Last month, we launched a daily video blog to share my day to day life with you in a new way. Connecting over Instagram Stories, Webinars, and Facebook Video is always the highlight of my day… however, it often comes in the middle of yours. So earlier this year, I set out on a journey to change that and try some new ways of connecting you.

 

Subscribe to the vlog on YouTube

How it started: I brought up the idea of starting a vide blog to a friend of mine from Annapolis who was a daily YouTube vlogger for over three years and he agreed to join me for the summer to make it happen. [If you’ve been watching our most recent episodes, you’ve likely met Kent Heckel already… however, if not you need to check him out here + follow him on Instagram] We’re going to talk more about the gear we’re using + what it’s like to add a video intern to your team in upcoming blog posts—however, today it seemed fitting to share five reasons I love having a vlog.

Fits Easily Into Your Life:

The crazy part about vlogging that I didn’t realize until I started doing it is just how little pre-planning is required. Unlike writing new content for the blog or trying to come up with a marketing campaign, a video blog can be as simple as documenting the life you already live. You just go about your day and capture what you would already be doing without having to plan something extra.

Vlogging in Silicon Valley has proven to have a few challenges: blurring white boards with sensitive code, not filming big investors or candidates, and building trust with the executive team. However, I’ve been truly impressed with the overall freedom we’ve had to document the ins and outs of my role as Head of Community at HoneyBook + Rising Tide Society. It has also given us the ability to highlight other creatives who are doing incredible things, which I would love to explore even more in the coming weeks + months.

Expands Your Reach:

If you’ve never been a part of YouTube, then you’re missing out on one of the most searched communities on the web. Content is easily tagged and searched, which enables people to discover your brand in a powerful new way. You can easily track your traffic sources and see who is discovering you through the platform itself. It’s fairly easy to optimize video content and work to get your episodes seen by brand new faces.

What we found to be most exciting was leveraging my existing Facebook Reach of 40,000 and using my public page as a jumping off point for sharing the vlog. We’ve had single episodes reach 30,000 views on Facebook, where they only hit a couple thousand on YouTube. It’s been amazing to see how Facebook is favoring video content and allowing you to expand your reach on the platform.

Provides a Creative Outlet:

One of the greatest perks to launching a video blog, that I truly didn’t anticipate, is the ability to create for the sake of creating. I forgot how much fun it was to pick up a camera and document life from a place of joy rather than professional obligation. The only “client” is your audience and you have complete creative freedom to share your life as you see fit. It’s liberating and genuinely a ton of fun. It also challenges you to see the world a little differently (especially if, like me, you’ve only ever documented in still photographs).

I look forward to turning on the camera every morning and finding a fun way to tell the story of my (often boring) day.

Offers Transparency + Builds Trust:

Ever since moving to San Francisco with the Rising Tide Society and taking on the role of Head of Community at HoneyBook, I’ve found explaining my day to day life to be a challenge. I went from working at home and spending my weeks editing weddings—to navigating the start up world and leading a team in San Francisco. I worried about how I would begin to share this new life with my family, friends, and audience… which is where our video blog truly came in handy. Being able to take people inside of my schedule to actually sit down in meetings with me has opened up doors that I could have only imagined.

The more transparent and vulnerable you can be with your audience, the more trust + affinity you can build with them. People want to understand who you are and what makes you passionate about the things you care about. Having a vlog can help you to do just that.

Great Content Marketing:

Video is the emerging champion of content marketing and platforms like Instagram and Facebook are taking note. By creating a video blog on YouTube, I’m suddenly churning out a ton of rich video content that can then be repurposed across multiple channels. By taking a single episode and turning it into mini-clips for Instagram Stories, sharing screen grabs on Twitter with back links, and tagging relevant parties on Facebook who were a part of the episode—it creates an incredibly intricate weave of content all leading back to my business.

If you’re curious what our vlogging process looks like, you can Subscribe to the YouTube Channel or catch each new episode by Following our Facebook Page. We share new episodes at 8am Eastern, Monday through Friday.