7 Days of Vlogging

What I learned from 7 days of vlogging

During the last 7 days, I did not only publish a blog post every day, I also started to upload a short video to YouTube every day. I wanted a small social-media challenge in 2017: Challenge accepted.

My blog needed more consistency anyway but a vlog? I never thought about starting a vlog in the first place. Last year I collected more than 35GB of high-quality video material. What a waste that I never used it to cut a few YouTube videos. So I decided that I will change that in 2017. Ok, to be honest, I took it to the next level. Daily Vlogs!

Daily over Weekly?

Now you say: Ok, Marius weekly would also have been an option. No, this is not a challenge for me. 

Learnings after 7 days of vlogging

1. Your daily routine will be all over the place.
   The last days I highly underestimated how much time I will need to shoot a few good shots. I thought I will cut the whole video in an hour or less. Thanks to some stupid mistakes it took on some days in the end up to 2,5 hours. Goodbye, goodnight sleep! The next days I will include the time I need for my vlog into my daily routine. Wait for my update next week.
2. All you need are a few seconds of video material of your life
   The last 7 days I have been running my vlog like a real YouTube newbie. Ok, I am a newbie. What I tried to do was to shoot minutes of videos of different situations. In the evening I realized that I only use 3–8 seconds of a 5-minute video. In my next vlogs, I will pay attention to this and I think it will improve my efficiency to really finish the video editing within a maximum of 1 hour in the evening.
3. People will throw weird looks at you
   If you are running around filming yourself in public you will catch some weird looks. The first days it really irritated me. The more you get used to it the less you pay attention to it.
4. My desk is a boring place for a vlog
   My first vlogs are primarily shot at my desk. This is boring for you, for me, for YouTube, for everyone.
5. Mac and Android? It simply does not work. I love SD Cards!
   I don’t have a professional camera gear. In fact, I am starting with a $70 action camera and my Galaxy Note 4. The last days I oftentimes recorded 5GB of videos on my phone and guess what, these 5GB need to be transferred to my MacBook. Here is the problem: My MacBook hates Android. In fact, every time I connect my Galaxy Note 4 (I love this phone) to my MacBook this error message shows up: INSERT GRAPHIC
   A newbie as I am I used my 1TB of storage on my OneDrive. The next problem: It took years for 5GB of data to sync with my MacBook. Yesterday I remembered that I can simply insert my phones SD card into my Mac. This saves 45 minutes of my day.
6. My vlog will never be perfect
   My time is limited and in order to present you a perfect vlog it would become my full-time job. This has never and will never be my intention of the vlog. The character of my vlog will be amateurish and I like it.
7. You annoy the people around you
   Advisory: Recording your life with a cam may offend your fellows. But they will get used to it, I guess.
8. People love authenticity and real talk
   In one episode I recorded a Facebook live stream with my mate Ilyas. It was a total mess but the reaction was still very positive. People obviously like authentic people and authentic real talk.

Changes for my future videos

Enough mistakes so far. Here my learnings and what I will change during the next 7 vlogs:

• Switch from a monolog to a dialogue with the audience.
• Limit the editing time to a max of 1,5 hours in the early evening.
• Use the SD card to transfer videos from my phone to my Mac.
• Record the 20% of my life which is happening offside of my desk.
• Limit the length of a vlog to a max of 10 minutes.
• Use a few minutes to write a small promptbook for the day.

The first days were amateurish but a great learning

The first days were already an exciting experience

Yes, I am honest with you: My first 7 vlogs suck. They are not very professional. The audio quality is pretty bad almost all of the time. I didn’t present a well thought out promptbook. A few videos are a 20-minute long monolog. I have not yet found my own creative video style.

I made a lot of mistakes but I learned just as much. I am very excited to improve my vlog every day. And I am even more excited where I am in a year from now.

And most importantly: Subscribe to my YouTube channel.

Do you have any recommendations for me? Leave a comment or send me a message, thank you!