Ruth VanHoven asked in my Facebook Group – DIGITAL, about what is needed, equipment wise, to get started with Video Blogging or VLOGGING. In this video I talk about what I use and how you too can get started creating your own video blogs that can resonate with your target audience!
Don’t forget to checkout the equipment list I put together https://amzn.to/39cRwQt
Transcript
Hi, today I’m going to answer the simple question of: what do you need in order to do a video blog? What type of equipment do you need? Ruth, thank you for the question on my Facebook group when I asked, what questions would you like me to answer? And I’m going to talk to you today about the type of equipment that I use and I’m going to give you a couple of different samples of what that can be like.
So you’re ready to start a video blog and the question is, what do I need for equipment? It’s a great question, and the good news is, probably less than you think. So I’m recording this video right now on my mobile phone. I happen to have, I believe it’s an iPhone 11 right now, and I’m using it in what’s called selfie mode, where I can see myself on the screen as I’m recording. I find that helpful because I can make sure I’m standing in the right spot and see if anything odd happens in the background and make sure that I’m framed up just the way I want. So very simple and very inexpensive as we’ve probably already got a smartphone in our pocket or briefcase already. The next thing I’m doing today is I’m actually using an external microphone that’s feeding directly into the audio port on my phone. So I’ll share some details here.
I’ve decided to invest, in this case, in a wireless microphone. You can see the microphone right here on my shirt, probably, and it connects to a very small, belt-type connector, which I’ll hold up here, and that wirelessly connects to a similar looking unit that plugs into my phone. And this works out pretty well, hopefully you can hear the audio is pretty good, and it’s a moment, it allows me to stand anywhere from the three-feet or so away I am from my camera now, literally up to, I believe it’s almost 200 feet. So I can walk around, I can back up a long way, and still, you’d hear great audio.
One of the things that we’ve learned in doing video blogging is that the audio is sometimes even more important than the video quality. Why? Because people don’t like to hear things that are static-y and all of that. And if you imagine being on a call, nothing is worse than when you’re on a cell phone call and somebody is driving through a bad area and you get all of the static and dropped syllables; it’s very annoying. So audio is important. Now, keep in mind, part of it depends on your environment. At the moment, I’m standing outside. I’m in a relatively empty parking lot, but you can see some traffic going by on the road behind me right up in here somewhere. And there’s a little bit of wind. Because of the wireless mic and the filter it has on it, that wind shouldn’t be noticeable to you, but if I don’t have certain filters, it might become more noticeable. We’ll try that in a minute and you’ll get to hear the difference.
So the last thing that I have that really helps out is I have my phone mounted on a tripod right now. That means as I’m moving back and forth on the camera, the camera is not moving, and that gives you a much more stable shot and a better recording. Again, much easier to watch than something with a camera jittering and juggling all over. Just to give you perspective, if I were to walk up, and I’m going to grab my tripod here, and I’m going to try to hold this instead – so I’m trying to hold the tripod and I’m doing a pretty good job of it, but even this, I’m sure you can sense there’s some movement, and that movement becomes – yes, I know, that was more intentional. But that movement, even if I’m holding it here, becomes more noticeable, because let’s face it, it gets heavy to have your arm out in front of you holding all of this. So I do recommend a tripod for all of that. Now, let’s set this back up real quick. There we go. Now I’m back on the tripod and everything is nice, simple, and stable.
The other way that I record, and I’ll show you – I’ll end the recording on this and splice it together, I do a lot on my computer, I’ll use my webcam, and on there, I do use an external microphone. I do not use this wireless mic that I’ve got on, but I use one on my desktop, and I’ll record this here so you can hear this as well. So that’s the way I record, either on my phone or with a webcam off my computer.
Now, there’s one more question, and that comes to editing software. How should I edit this? Because as I go along, sometimes I don’t always say everything the way I want or I’m changing scenes or I’m going to throw maybe my name up on it, and I want to do that effectively. So how do I do that? There’s a lot of different software and I’m sure you could find a lot of different videos giving you different perspectives on what software to use as there are types of software.
I’m going to recommend, whether you’re on a PC or a Mac, that you spend, I believe it’s $10 a month with Adobe software, and buy or rent, I guess technically, since it’s a month-to-month subscription, what they call their Premiere Rush Software. So Adobe makes expert software called Adobe Premiere, and then they make, essentially video editing for dummies, that’s why I use it, called Adobe Rush. And that runs on your phone, it runs on your computer or your tablet. I typically will take these video files, upload them to my computer, and then I’ll optimize the color, I’ll go ahead and make sure that I’ve got the audio sounding as good as possible. By the way, that’s all a one-click process in Adobe Rush, which is why I like it. And then I’ll add in simple little intros and my name and things like that just to make the video seem a bit more interesting. So that’s a whole other video, as to how to edit, but from a software perspective, I recommend that.
Now, one last comment before I go over to my other camera, and that’s what do if I want to get this started but I don’t want to spend a lot of money? Good question. Well, I would start with just my phone and I would buy an external mic – not a wireless mic like I’ve got, but an external mic that’s wired, maybe a ten-foot cable on it, that would allow me to still stand the three-to-four feet away that I am, but record directly into the phone to get that better quality. You’ve already got the phone, that microphone is probably going to cost you $25, give or take, and I’ll go ahead and leave in the description of this video to links of each of the items that I’m using so you can see that as well, and I’ll try to find a microphone that would work for that so I can mention that.
If you go the inexpensive route to get started, and there’s nothing wrong with that, you can also edit your video using YouTube. YouTube has a very simple video editor that’s built in, and when you upload your videos to YouTube, you can do some basic editing there. Nothing complex, but simple stuff. That would also, by the way, probably the last point I want to mention – well, and you know what, before I mention this, let me switch to my other camera so you can hear my other point off of my webcam.
Alright, so I was just talking to you about one last thing on video. Before I tell you that last thing, let me point out, now I’m back in my office, I’m actually on a webcam that’s connected to my computer, and we’re recording through what’s called a Blue Snowball external microphone. I’ll share some details of what that is so you can see what that is. I should clean my office a little better, it would look a little better, but hopefully this will give you a little perspective of look and sound. I do videos this way – in fact, the video I’ve done with the most views was actually done using my webcam. So although the quality may not be as good, it’s sufficient for that work.
So, my last tip, once you record video, everybody always wants to know, how do I share it? What do I do with it? Well, I want you to take that video for your video blog and I want you to either create a Vimeo or a YouTube channel, or maybe both, and upload that video to your channel. YouTube is recommended because it shows up really well in Google search, and it’s going to be found there pretty easily. Vimeo is recommended because it doesn’t necessarily show embarrassing videos at the end of your video that you may not want people to see. These are not videos that you’ve created, but videos that other people have created about, well, let’s just say various enhancement products and other things that may not be relevant to your audience. YouTube shares videos from almost anywhere; Vimeo is good about only showing videos from your channel at the end of your video.
A couple more things I would do. One, if you have a following on Facebook, I would upload that video to Facebook. Yes, you could share your Vimeo or Facebook link there, but our studies have shown us that YouTube gives videos uploaded to its platform about a 500% increase in views as opposed to people that just share a video link.
And lastly, but certainly not least, I would then, on your blog, which should be your own website, I would take and embed either that YouTube or that Vimeo video on your blog, and I’d then have it transcribed so that Google can read the text of your video while your followers read your video.
So I hope this has been helpful about what to use and how to do it. I’ll be sharing some more details and we’ll put this video together and I’ll let you know all of the equipment that’s included as well.
If you have any questions, please remember I’m always available for questions and I’d be happy to answer them.
I’m Jonathan with Valorous Circle, and make it a great day.
