With all the competitors out there why do you not see many vlogs on youtube? Many competitors try/get into coaching after their competitions, it seems like it would be a great way to market themselves. There are a few on youtube and they always have a good following, I know I prefer to watch a video as opposed to instagram postings.
At one point, I tried my hand at vlogging. It wasn’t for me, ultimately, but it did teach me a lot about myself and about what these vloggers must be like.
I think many individuals do not vlog because it is extremely time intensive, and requires a new skill set (i.e. video editing), which most people don’t have. Add a lack of calories and a lack of sleep into the mix while on prep and suddenly recording your entire day and then sitting down to edit it every night can be a pretty awful existence. I think this is why so many of the popular bodybuilders who do vlog have a camera man (somebody to record everything AND to edit it).
Secondly, you might have to buy all the equipment [camera, tripod, extra batteries, extra memory card(s), extra lens(es), computer (maybe), software (maybe)] in order to even start vlogging. That could be a very expensive start-up for, possibly, not a lot of ROI.
The last thing that goes into this, I think, is personality. A lot of individuals don’t have the personality to be in front of a camera. The reason I stopped trying to vlog is that very reason (my personality is not for the camera, and I hated living my life through a camera).
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[quote=“xXSeraphimXx, post:1, topic:225934”]
why do you not see many vlogs on youtube?[/quote]
Because there’s Instagram, Snapchat, Periscope, Facebook Live, Twitter Video, and probably a handful of other ways to produce video content with minimal effort. I think it’s a simple case of Youtube no longer being the only avenue and/or no longer being the most popular avenue people can use to reach their audience.
Full disclosure, I don’t really follow the bodybuilding scene and probably couldn’t name a dozen current competitors, so I’m talking a bit more about social media “advertising/brand awareness/content production” in general.
@robstein – I know you were trying out the social media thing for a hot minute. Any particular reason you stopped? (I only know of instagram…not sure if you got into the others or not)
Yeah, you hit it exactly man.
The most common vlogs seem to be young 20something bro-science dudes who have the time and skill set, and desire, to do it. They’re also not talking much about the science, the methods, the mental approach to the prep, etc., it’s all “watch me workout”, “look at the macros of this sandwich I’m eating,” etc. I did try Instagram for about a month and change, and honestly I just couldn’t get into it. I was hoping it might get some clients, and I quickly realized in order to potentially see ANY ROI at all, it would take way more time than it’d be worth. I’ve gained a lot of clients locally over the past few months just from the gym and word of mouth, good enough for me. Instagram and YouTube don’t need another guy talking about training and macros and coaching.
If I’m going to spend that much time doing something, I definitely need to make some money. I have a mortgage, a wife, 2 dogs, a business, and as @IronAndMetal pointed out, a lack of calories, sleep and general motivation during a prep. I don’t have hours a day to spend recording videos and editing and all that. On IG, IMO, the people that get thousands of followers seem to be some of the most vain people I’ve ever seen, no one cares about the science or the methods, they just want to see ripped people showing as much skin as possible and see how many followers they can collect and how many “likes” they can get. I’m not doing this to collect followers. I am not criticizing anyone reading this who might be into it, to each their own for sure. Just not for me.
I like keeping a log on T-Nation, compared to other sites, or a vlog, because I believe the people that come here and will read my log here are genuinely interested in the process, in the sport, and hopefully it can provide some knowledge and motivation along the way, as other prep logs have done for me. The thought of putting something on YouTube for the whole world to see, criticize, pick apart, I’m just not into it.
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