It may seem that this decade will be coined as the decade of bloggers and, overwhelmingly, vloggers. From PewDiePie to your neighbor, it seems like everyone is trying to cash out on vlogging. However, video blogging is not just an array for travel nomads and unboxers. Businesses from RedBull to your local patisserie are entering the business vlogging market and embracing this increasingly growing trend as well. So why not hop on that bandwagon and introduce business vlogging to your business as well?

Business or corporate vlogging is indeed a challenging game to play. You may not be aware of the rules of the game, or do not really understand why you even have to play in the first place. So, we’ve invited Rob Balasabas, the utmost expert on corporate blogging from TubeBuddy, to uncover the value of business vlogging and guide you through all the pitfalls standing in your way to success.

What Is Business Vlogging

If vlogging is something you’ve already wrapped your head around (video + blogging = vlogging), corporate vlogging definition may seem more tricky. But, according to Rob, it’s all fairly straightforward:

Corporate vlogging is a convincing and efficient way of documenting and telling your brand story and humanizing your brand.

Essentially, if you want to build some deep connection between your customer and your business, corporate vlogging is the way to go. It’s the most powerful tool (at the moment) that you can use to share stories about your brand, the people behind the scenes of your brand, and, of course, your customers.

Why It’s Time to Invest Your Time & Efforts Into Business Vlogging

Rob mentions two main areas that you can expect to see some great impact on for your business once you embrace vlogging:

• Unaccountable/”vanity” metrics: Vlogging can help you elevate your brand and attract some of that hard-earned attention we’re all seeking with our marketing efforts. By doing something out of the ordinary, you’ll get a chance of catching an increasingly shortening attention span from your customers. Yes, they do want useful content, tips and tricks, but they also want to see what your brand really stands for, some people behind your brand, and even share their own stories with a wider audience. Your business vlog can become that platform.
• Accountable/”business” metrics: The essence of business vlogging is the humanization of your brand. There may be thousands of other companies offering the same services as you do, but if you manage to build that deep connection between your company and your customers, you’ll see some impact even on such “business” metrics like customer loyalty and customer’s life-time value.

If people are connected to somebody inside your company, they are going to be customers for a lot longer. They’ll have to think twice before they cancel that subscription or turn to one of your competitors.

Where to Begin with Business Vlogging

You may get overwhelmed by the amount of work and effort it takes to create a business vlog, but really, it’s all mainly a matter of time investment.

Start small. Don’t go big on production – no one expects, or needs, Steven Spielberg-like movie quality or Tarantino-like script twists from your business vlog. Your smartphone camera will absolutely suffice. And only when you see some real impact and traction with your business vlog, can you start investing in more sophisticated equipment, visuals, lighting and so on.

Be consistent. A content calendar is not just a thing for your blog. When creating a vlog, be intentional and think of some consistency – Moz’s Whiteboard Fridays are a great example of that. It’s up to you whether you’re ready to post videos daily, weekly, or monthly, just as long as there is some consistency in your schedule.

You’re creating a bit of your own reality show that your customers are turning to, so they need to trust that you are going to show up regularly before they start investing their time to get to know you.

Repurpose existing content. Again, don’t go big at first. Try to repurpose your existing content. Try turning your monthly newsletter into a video – just pick someone from within your company and ask them to read up all the monthly updates. This is a video diary of your company that people may actually stop and watch.

Tell someone else’s story. Yes, it may be hard at first to talk about yourself. So, “use” your customers. Maybe you helped somebody or had a really cool email coming back from a customer about how happy they were with your service or product, how it impacted their business or even their life.

Think outside of the box. Since we’ve already established that business vlogging is mainly intended for humanizing and putting a face to your brand, don’t just speak about your business or your product. You can talk about something that your company did – like, hosted an internal event, brought everyone together for theatre production, or something your employees/colleagues do outside of your company – charity work, recycle, host poetry readings, and so on.

As you can see, business vlogging doesn’t have to take much to initiate.

Business Vlogging: Common Traps to Avoid

Once you know what to do to get started with your corporate vlog, it’s time to uncover what you shouldn’t do. And Rob offers some easy-to-implement advice on the top video vlogging mistakes.

#1. You keep finding reasons not to do it

The top trap is to continue coming up with excuses as to why you can’t get started with business vlogging. Look at the points above, and admit that it’s just not that challenging. Your story always comes first, and it is the story that your customers want to hear. So, things like production value, equipment, professional speakers, and the camera-shyness of your staff are just obstacles you’re coming up within your head.

“Just do it”, as Nike (or Shia LaBeouf) says.

#2. You put quality over quantity

Don’t be afraid to make mistakes and come up with a not-so-great video. The more content you create, the better you get at it.

As you create more content and tell your story more, that story itself becomes better. Not even better, but it’s told in a better way.

#3. You forget about your customer’s journey

Creating a video is not the end goal for your business vlogging efforts. Don’t forget that your corporate vlog is just a part of your customer’s journey. What many brands forget to do is they fail to share a call to action. After all, you do want the viewer to take another action after watching your video.

Send them somewhere else where they can get more information, but don’t sell them – they’re not ready for that yet, just create a call to action.

#4. You put emphasis on the platform

The golden rule for marketers applies to business vlogging as well – meet your customers where they are.

If your customers are heavily present on Instagram, then that’s the way to go. If your customers are on Facebook or LinkedIn, or even Twitter, this is where you have to meet them. There’s no point in investing your efforts into regrowing your YouTube channel if your customers just don’t hang out on YouTube. You can always repurpose your video content (as to Rob, Wave.video really helps here) to other platforms and publish them there as well, and maybe mention your other channels within your videos.

Just don’t make it harder on your customers or your marketing teams.

Over to You

Now, we’d love to hear what you have to say on the matter: Have you already started with business vlogging? What challenges are you facing, or what’s stopping you from putting in the time and effort to begin a corporate vlog? Share your opinion and experience in the comments section below!