If you have a desire to create your own video blog (vlog) then there is no better place to do it than on YouTube.
YouTube has incredible viewer traffic with around 4 billion page views every day. With these kinds of numbers there are bound to be a lot of people looking for what your vlog has to offer.
A successful vlog requires a good start, so follow the tips provided in this article to ensure that you start your vlog with a bang.
Planning is very important as you want to make the right impact from the beginning.
Decide what your Vlog will be about
What are you passionate about? Do you have certain skills that would be useful to others? Can you monetize the videos that you create?
If you are interested in something like gaming, makeup, making money, sports teams, pets, health and fitness etc then there are many others that share these interests as well.
It is vital that you are interested in the subject of your vlog. You want your passion to shine through in all of your videos.
If you are not excited about your chosen vlog subject then this will be obvious in your videos and your vlog will fail.
Get the Right Tools
We are talking recording equipment and editing software here.
Yes you can use the camera in your smartphone to record videos, but it is much better if you invest in a good HD camera for your video recordings.
You don’t have to break the bank here as there are some very good cameras for vlogging available for less than $200.
Good cameras have built in microphones but these are not always the best.
Audio quality is essential as people will not want to watch your videos if they can’t hear what you are saying. So invest in a good quality external microphone as well.
You will need to edit your vlog videos and the best way to do this is with a video editing suite for your computer.
There are some very expensive video editing software suites available but you don’t have to start with these.
Just use the free Windows Movie Maker or iMovie if you have a Mac.
They will do everything that you need to create great videos.
If you want to make “how to” videos and need to record your computer screen then you will need a desktop recording application.
Camtasia works very well for both Windows and Mac computers but it will cost around $200.
There are free alternatives such as CamStudio which are good enough to start with.
Decide on your Brand
What are you going to call your vlog? You can use your own name for this but you may decide that a brand name is better. So get creative and think of a good name that is memorable. Use this as your YouTube channel name.
Set up your YouTube Channel
All you need to set up a YouTube channel is a YouTube account (and a free Google account). Get some professional channel art created for your new channel to show that you mean business. If you are not a graphic designer then outsource this task.
