Maybe I’ll go Viral

I drew the Nine of Hearts today so my activity is to write a blog post. I didn’t expect all of these blog posts to be about the video creation side of this last 52 day project, but I do think about it a lot. And it is Friday so a Top Ten post seemed like the way to go.

Also, this post turned out way longer than I thought it would be and not my usual pithy top ten list. I have been creating at least one video a day for the last 28 days and I’ve learned a lot.

Top Ten Things I Have Learned About Vlogging

10. Lighting matters. I suppose this is filmmaking 101, but I send video messages and talk on Zoom calls all the time and never worry about how I am lit. When I go back and watch my YouTube videos, particularly the longer ones, I realize that I need to think about this more. I’m not sure I’m going to get there during this project, but if I decide to make more videos I might need to do some research on video lighting.
11. Audio quality matters. See above. I should probably get a microphone and not just rely on my laptop and phone.
12. My hair matters. Consider this: I record a video every day, but I don’t shower every day – most days, but not every day. The running and biking videos allow me to wear a hat or a helmet, but for the other videos I have spent more time worrying about my hair than I would like to admit – also probably more time than is evident. The thing about a daily video is that it has to happen no matter what my hair looks like. I predict a hair cut in my near future.
13. YouTube is Social Media. Until now I tended to use youtube just to watch videos of topics and personalities that I enjoy. I rarely commented or boosted content in any way. But I have been dipping more into the social part of YouTube and I can tell that engagement with my own videos goes up when I comment and like other people’s videos. It reminds me a little bit of when I started this blog. The best way to get new readers was to engage in the WordPress community. At one point there was a sizable group of people that I knew only on WordPress. Most of us don’t visit this space as much as we did a decade ago, but there a few people who still post. I know that The Hook is still writing. [Hi, Hook!] [Side note: It can be hard to find small creators on YouTube and connect with people at a similar level to me. The algorithm just gives me the most popular videos and those usually have many thousands or millions of views.]
14. Creating a four minute video is hard work. I made a video on Palm Trees that took a lot more time than the end result would seem to show. I considered not sharing that video (you can mark videos as private on YouTube). The card I drew that day said to upload a long form video, at least four minutes, to YouTube – there was nothing in my grid that said I had to share it. It didn’t seem in the spirit of the project so it is a public video. As of now it has exactly eleven views so maybe I am overthinking it?
15. Even a short video needs context. After watching a lot of other creators’ short videos I decided I needed to add more explanation to my daily videos. I now have a script that starts each one off, “It’s easy to let days just slip by doing nothing so for the last 52 days of my 52nd year I decided to draw a playing card and do a random activity from a grid.” I am a little worried about the monotony of it should I ever decide to go back and rewatch all of the videos at once, but it is nice to know what I am going to say when I hit record.
16. Videos that show something other than just me talking get more views. This is not very scientific, but I have noticed that when I turn the camera around for part of the video it usually gets more views than the ones that are just a talking head. I doubt this will change how I do anything. The snippets of video that I show are usually not planned.
17. I am enjoying myself. I really like it when I create something with video that I know wouldn’t translate the same in a still image. The main one that comes to mind is when I draw a cycling card I have been including a few seconds of video from my point of view as the rider. It usually turns out pretty well. [On my last bike ride I was on a mountain trail for about 15 seconds recording video with one hand and steering with the other. The whole time I was thinking, “Don’t fall. Don’t fall. Don’t Fall.” But another part of my brain was thinking, “If I fall here maybe it will go viral?”]
18. I don’t know if I want to keep making videos. I’m undecided on what to do with my YouTube account after the 52 days are up. I like the idea of making videos during our move back to MN, but I’m not sure. Maybe I’ll do a poll over on YouTube (part of that social engagement) and see what my viewers want?
19. People are actually watching the videos I make every day. Not a lot by YouTube standards, but more than I anticipated. I am used to WordPress view numbers. A good blog post for me has maybe 50 views. My most watched video has over 1000 views and I have more than 5,500 total views. When you add up the amount of time people have spent watching my videos, most of which are one minute long, it comes to more than a day – 31 hours. And I even have a few nice comments. It is weird.