laptop or a desktop and a working Internet connection.  If you can write well, and convey your thoughts through written words – blogging can really work for you. By using techniques like affiliate marketing, or by optimizing your blogs using proper SEO, you can make a living through writing blogs.

However, if you own a blog, and are looking to gain a loyal readership, it is vital to have a good knowledge of SEO. Learning about keywords, meta tagging, and adding an appropriate description is necessary to ensure that your blog shows up among the higher searches on search engines.

Along with having good SEO knowledge, you will have to keep your blog updated on a consistent and regular basis. Once your readers start to enjoy reading your blog, they will want to come back for well-written posts. However, if your blog posts are spread far apart from each other, readers may start to lose interest in reading. Being a blog owner also means that you would have to be able to write in a captivating manner. The issues, themes and topics you write about need to be appealing and substantial for them to get the reader’s attention.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Vlogging

Vlogging involves the same process of sharing information, experiences and giving advice, but it is done in a video format as opposed to a written one. Setting up a good vlog is not very difficult if you have the right kind of equipment. Many vloggers set up YouTube accounts, using which they can easily record, edit and publish video content online.

The vlogger need not have professional writing skills, as vlogging is more inclined towards giving the audience a more conversational experience. As long as the topic or issue being discussed is interesting and engaging, vloggers and their respective vlogs can become very successful and popular.

That being said, a disadvantage of a vlog is that it does not provide a chance to edit it after publishing it online. Unlike blogs, which can be edited easily, vlogs have to be either taken down, or re-made to correct the error. Vlogs are also quite time-consuming to make. It can take anywhere from two to four hours to record, edit and publish a vlog.

Blogging vs Vlogging – An Overview

Blogging is a great starting point for SEO efforts; you get to create content which is easy to digest, may be updated to be more relevant at any given stage, and is easy to optimise with keywords for SEO. You’ll learn the basics as you go along, and your blogs will grow with the knowledge and experience you gain.

You can reach an exceptionally large audience with backlinks and mentions, and the content is easily shared across all platforms – including the all-elusive LinkedIn 0- which seems to favour written content over video content.

However, no brand can be a one-trick-pony, so at some stage you should look to incorporate video into your blogs – even if it’s a minute long clip – you will eventually learn the tricks of the vlog trade.

Video content is by far the most used and shared media types out there right now, so if you’re looking at getting into the video game make sure your content is up to scratch. Also, ensuring your SEO is right up there too is almost as important. Use tag for keywords, add your home page to your video description, add channel cover art, add end-screens and cards to each and every video improve your video lick-through rate, and most importantly – make sure your description is inviting and informative enough to draw potential leads.

Sources:

http://www.copypress.com/blog/blogging-vs-vlogging-better/ and https://tubularinsights.com/blogging-vs-vlogging/