I’m playing around more and more with the idea of starting my own video blog. With trips abroad and business plans for 2017 coming to fruition, I feel like it’s the perfect time to document my life. What better way to do that than through short, daily videos. I’ve set a date for my first upload as January 1st 2017.

Naturally, as preparation I’ve studied some of my favourite vloggers and tried to analyse what sets them apart. The following list is something that I mocked up the other night after binge-watching 3 hours of various vlogs, helped along by some Jameson for creativity. If nothing else, this should serve as a guide for my own use.

Consistency

Obviously this is the golden rule. This is something that pretty much ever successful vlogger has heralded as the most important part aspect. Casey Neistat, Jerome, Shay Carl & even Justin Escalona all agree that committing to upload every single day, while obviously time strenuous is the key aspect of maintaining and expanding an audience.

Whats more, consistency in terms of style and content is tantamount to success. People are returning to watch your video on a daily basis for the particular type of content that they are guaranteed. If you switch it up too much, you might fall outside the boundary of what they’re looking for. Some days, you simply won’t have time. In such a case, do a Q &A or tell a story. Just make sure a video goes up.

Take Criticism Well

Be original, be yourself. Recognise what people like about your content and capitalise on their interest. If people start to react to certain aspects of the vlog, increase the focus on that aspect. When Casey realised that people were enjoying the boosted-board shots through Manhattan, he explicitly said that he was going to feature the board more often.

Equally, if people start to criticise or ignore a newly introduced aspect of the vlog, quickly dispose or re-invent it, to suit their interests. Integrity is important, and you should always produce content that you like yourself, but if you’re speaking in terms of establishing an audience and they don’t like something that you’re doing, it’s better to stop than force it.

Dont Brag — Inform

Most Vloggers are the people who are likely too busy to watch other vlogs. As noted above ,They will usually always have some sort of side venture or activity outside of vlogging that renders them too busy to sit around, updating themselves with the goings-ons of other people on the internet that, for the most part, they haven’t met.

Contrastingly, their audience is usually pretty much the opposite. Most people who watch vlogs simply have the time to watch vlogs. They’re not burningly passionate about something outside of the vlogosphere to the extent that they focus their attention on that thing, which would likely have a greater and more positive impact on their lives. Instead, their watching your video, so don’t make them feel bad for doing that. If you brag about your achievements and accomplishments without a genuine reflection on how you did it, they’ll stop watching soon after.

Don’t Push your Product

YouTube pays its uploaders for the ads that they allow to be published on their videos. However, unless you’re pulling in hundreds of thousands of views on a daily basis, it’s not going to be a living wage.

As such, most successful YouTubers have some sort of product that they sell through their videos- usually TShirts. They often refer to the TShirts and talk about promotional offers or new designs. However, this can get a bit invasive if it’s overdone, and can seem forced if not dealt with in a modest way. Viewers will quickly get the impression that they are being sold something, rather than gaining an insight into someone else’s life.

Document — Don’t Create

This idea is borrowed from Gary Veynerchuk. He uses the phrase to describe the importance of uploading visual content in creating a personal brand. While creativity is important in editing and executing, don’t go out of your way to do things you wouldn’t do normally for the sake of making your vlog seem more interesting. Especially if it has the potential to be extremely time consuming.

“content creators” think that they only have one at bat — they have to make the one, most beautifully created video or image or rant on Facebook.

But what they don’t realize is that their hunger to make the perfect piece of content is what’s actually crippling them.

That quote from Gary ties into my final point:

Perfect is the Enemy of Good

Remember that daily is the name of the game. Don’t stress about getting something to it’s absolute highest level. There’s going to be flaws. Cameras will break, Microphones will not pick up audio and editing software will crash. It’s what you do with the footage that counts.

You’re not making a movie. Your ability will improve daily.

“Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without.”

Thanks for reading this short blog post. For a playlist of my travel vlogs to date check out the link below. You can also find me on instagram @feeetzy.

Thanks of course to Gary Vaynerchuk, Casey Neistat, Justin Escalona, Jérôme and all the rest for the continued inspiration. And to Jack Parsons for the idea and support.