What I learned vlogging for 14 days, and what YOU need to know

Here is what you NEED TO KNOW if you are considering vlogging!

If you saw on my Instagram page, @Bryanathatboymom, which recently grew to over 9,000 followers, I participated in a daily challenge called the 28 Day Vlog Challenge. You can check out my recent posts here.

As the title suggests, you vlog for 28 days and experience the benefits of vlogging.

Now, this was no easy feat. I was already posting 2-3 times a day and trying to expand my audience.

I thought adding this vlog challenge would be fun, and a great way for my followers to get a glimpse of my daily life!

There are several benefits to vlogging on your social media accounts.

These include engaging with your audience, showing a more personal side of you, and showing consistency on your page.

What is vlogging?

“Vlog” or “Vlogging” is a term for “Video log” or even “Video blog”. It is a way of using video to engage with your audience, versus static photos or written blogs or articles.

According to Dan Sanchez, a vlog is “is a journalistic style of video that captures the life of an individual while typically being narrated and recorded by the same individual” (https://danchez.com/vlog-defined/).

In the age of social media, not only do people connect more with visual content, it is easier to consume. The easier it is to consume, the more of an audience you will reach.

Theoretically.

Vlogs vs Reels

In the age of Vine (RIP 😭), Tik Tok, and Instagram, people’s attention span only seems to be getting shorter.

Most people scroll past a video within the first 3-5 seconds.

THREE to FIVE SECONDS.

How can you possibly share a vlog in less than five seconds?

The answer is, you can’t.

That is why vlogging is so much harder these days.

Reels and Tik Tok videos tend to be less than 10 seconds, use trending themes and audios, and reach hundreds of thousands of people in any given time.

Vlogs take commitment from your audience, and a willingness to stick around. This is hard, when 90% of your audience will be from non-followers, and people who don’t know you, and who are likely just aimlessly scrolling through their explore feed.

An audience for your vlogs will most likely be from those who are already a fan of your content, and want to take the next step into learning about you and the deeper aspects of your life.

The platform you post vlogs to would matter as well.

Instagram was not the best place for me to be posting vlogs.

I could not keep a vlog much under 30 seconds.

That is suicide for a reel that loses 90% of its audience after 5 seconds.

Unfortunately, by posting that every day on my Instagram feed, along with my reels, just showed the algorithm that people were not interested in my content.

When in reality, it was just the wrong platform.

My biggest takeaway from vlogging for two weeks straight

So, I participated in a 28 Day Vlog Challenge, but I only vlogged for 14 days?

Yup.

And, this is why.

Vlogging is HARD.

Not only is it super unnatural to set up your tripod and camera before you do a super mundane task, there is the editing the excruciatingly long video clips and creating a video that is interesting enough for people to enjoy.

This added HOURS of work to my day. HOURS, y’all.

I am a stay at home mom of two boys, ages 3 and 1, and I am also a content creator as a hobby/side hustle. And those both take up a lot of time.

I also just started up my website less than a month ago. Also time consuming.

I am behind on my blog posts, and am totally over-niched on my Instagram page.

I had several things that I needed to be working on and fine tuning in my little world of content creation, plus just managing my daily life and being present for my husband and kids.

This girl had zero business trying to VLOG for 28 days straight. 😂😂

The last straw was the weekend of my son’s first birthday party, when I experienced a lot of exhaustion and burnout.

I decided then that I would stop my vlog challenge.

The benefits of vlogging

More experience in front of the camera. As a content creator, it is always important to make sure you audience sees you and your personality. This can be jarring when you spent most of your life BEHIND the camera. So, gaining some experience on the other side can help you gain confidence in front of the camera.
Refining skills in video creation and editing. I got lots of extra experience with my equipment and my video editing software. I experimented with new techniques and tools and different ways of using my camera and tripod. It taught me what equipment was the most useful. You can check out all my links here, or on my LTK, for my favourites.
Gaining some insight on yourself as a creator. I found that so many days of vlogging showed me what my life was really revolving around, and it helped me decide on a niche that I wanted to stick with. I was so focused on broadening my horizons that I forgot the golden rule of Instagram: NICHE!

And, in contrast, some of the disadvantages included:

Lack of privacy. Not everyone needs to know what you are doing all day every day… nor are they really that interested. My husband also didn’t very much appreciate having his morning coffee on camera. Everyone drives to the grocery store, it’s pretty much a universal experience – so, while daily content might be relatable, it is also predictable and uninteresting. It also exposes parts of your life that really might be unsafe, like where you live, the layout of your home, and where you shop.
It is time consuming. If you already have commitments, vlogging can take up even more of your free time. It takes a lot of time do to anything well, and vlogging is no exception. And, if you are not doing vlogging well, and your videos are flopping, then there is no point of wasting any time at all in doing it. So, in my opinion, do it well, or not at all.

My three biggest mistakes

I did not have a plan. My vlogs were just “daily vlogs” – random clips of my life throughout my day. Having coffee, cleaning the house, running errands, etc. Can you say BORING?! People are already living this life, in their own life… they don’t necessarily want to spend their time watching someone else do it online, as well. I needed to have a PLAN for my vlogs – was I going to vlog about how I like to make my coffee? How I put my clothes on in the morning? How I organize my playroom? These are things that interest people, and I would be able to hold their attention for way longer. This would have been way more successful than me blogging 2 second clips of the same sh*t I do every single day. It was like groundhog day on my page. People lost interest veeerrrry fast.
I did not use enticing captions, descriptions and keywords to get people to watch my vlogs. Because I already worked so hard already filming and editing, I just wrote generic captions and hashtags. The sprinkles on top of my boring cupcake.
I posted my vlogs on Instagram, where short and sweet videos live, and not a platform like Youtube, where people go to watch full length videos and vlogs. People scrolling through Instagram after their own long and stressful days did not have the attention span to spend 30+ seconds watch me have coffee, clean my house, and make dinner for the 10th time.

Is vlogging for you?

When I vlogged for 14 days straight, it taught me that vlogging was not for me. Do you think it is for you? What do you know about vlogging that you could add to this post?

If you liked this, I would love a visit to my instagram page, @bryanathatboymom – check it out here!