If you´re still asking yourself whether you should start Vlogging or not then you´ve found the right place!

I have done some research on this topic and found out a few interesting facts that may help you decide or simply give you a glimpse of what´s coming next in the internet world.

We all know that YouTubers and particularly Vloggers are now a big part of the newly famous and rising stars of today´s media, but how much of that is actually true?

¡Vlogging is Trending!

Things have really changed in the last couple of years.

YouTube has made possible for the entire world to upload to a trustworthy platform that serves a great exposure for those willing to put good content and entertain the masses with their knowledge and/or personalities.

Now that we have smartphones with the capability of recording video with the highest quality we´ve ever seen and the fact that there is better editing software which makes the job much easier when it comes to polishing our content people are uploading to YouTube more videos than ever before!

The effects that influencers have on purchase decisions go far beyond the digital platforms where they interact with their audiences.

In fact, here´s a cool graph that lies out exactly how vlogger have done just that.

The statistic shows, by age group, how much influence did vloggers had when it comes to a purchase decision. The poll was conducted in Germany in 2016.

The numbers revealed that 50% of the contestants between the ages of 14 and 19 purchased something in the last 12 months because of advertising from vloggers and/or YouTubers. The same was true for 33% of the participants on the 20-29 age group.

In fact, there are other interesting facts about the YouTube platform that you might wanna know to have a full picture of how massive things actually are.

1.9 billion is the number of monthly active users in the platform, with more than 30 million daily active users and 50 million of them that create content for those same users. (source)

Also, the average viewing session lasts 40 minutes, up 50% year-over-year! Which is crazy if you consider that the number of videos watched every day is around 5 billion.

There´s still not enough good quality content out there for the amount of consumption that the platform experiences each month, that´s actually why there´s so much potential and so many opportunities to take advantage from.

The exact same thing happens with Vlogging, which is a big part of the YouTube community and has an effect on how you can build up a brand around your passion and everyday life right from your phone!

iPhone Vloggers

Here´s a couple of good examples that show how capable the new iPhones are, and we´re not actually speaking of the iPhone X, at all.

An iPhone 7 can make a great job recording your videos with a high quality and also pick up great audio while you´re at it, leaving you just the job of editing the clips and uploading it to YouTube. Great, right?

There are plenty of channels that make a great job at teaching how to use your iPhone to make cinematic footage or even any type of video to acquire easily a great quality when you film.

How Does the Future Looks Like?

People have been watching T.V for the last decades and been influenced by it for a long time now, what happens with YouTube, as with any other video watching platform, is that it takes a cut from those same T.V watchers.

The paradigm is shifting and the direction is headed towards mostly video online consumption.

Just to give you an idea of how much growth have some vloggers experienced let´s take a quick peek at one of the most famous topics covered by Vloggers around the globe.

Here you´ll see some stats from the annual beauty-related content views on YouTube from 2009 to 2017. (in billions!)

Data compiled by the Statista.com

In 2016, beauty-related content generated more than 55 billion views. But the insane part is how much has grown in the last 10 years!

Popular types of YouTube beauty content include tutorials and DIY videos, reviews, and videos exclusively produced by beauty vloggers.

As of June 2016, more than 5.3 million beauty videos were published on the online video platform.

People started shifting their watching preferences years ago, as we can deduce from the graphic, but the truth is that it only picked up and got to really impressive numbers in the last couple of years.

Vlogging is much more responsive and relevant to the viewer than any other form of video, as a Vlogger you can create content on demand and get instant feedback from your audience to further develop an idea.

Another thing is that you won´t have to wait to watch your favorite videos, you can do that at any given time, whenever it´s convenient for you.

T.V shows take months, if not years, to develop the same idea and put it on the media at certain days and hours.

Now, here are some other interesting facts you might want to consider:

• On average months, 8 out of 10 18 to 49 year-olds tend to watch YouTube instead of TV screens.
• By 2025, half of the viewers under 32 years old will not subscribe to a pay-TV service.
• We watch more YouTube videos a day than Netflix and Facebook video combined! (over 1 billion a day)
• People are now watching YouTube directly on their TV screens, in fact, the number of viewers through those devices has doubled in the last year.
• The number of channels earning 6-figures per year on the platform has increased by 50% in the last years.
• Searches of “how to” type of videos on YouTube are growing 70% year on year.

So, in case you were still wondering whether you should aboard this ship or not, I think I´ve lied out a pretty nice picture for you to hold on and create a brand new YouTube channel right away.

There´s still room for you to jump onboard!

Wanna Get Into Vlogging?

Now, there are plenty of benefits that come from Vlogging, I would say that one of the main ones is that you can choose what to talk about, what to focus on, which is great if you´re interested in making an entire channel about a hobby or passion you´ve never fully developed.

It could be your singing, maybe you want to learn how to play an instrument and you could record your progress so that way you encourage other people to do it too, or you just want to teach people how great is fishing and share some good tips that could help a beginner that´s getting into the activity.

That´s the beauty of it! You could do anything!

Also, there are some practical factors that make Vloggin a great career to pursue if you´re willing to put in the hours and effort to learn the craft.

• Vlogging is easy & convenient – Maybe not at first, but you´re quickly going to get the hang of it if you practice consistently and keep learning from your mistakes. It´s also pretty damn convenient, you can do it anywhere and whenever you want, just take out your phone/camera and start recording, don´t worry, the magic happens later, when it´s time to edit. 😉
• You can build a brand! There are so many examples out there. People that have built an entire company or personal brand by posting great content and sharing their own experiences that helped a lot of people and have made for themselves a reputation and a place in their business area of expertise.
• Generates more trust in your audience – Video is much more effective than articles when it comes to generating trust in your audience. You can look at the person that´s teaching you, they can show you exactly what to do and how to do it, it has an impact like nothing else has.

Best Practices of the Pro Vlogger

If you´re going to be serious about it and you want to do it right, then the first thing you should consider is dividing your shooting and video creation into three different sections.

1. Pre-Production: Make a hit list of possible video ideas, set up the scenario if you´re going to shoot outside try to do it on a sunny day and choose a niche location with the right background that suits the mood of your video and content. Write a script and divide it into small paragraphs so that you can rehearse each of them and make smaller clips to make it easier for yourself.
2. Production: The actual shooting of the video is possibly the hardest part for most beginners. There´s no right and wrong, if you misspoke or forgot a line do it again, do it as many times as necessary, don´t be afraid of failing, you probably will the first few times.
3. Post-Production: Finally, editing, you can begin with an easier interface like iMovie or go directly for the pro tools like Adobe or Sony Vegas, whatever you choose it´s OK. You just need to polish your content and make it presentable for your audience.

Now, if you want to learn more about how to Vlog and use your phone or camera to record awesome footage, make a good first impression to your viewers, and learn how to edit like a pro then there are sites like Skillshare that offer that type of quality lessons.

¡Podcasting! …the New Vlogging?

One more thing I would like to address is the next best thing you can do with your content, Podcasting!

Yeah, audio consumption is the next best thing that people have been doing from the last couple of years and has actually been growing at a fast rate.

You´ve probably heard about platforms like Audible (from Amazon), or Scribd that have a crazy variety of books and content that you can hear while you go about your daily tasks.

But the new approach many content creators have turned into is adding Podcasting to their repertoire.

There are many YouTubers, Bloggers, and Vloggers that have incorporated this “new” form of connecting with their audience. Why do I say “new” form? Well, simply because Podcasting is another type of radio!

Like YouTube and Netflix are the next TV cable, Podcasting, for some people, has replaced Radio quite a bit.

Check out the next graph to know what I mean.

This statistic represents the annual podcast advertising spending in the United States from 2010 to 2020, so it´s an estimate for the next couple of years according to the growth rate that´s been leading so far.

Advertising spending in podcasts in the U.S. is estimated to reach 256 million U.S. dollars in 2018, up from 133 million in 2015, has practically doubled the amount in three years.

So, if you want to start the next best thing apart from Vlogging and make out from your content another great stream of income then get into Podcasting right now.

Wrapping Up

Last but not least, I wanted to say that for those who are still doubting of the potential vlogging has to offer for their business ideas or brand you´ve got to get started and see it for yourselves.

There´s no amount of graphs and statistics that I could show you that would be more impactful than getting some results for your own means.

As you´ve seen, you probably need a good phone and some inspiration to get going, make sure your editing skills are getting good and start filming some great content!