Vlogging has been a trending form of content for a number of years now, especially on the consumer side, but it’s a different story on the B2B side. B2B has been slow to utilize vlogging as an engaging form of content and a way of establishing a personal connection with their consumers. I like to think of vlogging as behind-the-scenes content. It lifts the veil of ambiguity and branding behind most businesses and shows the audience “who” the business is and why they exist.

Should you be Blogging or Vlogging?

A lot of B2B entities already have a blog presence locked down but not a lot have a vlogging presence. Which form of organic content is the best? Neither. Businesses should have both! Blogging is a great way to explain complex ideas and it provides a great platform for internal and external linking. But blogs can be dry sometimes and people aren’t really reading blogs anymore. Vlogging can be much more engaging than blogs if it’s done right and they allow you to be more creative in how you showcase your business’s personality. According to a study by Insivia, viewers retain 95% of a message when they watch it in a video compared to 10% when reading it in text. And isn’t that the whole goal of marketing, to create memorable messages? 

What is Vlogging Exactly?

I’m sure most people know what vlogging is by now but it’s important to really clarify what it is, so you can create succinct content that falls under the appropriate umbrella of “vlogs”. If you don’t know what vlogs are, that’s quite alright, that’s why we’re writing this blog! Vlogs literally mean video blogs or video logs. Generally, they are an organized series of videos that casually address topics of discussion with the main personality in front of the camera. With most famous vloggers, their personality is what attracts the viewers. This makes vlogs more personal than other “genres” of videos that you can find on the internet.  Take a look at this Vlogging tutorial for some great tips:  https://youtu.be/hq_cT8PU2uM

Your Industrial VLOG should maintain your BRAND voice

The first thing you will need to do is address the tone of the campaign and probably delegate a specific individual to represent the business. Ideally, this person would be energetic and easy to listen to. One thing to remember is that even if your audience is other businesses, you still need to create content for real people. And oftentimes, these people are aware of and enjoy the current trends. If done right, vlogging can effectively increase your brand’s value and credibility in the B2B space.

Optimize your Videos for Mobile

If you haven’t noticed, people are on their phones A LOT. In fact, over half of videos are viewed on mobile. This means that your B2B vlogging content needs to be mobile-friendly. And what’s even better is that 92% of mobile video viewers have shared video content with others. That achieves another marketing goal: word of mouth. Mobile is one of the easiest ways for people to share content with others and when creating vlog content, mobile optimization is essential. 

Optimizing Vlogs for Instagram

Social media is now dominated by mobile users across the board: YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. This demands your social content to be mobile-friendly. And the platform that captures nearly all of its traffic on mobile is Instagram. This is one platform that requires your vlogging content to be optimized specifically for mobile. Primarily because of Instagram’s IGTV feature, which is where users can post videos up to 10 minutes long. Most of the high-reaching content on this feature is in a vertical format that Instagram introduced to the world. It will be important to consider converting your vlogs into vertical format to be more engaging and “likable” by both Instagram and the users. Crafting high quality, mobile-friendly vlogs will surely increase your accessibility to larger audiences through not only Instagram but all social media platforms.

Repurpose Old Blog Content into Vlogs

While vlogs are going to be less informational than blogs, generally speaking, you may be able to tap into some good vlog content ideas from old blogs sitting right in your content folders. This is a great and easy way to generate ideas when you’re starting your vlog “campaign”. One thing to keep in mind with vlogging is simplicity. The more straightforward you can be with your messaging in vlogs the more effective your vlogs will be. Just make sure when you’re looking through old blogs, that you don’t focus on a topic that’s overly complex. For complex topics, viewers would rather be readers so they can learn the content at a slower pace. And plus, vlogs are supposed to be fun.

Vlogging Results Take Time

This shouldn’t be surprising but it’s important to get your expectations in check before jumping into this and waiting closely to see the results. Especially in the B2B space, it will be difficult to drive high-reach and engagement numbers in the early stages of vlogging, and this goes not just for vlogging but for really any content campaign. You need to be patient. Very patient. In reality, it could take years of consistent, high-quality posting to generate a following and good engagement numbers. But once you gain the following, it can quickly catch fire, generating a higher brand equity, more engaged followers, and ideally, potential customers!

To learn more about making the most out of your website content using Vlogs, contact the team at Ecreative.