How to Get Started with Video Blogging

Getting Started with Video Blogging & what to worry about

If you have been involved with blogging for a while you have probably seen some great times. But the wide availability of free blogging platforms means you have probably seen increased competition. To keep your place in the blogging hierarchy, you need to bring new ideas to your blog as technology has improved. This is why you need to get involved in video blogging.

An advantage of video blogging is that site visitors get to see your product. You can actually run through the benefits of your product or service and potential customers can see this real time. This beats traditional text blogging because it is more instantaneous.

If you are going to start a video blog, or you already have a blog, you need to make sure that you make it easy for site visitors to subscribe to your video blog. The easiest way to do this is the Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feed. The RSS feed is an easy way for visitors to subscribe to your blog.

If you want to start a video blog, you will need some equipment. At a minimum you will need:

•    A Webcam- Obviously, if you are recording yourself you will need a camera. If you are only doing basic recording of yourself you will only need a cheap camera.
•    A Microphone- If you want to say something in your video blog post, you will obviously need to be heard. If you are only using yourself talking, then a cheap microphone will do. If you are interviewing people, or singing, you may need to invest in a more expensive microphone.
•    Editing Software- If you use the Microsoft operating system, and then Windows offers its own editing software that should be adequate for mist video blogs. If you wish to get high tech, there are many options so you need to research thoroughly after you have decided what you want to happen in your video blog post.
•    Adequate Lighting- even if you are just using an inbuilt webcam on yourself, you need to ensure that you have adequate lighting so your visitors can see what you are recording. If they can’t they won’t return to your blog.

Despite the opportunities with video blogging, there are still some drawbacks. They include:

•    Video Blog Posts take up more disk space- A video log post will take up more space on your computer and hosting account than a standard text post.
•    Video Blog Posts need a faster server- If you do not have the fast server, then your visitors will find it extremely hard to view your videos
•    More Software required to record your posts, and for visitors to watch your posts- With a text blog you can just write your posts. If you want to start a video blog, you will need more software.
•    Your audience satisfaction is dedicated by there net speed- Even though much of the western world may have high speed internet, there are still many people using dialup. If your audience consists mainly of dial up users, then video blogging is not for you.

Video Blogging can be a way to catapult your blogging into a higher stratosphere, and hugely build your traffic. Unfortunately, there is a large audience out there that may not benefit from your vide posts, so you still need to offer these visitors another option.