Comments on: What are the Benefits of Adding Video to your Blog?

By: Ana

Ana — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 07:40:54 +0000

i use blogyoutube.com and work fine

By: himeshmishra

himeshmishra — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 19:42:35 +0000

well i have started blogging myself and as most of the people in the comment list would agree that adding video is a good thing adds more attraction to your post but it can be veryyy time consuming if someone has 56 kbps net speed.

By: Serge

Serge — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 08:55:06 +0000

I’m not using video on my blog yet but I’m considering doing it in the future. I’m gathering information about good compact camcorders but they are expensive, especially the full-HD models. I’ll certainly keep an eye on future articles you publish about using video on blogs.

By: Jack Carol

Jack Carol — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 09:59:26 +0000

I thing the benefit is it save time explaining to your reader with word.

By: Vern at AimforAwesome

Vern at AimforAwesome — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 02:46:10 +0000

Giving a lot of thought to this over the last few days.

For myself I’d like to use video to show things I don’t necessarily want to write a long article about. It’s so much easier for me to shoot a video and edit it than write 5000 words about the same topic. When speaking it comes out more naturally. I don’t script my videos so hopefully it comes out more free-flowing than text which I often agonize over to choose the exact words I want to use.

I think I can put more personal things into the video about topics I cover on the site that might connect me with visitors to my blog a little better than does text and static photos.

For me – text articles are best to provide new information and that search engines will index and send traffic to.

Video is for personal notes to visitors… as if I’m sharing part of my life experience with them, not really for new information – which probably should come in the form of a well-written article they can get value from quickly by scanning or reading it.

I shot my first video for the site, critiques welcome Aim for Awesome, Video 1. Yes, I understand the title at the end didn’t render very well at 150kbps quality. At top quality it looks nice. I’ll remember that for future videos! Good luck to everyone that is focused on putting video on their blogs.

By: Kat Rice

Kat Rice — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 20:18:45 +0000

I personally hate video in blogs. Personally, I do much of my blog reading in the evening when some of my family is in bed, so if I want to listen I have to put on headphones, etc. And a lot of times I’m grooving to music which I then have to stop if I want the information. I like video when it is supplemental or used occasionally, I even plan to try it on my own blog someday but most of the times I’m irritated. If you’re going to have video at least put your same thoughts in text somewhere on the page.

Someone else mentioned speed. I read much faster than someone speaks and my time is very, very precious. That and sometimes people are better writers than they are speakers and listening to video can grate your nerves rather than inspire you.

I see a lot of comments about viewers liking that kind of stuff. I guess if you are really talented with video, go for it. My readers are often older, less internet savvy and prefer text with pretty pictures, at least in what I’ve seen so far.

Oh and for the few people who have videos or sound that plays automatically, that’s a good way for me never ever to use your site again. Videoblog all you want, just let me press play when I wanna hear it.

By: Benny Lewis

Benny Lewis — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 02:30:30 +0000

My blog is primarily for hosting the videos I make (travel documentaries, each one translated to 7 languages). It’s great since you can convey so much information (at least in my case) in a much shorter space of time than you would need to sit and read it. My readers (viewers…) would not have the patience for such vast amounts of text some blogs produce. Some of us tell a story better through images! :)

By: Genesis

Genesis — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 17:27:56 +0000

So far, I haven`t used video. For me, it is rather frustrating to find a video on someone`s website or blog and then have to wait an hour for it to load. However, it does seem beneficial if you have something that can`t be easily explained . . . showing is always better.

By: matthew bennett

matthew bennett — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 02:37:01 +0000

I produce and post a video every day, the Nokia Daily News. I film and edit the video using the video editor application on my Nokia N95. If the files weren’t so big at 20MB or so, I could upload them without a computer.

I just started a little over a month ago, and my stats are growing predictably. The niche is small, and the content over tech and boring to most. I’m just trying it to figure out the workflow. According to my stats, users average over 2 minutes on the site, and my bounce rate is below 5%.

By: ITrush

ITrush — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 13:58:09 +0000

I haven’t done it yet, but I’m thinking of adding one.

By: Lenin Nair

Lenin Nair — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 07:25:42 +0000

Hi there, Darren,

As I mentioned in my last comment here, I added audio to my blog. Dear readers, please check out Odiogo.com which offers a great podcasting service for bloggers. For a demo, please visit my stie cutewriting.blogspot.com

Lenin

By: Matt Dickman

Matt Dickman — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 03:08:32 +0000

I use a lot of custom video on my blog. Over a couple of years of doing this I’ve found a key point in how people consume information. Everybody wants it their way. Some people like to read a post, others like to watch videos, some want those videos in a podcast.

Video is also a fantastic way to explain things to people where words tend to fail. You’ll see on my videos I have a video window with my face and a browser where I show people what I am talking about. (Here is a recent video on Summize http://tinyurl.com/52xg65.) I cover new, hot social media apps that normal marketing people are too overwhelmed to try themselves. I try thing for them and walk them through step-by-step.

I also distribute my videos on a lot of platforms so that my readers can watch them wherever they want. Once I compress a final video I upload it to my podcast hosting system. Next I go to Facebook and upload it to my videos and to my fan page videos (for some reason this is a separate process). Finally I use TubeMogul.com to upload a single file on 8-10 different video sites at once. Saves me time and gets the content out quickly.

I think the most important part of using video is to add some value that you can’t get in copy, but support it with a text narrative. Also, let people consume things where and how they want. Post your video on iTunes as well as YouTube and Yahoo Video. You never know where people will find you.

By: Carlos - Travel Central America

Carlos - Travel Central America — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 22:32:54 +0000

Videos are a great tool in any blog. However having videos makes the page to download in much more time than usual, no problem when you have a fast internet connection, but it’s really a problem if the connection is not that fast.

Many times I have tried myself to access some websites or blogs, but when they don’t download quick because they have videos included, its very frustrating.

It also depends on the topic of the blog. Some blogs may be fine with regular photos, and having a video once in a while is good, as long as it doesn’t make the download very slow as I said….

By: cb

cb — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 20:52:25 +0000

I actually don’t like video in blogs. I rarely if ever watch them if they are posted. I use my computer in my front room and prefer a ‘reading’ experience. I understand I might be in the minority but lots of video would turn me right off.
I think it wouldn’t be hard to guess then that I’ve never used video in my blog :) I see it as a visual form – rather than an audio-visual form.. if I want video, I’ll grab a video podcast!

By: Virtual Tech Diva

Virtual Tech Diva — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 20:40:29 +0000

Adding video to your blog is an excellent way to market to your customer’s emotions. My sister just had a baby girl and she wanted to give her clients an update of her maternity leave. What better way to show her appreciation for her clients support by premiering a short video pronouncing the birth of her baby girl. At the end of the video shows a promo code that her clients need to announcing at the time of the appointment to receive a 10% discount. I emailed the link to all of her customers in her address book. Within 24 hours, my sister’s customers called her and rave about the video. And within a few days, her customers called to make an appointment while announcing the promo code. Not only that, it increase my blog traffic.

By: Viki Nygaard

Viki Nygaard — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 19:45:49 +0000

I think that video can be an excellent tool, particularly when it’s used to demonstrate how to do something. However, I would highly encourage those who use video to either caption the video or include a written transcript of it.

Yeah, I realize that’s a lot of extra work, but if you don’t provide a written alternative, you are going to lose out on visitors/customers/subscribers. Over 28 million people in the United States alone are deaf or hard of hearing, and most of them rely on captioning or subtitles to view and understand video.

By: Syed Balkhi

Syed Balkhi — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 19:04:05 +0000

The main advantage of a video is the connection between me and my reader. They can actually see me and get to hear I talk. That is the way they understand my personality and it helps them understand my posts better. Another advantage of videos in the blog is that it explains some things way better than a word post would.

Also some tutorials are better with video rather than just text.

btw darren: thanks for the add on plurk.

By: Pat

Pat — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 18:10:11 +0000

I intensely dislike video on blogs or news sites. I tend to read blogs while on the phone or doing other mindless tasks. I can’t multi-task when there is video. And frankly, most people who do their own webcam videos aren’t good enough to capture my attention for more than the 20 seconds it takes me to scan the written blog. i routinely skip videos, and if a site has too many, I’ll unsubscribe. Needless to say, I use very few on my own blog, and then only to supplement the written content.

By: Barb

Barb — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 17:13:08 +0000

My one gripe about most video is that very few people caption their videos. While I know the deaf/hoh world needs captioning to be able to gain benefit from a video, as a hearing person myself, I find too many videos where I cannot understand part or all of the audio. Unless you’re a mime, a video with bad audio is just annoying! You can’t gain any benefit from it. It would help if there were easier ways to caption your own video. This is an area where the technology really needs to come up to speed.

By: Roger

Roger — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 16:02:19 +0000

I maintain two videos in the sidebar of my blog. I think the video appeals to my readers. However, like everything else, I think you can overdue it. For example I usually never mix video into the posts content.