Vlogging is getting popular among the masses these days. People use vlogging to express their talents and lifestyle to a greater audience. And the best part is that it can become their primary source of income.
Like vlogging, blogging is also another popular means of showing your talents and ideas. They may seem similar to each other, but there are some significant differences. We have talked about the difference between these two in another article. You can check it out here ( Vlogging vs Blogging ) if you want to.
There are several online platforms, like YouTube and TikTok, that people use to start a vlogging channel. However, the competition out there is tough, and you need to put in quite some effort if you want to grow your channel. Here are some vlogging tips and tricks that you can follow to grow your channel.
Table of Contents
Set a Goal
The most important thing that you need in order to find success in vlogging is to set a goal. It will act as a beacon for you, and you will know what steps you need to take to reach that goal.
First, ask yourself – what do you want to accomplish? Is it millions of viewers, or do you want to improve your skills? You can also think about the revenue you want to earn when setting up a goal.
Focus on short-term goals at first and improve your skills. Once you reach your goals and get a decent number of regular viewers, you can shift to larger goals.
Select a Niche
You can see that there are lots of successful vloggers on YouTube. In fact, you may even look up to some of them.
But you need to understand that they did not become famous for making vlogs on trendy topics. They became famous because they love doing what they do, which makes them good at it.
Pretending that you are enjoying something can work initially. But as time passes, your viewers will realize that you are not enjoying what you are doing, and they may leave you. Plus, you will have a hard time motivating yourself to make new videos.
Find what you are good at and whether you enjoy it. It can be anything you want. If people see that you are enjoying your work, more people will watch your videos, and you can grow your channel without much difficulty.
Get to Know your Audience
You need to understand your audience and what they like and dislike. You should also know the age group of your audience. You can use that information to improve your content.
You can host polls in your social media handles to ask for opinions or interact with your audience in the comment section to get to know them better.
Stay on Trend
Trends act as a massive boost to the careers of vloggers on any platform. Whenever a trend comes on the internet, people look for it more on different platforms. This is the right time to gain more viewers.
Look for what’s trending among the audience. You can use Google Trends to find out what the general masses have been searching for in the last few days. If there is a holiday or festival in that week/month, you can make videos on that as well.
We have an article consisting of some popular vlogging ideas. You can go check them out.
Quality vs. Quantity
Having quality footage for vlogging is more important. You can post videos daily, but they may not be entertaining. In fact, your viewers may leave you.
So, instead of posting frequent videos, try to deliver good content and focus more on quality. You can take your time to edit the footage and make your videos better.
If your viewers enjoy your content, then it won’t matter even if you post two videos a week. However, if you want, you can ask your audience whether they want quality videos or frequent uploads. This is one of the best vlogging tips for beginners.
Be Consistent
There may be times when you see that your channel is not growing anymore. You may lose the motivation required to make videos. But that is a mistake that most vloggers make. You have to be different if you want to make a name as a vlogger.
No matter what happens, don’t stop uploading. Make a schedule and keep on uploading your videos. Keep discovering new ways to improve your content. Remain consistent – who knows when you will suddenly become famous.
Add a Watermark
The internet is free for everyone and all the information present there is public. So, anyone can take your content. There have been times when people steal another person’s content and take all the credit.
Online platforms like YouTube have measures that you can use to get the credit of content stolen from you. However, as a safety measure, you should also add a watermark to all your footage so that even if someone copies it, your name will be shown in the video.
Use the Camera You Have
You don’t have to buy expensive kits from the start. Anyone can start vlogging with very cheap equipment. Budget smartphones these days can record in very high quality, so you can use that camera only to record all your videos. If you have mid-range or premium smartphones, then that’s even better.
Once you get enough money, you can buy a mirrorless or DSLR camera to improve your video quality. We have a list of the best cameras you can buy for vlogging. Go check it out.
Master the Audio
Some vloggers become famous for their smooth transitions and choosing the perfect music for that mood. Also, most vloggers own good mics for crystal clear audio. If you want to attract more viewers and make them stay, you need to focus on voice and music as well.
The first tip for vlogging in public is to buy a good microphone and filter out the noise. You can use your phone’s internal microphone, but you will see some loss in audio quality due to the noise from the surroundings. It is better to buy dedicated microphones for vlogging. If you are tight on budget, you can buy a cheap lavalier microphone. Later, you can go for expensive ones.
As for audio, you should make sure that you find some music that suits your vlogging style. The beats and transition would be in sync; else, it would look and feel bad.
You can always take the help of YouTube channels that provide non-copyrighted songs, like NCS. That way, you can add music to your vlogs without worrying about your videos getting demonetized.
Work on Your Confidence
When you are shooting a vlog, you are not just talking to a camera. You are talking to your audience via that camera. So, you need to act like yourself in front of the lens, and for that, you need confidence.
You need to work on your confidence and get that camera boldness that every vlogger needs. You need to talk to the camera while acknowledging your imperfections and accept them. You need to act natural and friendly to your audience so that they feel like you are talking to them personally. This skill will get better with practice.
Learn from Successful Vloggers
One of the best ways to learn anything is to watch successful people do it and learn from their experiences. You can watch famous vloggers like Casey Neistat, Markiplier, and others. You can even watch some regional vloggers.
Some of these vloggers share their stories and several vlogging tips and tricks. You should definitely watch them if you plan on being successful. You can look at traveling vloggers as they can give you nice tips for vlogging in public.
Use a Tele-Prompter
This beginner’s vlogging tip feels like a cheat code and will drastically improve your performance. When you are looking at the camera and speaking, the camera shyness can kick in, and you may forget your lines or stutter.
Keeping a teleprompter behind the camera is an amazing way to get over this problem. You can write a well-designed script and display it on the prompter. Even if you forget your lines or if you stutter, you can take a glance at the prompter, and you will remember it. In fact, if you place the teleprompter strategically, it will look like you are looking at the lens when you are actually looking at the teleprompter.
However, this method only works if you are shooting your footage indoors. When traveling, you need to speak according to the scenario and make up the lines on the go.
Note: Even though this makes your work a lot easier, do not make this a habit. As you keep on making videos for vlogs, you need to improve your oratory skills in front of the lens. Else, you will become heavily dependent on a machine and will never be able to truly express yourself.
Check out our list of vlogging accessories
Make Standout Video Titles and Thumbnails
There are so many vloggers out there posting similar content as yours. If you want to grow your channel among this competition, the only way to do that is to attract the audience to your video.
The first things that a viewer looks at are the thumbnail and title. You need to make titles and thumbnails that stand out among all the videos of similar categories. You also need to focus more on search engine optimization so that whenever someone searches for a video, yours is shown at the top.
There are guides on YouTube which teach you how to make attractive thumbnails. You can even learn from successful vloggers.
Don’t even think of using click-baiting techniques. They may work at first, but later your channel will lose growth.
Learn to Tell Stories
People love to listen to stories. If you can pique their interest, they will keep on listening till the end of the story. This trick is used by every successful vlogger.
You need to follow a three-act story structure. In other words, divide your story into three parts – setup, confrontation, and resolution.
Firstly, tell the user about the scenario and give them the information required to further progress into the story. You can use this act to build suspense which will make the viewer stay till the end of the video.
Then you need to record clips that show the progress of the story. You don’t have to film continuously but make sure to keep the important parts. If you are making a travel vlog, show some parts of the journey between two destinations to make the video engaging.
After that, you need to show a conclusion that will leave your viewers satisfied. Some vloggers also use this section to tease for the next video.
Think About Lighting
When shooting for a vlog, your face needs to be clearly visible when you are talking to your camera. When shooting indoors, you need to buy proper Vlogging lighting equipment. You can also sit near a sun-faced window for free and natural lighting.
Buying lighting equipment is not enough. You need to know about proper placement. Look for online guides on lighting. There are a lot of them on YouTube.
Get Feedback from Your Audience
Your success as a vlogger is completely dependent on your viewers. So, you need to ask what your viewers like as well.
Tell your viewers to give their opinions and ideas in the comment section. Reply to their comments and interact with them. It will make them feel better, and your name will spread among others.
You can also tell them to communicate with you on your different social media handles. This will allow for easier communication, and your fan following on other social media handles will increase as well. A lot of YouTubers use Reddit to get vlogging ideas from their fans.
Platforms like YouTube and Instagram also have the option to host polls where you can ask the opinions of your viewers. Having a Q&A session is also a great idea.
Click here to see the list of recommended vlogging editing software
Wrapping Up
These are all the vlogging tips and tricks you need to get started. The journey will be hard, and there are a lot of people who have the same dreams like yours. But if you are consistent and know how to stand out among others, you have a bright future ahead of you.
Keep on testing new things. Use appreciation as motivation and criticisms as ways to improve yourself. Interact with your audience a lot and use their feedback to make changes to your content. Confidence is a must and follows all the above tips for vlogging in public.
We hope that this article has helped you. Now pick up your camera and have fun vlogging.
