It had all started with the blogs. You know the posts in text format like this one. It was all great. Bloggers were thriving. Until one beautiful day, a huge part of the online audience grew tired of blogs. They decided they don’t have time for reading that much and that they have more “important” things to do.
Seeing that, someone genius came up with the idea of vlogging. And it became trendy in a blink of an eye.
Now, it has come the time for something else, something completely new in the blogging industry. But guess what? There is no such genius, who would come up with something completely new and groundbreaking to replace blogging and vlogging. And that’s what marketers were looking for: something new.
Eventually, as they were unable to create something new, they decided to mix things up and present blogs and vlogs together on one page. Basically, both formats say the same things, one in text and the other in a video. At first glance, one may think, “Why would I need both together?”. I have thought that too. However, some time ago, I actually found myself in a position where I found a video and I was looking for the text as well. There can be different reasons for people to use both video and text simultaneously. One understands better when both reading and listening to the same thing. Another wants to make a summary of the video. So, if you have the text of whatever you are saying you’ve already made their lives a lot easier.
And the last but not least is the fact that by having both options together you are giving your audience a choice. This increases the number of people who would consume your content. Let’s consider people who come across with a video they want to watch but they can’t. There might be many reasons for that such as they are in a public place and don’t have any earphones with them. If you have the text as well, they will gladly read it and will stay on the page. Or let’s say you have a blog post that someone wants to read but his/her hands and eyes a busy doing something else. In this case, a video with the same content would make them stay on your page because they would have a choice.
So if you have a blog and you want to integrate videos in it here’s how you can do it.
Your blog post becomes a script
One of the ways to approach the blog is to start with the text when you start preparing the post which will have both parts (text and video). But you shouldn’t do this the way you always have, the way you would write a usual blog post. Instead, treat your text as a script for the video. This is how some bloggers approach the matter. They write almost exactly the same thing as they are going to say on the video and they also have the video on the same page as the text.
Summary of your video
Another way to approach this is to make a summary of what you are saying on the video and post it on the same page as the video. You can also use the video description section on some platforms to post your text. When using this method it is still easy to make a video out of your text. The difference is, your text is not your script anymore it’s the outline of your video. There are many bloggers who successfully use this method. Here is an example from Nail Patel’s channel where he uses the YouTube description box to post the summary of his video.
How exactly to make the video
When we are talking about a blog it doesn’t mean that the videos on it have to be as good as the Hollywood movies are. You can have only your phone and still shoot a great video for your blog. However, if you are worried about the editing and adding some fancy effects to your video you still can do it without being an expert video editor. In there this situation there are online video editing platforms which are there to help you out.
Have you already decided, if you want to have your text and videos combined in one post? If yes, then all you have to do is to start working on your first combined post. If you haven’t yet come to a decision, you better do it quickly because your competitors are already doing it.
About Author: Roman Daneghyan is a Chief Marketing Officer at Renderforest, a Content Marketing Specialist and an Expert in SEO, Social Media Marketing, and Link Building who enjoys sharing the experiences gained along working as a marketer and helping other entrepreneurs succeed.