8 Tips on How to Vlog Confidently Like Popular YouTubers

Richard Bennett

Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions

For most people, vlogging is not something that comes naturally. Like any skill, it takes practice to improve. When someone is good at vlogging, they make it look easy.

When we watch the most popular YouTubers, the traits that make them successful are often invisible, because we are so consumed by their vlog. In this article, I’ll highlight 8 tips from the most accomplished vloggers on the Internet, so that you can vlog confidently and make the best YouTube videos.

1. Be Authentic

People opt to watch vlogs because they want to see something real.

Vlogging is about honesty, telling a story that is truthful and showing your personality. The most popular vloggers are likable because they don’t deceive the audience, they befriend them. Vloggers treat their audience with respect and that comes from being honest.

There will be an urge for you to mimic other vloggers, talking and acting the way they do, but savvy YouTube viewers will be able to see your faux personality pretty quickly.

Don’t focus on your image, but instead focus on your voice. What makes you different? That is how you will build a proper reputation.

2. Tell A Story

A vlog is not an assortment of footage haphazardly put together. A successful vlog must have a story: a conflict told with a beginning, middle, and end.

When you are casually telling a story to a friend, you are not thinking about the structure or the plot. You are focused on what happened and you want to communicate it as accurately as you can. While vlogging, you should approach it much the same way. Ad-libbing is fine. Stumbling is fine. Going back and repeating a part of the story is fine. By simply getting your story on camera, you now have all the pieces.

Once all the pieces of the story are captured — including your storytelling, b-roll, and other supportive footage — you must now cut out all the irrelevant or repetitive parts and edit it so it can be enjoyed as one cohesive tale.

Take a look at this example from Tiffany Alvord and notice how there are jump cuts both to skip information that can be assumed by the audience and add the tension to the story she’s telling.

3. Surprise and Delight Your Audience

There is a saying that a great ending to a story is that it is surprising, yet inevitable .

The ending needs to be justified even if there is a twist. Everything before that had worked to build up the tension and when it concludes it needs to be logical. However, the ending cannot be something that the audience can guess. Remember those mystery movies where you know who the murderer is after the first few scenes? Yeah… those aren’t satisfying. A good story ends with a surprise, and with everything prior leading up to it.

The gold standard example of a surprising, yet inevitable end is Casey Neistat’s bike lane video. Everything in the video is leading up to the end, but when you watch it the first time it’s unexpected, and that’s why it’s so good.

4. Be Inviting

A common trait of successful vloggers is that they are welcoming. They share their passion and encourage others to join in. Vlogging is about being a guide. It doesn’t matter if you are leading a tour of your home or showing your viewer an interesting new skill, it is important for you to approach the whole process with open arms.

Unlike being invited to a party, there is no obligation when it comes to YouTube. Your viewers can continue to live vicariously through you or they may be inspired by your experience and dare to try it themselves.

The opposite of inviting is rejecting, and when you are a vlogger, you don’t want to reject anyone from enjoying your videos.

5. Compose the Shot

Vlogging is a visual medium, and while the story is important, what is captured in the frame will play an impactful role in the video as well.

In a way, every vlogger needs to have a director’s eye for cinematography. I’m not saying that you need to be Wes Anderson to be an awesome vlogger, but knowing what is in the frame with you, the angle of the shot, the movement of the camera, and the quality of light will help the product look better.

The great thing about vlogging is that you will get a lot of practice framing shots, so I encourage you to learn the basics of video editing .

Check out this example from Rosanna Pansino , where she gives a tour of her bedroom.

The camera follows her fluidly throughout the video, but it is her eyes that guide both the camera moves and what she wants our attention to be directed to. Don’t hesitate to let the viewer know what you want them to see.

6. Be Prepared

While you can pick up a camera and start vlogging on the fly, being prepared enables you to produce the best video possible. Take a few minutes before you hit record simply to outline the key points you want to talk about and how the video will end, ensuring that after filming you haven’t forgotten a crucial part.

Additionally, knowing what to say makes you a better host for your vlog. Watch your favorite vlogger, I bet when they are speaking on camera, their speech is not littered with umms and ahhs…

Good preparation includes having all your gear ready for filming when you need it. There is nothing worse than being set to shoot and running out of battery or memory.

Take a look at Ashley Nichole in this vlog and notice that although she sounds spontaneous, it is also evident that she knows what she is going to talk about next.

7. Be Expressive

Remember those teachers that drone on and on, without adding any expression or passion to what they are lecturing? While they might have been perfectly suitable as teachers, they wouldn’t make good vloggers.

If you speak on camera in a monotone voice, you are not being expressive. Your facial and body language will match your lackluster performance. Even if you are talking about something you are excited about, if your demeanor doesn’t match that, then the video is going to be lifeless. Vlogging is a presentation, a performance. There needs to be energy.

Consider your audience: they are coming home from school or work, where there were classes and meetings, and the last thing they want to watch is a video of your speaking without energy.

Want to see a vlogger that is awesome at being expressive on camera? Check out Emma Chamberlain , if you haven’t already. Every word she says in her video is layered with emotion. We know exactly how she feels.

8. Stay Organized

The same way you should prepare before filming, it’s also important to be organized comes the editing phase. Editing is arguably the most time-consuming part of the vlogging process, so have a system for categorizing and finding your footages.

This is especially important when you have multiple video and audio files and if you are capturing footage over a number of days or in different locations.

Additionally, while filming your vlog, you are going to mess up. It’s also helpful to add a cue after you messed up, this can be a sound cue that causes the levels to spike (clapping or snapping your fingers work) or a video cue such as a dramatic gesture to the camera. When skipping through your footage to find the part where you messed up, later on, it’s easier to have a mark to help you locate it.

Vlogging is hard, so don’t make more work for yourself. Learn little tricks to make life easier for yourself at every step.

The more organized you are the more attention you can put into the creative aspect of vlogging, and less time finding a video file or syncing audio to video.

There you have it, 8 tips to help you vlog like the pros. Anyone can vlog. But only until you point a camera at yourself in public for the first time, do you realize how uncomfortable vlogging can be.

Even filming yourself in your room with the door closed — and nobody is in the house with you — can be a challenge for beginning vloggers. If you find watching your first few videos to be cringy, don’t be discouraged. There are fears of vlogging, but you can overcome them .

Take a look at some of the first videos from popular YouTubers and you can see that everyone had a starting point.

Do you have any vlogging tricks of your own? Leave a comment below.

If you want to find a video editing solution that empowers your imagination and creativity yet takes less effort, please try this robust and user-friendly video editing software Wondershare Filmora, which will definitely enhance your productivity and helps you to make money by making videos much easier.

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

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For the past several years, video has been the best-performing content across social media channels. In particular, YouTube has become the second most-visited website in the world. New and experienced business owners should consider utilizing YouTube as part of their search engine optimization strategy.

Whether you are an independent business owner or a boutique marketing agency, YouTube SEO tools can undoubtedly be helpful to grow your business.

How Will YouTube SEO Tools Help Boost Your Videos?

8 Handpicked YouTube SEO Tools For You

Bonus Tips: Factors to Consider for YouTube SEO

How Will YouTube SEO Tools Help Boost Your Videos?

The popularity of YT SEO tools is growing every day. They can help boost your videos in the following ways:

Help You Gain More Traffic

These tools can help you find the right keywords that your target audience is searching for on YouTube. Using these terms in your content will help you to boost the view count of your video.

Help You Analyze Your Channel

You can use the data provided by YouTube SEO tools to grow your channel. Because some tools allow you to view traffic sources and audience demographics, you can refine your content strategy and create videos that will boost the number of subscribers to your channel.

Show How Your Audiences is Responding to Your Content

These tools allow you to find out what your audience likes. Once you know what people want, you can create content on topics that will keep them engaged. That means it also helps you avoid the type of content that people don’t like.

8 Handpicked YouTube SEO Tools For You

YouTube SEO tools can streamline your path and ensure you have a growing and engaged following on YouTube. We have put together a list of the best YT SEO tools that you should try.

1. Google Trends

When it comes to producing well-performing YouTube content, it is all about timing. Utilizing Google Trends is a great way to figure out when to create and deploy content. Narrowing your search by category, time, and geographical region can also create a successful end product.

2. TubeBuddy

SEO experts and novices alike understand the importance of meta description. Metadata helps the search engine more quickly read and categorize the content. Unfortunately, YouTube can make writing metadata challenges. However, TubeBuddy can help you make the most of your videos. You can use this tool to write and publish descriptions, titles, annotations, cards, tags, and more.

3. Google Ads

If you know you’re creating a YouTube video with SEO best practices in mind, you’ll want to optimize both the video and the metadata for a specific keyword. Google Ads is the definitive tool for generating these terms. Plug in a topic to get a raw keyword spreadsheet full of possible terms to select.

4. Awario

YouTube engagement remains the most vital metric when it comes to video production. Awario is a social monitoring tool that can help you analyze how your channel is growing. You can also use the software to collect mentions and set up alerts.

5. YouTube Analytics

You can use YouTube’s analytics tool to get crucial details about your channel; you’ll know where it’s succeeding and where it is not. The tool allows you to find out more about your audience and what content they like. In turn, this will improve your views and keep your audience engaged.

What’s more? This tool allows you to view the watch time on your YouTube videos and the growth of your following.

6. YT SEO Tool Station

YT SEO Tool Station is the resource center for everything related to YouTube. You can find information on the most popular video tools that will help you grow your YouTube channel. These include tools for video descriptions, titles, tags, and keywords.

If you are looking for channel tools, YT SEO Tool Station also got you covered. Here, you’ll find details about tools for channel analytics, finding, counting live subscribers, and much more.

7. Rank Tracker

This freemium keyword research tool allows you to pick keywords from YouTube’s suggestions and check the search volume, expected visits, competition, and much more. Rank Tracker is ideal for finding keywords that can put your YouTube videos in the running for the coveted featured snippet position that will make you appear at the top of search results.

8. Tubics

As one of the popular YT SEO tools, Tubics provides analysis and recommendations to help your videos get more views and rank higher on search engines. This cloud-based tool offers analytics on video performance, channel analysis, keyword monitoring, tag generation, and more.

With this tool, you can find out how your videos and channel are performing. You also know how your audience is responding to the content.

Bonus Tips: Factors to Consider for YouTube SEO

Use descriptive Title Tags (Description)

Be sure to use descriptive title tags; this helps YouTube determine what your video is about, and it increases the likelihood of it appearing in search results for related searches.

Place Keywords in Your Video Tags, Description, and Titles

It is imperative to include keywords in your video titles, descriptions, and tags. Essentially, this allows YouTube to know what the content of your videos is about so it can recommend them to an audience interested in similar topics or related searches.

Once you have created great content, you need to share the videos with family and friends to enjoy them! By sharing these videos on social media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, you can help to increase their visibility.

Optimize Your Channel

After setting up an account on YouTube, you must optimize the rest of your profile; this includes adding a custom avatar picture, bio description, relevant links to other social media sites like Instagram or Twitter, and links to relevant external sites.

Use Filmora to Make High-quality YouTube Videos

One of the most effective ways to keep people glued to your channel is by giving them high-quality videos. Filmora can help you edit YouTube videos before publishing them on your YouTube channel. The basic editing abilities like rotate, merge, split, trim, or crop are made easy with its simple user interface.

This software has created the ability to present a higher level of editing quality with features that can change or add an immersed effect to your video content. A Text and Titles library allows you to create illustrations for your content without having to find options.

There is also a music library giving you the ability to focus on the emotion or theme you’re attempting to create instead of spending time searching for royalty-free songs and different types of text to create the finished product you want.

You can give your videos an added effect with the inventory of handcrafted filters and overlays. To enhance these effects, you can also add transitions and motion elements.

Filmora is a one-stop shop with additional features like video stabilization and screen recording. Many other programs would require the use of separate software to make those types of adjustments. 3D Lut gives you access to different presets inspired by popular movies helping you reach your desired result.

YT SEO tools can help you optimize your videos to increase views and grow your following. Because people like to watch high-quality videos, you should use Filmora to make impressive videos to keep people coming to your channel.

Try It Free Try It Free

Whether you are an independent business owner or a boutique marketing agency, YouTube SEO tools can undoubtedly be helpful to grow your business.

How Will YouTube SEO Tools Help Boost Your Videos?

8 Handpicked YouTube SEO Tools For You

Bonus Tips: Factors to Consider for YouTube SEO