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5 Types of Video Posts for Bloggers


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One of the areas of blogging I have not jumped into yet is video, but it is getting hard to ignore the benefits of video for blogging and SEO. When people Google my name, aka personal brand, I want my results to look something like Matt Cutts, my current “personal branding hero” in Google, with no one else in the top 10.

Matt Cutts in Google Search Results

Unfortunately, this isn’t the case for my own personal brand, therefore I plan on expanding myself into the realm of creating different types of media for myself, blog, and other projects.

Video Ideas for Bloggers

Here are some of the ideas I came up with for videos that I plan to do for my new YouTube Channel, and I thought I’d share them for other bloggers looking to also build up their video repertoire.

About Me Video

Instead of just an about me page or introduction post to your blog, why not add a video to it? You can transcribe what you say in the video below it so you have something for both your readers and your watchers. Look for this coming soon on my own about page.

Search Story

This is actually the first video I have decided to do – my own search story. YouTube Search Stories let’s you create a video using different search queries and their results. I chose to focus mine on my blogging and major guest posting contributions (of course, I had many more, but not enough fields in the search to cover them all). I used my name and main keywords – blogging and social media – in the title of the video for search purposes.

It takes about 5 minutes to create, a few more to process, and a few more to upload, so you can have one in less than 15 minutes. And of course, you can do it on any topics you choose. If you have trouble with the search showing a few too many things that don’t belong to you, try using the back button a few times and re-processing the video – it changes the view of the results from slide to slide. If you want a guide to creating a great search story, check out this post with 7 steps to creating a compelling search story.

Video Tutorials

Do you like writing tutorials? Why not take some of your tutorial posts and actually walk people through the steps of the tutorial in a video screencast. I’m going to be testing out some free screencast programs over the next week and working on one for a recent favorite tutorial post of mine. If you have used any free programs, suggestions are welcome, especially with example videos.

Answer Commenter’s Questions

If you get a lot of questions in your posts’ comments, why not answer some in a video? Talk about a reason to get people to watch your videos, and being able to fully answer questions without writing a book in your comments!

Explain Why You Chose Something

Have you recently written a top list of favorite bloggers, websites, tools, etc.? You can do a video accompanying the post, explaining why you made the choices you did. It can be a video of just yourself, or a screencast of you going through the websites of the people / tools you are talking about with why you like them or how you use them.

Your Video Blogging Experience

Have you embarked upon the road of incorporating video into your blog, or are at least contemplating it? What other ideas do you have for videos for bloggers, and what tools / software do you use to produce your videos?

Also, be sure to click here and subscribe to my new YouTube channel so you can stay up to date on my video blogging progress.

Comments

  1. I haven’t done any videos yet and have too much on the agenda right now to go that route. I will though. My target audience doesn’t seem to be big on videos (or podcasts) as part of the normal posting routine, but I think creating super short screencast videos would be useful to address common reader ‘how to’ questions.

    Great article, Kristi. I’m glad you’re venturing into video!
    Jean Sarauer just posted Here’s to the Rebel Bloggers

    • I thought about that too, that maybe my audience isn’t that into video, but at the same time, I also thought that I might attract an audience who is only interested in video. So trying it might lead to new readers. I guess I will find out eventually. 🙂

    • I’m not a fan of 100% video – I think that most, if not all videos should come with a text transcription for those who can’t watch the videos for whatever reason, or simply prefer reading the information, maybe to cut and paste notes for later or skim. I’m looking at video as a supplement to text posts as opposed to a replacement.

  6. I have experimented with a variety of video’s and my YouTube channel doesn’t get much, but has received over 22k views. My problem is the time it takes to edit them, I don’t have a webcam so record them on my Video Camera, convert and edit via Pinnacle Studio 14 so it takes about 2 hours to produce a 5-10 minute video when I could have written 5 blog posts in that time.

    Screencast demonstrations are a little easier, but still require editing or fixing up if I mess up or stutter while talking through the demo… I have had to do countless retakes.
    Justin Germino just posted Negative Results of Google Instant Search

    • I’m hoping to skip some of the editing hassles and have it just recorded on the Mac. I can usually do some basic video editing on there quickly – the processing takes a bit, but I don’t have to sit around for that. 22K in views is certainly a good count!

      I was thinking about breaking the screencast into sections, then splicing them together with a fade out – fade in effect, that way if I have to do a retake, it’s just of one section instead of the whole thing.

  7. Kristi

    I am also looking for a nice program for making the videos, and I am just starting with it. I have heard very nice things about Camtasia. I love the idea of filming short clips and showing them instead of traditional posts.
    The interaction is nearly real. I guess there is no rule what is best for the blogs…great is great no matter how you pack it, or …?
    Thank you for YouTube Search Stories! I will give it a try.

    best, Martyna

    • I think that I’m going both text and video, simply because I prefer to read, but I’d like to give people who prefer to watch an option as well. 🙂

    • My initial idea is to record the screencast on my Mac, edit using iMovie, and put the URL in the description of the video on YouTube. Once I actually get into it, it might be a different process, but that is my plan thusfar. I guess the URL to your site should be in the video (maybe the title and end screens) that way if the video gets embedded, you will still be able to see it.

  9. Hi Kristi, when watching videos on youtube, I still see a lot of videos with an open ending, or just a website url.
    It is important to end each video with a solid call-to-action like “go here and subscribe to get more information about…” or “sign up for the free trial at…” so that the viewer is not lost in cyberspace after watching the video.

  10. It’s going to be tough to compete with Matt Cutts. I bet his name appears in automated tests used for testing Google before any idea implemented (standard practice in software development – automated testing). Or at least if his page is screwed up somehow – he can always complain to a nearby “Web Spam Dept.” (which he is heading) 🙂
    Slava just posted Himeji Castle- Japan’s “White Heron” Castle

  11. cool concepts for videos there Kristi 🙂 I’ve done some crappy experiment videos before, but they were just an article I submitted to article directories and I just converted them into slide and podcast before merging them to be a video. But I’m also thinking of making live tutorials (screenshot videos) instead, since it’s much effective.

    By the way, I’ve read something about VSEO 2 weeks ago, if you’re going to engage with video blogging, it’s best that you include a video sitemap, it helps in improving their SERP rankings (mostly for long tails) in which it’s directed to your site and not on youtube 😀

    Regards, Jason
    Jason just posted SEO Strategies

  12. Hey Kristi,

    This is something I’ve been pushing myself to do as well, but I literately come up with a blank wall when I think of what to video blog about. Plus I’m camera-shy! But who knows, maybe your videos will push me to go out there and do a few for myself!
    Thanks for the ideas and looking forward to seeing more of your videos (especially the About me page, hopefully that’ll be my first project.. 🙂 )
    Tola just posted An Interview with African Genes

  13. I think video tutorials and free tips are great ways to attract loyal customers. As long as you are providing something useful for free. It’s going to be good for you.

  16. Good post Kristi, but I strongly believe that the video stuff over the internet still needs lot of refinement. These video(s) are so easy to make and upload that nearly every Tom, Dick and Harry is going Gaga… over his brand and foolish publicity. I am totally against this video thing. I don’t want to hurt anybody’s opinion it’s just my personal belief that ‘text’ always was and will remain the clear winner for the net. Remember– reading is an exercise for Brain and not watching the video. Anyways thanks for this lovely post.

    • I certainly believe in not just having a video, but also the text to accompany it. I just think some things, such as tutorials, would be more helpful as video, because you could write to click a certain link, but in the video, you would see right where that link was. It’s all about helping people learn in the way that is easiest for them, whether it is by reading or by watching an action in progress.

  18. I know it’s not cheap but personally, I found Camtesia worth every penny. I don’t know what the mac equivalent is but for the PC it works fine. I also found some great online deals for the older versions which I use. I’m not sure if OEM stuff is legal or not, best take some advice before buy, but it’s even cheaper.

    Video tutorials have transformed how easy it is to learn new programs. I just love it when the little help film is a vailable for each step. And following on from Ari’s guest post gives reader a real better sense of the writer/creator as a whole person.

    Thanks for the tips, time to break out my little Xcatia again I think :o)

    Dave.

  20. Every where I turn I’m being told that video is the latest thing and that I must get involved or be left behind. I’m finally starting to believe them.

    For those of us that have never done it, it seems like such a massive first step.

    I do believe there should always be some sort of written transcript available for people who don’t want to/can not watch the video. Not everyone has super fast connections that make watching videos a breeze.

    Impressed with Matt Cutts search page. Now wouldn’t we all want that!
    Dawn just posted Aug 7- VSL3 Helps IBS- Pouchitis- Ulcerative Colitis- VSL 3

  21. I have been pondering about making videos myself, with how-to guides and what not. I have some experience in Adobe Premiere and After Effects also from a few years ago and I plan to try using those softwares to make them. Personally, from a reader’s point of view, I sometimes don’t have time to watch the video and prefer the article but I always go back to watch the video later. It develops a much closer bond with the readers.
    car battery just posted How to deal with corroded battery terminals

  22. Humm I almost wonder if Matt Cutt’s page has been tweaked a little bit, I guess I will think positive and say that Matt is just that well positioned on the internet! Which in reality it is true. One thing about videos these days Youtube has definitely made it easier compared to the past for us, I mean we get higher quality videos, and also some great tools in Youtube itself to just add that little bit of extra exposure to us. I’ve used the annotations in particular to add my URL to old videos that I uploaded, it sort of works like a watermark but even better/easier to do!

    Till then,

    Jean

  23. I didn’t start my video blogging yet in my blogging career. This is a good post for me to start at.
    Thanks for the informative post.

  24. I think you have really hit the nail on the head with this post. I love it how google is constantly adapting and refining the way we recieve and consume information. Video is definately the future of blogging and also entertainment. There are hundreds of shows now on sites like Youtube. I look forward to the new videos and will go subscribe to your channel.
    Thanks,

    Rosemary.

  26. I’ve done a few screencast videos for my maths blog. some tutorials and one, a review. I want to make all my reviews video based (about 1 in 4 posts). I experimented with doing a video intro to a post but the feedback wasn’t positive.
    I’ve used Jing, Screencast-o-matic and iMovie. iMovie is the best but at the moment I find it easier to open up Screencast-o-matic as it’s online and I can use it from any computer.
    The You Tube search videos look seriously cool, thanks for sharing that one with us!
    I think video would be great for your site, although I think your writing style and the use of your photo below each post helps us, your readers, to connect with you.

  27. If it is any help to anyone wanting to make a video and feeling self conscious, do not think about how you look (although in saying that, if you look like you have not slept for 3 days and haven’t washed for a week that will not help you in any way building up ethos). I am also a tour guide and love taking photos for people on tour, some people just focus on “I look terrible in photos” – in fact they don’t, all that is coming across in the photos is their feeling about themselves. I like to distract them and make them relax and hey presto a photo that shows them as they really are. In a video just concentrate on your content and make sure you do not talk to fast, clearly pronounce everything and you’ll be great. I find taht I have no problem in talking to large groups as I focus on delivering a story that people can relate to, they are there mostly for the content, not me as an individual.
    Elayne just posted How to Market Your Business on Facebook

  29. Hi Kristi,

    I find audio works really well because it’s something you can take with you and listen to when you’re doing something else. I like the idea of a video “About me” page. I might give that a go. The main difficulty with video is the time it takes to put one together and format it correctly. I’m not a perfectionist but my first video took ages and it wasn’t even that long. Just one other point, totally unrelated, I love the bright, vibrant background image on your site.
    Paul just posted Happy Christmas from the Santa Babies

  30. Hi Kristi. I absolutely love video marketing. Although I’ve had my Youtube channel since 2008 it wasn’t until March/April of this year that I actually started creating videos, just over 100 and counting. You gave me a great idea about creating a video for my about me page. Why on earth didn’t I think of that? I use camtasia (free for the 1st 30 days). You can also try jing. There is a free version and a paid version, I think $15/year.

    Here are 4 types of videos that work well:
    Tutorials
    Lifestyle
    Entertainment
    Testimonials

    I’d love to see your video channel when you create it.

    Golda
    Golda Smith just posted Social Media Marketing Tip 28- Let’s Go Fishing

  32. I agree with you Kristi. Personal branding is very important when we work online. And making some video posts is a viable solution. Although I haven’t done any yet, but I will take it into consideration 🙂 Thanks for sharing!
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