The secret to editing vlogs that *actually* get views

Vlog content on YouTube is really hit and miss for some creators posting a vlog is almost a guarantee of a nine out of 10 or 10 out of 10 in YouTube Studio but others are hitting the trending page with their Vlogs so what's the difference how can Vlogs be a total flop for some creators yet a massive hit for others honestly I used to get in my head about this and think that the people who were successful with Vlogs must have some extra special talent or just something about them that made people like them more maybe they were prettier or richer or had more interesting lives but I've since realized what it actually comes down to is a few key secrets in how they edit their videos to make them as engaging as possible and I'm going to expose those editing secrets in this video so let's get into it secret number one the intros are scripted here's the deceptive thing about Vlogs when you watch them it feels like you're effortlessly following your favorite Creator throughout their day or week just like they happen to pick up the camera and capture something as it was happening in real time just like when you watch a really great movie you forget that you're watching a movie you become immersed in the world the same thing happens with Vlogs and it just feels like you are a part of their real life but the truth is the majority of vloggers are planning when they're going to film what they're going to film and how they're going to film it especially the intro because the thing about intros on YouTube is it's pretty much the most important part of your video the success of Any Given YouTube video often comes down to that first 30 seconds and how effective it is at hooking the viewer and convincing them to keep watching in those first 10 to 30 seconds you basically have two goals as a Creator you need to reinforce the title and thumbnail basically reassure your viewer that they're going to get what they clicked for but you also need to take the opportunity to hook them catch their attention and convince them to keep watching more the primary way to do that is to have your viewer wondering what's going to happen next it doesn't have to be overly dramatic or crazy it just needs to give them a reason not to click away the point is this intro is far too crucial to just ad lib so you've got to plan it out or script it to some extent this is my personal approach to this and the way that I do it on my Vlog channel so going into it you're going to have a rough sense or an outline of what your Vlog is going to be about or at least the time frame is it going to be be a day in the life is it going to be a morning routine is it going to be a week in the Life are you going to document the trip that you're going on having even a vague sense of this will help you know ahead of time how often you need to film what the pacing is going to be like and what the key moments are that you might want to get clips of then the next step is to basically just start filming in my opinion you don't need to and you maybe shouldn't film your intro in advance of filming the actual Vlog we'll talk more about the order of things in the next secret tip but I think the best way to approach this is to just start capturing your day or week or whatever you want to include in your Vlog as you're filming you might start noticing some recurring theme stuff that's coming up again and again maybe something you're looking forward to that you keep talking to the camera about as you notice these themes you can be thinking of them and eventually incorporating them into your intro as this becomes more clear to you you can actually go ahead and record that intro and honestly for me this normally happens like probably halfway through the filming of the actual Vlog if not pretty much when I'm finished filming it so here's my step bystep of you're actually going to go ahead and film that effective Vlog intro write at least a bullet point script ask yourself questions like what do your viewers need to know to get the most out of your Vlog basically who are you what's your goal in this video what's the context include as much or as little as you think is necessary to orient your new viewers so they can get the most out of your video also and this is probably the most important part decide what your hook is going to be what exciting event lies at the end of your video or what's a struggle that you're working to overcome throughout the Vlog figure out what that might be and then tease it in your intro this is going to be the hook that keeps your viewers watching until the end so let's take a look at this example from my Vlog Channel cuz I think it'll really illustrate what I'm talking about here this is going to be our last Vlog from the van for a little while we are leaving the van in Phoenix so that we can head home for the next month so we've got to get Vani ready to sit for a while without us we're not going straight home in fact we have a little Adventure planned so stay tuned to the end of the video if you want to know about that but first things first this van is absolutely filthy so we got to get Vani cleaned up in a estate uh where we can leave her month so right away this gives you the very basic just necessary context of we're leaving the van to go home for the holidays what's the hook well we need to get the van ready to be parked for a month in a very short amount of time and and there's even a secret destination along the way of our trip back home so there's two different hooks here there's that timed challenge piece and then there's also the reveal of where we're going all of that took literally just 30 seconds at the beginning of the Vlog to establish and then we're right into the actual telling of the story so with that one we kind of did know what the hook was going to be before we started filming as you could probably tell but with this next example I put it together after the fact we're Katie and Dan we're in a van and we're in Mexico [Music] in November we drove our van from Ontario Canada to Phoenix Arizona it was a whirlwind trip but we covered a lot of distance and had a lot of Adventures at the end of November we flew back to Canada for Christmas and while we were home we started preparing for our journey into Mexico the context here well it's very simple we're Katie and Dan and we're in a van and we're in Mexico the hook is basically just stay tuned to find out what van life in Mexico is really like this 30C chunk at the beginning is the only part in the entire Vlog that is really scripted or planned everything else is just picking up the camera and trying to tell the story as it unfolds and then putting it together in editing but I really think that a planned and scripted intro is crucial to hooking your viewer and keeping them watching your Vlog rather than just having a cold open to you waking up in the morning or you talking to the camera about where you are it's really helpful to establish that context and establish a hook and you're going to have much better average view duration if you do that secret number two the best Vlogs aren't always chronological instead really well-edited Vlogs are often edited based on the pacing the storytelling what's most exciting and what keeps the viewer engaged again it may feel like your favorite Creator is just picking up the camera as things unfold and that might be true but at very at least in the editing they're making sure that the story comes together in a way that's you know actually interesting now even though it may feel like it it really is not deceptive or like manipulative at all it's just simply good storytelling if you really think about it it's the same way that you might just sit down and tell a story to a friend you might tell them about something that happened between you and a coworker in the past week but then partway through you're like wait actually you need to know about what happened six months ago for this to really make sense so then you talk about that and then you dive back into present day like this is just a natural thing that we do and it can be very effective for maintaining the attention of your viewer so I think this example will be really helpful this was a vlog that we made of our trip to Venice Italy in the real timeline of our trip we drove from Rome to Florence stopped in Florence for a little bit and then drove to Venice but I knew for this Vlog I wanted the title to be about our time in Venice that's what I wanted the thumbnail to be honestly we had more content for that and Venice is just a really famous city so it's going to be more clickable than like oh a drive through Florence and then Venice you know so the intro was about Venice it was about trying to see the most that we could in just 24 hours in the city and then the video kind of unfolded about that but partway through the day I turned around back to the camera and I said we are absolutely loving Venice so far it is kind of hard to believe that we were in Rome just yesterday and in fact we had an entire Adventure in Florence between being in Rome and being in Venice today and then we have a nice few minute segment of our time in Florence which I'm really glad I included because those were fun memories that I didn't want to just cut out for the sake of the Venice video but I was still able to fit it into a story that I thought would be more engaging for viewers the point here is you don't need to feel pressure to stick to a strictly chronological timeline instead you you can get creative and think more about the viewer experience and find ways to craft your Vlog so that it will be more engaging tell a better story and help increase that average view duration now when you're stitching together two separate scenes in your Vlog especially if you're trying to piece it together in a way that's not chronological often it can be difficult to find those crucial Clips to bridge those gaps especially if like me you often in the moment kind of get absorbed with things and then forget to film your b-roll that's where story blocks can be a total Lifesaver and they're also the sponsor of today's video okay so think about how some of your favorite TV shows use environmental shots to establish the beginning of a scene like the iconic shots of New York City from friends or those flyovers of La freeways that are in the Kardashians you can use that same principle in your content to establish the setting of your scene and you don't even need to film those clips yourself because you can find perfect stock footage for your establishing shots on story blocks maybe you find a time lapse of a sunrise or a drone shot of your city or even just stock footage of a cafe you can edit this in a really clever way that makes it look like you even filmed it yourself this makes a huge difference in your storytelling and the production level of your videos and with story blocks you only need one subscription to get unlimited access to all the best stock footage but also animation templates sound effects music and more all the creative assets that you need to make your Vlogs awesome isn't in one place on story blocks.com and with your subscription it's all totally protected so you don't have to worry about copyright strikes on YouTube I've Loved using story blocks footage particularly for my Vlogs for years now and I highly recommend checking it out so you can try out story blocks for yourself using my link story blocks.com Katy or you can click on it in the description and thanks again to story blocks for sponsoring today's video secret number three the music manipulates you okay so maybe manipulates is a little bit of a strong word but it's very true that the music choices in any given Vlog are really going to influence your emotions and how you feel about watching that video it can totally change the feel of a scene or just make it all come together a lot more in my experience a lot of beginner vloggers when they start out editing their videos and they get to a segment of b-roll or a montage they're like shoot I need music I guess I'm just going to go find some random copyright free stuff in like the YouTube library and it's probably just some like happy kind of techno background music and yeah it like fills the silence but it doesn't really add much to the story that you're TR to tell There's Something About This certain genre of music that just really gives like blue ass water travel bro from like the 2010s kind of Vibes what's much more effective is selecting music that actually connects back to the feeling that you're trying to evoke with your scene and it doesn't have to be overly deep or complicated just think to yourself is this the scene more reflective is it chill and relaxed is it upy and exciting is it kind of funny is it inspiring if you can even just come up with like one emotion word for what you want your scene to be then you can search for music that has that feeling and if you really want to level up the way that you use music in your videos you want to think about the range of emotion that your music is kind of portraying and the pace of how that emotion is played out the best Vlogs have range and variety so they're not just one note like upbeat pumping Club Music the whole time and you have a good pace of going back and forth between the scenes so maybe you have a scene that's more chill and reflective it's like a slow morning routine and then you switch into a scene where you're like okay and now we're starting our road trip it's really exciting you have more upbeat music and then maybe you bring it down again for another reflective moment and then you pump it back up this is what keeps people engaged in your Vlog so it doesn't feel like they've been watching the same scene and listening to the same background music for like 10 minutes it's more like okay yeah now it's exciting okay now it's more chill oh now it's like a little bit scary or a little bit uncertain okay and that's been resolved you want to bring them through those feelings that's what's going to keep them connected to your story if all the music selection the non-chronological editing and the crafting of an intro feels very intimidating to you trust me I get it it is a lot of stuff to consider when you're creating a vlog I did just want to let you know that my creative agency Creator Le media is currently accepting new YouTube editing clients so if you would like help with editing your YouTube videos on a weekly basis or if you're even looking for channel management to craft your overall strategy as well as editing your videos you can check out all the details at cratly media.com because my team would love to work with you so hopefully these three editing Secrets have given you some insight into how the best vloggers on YouTube are keeping their audiences engaged maybe giving you a few ideas of things you can incorporate into your own Vlogs so that they can get on the homepage and reach a wider audience really the key to an effective Vlog that is going to actually help you grow your channel just comes down to telling a good story and it's really worth your time to invest in practicing that storytelling craft rather than getting too caught up in other like growth hacks or even the tech that you use like really telling a good story is the most important part so this video was a little bit more theoretical but I do have a video that is very practical if you want to see some specific tips around editing your Vlogs and how you can keep the pace up and keep your Vlogs engaging through editing them you should check out this video next as always my friends thank you so much for watching this video I hope that you are having adventures and following your dreams and I can't wait to see all of your awesome Vlogs and I will catch you in the next video bye

Channel: Katie Steckly

Views: 15,815

Keywords: katie steckly, instagram hacks

Id: rSBMQ1eb3nA

Length: 14min 49sec (889 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 06 2024