Have you ever considered starting a vlog? This could be a great opportunity to build a personal brand and share your knowledge with others. You’d also have the chance to monetize your skills while doing what you love. Let yourself be inspired by the most popular YouTube videos and give it a try. Here we are going to explore how to become a YouTuber influencer.
Choose your Niche
The first thing you need to do is pick a niche to focus on. It can be literally anything, from gardening to product reviews, just make sure that your niche aligns with your interests as well as your business goals. Researching other vloggers in this niche is a great method to learn more. Watch their videos and take note of the different tools and equipment they use. Also watch out for the way they edit their videos and the length of each one. By learning and taking inspiration from these vloggers, you can implement their strategies when creating your own videos and eventually grow to become a successful vlogger.
Set Mission & Vision
Every successful vlogger needs to have a brand their audience respects and admires within a specific niche, therefore, creating a logo, defining your vlogs mission and vision, and deciding on a theme and brand colors is important to the way you want your brand to be perceived by your audience. Coming up with a name that suits your vlog takes a lot of time and we tend to overthink things, thus tools such a brand name generator can assist you and will provide you a list of brand/business name ideas for your niche. Once you select your video editing software and publish your first video on YouTube, you’ll also need to handle all the technical nitty-gritty and be able to market your work and gain more exposure to your videos, but that comes later.
Need one more reason to take the leap? People worldwide will celebrate Vlogging Day on August 10, so this could be your chance to mingle with influencers, entrepreneurs, and media professionals. The celebration will be filled with activities you can participate in to spread the word about your vlog.
Vlogging Is More than Just a Hobby
Video blogs, or vlogs, have been around for longer than one might expect. It all started in the 1980s when artist Nelson Sullivan began videotaping his trips around New York City and other hot spots. He visited some of the most popular nightclubs and art galleries, threw parties, and attended street protests while recording everything.
Nowadays, vlogging is commonly used as a marketing tool, and for some people, it’s a full-time business. For example, Jimmy “Mr. Beast” Donaldson has more than 162 million subscribers on
His YouTube channel. That’s 6 times larger than the population of Australia! As of today, he has published over 740 videos featuring all sorts of stunts, such as a real-life Squid Game (From the Netflix TV series). His online success inspired him to launch Feastables, MrBeast Burger, and other businesses.
Another popular name is Felipe Neto, a Brazilian vlogger with 45 million subscribers. His YouTube channel features 4,200 videos covering various topics, from product reviews to entertainment. In 2017, Neto launched a Netflix comedy stand-up special inspired by his autobiographical book.
Nate O’Brien, a YouTuber with over 1.3 million subscribers, makes around $440,000 per year. So far, he published close to 200 videos covering finance topics, such as budgeting, entrepreneurship, and real estate investments. Most vloggers make money from their videos through sponsored content, affiliate marketing, or ads. Some also sell merchandise, digital products, or photo presets. Others use vlogs to promote their primary business and generate leads. The main thing they all have in common is that they are extremely knowledgeable about their field and focus all their efforts in producing entertaining and engaging content for their users to view.
How to Get Started with Vlogging
As mentioned earlier, starting a vlog is quite straightforward. All the basic equipment you need to start off with is a smartphone or webcam and access to video editing tools. However, you may also want to invest in a professional camera, a tripod, lighting gear, and other accessories, depending on your goals.
It’s one thing to make videos as a hobby, and another thing to turn your passion into a business. For example, professional vloggers like David Dobrik and PewDiePie use the latest and most expensive video equipment, but if you want to start a vlog for fun, then a smartphone will suffice.
Once you have decided what you want to vlog about, you will need to decide what types of videos you want to create. Let’s see a few examples:
- Daily vlogs (e.g., “What I eat in a day”)
- Travel vlogs (e.g., travel facts, experiences, or opinions)
- Educational vlogs (e.g., language lessons)
- Tech vlogs
- Music vlogs
- Funny videos (e.g., parodies, hilarious fails)
- Challenges
- Reviews
Ideally, your video channel should include a mix of the above. Varying your content allows you to reach a wider audience, generate engagement, and gain more exposure. If, say, you’re a yoga instructor, you can create videos featuring different asanas, postural tips, challenges, and reviews of yoga apparel, books, or exercise programs. You could also talk about the benefits of yoga and share personal experiences.
Apart from that, it’s important to have a plan, in order to craft the perfect content strategy that fits your brand and target audience. Decide how often you’ll share new videos and set clear goals for each piece of content. It is also super important to look into the future, once you start your vlogging journey, and think about how you’re going to promote and monetize your vlog.
What Does It Take to Make Money as a Vlogger?
The most popular YouTube videos generate thousands of dollars per month. According to UK Indeed, the average YouTuber made around $40277 per year.
Like with any business, make sure you have realistic goals. Earning a steady income from vlogging takes time, effort and most of all, patience! You’ll have to go through a few learning curves before earning a sufficient income from vlogging .
Keeping the above in mind, you need to decide where you want to share your videos. Each platform offers different monetization options and has distinct requirements. The competition on YouTube is fierce, so you might want to consider adding your videos onto other platforms as well.
Some popular choices include:
- Website
- Instagram (Reels)
- TikTok
- DailyMotion
- Vimeo
- Twitch
- DTube
For example, Vimeo supports live streaming and has built-in analytics. The downside is that you can upload only 500 megabytes of video content per week if you choose the free plan. By comparison, DailyMotion allows unlimited storage but has fewer features than Video, YouTube, and other vlogging platforms.
Enjoy the Process and Have Fun!
Moving forward, always remember to enjoy the journey. The beginning of any journey is difficult, but as time goes on, you will learn and gain enough experience to create a successful vlogging brand for yourself. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes when creating your first few videos, and focus on building your audience. Make sure to publish consistently, share your work on social media, engage with your fans, and improve your technical skills by learning more about search engine optimization, video editing, and digital marketing, which will eventually allow you to make better quality videos and grow your reach.