Blogging and Vlogging are known to be effective strategies for individuals or even brands to promote what they sell and also to draw traffic to their websites. These two mediums are used by many as a promotional tool or to express themselves to the world. From a number of famous youtubers to amateur and professional blog owners, most of them are experts when it comes to the field of social media marketing.
Considering a number of world renowned bloggers and vloggers, many of them have made this their primary source of income. Some of the top youtubers that attract millions of views online have become celebrities among fans who are young and old. Zoella, Marcus Butler, Colleen Ballinger and her alter-ego Miranda Sings, Casper Lee, Thatcher Joe, Alfie Deyes aka Pointlessblog, Superwoman aka Lilly Singh are some of the famous youtubers who have managed to take vlogging to another level. Popular blogs as of the year 2014 include Mashable, Huffington Post, TMZ, Business Insider, LifeHacker, Tech Crunch, Perez Hilton,Jezebel etc.
How would you choose which mode of communication is right for you? If you are a front runner and not camera shy, then vlogging would do wonders if you do it the right way. If you are a more laid back person then you can try having a blog. However, both mediums have their pros and cons while knowing these facts would be wise when choosing the better option for your work or personal blogs and vlogs.
Blogging
What is a blog?
In simple terms, a blog is a frequently updated, online personal diary or journal where you can express your thoughts and ideas to the world. Blog topics vary drastically and it can be anything from talking about your hobbies and passions, sharing photography to a housewife selling baked goods and sharing recipes. Basically, a blog can be anything that you want it to be. For the ease of our use, you can simply call it your own website which will be updated as and when you want it to happen. The term blog is a short form for the word web-log. Updating and constantly adding content to your blog is known as blogging.
What are the advantages of Blogging?
As mentioned before, blogging consists of expressing an individual’s thoughts, feelings, knowledge and ideas online. Many business have also started publishing blogs that are somewhat relevant to the goods and services that they offer which is actually a great method to capture attention of potential as well as current customers.
One of the main advantages of blogging is that it is easy to set up. From an amatuer blogger to a professional, setting up a blog is not rocket science. You do not need detailed technical knowledge to create and write a blog of your own. A number of blogging platforms such as Blogger, WordPress, or Tumblr can be used for free while they are all easy to use.
Compared to vlogging, maintaining a blog does not require one to own a lot of high tech equipment. All you will need is a computer and a consistent internet connection. The important thing that you should be alert is that you should have a way with words. If you are familiar with techniques and methods to generate revenue through your blog, which includes search engine optimization and online marketing techniques, then you can easily earn money through blogging.
What are the disadvantages of Blogging?
There are no disadvantages as such but lets have a look at a few pointers anyway. The sole purpose of writing a blog is for people to read it and also come back to it on a regular basis. In order to get a dedicated customer base, you should have a good knowledge of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). This technique consists of giving importance to keywords, writing suitable content and meta tagging. These efforts should be taken seriously if you need your blog to have more traffic.
Another downside of maintaining a blog is that you have to add fresh content on a regular basis. Updating your blog regularly helps you have a steady inflow of traffic. You have to make sure that the content is relevant to your blog theme and be aware of the latest news.
Vlogging
What is a vlog?
The term vlog is the shortened form for a video blog or video log. A vlog is simply a blog for which the medium is video and is considered as a form of web television. Vlogging stands for video blogging and is also a form of online journal in video form.
What are the advantages of vlogging?
One of the most known advantages of vlogging is that it is more engaging than maintaining a blog. A vlog is more visual than a blog and it has the ability to capture attention of many viewers online. It’s a known fact that many people prefer to watch a video rather than read a couple of pages of a blog.
A vlog is also easy to set up as long as you gave access to the right type of equipment. You don’t have to think about pages of content. All you have to do is, set up the equipment and start filming the video. You also don’t require professional writing skills. You can simply talk about an interesting topic and be a very successful vlogger online.
What are the disadvantages of vlogging?
However, there are a few disadvantages when it comes to vlogging. In order to make good quality vlogs, you will need sophisticated and high quality equipment to film these videos. Recording high quality videos cannot be uploaded to the internet without editing them and for this you will require professional video editing software. Therefore, you will have to spend a great deal of money to gain these equipment and also have the relevant knowledge to edit videos.
Unlike a blog, a vlog cannot be edited once you have uploaded and published it on the web. If there is some kind of an error, you will have to remove the video from the net and make the edit. There are times that you might have to entirely re-film the video. Blogs on the other hand, can be edited at any given time.
Another slight disadvantage is that vlogging takes your time. You will have to spend time filming the video, edit the video and then finally upload the video which always depends on the bandwidth of your internet connection. If you have time to spend, then you are on the right path to become a successful vlogger.
We have discussed the advantages and disadvantages of blogging and vlogging. Considering the facts, you can choose what method suits your business the most. With time and the necessary resources in hand, you can even use both methods and gain the required traffic to your website. The choice is yours.