Video blogging (‘vlogging’, for short) is revolutionising the way internet users access information and interact with one another. Watching a 5 minute video clip or tutorial is, for many, easier than reading an article that could easily span two or three printed pages. The average internet user can now, with a few clicks and an original idea, become an online, world-famous, video rockstar. If this is your one true dream (being a rockstar other than your Guitar Hero skills while the dog watches you with it’s head tilted slightly to the left), here are a few basic steps to rock stardome…and setting up a video blog (no instruments or years of musical training required).
01. Select a camera
This can be anything, from your mobile phone to a broadcast quality video camera. As long as you can start somewhere, capturing video in a digital format. If your camera choice doesn’t have a built in microphone of some kind, a microphone and connection to somehow capture the audio is also required. Mobile phones and digital cameras generally have built in microphones though.
02. Select your location
Location, location, location. Lighting, audio resonance and space are all factors. Choose your location consciously. If it doesn’t work the first time, change it up until you find the ideal location for your blog. Online celebrity and public speaker, Gary Vaynerchuk, has a really great sense of location, in my opinion.
03. Decide what your blog will be about
Choosing your topic of discussion, or a general scope of what our video blog will discuss, is as important as it would be on a text-based blog. If you have no direction, you won’t know what to film and talk about. Your vlog could also take on the form of an online TV show, such as WineLibraryTV, where Gary tastes and comments on various wines.
04. Film a video clip
Here’s the fun part. Get out you camera/mobile phone, position it in your location and hit record. When you’re done chatting, hit the stop button. Hey presto! You have your first video clip.
05. Upload the clip online
Techie nerd possibly required. If your video clip is small, you may not need to edit it (unless you want to clip, cut and crop bits in and out of it). If your video clip is from a broadcast camera, you will need to compress and edit it somewhat. There are various tools for basic video editing. This is a bit beyond the scope of this post, for the moment. For starters, would with a small file size on the camera you’re working with.
Once you’ve got your clip ready for online and at an acceptable file size, it’s time to choose how you’re going to serve your fresh video to the online public. Are you going to host it yourself, costing you bandwidth on your own server, or are you going to go the more popular route and host with a video hosting service? Lets choose the latter for the moment.
Youtube, Google Video, Viddler, Blip.tv and Zoopy are all websites that allow for the upload and streaming of video. They also provide a video player control panel and the option to embed your video on your website. This is what we need!
The step-by-step upload process on the above websites is straight forward, but can take a while (depending on the file size of your video). A cup of tea would be good at this point.
06. Post it on your blog
Lets keep it simple for the moment. If you are new to blogging, you would still require your blogging platform. This is not required if you want to just use the user profile created by any of the above-mentioned websites. This profile will log all your videos and allow you to interact with other users and video bloggers.
If you have a blog already and would like to embed your videos on your blog, simply copy the embed code generated by one of the above mentioned websites, copy it into a post (using the HTML/Code view) and hit save.
07. Promote your posts
Promotion is up to you. Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, Email newsletters, other websites and using the social aspects of the above-mentioned video websites are all methods of promoting your video blog. Interview other video bloggers, share links, tell your friends. The options are virtually limitless.
This is a basic guide to the setup of your video blog and achieving video rock stardome. Like music, it can be extended as far as your knowledge or desire to learn will take you. For inspiration, check out From-the-Couch, WineLibraryTV and The Onion– three great video blogs on a variety of topics. Remember, rockstars aren’t born playing face-melting guitar solos…it takes time and practice. 😉
Image courtesy: stock.xchng
Do you run a video blog? Did you find the above useful? Share your thoughts in the comments.
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