Let’s start off by clarifying what each of these two communication tactics are. Blog, originally comes from weblog, which is regularly updated content that is meant to engage with your website visitors. This can be industry-specific information, company-specific, or product/service-related for businesses.

A Vlog, video blog or log, is a form of a blog, but in video form. The content is created in a recorded format versus the written word to tell the story or provide the necessary information.

Both are extremely effective tactics to use in engaging with your audience to build awareness, conversions, and loyalty.

Which format to choose?

That question should be reformed to “What format is best suited for the information or story my brand is communicating to my audience”? These factors will help determine the best format:

• Topic – What is your topic and the level of difficulty associated with understanding the content?
• Audience – Who is your audience for this topic and how do they digest information presented?
• Format – Will this be informational, interview, tutorial, or promotional? Determining how the topic needs to be communicated informs the use of a vlog or blog.
• Resources – Do you have the budget and time for video production? Do you need to hire additional staff?

Working with your content team can aid in the decision-making of which format to produce. It is ideal to develop a content calendar to set up production timelines, accurate budgets, and retain staff resources. These factors can be translated into how to promote your new content on social media, through digital ads, emails, and within your website.

To blog or not to blog?

When deciding to go the written word route, there are a few nuances that you may need to remember. A blog is not just an article or essay on a topic, it can incorporate visuals such as gifs, pictures, memes, screenshots, infographics, and more. Incorporating these visuals is very helpful for a blog because without imagery the content can be very tedious and overwhelming for the audience to digest, pending the topic.

The use of these visuals can also elevate the topic to provide supplementary information while creating an interaction for the reader to hop between words and imagery to comprehend the topic to further engage with your company.

Furthermore, a version of a stand-alone blog that is easily digestible due to the amount of data or convoluted information (i.e. a process or a compare/contrast model) is an infographic. Not only can this creative boost engagement, but this beautifully presented piece can also increase overall brand awareness.

Considerations around industry-specific topics can be best suited for a blog format because they are laying out definitions and case studies that can be directly applied to one’s profession. However, it is important to note that professionals are busy with their jobs and need information that is easily retained as well, which a bulleted format can be best suited for.

The biggest areas of concern with a blog format are:

• Eye-catching headlines
• Topic and its audience
• Appropriate length of topic
• Voice and writing style
• Quality and consistent content
• Plagiarism and source referencing

If resources are thin and copywriters are not within budget, blog development can all be pulled from your experience of writing papers for your classes throughout your education. The essay or article needs to be compelling, consistent, and accurate per the area of focus of each class – you would not write the same for a fictional book report as you would for determining the chemical makeup of elements on the periodic table. The same would go for writing a fashion blog versus a finance article.

To vlog or not to vlog?

Video content marketing has really taken on a lifeform of its own in the last few years. Over 84% of companies use video in their marketing efforts. Meaning only 14% of companies have not yet implemented this tactic into their strategies and are potentially losing consumers.

Formats of video can vary – some of the popular are:

• Brand
• Interview
• Tutorial
• Behind-the-scenes
• Product demonstrations
• Testimonials
• Company culture

Videos have become an integral part of a user’s daily life, especially those active on social media. There are short promotional video clips that entice those to watch full videos and platforms such as Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok are platforms that are based or have become reliant on videos as engagement and selling points to audiences.

Your audience wants to become more engaged with your brand and video is a proven method to showcase product and industry knowledge, transparency, and your brand identity to be a liked and trusted source. Emotions, inflections, and tone can be seen through each format and allow for your company to become more personable to your audience.

Of course, the largest downside to video is the cost and production time. Storyboards, scripts, software and equipment, and staff are all potential needs to produce a video. Other considerations that will determine your use of video are: will your video include people or will it be animated? Do you have an in-house production team to record and edit or does that need to be outsourced? What are all the associated costs with casting and producing a video?

For the promotional end, concerns would be how many teaser clips are needed – are they different for each platform that it is being promoted on? How long is too long of a video for your audience? Will this content be coherent through this channel? Be mindful of where you host all of your videos and how that will play into the promotion of the vlog. Many will create a company YouTube or Vimeo page that will allow users to review and watch all videos produced by your company.

Next Steps

The average attention span of consumers has dwindled and as a society, we have become more aware and knowledgeable of products and topics that are important to us. Ensuring that topics are relevant, well researched, and clearly communicated will have a tremendous impact on how your brand is perceived and trusted; which will ultimately be deciding factors on your consumers’ will to convert in an intended way, whether it be sales, subscriptions, shares, etc.

Contact Colleen Eakins Design today to begin strategizing design components needed in your content marketing strategy.