The argument about blogging or vlogging has been creating a buzz in the digital society for a while. The debate about which medium reigns supreme in the modern web is indeed a subject that’s worthy of in-depth discussion.
Marketers and advertisers alike are not oblivious to the power of blogging. From startups to mass media giants, blogging has become the backbone of discovering new content and finding products online. Furthermore, it blossomed into a multi-billion dollar industry that has generated massive support from different sites across different niches.
However, vlogging or video blogging, is determined the share the spotlight. In fact, it has successfully made its way into the mainstream sector through content creators who are looking for ways to disperse their content across different social channels.
The Psychological Take
Blogs and vlogs are both formidable forces to reckon with in marketing campaigns for business.
Blogging is a standard medium in almost every marketing and advertising campaign. It’s old, yet reliable, in generating engagement from people.
On the other side of the coin, vlogging is a newer concept that may sound like a stocky term, but it’s one of the most useful tools for generating leads and engaging with the target market. As a matter of fact, 79% of Internet traffic from global consumers come from videos while 96% of consumers find videos as helpful mediums when it comes to purchasing decisions online.
Statistics like these fire up the argument as to whether marketers and advertisers should give up blogging, and switch to video blogging as part of their marketing arsenals. However, according to Dr. Liraz Margalit, a psychologist at Click Tale, both written and video content have important roles to play.
Written content is all about giving out pieces of information, while videos are more in the entertainment area of the content spectrum. Both have identical objectives and goals—to entertain, educate, and market to viewers and readers.
The point of disagreement, however, is which is better when it comes leveraging your brand and business.
When To Use Blogging and Vlogging
The hardest part for marketers and advertisers is to determine which medium to use for their business. This is crucial, because if you are good at determining when to publish a blog post and when will video work better, you’ll have a better chance of augmenting your content marketing strategy.
To help you get out of this dilemma, below are the fundamental rules that you can use in deciding which medium to choose.
- Humans favor an unresisting cognitive experience. It means that video content is more popular.
- Texts generate more desirable result when a visitor to your website needs to make a meaningful decision. If you are crafting around a keyword, blog posts and blogger outreach services are the best options.
- The first rule will be less relevant if the target audience likes taking control when searching on the web. Unlike video content, blogs allow the brain to study, question, and entertain itself, while giving the reader a control over the content experience. This holds true whether the reader wants to skim parts of the content, reread parts, or call the shots in different ways.
Which Medium Yields Better Conversion?
The best way to determine the direction of your strategy is to conduct a test about the viewer’s’ preferences.
According to the study carried out by bloggingbook, websites that lack video content have a 2.9% conversion rate, while sites that house ample video content have a 4.8% conversion rate. The statistics imply that some videos are good and some are not.
Conducting a simple A/B testing is also a good way to give site visitors the option to choose between blogs or vlogs. Find out which medium gets the most views, which generates better engagement, which converts better, and which of the two gets longer attention from the people.
A perceptive marketing approach allows business owners to examine the effects of blogging and vlogging in a real-time process and real-time response. As the preferences of the audience evolve, so should the marketing strategy.
Who is Your Target Audience?
This part is crucial to every marketing campaign. Identify who visits your site and from what device. To reach those in the Millennial and Generation Y categories, video content is the way to go:
Email Marketing – The majority of Millennials will read email, particularly a branded one, if there’s a video inclusion.
Social Media – More Millennials follow social sites with video content, such as Facebook and Youtube, compared to Twitter and Instagram.
Mobile Optimized – 48% of Millennials only watch videos when using mobile devices.
Research – 4 out of 5 Millennials reveal that videos are helpful when it comes to purchasing decisions and 7 out of 10 are more likely to watch videos online.
The study conducted by Pew Research Center Poll reveals that 42% of the audience within the 18 to 29 year-old-bracket prefer to read the news, 38% like to watch it and 19% resort to audio content. For 30 to 19-year-old bracket, 40% prefer to read the news, while 39% look at it.
As for the audience in the higher age category, they would rather sit and enjoy the show to get their news fix. It means that these people consume more written and video content.
What Is Your Target Market?
Industries have different consumption rates when it comes to content. Some industries demand more written content, while others need regular video content.
- If you’re trying to stimulate an emotional response in the likes of lifestyle and nonprofit industries, video content is the best medium for relaying the message of your brand.
- Industries that are heavy in visuals, like real estate, require high-quality video content. Blog posts alone cannot render a well-staged property service, no matter how competent the writer is or how good the content is.
- Some businesses need to coach the general population with simplified pieces of information, like those in the insurance and healthcare industries, and need a strong video presence.
There’s the entertainment factor to consider in the equation too. Almost all industries can benefit from posting entertaining, yet relevant, video content.
Although vlogs are proving their worth, blogging is still considered by many as the cornerstone in the B2B sector, as it’s an excellent means to showcase the personality of a particular brand, as well as the services of the business.
B2B marketers who use blogs generate 67% more leads compared to those who don’t. In addition, both B2B and B2C businesses acquire 97% more links to their websites when they have blogs.
The Best of Both Worlds
Content marketers and business owners in any industry, no matter what scope or size, need to consider the strength of blogging and vlogging before dismissing either one. There’s no doubt that both platforms hold significant potential, and perhaps marketers will find a happy medium by using both blogging and vlogging.
One fact remains, though, most marketers and business owners will still live in a world of ‘either’ and ‘or.’ And, only a few bloggers efficiently utilize the power of vlogging. On the flip side, there are many video bloggers and Youtubers as well who waste their revenue and SEO potential by not having a blog.
Preferably, brands will strengthen their existing content strategy by using a creative combination of text and videos. For instance, a list article or a how-to blog could be repurposed into video content. Bloggers can film themselves while rattling off their list or going through a particular process.
In the same manner, vlogs are repurposable into written content, Take your cue from Rand Fishkin of Moz Blog who does video repurposing through his Whiteboard Friday videos where he films himself and discusses internet marketing topics, and then releases the transcripts of the videos as texts.
Takeaway
Both blogging and vlogging can be worthwhile and compelling. And each has a significant role to play. Businesses that manage to find the perfect medium between the two, such as weekly blog and vlog posts, for instance, are going to harvest the benefits of both platforms.
While most bloggers view vlogs as supplementary content and vice versa, the potential of SEO in blogging is undeniable. On the other side of the coin, the growth of video marketing is becoming irresistible for bloggers, as users seek for more video content to satisfy their visual hunger. Focusing on the content that your readership wants is far better than worrying about the mundane aspects of “either” and “or”, as well as “blogging versus vlogging”.
short url:
