In August, I attended BlogHer and got to talk to pick the brains of some of my favorite bloggers for tips and tricks to success. Both Molly and Colleen have incredible blogs (if you haven’t checked them out, I will give you a minute, but come right back….) and both implement vlogs into their daily posts. I have been watching their videos for years and have decided that I would love to incorporate more vlogs here at Experimental Mommy.
Writing a thoughtful and honest review post and hosting a corresponding giveaway is a very time consuming process. I spend hours on researching the product, testing it at my home, capturing and processing the perfect photo with my image editing software, pounding out the post and promoting the giveaway. I am always proud of the outcome, but I am wondering if there isn’t something more I could be doing to share my thoughts with you.
I decided to vlog. Maybe this would be a better way to show more details of the products and how they work….and maybe be more time efficient, too (heck, it has to be easier than my current photo editor)! After the first attempt, I was immediately discouraged. I hated the way I looked, I talked too fast, and I didn’t feel like the video looked very professional (maybe it was time for some video production editing….or some heavy makeup). So, I tried again. And got worse. The more I rehearsed, the more unnatural and uneasy I became. HELP!
I decided to talk with Colleen about her vlogging process. Her advice?
Do one take and one take only! Your readers want to see the product in action in your real life…screaming kids and all. Talk like you would be talking to your friend and wrap it up.
Wow….that’s exactly the opposite of what I had been doing. But, she is totally right. I have been using this theory on my last few reviews and even let my kids take the reigns on some recent posts as well. I am looking forward to sharing them with you soon.
Do you vlog? What are your best tips?
http://www.youtube.com/breakingkenosha
I vlog, like you, and have been doing so for a little over a year now. (I accidentally deleted my last channel trying to disconnect it from Google – oops – and have recently started a new channel.) I find the best thing to do with blogging, as you noted, is to just relax, have fun, and let what happens happen. No one is perfect. Sometimes my hair is a little crazy (seems to be a life-long curse) or the kids say something or do something that I wish they wouldn’t have… but, you know what, that’s what people enjoy about us, not that we’re perfect, but that we’re just like them… albeit a little bit quirky. LOL :o)