One of the most effective ways to build a connection with an audience in the current business landscape is through video blogging. However, as more people find success in the medium, your success hinges on being more precise than your competition.

Here are the best tips you can use to create a successful video blog:

First, make sure that the audio is as good as it possibly can be. It may seem somewhat backward to begin a tip section about video blogging talking about audio. However, the fact is that no one will watch your video if your audio is not acceptable. Most camcorders these days come with a small mic in port. This is not the audio that you want if you can help it.

Buy a cheap external microphone. Shure is a brand trusted by professionals. It is very cost-effective. Plug it into that port. You get sound that is infinitely better, increase your view count, and stickiness. You may consider mixing the audio and video together using the SMPTE time code available on all major video editing programs if you cannot get a mic that fits into your camera.

Second, make sure that the lighting on your video is correct. If you spend any money at all on a video, this is where your money should go. The proper lighting makes everything else work.

It is even more important than the type of camera do you use. As a matter of fact, most modern digital cameras are more than good enough for YouTube, even the cheap ones. However, if your lighting is off, no amount of postproduction can fix it.

If you do not have the money to purchase artificial lights, then take advantage of natural light. The sun should always be behind the camera or slightly to the side of it to take full advantage of natural light. If you have money for artificial lights, there are some tried-and-true methods for lighting that work in most videos.

Your main light should usually be to the right of the camera. It is usually placed anywhere from 30-36 inches above the eye level of the subject. This emulates the lighting of the sun. The next most important light is called the “fill light.”

You place this light on the other side of the camera in order to fill up the shadows that the key light produces. The backlight is placed behind the main subject of the video. It helps to bring more prominence to the head and shoulders of whoever’s talking.

Third, buy the best camera that you can. Although video blogs should not endeavor to be fully professional, having a great camera certainly adds to the attractiveness of a video. The features of your camera are much more important than the overall resolution.

However, 4K resolution is the market standard these days. Get a camera that has it! All of the major video sites are moving to it within the next few years. As stated before, if you can get a camera with an external mic in, that is a great feature to have as well.

Storage is less important. Cameras are coming with large onboard internal storage capabilities. However, if you want to back up your work, then you need a camera with an SD card slot.

Cameras with batteries need to be able to be recharged on the fly. If you purchase a camera with a battery, purchase a spare battery as well. That way, you do not run out of juice on long shoots.

If you are a video blogger, it is likely that you will shoot videos on your own at some point. This means that your camera should be able to mount itself on a tripod in order to steady itself. If you do not have the money for a camera, you can use screen capScreen capture to create a video blog.

There are programs like Camtasia for PC computers and ScreenFlow for Apple computers that can capture your screen to create video blogs with audio. Although you cannot produce moving images, you can still produce an entertaining video that people watch. If you use Twitter a great deal, there is an application called Screenr that allows you to capture your screen from the Internet.

For simple edits, you can edit your video on YouTube itself. The secret to video blogging is to create a sense of professionalism without being overly polished. This means that your editing should be kept to a minimum. However, there may be some use for it judiciously.

Most of the editing that you need to do can be done on YouTube itself. Ever since Google purchased YouTube, its onboard editing tools increased with every business cycle. Sign in with your Google credentials. Play around with the editing tools that are available to you there.

There are free editing tools that come with every PC in Apple Computer, namely MovieMaker and iMovie. The editing functions on these programs are good enough for most amateur bloggers. However, if you need to move up to a professional program, Final Cut and Sony Vegas Studio HD are the industry standards.

Do not think that you have to limit your distribution to YouTube. Although YouTube is definitely the biggest distribution channel for video bloggers, is not the only one. Until your audience is substantial enough to be viewed on YouTube enough to put you to the front page for more visibility, consider one of the smaller video blogging distribution sites to limit your competition.

You should also consider niche blogging websites to focus your efforts on the industry in which you are competing. This can cut down on the overall noise that your audience would otherwise have to go through in order to view your videos. Make sure you integrate your blog with the other aspects of your online marketing campaign.

One of the mistakes that many video bloggers make is that they believe great video blogs lead straight sales. Video blogs are more effective as a tool of visibility and information capture. In order to convert customers, you need to combine video blogs with marketing for your landing page, advertising campaign, and public relations structure.

Make sure that you brand your video blogs in the same way you brand all of your other Internet marketing. Most importantly, make sure that you are performing the correct analytics to understand exactly what your audience likes and dislikes about your video blogs. Many of the major video blogging channels come with free tools that provide you all of the analytics that you need.

Consider distribution networking help. If you are trying to break through on YouTube, you can help yourself by aligning your content with one of the many niche distributors that focus on marketing to certain audiences. You may need to give up some of the revenue from your videos to do this. However, if you have no revenue in the first place, this is not a bad deal.

Ninth, consider Skype interviews as part of your video blogging repertoire. Some of the most successful video blogs have been recorded conversations of interesting people on Skype. If you have trouble physically reaching the subjects that you need to create an interesting blog, use online connection tools such as Skype. You can create content that viewers enjoy.