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WHAT IS A VLOG? There are as many different vlogs as there are vloggers, but they all do tend to share some common characteristics. • Vlogs are posted regularly: Some vloggers post daily, some weekly, some monthly. But the regularity of vlog posts is key to the form. Audiences come to expect a rhythm of posting and if the vlogger isn’t delivering on schedule, they can quickly become disappointed, disillusioned, even angry. Vlogs can have a limited run too, around a topic or an event, for example. At the beginning of this year, the UK’s Barclaycard ran a video series for one month around the activity of blogger Giovanna Fletcher, posting a new video every day for 31 days on the company website about a new activity Fletcher had engaged in with the help of her card. An expert trying to educate or inform their audience around a specific topic might do vlog series limited to covering the topic. • Vlogs are personal: It may take an army to make a feature film, but it only takes one person to make a vlog. And, generally, the more people involved in a vlog’s production, the more it strays from the form. Vlogs are the only legitimately ‘first person’ form of filmmaking. A vlog may feature graphics, cutaways, b-roll, but it’s central subject, the one it will keep coming back to, is a close-up of the vlogger looking into camera – looking at us, talking to
IT MAY TAKE AN ARMY TO MAKE A FEATURE FILM, BUT IT ONLY TAKES ONE PERSON TO MAKE A VLOG
us. It’s this personal connection, where we are face to face with the creator that distinguishes the vlog from just about every other form of filmmaking. • Vlogs are interactive: Vlogs exist to communicate directly with an audience. While a scripted drama or news report might be laid out for an audience to draw its own conclusions or have its own private emotional experiences, vloggers – often vociferously – invite interaction. This might be requests for online comments or feedback, likes on social media platforms or calls to action to buy a product or support a cause. Because of this interaction, vlog content can be tailored to, or produced in response to, audience sentiment and feedback. The vlogger, interaction via comments, chat, email as well as through studying the viewer metrics available on their video platform, can create a literal dialogue with viewers, directly addressing their concerns, responding to their needs.
someone is being honest with us, being straightforward, telling it like it is. And the regularity of a vlog post encourages the viewer to put together clues they get in the content about the vlogger’s life or business. The viewer becomes involved in the world of the vlogger. The truth is that social media itself has a distorting effect on the truth. Once we are in front of an audience, our natural inclinations towards self-aggrandisement, self-justification and good old-fashioned modesty start to eat away at our frankness. It takes some skill, and deliberate practice, to be genuinely honest with a camera pointed at you. Some vloggers spend a lot of time and effort crafting an online personality, or brand. These fronts might bear little resemblance to the truth when it comes to the vlogger’s real private life, but they can still be consistent and authentic when it comes to a brand’s goals and vision. If you don’t always want to bare all, at least be consistent. What’s important to remember is that amid the noise and confusion of the online world, customers are looking for someone who they can trust. A good vlog can help build trust. Start now.
• Vlogs are authentic: The success of vlogging as a form is due in large part to the belief that
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