Blogger or Vlogger – what is best for beginners! 2020
Blogger or Vlogger – what is best for you!
You can take a look at the skills that you need to become a Blogger or the skills you need to become a Vlogger and then decide which you are more interested. To be successful at either you need to practice the skills that are necessary and also enjoy the process - Because you’ll need to do it for a very long time!
Blogging is a platform where people come together
to share their ideas, experience, opinions, or
anything to their “followers.” It is no surprise that a massive platform like
Instagram etc works great to
get your word out and start your blog. All you need is one picture and some
words, and you are ready to go.
Vlogs are video blogs. They are a more visual way
to bring your word forward. One of the most common vlog platforms is YouTube.
Since YouTube is fast and free, the only thing standing between the vlogger and
vlog is their equipment.
Does Vlogging Takes more equipment.
Yes, Vlogging takes more equipment. But the camera
phones are the easiest way to start at beginner. Another stuff is also now
very reasonable. YouTube marketing is equally important and prominent. Take, for
instance, 91% of young moms trust on YouTube vloggers for products.
Overall, both of these seem to have an excellent impact for marketers
all around the world. Let’s move on, to see which one truly works best in 2020.
What is a blog?
Blogging seem in the early
2000s as hosting and internet access, became
affordable for everyone. It started with political blogs but blogging quickly
became about personal topics, experience and opinions.
In 2020, there are millions of bloggers in the world.
I love blogging as it is all about driving
traffic to a website. Once you have attracted the traffic you are
able to offer business services, advertisements and also earn a semi
passive income.
Define Blog.
A blog (a truncation of “weblog“) is a discussion or informational website
published on the World Wide Web consisting
of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog
The blogger.
Bloggers create
their content in a written form. They usually own
a website and they post blog articles there. The best example is my
website: matipsandtricks.com. This is a blog and I am a blogger.
I know Melo, the
owner of Out of Town Travel Blog, and he is the one behind each blog post that
you are seeing and every update on his website.
Whereas YugaTech
has a whole team working on the website and is making YugaTech a true brand
that goes beyond its blog. Anyway, this is another
topic…
So, the owner of the blog is the blogger as he or
she is mostly the one who
created the blog in the first place and decides which type of content should
be published.
The purpose of becoming a blogger.
Initially, blogging was a personal activity
used to express ideas, experience and to share knowledge. However, once the business
world learned of the benefits of blogging for raising authority and increasing
the traffic flow to a monetized website then blogging became a powerful sales tool!
Maybe, the main
purpose of a blog is to connect an audience you to that you want to sell things
too – either ideas or products and services etc. There’s no
point having a website that doesn’t get any traffic – is there?
The more blogs you have on your website the
better! They should be long-form (over 1500 words) and be highly relevant to your target audience. This is done by
performing excellent keyword
analysis and writing content that answers a search query that a large number of
your audience is searching for.
Great blogging makes you and your business
look credible and knowledgeable. When your business is particularly young or
not well-known in blogging is a
really effective method of growing credibility and gets you and your business
for the right reasons.
Once you have a well thought out and real blog it is
something that can keep on rewarding you years after you have written the
article. The average article on the top spot of google has been online for
about three years! So, a whole three
years after you have written the article it’ll still be working for you after
three years! It is all about planting the seeds!
What is vlogging?
A vlog, or video
blog, is a short video that generally has someone
talking to the camera and talking about a particular topic. Vloggers are
very similar to bloggers because they also share informational
content and their personal experience about a
particular topic. The main difference is that they do it through videos.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vlog/
The word “vlog”
comes from blog. It is a shorter version for video blogs.
As video content
really boomed in the past five years, thanks to many reasons: social media growth,
internet accessibility, smartphones range for consumers, affordable high-quality
cameras and equipment for individuals, etc.
For professionals, Linkedin has become a popular place for a short vlog style videos.
The purpose of becoming a vlogger.
The purpose of a vlog depends on the goals of someone that’s creating
the vlog. Before you become a vlogger you need to answer these questions of “what do you
want your vlog to reach?”.
Do you want to grow awareness of you and your
stuff and services?
Do you want to become an influencer? Are you doing it for any SEO purposes
for your website? Are you wanting to grow your personal brand?
All of these reasons for vlogging are
completely valid and your vlogging strategy will be guided by the answer to
this question.
The great thing about vlogging is that it is a very intimate way of presenting content. Your audience gets to know you! Your audience will hopefully like you. And then, your audience will look to you for solutions and information in your area of expertise.
Is Vlogging killing blogging?
No, of course not. This is like saying that movies are killing books? Vlogging
may have some advantages. However, blogging is still much more reachable in
terms of SEO. There is no killing involved here!
Bloggers and Vloggers use Different Tools
The blogger’s tools
Bloggers need
less equipment than vloggers and they can start with
very little bit investment. For
less than $5 per month, you
can have a professional website and upload your blog articles there.
An internet
connection, a computer/ laptop and a website is all
they need to perform their online activity.
However, they
might need to spend later in addons features such as plugins for their website,
facebook or google ads to get known quickly, they need to know how to operate a
website and they will probably need editing software if they want to include
nice graphics in their posts.
But often, those
things are not mandatory. If your articles are good enough to read and people
like them. That’s the only you need to have a great blog and make it run.
For the vloggers, it’s
totally different.
The vlogger’s
equipment
Because vloggers
create content in a video form.
They need video production equipment to do for the job.
And depending on
the quality they’re trying to achieve. Camera gear can be much
expensive.
Most
professional vloggers use professional cameras for vlogging and they keep on
increasing the quality of their stuff because viewers
are expecting better and better vlogs.
Those cameras commonly have a digital
screen that can flip, so that when they are talking in front of it, they can
see him self on the screen
what they are shooting. Look at the picture above and you’ll see what I’m
talking about.
If you are
talking to the lens and not seeing with a screen on the side, you might have very bad
footage. Which is why you need that flip screen on your camera. And even those
entry-level cameras are not that affordable.
Plus, vloggers
are using microphones to record better quality audio
sound. Obviously, they are talking in front of the camera and as viewers, we
don’t really like when it is difficult to hear or to understand. Like a camera,
great microphones can cost you a lot.
If you are doing
travel videos, you might need a drone, etc. (its oppional)
Last but not
least, you might need to have a monthly subscription with an editing software
such as Premiere Pro.
So, as you
understand, being a vlogger might cost you much more at the
beginning and will require another type of skills to make a vlog channel
running.
Probably from
USD 200 with very basic equipment to thousands of dollars for pro equipment.
Finally, should you be a vlogger or a blogger?
Whether you are a blogger or a vlogger you
must decide on whether or not you enjoy writing or creating videos. You have to
fall in love with one, or a both, of the processes.
It is only by doing that, that you’ll be able to do it for the
amount of time that is required for the effort to pay off!
Good luck with your content making journey and the decision to be a blogger or vlogger!