Blog vs Vlog–which generates more money? If you are juggling around this question, we will help you in choosing the right platform to drive mega profits online. Give this post a read and get all your queries resolved in one go!
Nowadays, millions of people are trying to monetize the online platform through blogging and vlogging. Not only common folks, but blogs and vlogs have also emerged as effective marketing tools for brands, corporations, and companies. Many established solar companies are utilizing both methods to generate solar leads and expand their customer base locally as well as globally.
According to Glassdoor’s recent report, established bloggers are making $50,000 annually on average by spending just 10-30 hours a week. Of course, no one can earn this figure in a single night. Blogging or vlogging- no matter what you choose, you need to invest your effort, money, time, and many more things to pull the crowd in abundance.
But!
The most important thing is to understand how each platform works. For starters, both blogging and vlogging have their own set of merits and demerits which you should know before kickstarting your journey.
In this detailed guide, we will highlight:
- Merits and demerits of blogging and vlogging.
- Stats on blogging vs. vlogging.
- Similarities of a blog and a vlog.
- Income report of bloggers vs. vloggers.
- Blogging vs. vlogging: Breakdown of cost.
Let’s get to some work and understand which platform has more potential to drive money!
Table of Contents
Blogging vs. Vlogging: Merits and Demerits
First, let us understand everything about blogging.
A blog is an informational piece or online journal where people share their views on different types of topics and niches. The main purpose of posting blogs is to educate readers, grow traffic on the website, and increase sales online. For instance, you can write tutorials on how to clean solar panels to attract those people who want to avoid paying heavy fees to professionals for PV system maintenance.
Let us understand its merits and demerits in the next section.
Merits of Blogging:
- Ease of commencing: Starting a blog is as easy as a cakewalk. You just need to choose the right blogging template from websites like WordPress, Tumblr, Blogger, etc., and start posting your views through a blog.
- Frequent updates attract people: A blogger gets a good opportunity to add more dimension and depth to the voice in the post. As blogs are frequently updated, people keep coming back to read the latest info.
- Done from anywhere: Blogging can be done from any part of the world. Whether you are on vacation or spending time at home, you just need a laptop or phone and access to the internet to write and publish the post.
- Create a sense of community: Through blogging, you can discuss an issue related to your niche and address it in the simplest way. This way you get reader responses from the public and other professionals as well.
- Incredible outreach: The piece of info that you provide in a blog can reach a large number of people at once. Your visitors can be your prospective customers or someone who will pass on that info to a person who might be looking for it.
Demerits of Blogging:
- Requires regular updates: Although starting a blog is easy, keeping up with the latest info can become a little overwhelming at times. If you fail to offer the latest information, traffic will not grow but rather plummet with time. But you can schedule your posts if don’t want to miss posting.
- Time-consuming: It is very challenging to get traffic on new blogs. However, You can also utilize SEO tools to grow traffic.
- Honesty invites trouble: If you choose to be very blunt and honest in your blogs, you might invite some trouble to your door. You don’t know who will land on your blog, it can be the press, client, or your rivalry.
- Needs maintenance: Your blogs should include high-quality images. Plus, there should not be any grammatical or spelling mistakes because such inaccuracies work against you and it might turn off your readers.
- Prone to technical problems: Blogs on a website are prone to technical issues which are very time-consuming to resolve. Some posts might even disappear due to such problems.
Now you know the pros and cons of blogging, let’s understand vlogging and discuss its merits and demerits in the next section.
Vlogging is also known as video blogging. It is all about creating video blogs. In blogging, you write articles, but vlogging is about shooting short and long videos and publishing them online to educate people. You can shoot travel guides, offer beauty tips, cooking techniques, etc., and post them online to grow your channel.
Merits of Vlogging:
- Eye-catching: Visuals attract more eyes than text information. Many people prefer watching short videos over reading long-form text when it comes to learning about something because it looks more practical.
- Direct contact: Through vlogging, you can connect with your audience directly. You are free to share any type of topic and decide its length, and the process.
- Record life experience: Vlogging is one of the greatest ways to record and document life experiences. Once it is published, it will be there forever and can be shared with future generations as well.
- Best for promotion: If you want to promote your business brand, vlogging is a great way to showcase your offerings. Videos display clearly about your business, what it does, and what value you are offering to your customers.
- Doesn’t require much optimization: Unlike blogs, vlogs do not require SEO optimization to rank your video well. If it is good, people will share it on a big scale, and your video will go viral before you even realize it.
Demerits of Vlogging:
- Uncomfortable at first: Vlogging is undoubtedly a fun method to attract more people. However, it is not meant for everyone. As you share your identity and your life with a broad audience, it might be an uncomfortable experience at first.
- Prone to harassment or bullying: As already said, recording life events and sharing your identity might be uncomfortable at first. This difficulty can be seen in your recorded videos, so people might bully you for the uncomfortable expressions in the clip.
- Time-consuming: Vlogging cannot be done by everyone. To achieve success and grow your followers list, videos that you share on social media should be of high quality and offer value to the viewers. You need to invest a lot of time and effort to make your piece perfect for sharing.
- Higher cost: Vlogging can be expensive because you need high-quality cameras, microphones, selfie sticks, tripods, etc. to record a shareable video.
Statistics on Blogging vs. Vlogging
The following are some intriguing statistics on blogging and vlogging which are gathered from reputable sources such as Ahrefs, Statista, WordPress, Oberlo, and more.
Blogging:
- WordPress is the most popular CMS (Content management system) that powers approximately 810 million websites which is 43.1% on the internet.
- 77% of users like reading blogs on a regular basis.
- 80% of established bloggers state that blog drives huge results.
- 76% of marketers prefer using content to generate leads.
Vlogging:
- Video content viewers in the United States reached 244.4 million in 2020. 9 out of 10 consumers between 12 years to 44 years of age prefer watching digital videos in the country.
- 91% of consumers prefer watching online videos of brands.
- 86% of marketers use videos as the medium of promoting business offerings.
- 66% of consumers find short videos more engaging.
- 92% of video marketing professionals experienced good ROI from video marketing.
Similarities Between Blogging and Vlogging
Both blogs and vlogs educate and offer value to their audience in different forms (text and video). Both video and text content allow the creators to share their experiences, knowledge, and thoughts with a wider audience.
Many blogs involve the use of visuals (images and videos) in the middle of the content to make it more appealing and engaging for the readers. Numerous bloggers use media formats or videos to complement their posts.
Talking about vlogs, some videos contain text info in some sections. Most bloggers utilize different methods to edit Instagram videos and add text in various sections to add more value to the info they are providing to the viewers.
The key purpose of blogging as well as vlogging is to build a community around what it offers to the audience. The objective is the same but the way of reaching and sharing info is different.
Income Report of Bloggers vs. Vloggers.
Blogging
The most popular ways to make income through blogging are:
- Advertising: Displaying ads on different blogs and posts.
- Affiliate marketing: Earning commission when people make purchases from affiliate links.
- Digital products: Creating and selling digital products like online courses, e-books, etc.
- Sponsored posts: Writing sponsored content in collaboration with different brands.
- Online services: Earning through freelance writing, coaching, social media management, etc. through your post.
Here is the list of income reports of bloggers from different categories:
- Travel blogging can drive between $10 to $147,833 each month.
- Earnings of personal financing bloggers range from $60 to $145,319.
- Lifestyle bloggers are making between $111 to $41,700.
- Food bloggers earn between $403 to $100,000.
- Health and fitness bloggers earn between $135 to $30,000.
- Fashion and beauty blogging can make between $413 to $21,615.
- Business blog earnings range from $1,125 to $140,779.
Vlogging
The most popular ways of making money through vlogging are:
- Affiliate marketing: Recommending a particular brand to the viewers and earning a commission whenever a purchase is made.
- Tips and donations: Asking for tips and donations from the viewers. This is only possible when the vlogger has established a strong and positive relationship with his/her viewers.
- Membership site: Earning through exclusive live streams, giving access to the latest vlogs in exchange for some money, or availability of videos for premium members only.
- Digital downloads: Selling premium vlogs as digital downloads. For instance, health vloggers can sell their expertise and teach the key to fitness through premium content which can be accessed after paying a fee.
The following is the income report of vloggers on YouTube:
- Advertisers pay $0.10 to $0.30 per view to Youtubers.
- An established YouTube channel gets $18 per 1 thousand ad views. This is equivalent to $3 to $5 per 1000 video views. This means with 1000 views each day, the earnings from the YouTube channel can range between $90 to $50 each month.
- Videos that get 100,000 views each day can lead to earning between $9000 to $15000 per month.
- 1 million views each day can earn you a whopping $90000 to $150000 each month.
- Hit channels that are led by celebrities and influencers are making $226 million annually.
Blogging vs. Vlogging: Breakdown of Cost
The following is the cost breakdown of starting a blog and vlog:
Blogging
Web hosting: This is storing your blogs and other type of content on a different server. The cost of individual or shared hosting is $2.95 and above.
Site theme: Themes make your website look attractive which can cost you $100 and above. Either you need to hire a professional developer or use WordPress blog themes to make your site look more engaging.
Keyword tool: You will need a keyword tool to rank your website for specific phrases which will cost $99 or more.
Plugins: You will require a few plugins to optimize the website.
Vlogging
Capturing equipment: You need some essential shooting equipment for vlogging which includes a camera, tripod, editing tool, microphone, etc. This will cost you between $300 to $700.
SEO tool: To optimize, manage, maintain SEO, and review your YouTube channel, you will need a Video SEO tool to do it effectively.
Final Note on Blog vs Vlog: Which one is better?
Whether you choose blogging or vlogging, both require hard work, effort, time, and money to make the endeavor successful.
If you want to be a blogger, ask yourself:
- Can I devote 3 hours daily to writing a blog?
- Can I work hard and invest my time for a couple of months without expecting a return?
- Do I have a knack for writing without grammatical or spelling mistakes?
If it is yes to all the above questions, you can start your journey as a blogger.
If you want to be a vlogger, ask yourself:
- Can I take out 4 to 5 hours daily and devote it to shooting, editing, script writing, and more?
- Do I have sufficient money to purchase cameras, microphone, tripod, etc.?
- Will I be able to speak in front of the camera unhesitantly?
If yes, you can kickstart your career as a vlogger.
With all the mentioned information about blogging and vlogging, you must have made up your mind by now. Let us know which path you picked. If you still have any queries, post them in the comment section, we would love to address them all!
