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6 Mistakes to Avoid When Making a Video for Your Blog

At some point, everyone who sets out to make a video – regardless of how talented they are or how large their existing audience is – will go through the following scenario. They will spend a huge amount of time coming up with the perfect concept for a video blog. They will pour their heart and soul into every frame of content, working tirelessly until everything is absolutely perfect in their eyes. They will upload the video, watch it a few times to make sure it looks its best, hit “Publish” and then… nothing. Few people watch it and even fewer respond to it or engage with it in some way. For all intents and purposes, it becomes “the one that got away.”

Why does this happen? The answer is simple – they probably made one of a few very common mistakes that can be absolutely detrimental to the success of a video blog. Avoiding these mistakes won’t necessarily guarantee success (because in truth, nothing can), but they will go a long way towards making sure that your video for blog consumption is seen and enjoyed by as many people as possible.

DON’T Make a Video Without a Script

The importance of preparation is something that cannot be overstated enough. While improvisational videos can be quite popular, even they usually work from some type of basic script. It’s important to hit record with more than just a basic idea – you need to know exactly WHY you’re making a video and what question you’re answering or what information you’re trying to convey. If you don’t, you’ll only end up wasting your audience’s time (not to mention your own).

Even Larry David, who has made a career out of improvisational comedy, still uses an outline when filming episodes of his HBO show “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” If someone as successful as Larry David still uses a script, you should, too.

DON’T Forget Your Call-to-Action

This is an important one as the call-to-action can be a powerful weapon when wielded properly. Are you wondering why nobody left a comment on your video when you posted it to your blog? It’s probably because you didn’t tell them to. Are you surprised that nobody checked out your website or bought your product or service after viewing your video? You shouldn’t be – because you need to tell them to do that.

Direct your viewer to take some type of action at the end of your video or, rest assured, they won’t.

DON’T Bury Your Video Deep in the Text

People have short attention spans these days – there really is no getting around that fact. Most people won’t make it past the headline of an article. Those who do tend to only read the first paragraph to get what they feel is “need to know” information. Those who read the entire piece are getting smaller and smaller in numbers all the time. If you bury your video too deep in the text, it isn’t necessarily that people will ignore it – it’s that most people won’t even realize it’s there.

DON’T Make Your Video Too Long

Again: people’s attention spans is just something that you’re going to have to deal with whenever you make a video. One of the major ways to get around this fact is to make sure that your video blog is the right length. According to one recent study, the average video length in 2017 is about 4 minutes and 20 seconds. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean that yours should be that length, too.

You tend to lose another chunk of people for every 30 seconds of video length – especially if they’re not captivated in the first place. Remember that brevity is the soul of wit – never make your video one second longer than it should be, but always try to keep it as short as possible in any event for the best results.

DON’T Forget Your Target Audience

This is arguably the number one reason why well-produced videos fail. If the topic that you’re making a video on isn’t already interesting to the people you’re trying to reach, there’s nothing you can do to make them sit up and pay attention. Think about the questions that your audience needs to have answered, the concerns they want to see addressed or the type of information they’re interested in. Try to create videos on these topics and don’t stray too far.

DON’T Forget to Promote Your Videos

The videos that you create for your blog aren’t created in a vacuum – or at least, they shouldn’t be. As soon as you publish a video to your blog, you should take to all the normal promotional channels and spread that message far and wide. Post on Twitter. Send updates on Facebook. Update your RSS feed.

You can’t just depend on the fact that people who watched your videos in the past are going to come back to see if you’ve posted another one. It’s also not a good idea to assume people are going to find your video just because they also visit your blog. People don’t have time to do that kind of work – there is too much going on in their lives and their attention is fractured in too many different directions. If you don’t properly promote each and every one of your videos as if it were your first, people aren’t going to watch it – end of story.

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