video blog

“All right, Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up” (Lessons Learned from a First Time Video Blog)

November 17th, 2008 | Author: Beth Harte

After doing my first video blog (vlog), I need to be self-critiquing and say that I wasn’t ready. In fact, I wish I could do it over…in a BIG way. Here’s what I got wrong what could have been done better:

The Opening

Introduce yourself, your blog name and address. If your video gets and separated from your blog you run the risk of people not knowing who you are or where you came from. More importantly, because it’s out of context from your blog, they won’t understand why you are talking about that particular subject.

Content

Talk about something that’s interesting to a lot of people or useful. Talking about something that most people might not understand or be interested in isn’t of value…nor will it lead to a viral life for your video.

Time

No one wants to hear anyone ramble on for 4 minutes unless it’s something totally fascinating (thank you all for being so nice in not pointing this out!).

Facial Expressions

It’s hard to put yourself out there in video let alone worry about facial expressions. But, let’s face it, controlling facial expressions and body language is important to appearing professional and appealing. And yet, you don’t want to look like a robot either. What can I say here but practice, practice, practice.

Branding

Select a video host like Viddler that allows you to put your logo on your video. Again, if it gets separated, people will know who you are. This is really only important if you don’t have a way to edit videos to add your logo, music, effects, etc.

Atmosphere

A home office isn’t really of visual interest, is it? Consider a set of some sort to provide an appealing locale. As well, props and background visuals add another layer of visual interest. You know what they say; an image is worth a thousand words.

More Tips

Li Evans at Search Marketing Gurus has a great post on how to add video into your on-line marketing strategy with some really valuable tips. Check it out…she’s a pro when it comes to utilizing video.

That’s my list of what to do better. What would you add?

[Photo: iStock]