Blogger vs vlogger. What is means and what is best for you!

Choosing whether or not you want to become a blogger or vlogger an be a tricky question to answer. You can take a look at the skills that you need to become a blogger vs the skills you need to become a vlogger and then decide which you are more interested in building. To be successful at either you need to practice the skills necessary and also enjoy the process – because you’ll need to do it for a very long time!

What makes a great blogger of vlogger is the ability to fall in love with the process of writing content online or producing video content! You need to choose an activity that you enjoy the process of and you enjoy learning about constantly. Work out your strength and weakness and whether or not you want to learn skills for video production or writing.

Want more information? Check out my other article Blog or vlog? It has a video too!

What is a blog?

Blogging appeared in the early 2000s as hosting and internet access became affordable for everyone. It started with political blogs and how-to manuals but blogging quickly became about personal topics and opinions. In 2020, the number of bloggers in the US is set to reach 31.7 million.

I love blogging as it is all about driving traffic to a website. Once you have attracted that traffic you are able to offer business services, advertisements and earn a semi passive income (if you choose).

Let’s take a broad look at what a blog is and how it has evolved.

The definition of a blog

A blog (a truncation of “weblog“) is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog

The purpose of becoming a blogger

Initially, blogging was a personal activity used to express ideas and share knowledge. However, once the business world learned of the benefits of blogging for raising authority and increasing the traffic flow to a monetized website – blogging became a powerful sales tool!

Arguably, the main purpose of a blog is to connect you to an audience that you want to sell things to – either ideas or products and services. There’s no point having a website that doesn’t get any traffic – is there?

The more blogs you have on your website the better! They should be long-form (over 1500 words) and be highly relevant for your target audience. This is done by performing keyword analysis and writing content that answers a search query that a large number of your audience is searching for.

At the moment, I believe there’s no benefit to producing content “regularly” – unless you love the writing process. My current model of blogging is to create a load of content – like 30 articles – as fast as I can and then wait three months or more to add to it.

Great blogging makes you and your business look credible and knowledgeable. When your business is particularly young or not well-known blogging is a really effective method of growing credibility and gets more eyes on you and your business for the right reasons.

Once you have a well thought out and substantial blog it is something that can keep on rewarding you years after you have written the article. The average article on the top spot of google has been online for about three years! So a whole three years after you have written the article it’ll still be working for you after three years! It is all about planting seeds!

The benefits of blogging

There are many ways that blogging can help you reach your personal or business goals. Here are my top 10 favorite reasons you should start a blog:

1. It boosts search engine optimization – probably the main reason that I use blogging. I do extensive keyword research before writing a blog. It includes using answerthepublic.com, getting search volumes from google keywords and then raking them using the keyword using the Keyword Golden Ratio. This helps me decide what to write about.
2. Develop relationships with a potential and existing customers – It helps establish me as a leader by putting me at the end of questions that my customers are searching for.
3. Establish your business as an industry leader – I love that I can share my knowledge and have the answers for people’s questions that position me as an expert in my field.
4. Provide value for your reader – by providing value to your reader you are quite literally giving them something for free. That helps deepen the relationship between you and the reader or potential customer.
5. Grow your personal brand – Whether you are looking for a new job or just trying to create awareness of what you do. Blogging is a great way to share your expertise so that you can build your personal brand!
6. Start a New Business – blogging is an excellent way to catalyze your business and get more eyes on your product or service.
7. Become a Better Writer – nothing makes you a better writer quicker than just writing a lot of content! In just over 6 months, I wrote over 60 articles at a minimum of 1500 words. That is over 90,000 words – the length of a novel.
8. Build a Network – by creating a blog you will have the opportunity to build a network of likeminded individuals and customers that you could leverage at anytime.
9. Learn In-Demand Skills – setting up a blog is more than pounding away at the keyboard. It is about leaning the technical aspects of setting up a website too! You have to learn about hosting, setting up a domain name and connecting email and other services. These skills are very valuable and can help in many jobs or careers.
10. Stay Knowledgeable in Your Field – By continuously writing content you are forced to stay on top of the latest trends and find out answers to the questions that are being asked in your field!

Who is a blogger?

In recent times, bloggers have become famous for various reasons. An alternative career or job to many, more people are choosing to join the ranks.

So who are bloggers?

These are individuals who love sharing parts of their lives with you. They post various topics from arts, home designs, carpentry, and finance articles. One of the best things about becoming a blogger is that the lifestyle is very mobile and you don’t need to be in one place.

You can blog from anywhere in the world and travel – if you work hard enough you’ll be able to escape the 9 – 5 rat race altogether – but that takes a lot of time and energy!

No wonder blogging is so popular!

Given the lifestyle that blogging affords you – it is a really awesome career – if you can turn it into a money making venture!

What Is Vlogging?

A vlog, or video blog, is a short video that typically has someone talking to the camera and talking about a topic that they are an authority on. Vloggers can also use a vlog to document their life in some way. Vlogging became popular on Youtube and since then has spilled across to other platforms too.

For professionals, Linkedin has become a popular place to post short vlog style videos.

Once again, lets take a step back and find out what a vlog really is:

The definition of a vlog

A video blog or video log, usually shortened to vlog, is a form of blog for which the medium is video, and is a form of web television. Vlog entries often combine embedded video (or a video link) with supporting text, images, and other metadata. Entries can be recorded in one take or cut into multiple parts.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vlog

The purpose of becoming a vlogger.

The purpose of a vlog depends on the goals of the person that’s creating the vlog. Before you become a vlogger you need to answer the question of “what do you want your vlog to achieve?”.

Do you want to grow awareness of you and your products and services? Do you want to become an influencer? Are you doing it for SEO purposes for your website? Are you wanting to grow your personal brand?

All of these reasons for vlogging are completely valid and your vlogging strategy will be guided by the answer to this question.

The great thing about vlogging is that it is a very intimate way of presenting content. Your audience gets to know you! Your audience will hopefully like you. And then, your audience will look to you for solutions and information in your area of expertise.

Do not, however, be fooled into thinking that this is an easy way to get your message out into the world. It takes a combination of bravery, persistence, and technical skill to create a vlog. If you miss out on one of these factors you may not see the results you are hoping for.

The word vlog has a few definitions, depending on how you use it. Just as you can use the word
“blog” in many ways, you too can use vlog in several ways.

1. The word vlog is a noun, referring to an individual video. “Have you watched my vlog today?”
2. It can be used as a noun that refers to the video channel that a person upload’s their
   videos too; for example, “remember to subscribe to my vlog”.
3. Finally, it can be used as a verb that communicates the action of vlogging, for example,
   “I’m going to record a vlog today”.

The benefits of vlogging

If you need extra motivation here are the best reasons to start vlogging!

1. “Easy” To Do – I’m referring here to the act of pushing record and then talking to a camera. In theory, this is very easy to do. Even your smartphone has a camera. However, to get to this stage many people need to overcome anxiety, imposter syndrome, and a lack of confidence.
2. Adds a personal touch – there is no doubt in my mind that vlogging is one of the intimate ways to create content. It is all about getting your face in front of as many people as possible! You are on display!
3. Show off your expertise – this is an important part of vlogging. Everyone can TELL you what they do. But not everyone SHOWS off what they can do. It is the act os showing your value that makes this a really valuable medium.
4. Reach a wider targeted audience – my being clear on your audience and then sharing with them how to solve their biggest issues you can reach a bigger audience with those issues – i.e your target audience! It’s a nice way to create a natural filter for your potential clients or customers.
5. Exceptional Boost To Search Engine Optimisation – vlogging really is a fantastic way to boot SEO rankings. I often embed my vlogs on my page so that people can see me talking about a topic I have written about. It also improves time on page for your analytics too!
6. Establish Your Business As An Industry Leader – by dedicating a load of resources to creating content and becoming the go-to place for industry-specific knowledge you can easily become a leader.
7. Create Opportunities For Sharing – I always include a call to action at the end of my videos! This gives me the opportunity to hear what other people think and also for them to share with me their knowledge. Quite often I will simply ask my audience what they do with a particular problem. It creates a lovely community feeling where I get to be on the receiving end of some value too!
8. Budget-Friendly Content Marketing – you could, in theory, get started right now! Go on push record on your phone and upload it for the world to see. It will cost you zero dollars. With a simple vlogging camera, you could improve the quality of many videos! It is a really excellent way to create content on the cheap!
9. It is more engaging than text – I doubt I would have seen the success of my social media profile if it had been solely text-based. There is no doubt in my mind that video content with a human face in it is more engaging than text. People love stories and you are giving them a front-row seat to yours.

Do you want to be like any of these people?

Famous Vloggers

1. Roman Atwood Vlogs
2. Dan is Not Interesting (Daniel Howell)
3. Amazing Phil
4. Pointless Blog Vlogs
5. Tyler Oakley
6. Casey Neistat
7. Jon Olsson
8. Vlog Brothers
9. Superwoman Vlogs
10. Fun For Louis
11. Logan Paul
12. PewDiePie
13. JackSepticEye
14. Jeffree Star
15. Markiplier
16. Vanoss Gaming
17. Dude Perfect
18. DanTDM
19. Jake Paul
20. Ryan ToysReview
21. HolaSoyGerman
22. Zoella
23. Vegetta777
24. Whindersson Nunes
25. Sky Does Everything
26. Bethany Mota
27. 5 Minute Crafts
28. Colleen Ballinger
29. Grav3yardgirl
30. Nigahiga

Famous Bloggers

1. Gary Vaynerchuk
2. Rand Fishkin
3. Pat Flynn
4. Brian Clark
5. Andrew Sullivan
6. Michael Arrington
7. Tim Ferriss
8. Meet Darren Rowse
9. Arriana Huffington – Huffington Post
10. Peter Rojas – Engadget
11. Pete Cashmore – Mashable
12. Mario Armando Lavanderia Jr – Perez Hilton
13. Peter Rojas – Gizmodo
14. Vitaly Friedman – Smashing Magazine

Things to take into consideration when deciding to be a blogger vs vlogger

So if you should blog or vlog comes down to these factors…

Your strengths

I am a firm believer in playing to your strengths and knowing what they are can help you decide on whether you should blog or vlog.

Are you good at writing? Are you insanely extroverted? Are you a secret actor and want to talk to a camera? Or do you consider yourself a bit of a wordsmith?

Knowing what you are good at can inform your choice. Ask yourself these questions:

• What am I good at?
• What do I do for fun?
• What do people approach me for?
• What has someone else said I am good at?

If you still are not sure you can do a SWAT analysis to help you identify them!

Resources

What resources do you have at your disposal to blog or vlog? I mean this in terms of both time, money and equipment!

Take a moment to look at your capacity to commit to a blog or vlog in terms of content creation time.

Your goals

The most important thing to do is look to see if either will allow you to reach your goals. It is quite the time commitment to do either – so take a moment to think about what success looks like and then how content creation can help you get there!

For example, if growing your personal brand it important you’d be silly to not prioritise vlogging as it gives a much better sense of who you are!

Why not do both?

So should you blog or vlog? Well, there is no reason that you can’t do both! I use both to ensure that both my longterm and short term content goals are met.

The final word

Whether you are a blogger or a vlogger you must decide on whether or not you enjoy writing for creating videos. You have to fall in love with one, or both, of the processes. It is only by doing that, that you’ll be able to stick to it for the amount of time that is required for the effort to pay off!

Good luck with your content making journey and the decision to be a blogger vs vlogger!