How to vlog

Hi, I'm Matt.

I'm Chris.

This is our third vlog.

Yeah, we're doing well. And this time we're gonna talk about vlogging.

So we're talking about a vlog in a vlog.

Yep.

So it's like vlog Inception.

Yep.

Yeah, so bear with us. You've got your tip phone with you.

Why vlog? Creating an honest representation of you and your company. Engaging with people and getting viewers involved.

I've got my tip phone. And number one in the vlogging vlog is 'Why vlog?'

How many times are we gonna say 'vlog' in this video? Maybe we can put a little counter up here. The vlog counter we should call it.

If you want people to connect with your business, you've got to seem like a real person. Or your business has gotta seem open, so this is a really good format to do it in. So, you probably haven't heard of Rusty Monkey before, and you don't know what we stand for, and you've never seen us, but if we just do this, you'll know that we're, like, fun guys and we're really interesting...

Ooh, that sounded really nasty, that sounded like the old Facebook or MySpace pages where people say, 'I'm crazy, I am.'

Well, we're not that zany or anything... But it gets us across and you'd know what to expect if you came to meet us.

Yeah, I think, importantly, when we set out to do these vlogs, we're not trying to be anyone else, we're just being us, and it's important to get that honesty over, I think, when you're doing this kind of thing. In fact, in one of our previous vlogs we talked about honesty in marketing, so this is us showing ourselves warts and all, even in our still not-quite-complete offices.

Yeah, we're working on it.

Maybe one day we'll have some workers in the background.

We'll have to Photoshop them in.

So, honesty we think is really important when we're vlogging and that's what we're gonna try and do.

Yeah, so why are we vlogging? We chatted with a client of ours and told them they need to vlog, and we decided to have a competition. So we started a vlog ourselves.

Who knows, by the time this is released, we'll probably know who's winning.

I hope we are. I really hope we are.

That's not entirely why we're doing the vlog, but it was our incentive to start, and that's the important thing, is just to start. Because the more people are subjected to you as people, the more people buy into your culture, your way of thinking - and you'll get to work (hopefully) with the people you wanna work with as well, the people you make that connection with.

Audio is king: invest in a decent microphone. Don't worry about the video quality too much.

So the first point I wanna talk about... Well, it's the second point now, isn't it? Anyway, it's the kit you need. It's really important to get the sound right. You could vlog with any piece of kit really. If you've got a phone, that will do, but I would invest in a mic and a light. I'll put some kit suggestions in the comments below, and then you can buy exactly the kit that we spec'd to our client. It's just got to look decent, but sound great. If you do a video in a noisy environment and you're on your phone, you just won't hear it, and people will just switch off after five seconds.

Yeah, I think really focus on that audio. It's worth investing in a clip-on mic or a good condenser mic. You can get away with rough video, and the cameras on most phones nowadays are really great, but it's really your message you've gotta get across. And if people can't hear you, if it's a noisy, trafficky environment and you're shouting over it, your video might look great but you've lost the audience straight away.

So you don't have to spend a fortune, you just have to be careful.

Make it a good length.Keep your vlogs short and watchable. Aim for 5-10 minutes.

Okay, next one. And this one is length. Keep it short.

Yes, vlog-length.

So you've gotta keep it down to a watchable chunk, something that people can watch over breakfast or whatever. So five or ten minutes, maximum.

Yeah, hopefully this one will be in that window, otherwise we're going to look stupid.

Yeah, I'll edit it down if it doesn't work.

Excellent.

I'll put in a random cut- Provide valuable content.Create valuable for your viewers, such as tips and how-to videos. Invite readers to engage and watch again.

Content.

Yeah, what are we going to vlog about, Chris?

We are going to vlog about things that will give customers value. We're not going to vlog about a general thing going, 'Oh, here is Rusty Monkey and we do websites and we do videos and whatever' - people aren't gonna get value out of that. If you give tips or something that is gonna get people to come back and watch again, that's what you need to do.

Such as vlogging tips inside a vlog. Keep it consistent. Publish a new vlog regularly. Don't let your vlog channel lose momentum.

Consistency. People are gonna expect your vlog every however long. There's a web design guy who does one every day. We're not gonna do that. But we're gonna try and do it once a month. No, once a week.

Yeah, once a week. Let's see how that goes.

But you've got to do it. If you miss six months or whatever, people are just not gonna switch onto you. People are just gonna walk away.

Yeah, and we're really hoping some guys and girls out there will start engaging with us and asking us some questions. We've got a lot of expertise in our company, so anything in the creative industries - if you've got a question, ask us and maybe we can give some advice back. That's our aim, and we're only gonna get that engagement if we continue doing this. Which we are committed to. We say.

And if you see videos in eight weeks' time, you'll know we're still being consistent.

If not, we will delete these from the world.

Possibly.

Don't worry. Accept that you will make mistakes on camera. People want to see the real you, not you reading from a script.

And last thing is: when you're speaking to camera, don't worry. If you make a mess of a line, it doesn't matter. People expect real people, and that's who we are.

You're not gonna be perfect like we are. We nail this stuff all the time. We never go wrong. But don't worry about that, you're allowed to make mistakes. You don't have to be superheroes like us.

So, those are all our vlogging tips that we have for today. If you need any advice on how to vlog or any other questions, just get in touch and we'll answer them on one of the next ones.