Vlogging 101 – Guide to make all types of video

Usually it is called Blogging, but adding videos to it makes it Vlogging. Don’t you think so? Well, I have mentioned it multiple times that images add life to your blog. But imagine how much life does video adds to your blog? It gives your blog the legs to walk. Videos add personality to your blog. Now your users can hear you and see you. It doesn’t matter how you look… How you sound… Your reader knows who they are dealing with. It makes good relations between you and your reader. Besides no word tutorial can do a better job than a video tutorial. The point I am trying to get across is add videos to your blog. Let your reader know a little more about you.

In this post I will show you how to record videos for your blog. How you can record your desktop. Where you can upload your videos and how to promote them. Read the post to find out.

First thing you need is a video. To get that you need a Video Camera. I will not add my own affiliate links. All you need is a decent digital camera. So I am assuming you have a video camera.

Now turn it on and start recording. Lights, Camera……. ACTION

Make sure you have the camera in the right position. Preferably in the position described above.

Who is making the movie?

Determine who will be making the movie. I prefer to have someone making the video. So I ask family members or friends to make a video for me. Why? Simply because they can get a better angle. But if I am not making a video of myself, than it is much easier because I can be the moviemaker.

How Can you make your own video without someone else’s help?

Its quiet simple eh. Get a camera stand. Positioning a Camera with a camera stand takes some time, but it can definately be done. You will need to do some trial and error. Basically what you do is set a camera at an angle, hit record and come in front with a cool entry or yet a surprising entry. Get to your spot and start talking. Now to get the right spot you would have to try a few times, but after doing it a few times, you will get very good at it. Trust me.

Second way is get a cool laptop with a built-in webcam. Or just a web-cam and connect it to your computer. Sit in front of your webcam and start recording. I will say laptop is a better source because you can move it around to get the right angle and get in the position I mentioned above. With desktop you are stuck at one place, so you would have to move your light source.

I have done both ways, now I prefer if you just want to talk in the video sitting than you should just do it with a laptop with webcam because it is much easier. But if you are doing an experiment, than you should try the camera stand because you would need to put the camera further to get a better view.

How to work with the audio in the movie?

Unless you have a good movie camera, your voice quality will suffer if you are at a distance from the camera. You can either be close but you can’t get a very good view of the surrounding. Now there are multiple ways you can get around it.

Slacker Way – I admit that I take this way alot. Just stay close to the camera and don’t get alot of your surrounding.

Smart Way – This way takes a bit of time but it makes your video alot better. Record your voice separately and than edit the video. Combine the sounds and the video together. It takes alot of time, but it makes your video better.

What should you involve in the video as a background?

It really depends on the type of a video. Preferably, try to have your voice prompting out if you have voice in the background. Definately don’t make a video with your coffe maker in the background. Now that is the audio part of the background. What about the video part. Try to pick a vivid background if you can. Like a scenary. If you can’t do that than a plain white background is preferred. Otherwise go with your sofa in the background, or even in your bed. Alot of times, when I make videos from my apartment in College, You see my bed. Sorry I just don’t have enough space to make a video. But I try to cover that up with my content

How to speak in a video?

This leads up to the content part of the video. Video is more like a live speech. So are you a type of person who would just go out in front of people and start talking. Or would you rather be prepared? Its a personal choice and it won’t hurt to try either way. Just watch it before you publish it I am a type of person who doesn’t prepare his speech word to word. I keep my general idea list on a notecard, and than I talk. I do that because it adds my personality to my video. But some sentences I prewrite because I don’t want to mess those up. Some words I pronounce before to practice because my accent is not clear.

Do not be embarassed by your accent or the way you sound. Alot of people sound different in the recording like myself. I have an accent also, but I don’t let my weakness hold me back. I make my weaknesses my strength. I use those as a representation of myself.

How should you Look in a Video?

Look good in the video. I mean I always look good No kidding. Just look normal. I don’t represent myself as some big money maker so I won’t be dressed in a suit with boots. I will just wear one of the shirts I get for free in the mail. Like ML, Media King or any other ones. I just try not to look like that I just woke up and I am talking. Try not to sweat in the video unless you are running around and making a video. Just personally because believe me when I say this: You don’t want to see me sweat. lol

What ever you do just express yourself. If you are angry show that. Sometimes expressions like these are the ones that get you thousands of visitors. Because these type of moments are priceless for everything else there is a mastercard I should be in the commercial for Mastercard.

Now you have a prepared yourself a video. I don’t know which format you got it in, but it is preferred that you get it into .avi or .wmv if you want to edit it. Which I think all of you should do before uploading it.

Lets get to the point of editing the video. I personally use Windows Movie Maker, but alot of my MAC users and fans use iMovie. I have heard it is a cool program. But never used it because I don’t personally own a Mac. I don’t think I will buy it either. Hoping someone will just send me one or I might get lucky and win it somewhere. If you send me a Macbook Air or Pro I will give you one year advertisement spot on Balkhis lol.

How to Edit the Videos?

In editing the videos, I do the following as a mandatory requirement.

Adding Title, and Adding Credits

In Windows Movie Maker look at your sidebar and you will see something like this.

You can add title at the beginning, and sometimes in the clips also. Credits at the ends are good to advertise yourself I am putting out an offer that if any company send me a decent camera I will add their companies name and link at the credit as long as I use that camera in all of my vidoes.

Another thing you can add is cool music if you want to block the sound that was in the video. You can simply add that by clicking at this button in the sidebar:

Than look at the timeline and place it at your desired location by dragging it.

Now you have a cool sound in the video so that makes the video even better.

Once you have made the video save it as .wmv or .avi because those are the popular file formats accepted by youtube and other video uploading sites.

Before I share the uploading process, I will go ahead and share how to record your desktop.

Recording your computer screen

Recording your desktop is often necessary when you are trying to make tutorial videos or trying to record something on your screen. I actually tried out alot of different softwares before I ended up at the right one. I use this method to record Pimp My Blog Videos.

Recommended Software to use for recording your desktop is Camstudio. It is the best one I have seen so far which is free and open source. I use it with all of my video tutorials.

Tips on Recording your Screen

I just don’t want to give you tips without explaining it, so I will give the tip in italics and explain after it.

- Best tip I can give you is know your Keyboard Shortcuts – Knowing your keyboard shortcuts will avoid you from opening the program while you are recording the video. Because if you open the program while recording it will show up on the screen and you would have to edit that part out. More work… Did I just say More work.. Who wants to do that.

- Have your microphone unmuted – If you are recording from your microphone and it is muted, guess what happens. Nothing records and you have made the entire video with no voice.

- Close all of your Instant messengers – You don’t want to have a notification popping up at the corner of the desktop neither do you want to add the voice. So turning them off is the best option.

- Use fixed width: 400 x 400 – Having the images at fixed width allows you to focus on one area and when you upload to the sites like youtube your images will not be compressed therefore will not be blurry.

- If you are using a browser use full screen, so the url box is not shown at the top. Press Alt + Enter for IE, and F11 for Firefox – When I display my pimp my blog it is on a separate url which I don’t like to reveal to public so I try to hide that. I also try to hide what tabs I have currently on. Therefore having the full screen helps. Also it avoids scrolling for the most part.

- Highlight your Mouse – Highlighting your mouse is another option this software gives you. You can use this and it will make a circle around your mouse, so your user can see the mouse movement. It is good for tutorials.

Good part of these type of videos is that it eliminates the shyness. No one is seeing you. They are just hearing the voice in the background. Try to be as clear as possible. Speak every word clearly, so your user can understand. Try to speak slowly. (I don’t do this one, I have heard this from many people).

Well now you have a video prepared. Either it is a video of yourself, or a video of your desktop. Now you are ready to upload it.

Uploading your Videos

Some beginners when they are entering the industry have this thing of uploading the videos on their own hostings. BAD BAD BAD Idea. Why? Because your server is not strong enough to support it. You are just wasting your resource. Plus not alot of people will see this. Allocate your resources efficiently by uploading the videos to one of the video sharing sites such as:

Youtube – Youtube is now owned by Google and is by far the biggest video sharing site right now.

Revver – Revver is another video uploading service that have a cooler player and they pay you. The only downside is it takes too long for them to approve the video. Each video has to be manually approved.

So upload your videos to one of the uploading sites above. Use decent tags and good title, so others can find you.

Promoting your video

The first step of promoting your video is by uploading the video to a service like Youtube because people will see it. You can also use Social Media to promote your videos, or even on forums. Read this post about promoting techniques.

I know some people even buy reviews to promote their videos. You can even go down that road if you want alot of exposure.

Now that you have this vlogging 101 guide.. Why don’t you start Vlogging. This is the future. People who are avoiding videos are getting behind. Those who are taking the initiative and adding the videos are taking a jump step ahead from their competitors.

I have put down all that I could think off at this point in this post. If you have any more tips feel free to add down in the comments and I will add it in the post if need be. Also if you are making your first video after reading this post do share with me. I like to see the work that is inspired from my post.

Don’t forget to subscribe to my Youtube Channel.

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