Being a blogger is nothing odd these days. It’s actually pretty ordinary. It’s been out there for so long that it can be mentioned next to the jobs like driver, plumber and carpenter.

There are almost 4.5 billion people who use the Internet regularly and most of them surely know what does someone who owns a blog do.

Even though Blogging is pretty old it’s far from dissappearing or being outdated.

Lots of companies still say that blog content creation is their top marketing priority.

But for the last few years we’ve seen a tremendous growth of something called vlogging and I’d like to spent some time talking about it.

So, we’ll check a few things:

• what a vlog actually is and how it differs from a blog
• which one of these two is more popular
• which one has a lower entry barrier; which one is more expensive
• which one is harder to become good at
• we’ll also try to help you decide which one suits you better

Let’s dive into it!

What Does a Vlog Stand For

That’s actually pretty easy, isn’t it?

Guessing what’s the longer version of a word vlog.

Yes, you’re right. It’s a video blog.

According to Wikipedia a Vlog is a form of blog for which the medium is the video. It’s a form of web television and its most popular platform is YouTube.

What are the things people vlog about?

In Vlogging the producer is giving a visual insights into his life, his experiences, opinions and emotions about particular topics. Any topic there’s audience for.

Yes, it may look like a lot of fluff. Not too much value in this kind of content. However there are actually vloggers who put out a lot of awesome videos that really help their audience.

It’s all clear, right?

Let’s move to another question.

Which One is More Popular and Powerful

If I was to choose what do out of blogging and vlogging what I’d look at?

The number one factor would be popularity because if something is popular it means it works, right?

So, let’s take a look at a few stats that can help us see a bigger picture.

Firstly, a Google Trends Comparison.

Blogging still looks more popular than vlogging but the trend looks a lot more in favour of the latter. If it continues like that then they’ll probably switch places in the ranking.

Before we go any further with our judgement let’s check some stats that will make it a bit clearer.

Blogging Statistics

So, here’s how the numbers look when it comes to blogs:

• Almost 70% of customers say that a blog adds credibility to a website. Source: https://www.simplemarketingnow.com/content-talks-business-blog/business-blogging-statistics
• Nearly 80% of Internet users read blogs regularly. Source: https://www.djohncarlsonesq.com/77-internet-users-read-blogs
• Over 409 million people view more than 20 billion pages each month. Source: https://wordpress.com/activity/
• 70% of consumers would prefer learning about a business from a blog rather than from an advertisement Source: https://www.djohncarlsonesq.com/77-internet-users-read-blogs
• Marketers who make blogging their top priority are 13 times more likely to achieve a positive ROI. Source

These are some really good-looking stats, aren’t they?

Blogging is clearly very popular and important to any online business.

But let’s take a look at vlogs and how they fare.

Vlogging Statistics

So, onto the vlogs now. Since YouTube is the most popular places vloggers publish their videos we’re going to look at some of their stats, too.

Let’s go:

• 44% of Internet users watch vlogs each month Source: https://blog.globalwebindex.com/chart-of-the-day/over-4-in-10-watch-vlogs/
• 1.9 billion logged-in users visit YouTube every month Source: https://www.youtube.com/intl/en-GB/yt/about/press/
• 51% of U.S. marketers advertise on YT Source: https://www.digivid360.com/blog/video-strategy/2018-youtube-statistics/
• More than 50% of customers prefer video to other kinds of content Source: https://www.hubspot.com/marketing-statistics

As we can see from the stats above the video blogs are already well-known and used very often..

Well, not only that. They actually grow faster than the blogs.

What’s the main reason?

Perhaps they’re easier to run or less expensive?

Let’s find that if that’s the case!

Which One is More Expensive to Start and Run

Another important factor is obviously the cost of starting and running each of them.

Something may be easy to do but if it’s quite expensive to start it can discourage a great amount of newbies.

That’s why we should look at how much money is needed to be a blogger or a vlogger.

The Costs of Starting and Maintaining a Blog

Firstly, let’s begin with what’s necessary to start a blog:

• Domain – 10$-15$ a year
• Hosting – it can be as cheap as 3$ a month

These are the only must-haves when starting your blogging journey. You can get both of them from Bluehost, using my link here.

If it was any other – not that popular – online business then I would’ve recommended an online course to learn a particular trade but there’s absolutely a huge amount of free content to master it.

Ok, let’s check what you’re going to need to run and grow a blog into something extraordinary.

What tools you’re going to need in the future?

• Email Marketing Service Provider – well, you can get it for FREE when you start but as your list grows you either have to change a plan or switch to another one like ConvertKit. The first plan starts at 25$/month. When starting use FREE plan at MailChimp (check my guide how to set it up here)
• Lead Capture Tool – these tools come FREE as well but to increase your conversions and really get things moving into the right direction you’re going to need some advanced features that come with a premium tool like ConvertPlus which is 24$ – you just pay it once.
• Keyword Research/SEO Tool – I don’t recommend paying for these tools when you’re just starting. Well, you probably won’t have the budget for it anyways. However, as your blog grows you may actually need one and to be honest the good ones like SEMRush and Ahrefs are quite expensive. It’s a cost of at least 100$/month so before you’re big enough to afford one I’d suggest using this FREE one here.

The Costs of Starting and Maintaining a Vlog

Since it’s a completely different area of expertise the costs are different as well.

So, what do you need to start vlogging?

• a smartphone or a camera – you probably already have a smartphone so it would come without any additional costs but even the best iPhones can’t record a video that is of similar quality to a professional camera. These good camera cost at least 400$ – check the ones that vloggers are using here.
• a microphone – You can obviously use smartphone here as well but you’ll definitely lose some of the quality. To find some of the top microphones go here. You’ll need to spend 150$-200$ to get a good one.
• a tripod – to make the video clear and not shaky you need one of these, too. They go for about 50$.
• a lighting – to make the video high-quality you need a good light. Especially when you’re filming indoors. Depending on the type it’s at least 150$
• video editing software – well, you obviously don’t have to edit the videos but it’s a good way to increase the quality and make it look professional. That’s something that you really have to consider when growing your vlog. The cheapest ones are about 50$

Ok, we’ve got some costs for both blogging and vlogging.

Are they expensive?

It depends who we’d ask, right?

Let’s check the last thing which is the difficulty.

We’ll try to find out how difficult is it to learn each of them.

Which One is More Difficult to Master

Mastering any set of skills is time consuming and hard. It’s no different with these two we’ve been talking about.

Even though it could be tough to do we’ll try to compare them with each other and perhaps we find out which one is easier to master and which one you can learn quicker.

Let’s find out!

How Hard Is It To Learn Blogging?

Well, I actually wrote a post about it and you can check it here.

Nevertheless I’ll try to sum it all up in here as well.

So, the most difficult thing when it comes to blogging is the SEO.

Why?

Because its rules change all the time. Google just makes update after update and no one really knows what to expect.

The best way to avoid any penalty or a drop in rankings?

Don’t do blackhat SEO!

Other things that may not come so easily are:

• creating community
• staying disciplined and consistent over a long period of time

What about writing?

To be honest, creating blog posts is the easy part. You can learn it by…writing.

Yes, it’s that simple. Just stay motivated and write every day! You’ll improve significantly.

A big part of blogging is the technical part but it’s not that hard either thanks to all the plugins available out there!

That’s pretty much it!

Let’s check the video blogs now.

How Hard Is It To Learn Vlogging?

When it comes to vlogging on YouTube there’s also some SEO to consider but it works differently and it’s actually easier to rank.

Nevertheless, you have to learn it.

Vloggers not only have to produce top quality content like bloggers but they also need to present it in a particular way.

Whether it’s formal or nonformal depends on what the vlog is about but there are things that are closely associated with this.

You have to work on your appearance, behavior, tone of your voice, self-presentation and many other things. Just like people in TV.

That really matters in video.

Besides that there will be some technical stuff to do as well.

Things like setting all the equipment, the sound and the ligthing.

It may cause some problems in the beginning but you’ll surely solve them when you spend some time doing it.

Whether it’s a blog or a vlog there’s obviously a community you’d like to build.

I believe it’s actually easier to build it using videos than using text because people are going to know you better and they’ll feel closer to you than when reading your texts.

Should You Start a Blog or a Vlog?

We’ve reviewed both of them so let’s sum up what we’ve found.

Which one is more popular?

Blogging is still more popular but vlogging is growing really quickly.

Whatever you decide you’ll go with you don’t have to worry that you’ll struggle to find readers or people who’ll watch your vlog.

These two are so big and have so many fans that if you’ll create an outstanding content you’ll be able to get a lot of views.

Which one is more expensive?

The starting phase of vlogging will cost you more as there’s a lot of equipment to buy.

The good thing is that it’s usually a one-time buy. You won’t need another camera for a few years.

The blogging on the other hand will cost you more the longer you’ll run it as there are at least few payments you need to make each month. That’s what the companies behond these tools want you to do. To pay them monthly.

So, if you’re in here for a long run – as you should be – then the blog might be more expensive.

Which one is harder to learn?

I believe it’s harder to learn blogging because of two things.

The SEO and the time it takes to rank your content.

Before you start getting any organic traffic you need to wait at least a few months when on the other hand vlogs can get it so much quicker thanks to a different SEO mechanism running on YouTube.

Even though the writing and the thousands of lines of text won’t go away any time soon vlogs are a great alternative and they’re so much easier to consume for everyone.

So, what should you do?

Start both of them! Create lots of text based content and make videos out of it!

That would be the best, don’t you think?

Your business would benefit from it – no doubt!

Thanks for reading!

The post Blogging or Vlogging? What’s Better For You? appeared first on Grow Yourself Online.