Do Athletes Need To Create More Video Content?

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What’s the measurable effect of creating more video content for an athlete?

Here’s a quick look at the stats from my own experience shooting 16 daily vlogs for Red Bull athlete Paul Guschlbauer while he took part in the ‘World’s Toughest Adventure Race’, the Red Bull X-Alps.

The stats from Paul’s channels for the 16 daily Vlogs:

  • 680,400+ people reached on Facebook
  • YouTube channel subscriber base increased over 10 times
  • 140,000+ views and counting on YouTube
  • Viewed in a total of 163 different countries, the top 5 being Germany, Austria, Switzerland, USA and Italy.
  • One post alone on Facebook was clicked 22,170 times and received 2,412 likes
  • Over 250 comments on YouTube, with many questions we tried to answer during the race
YouTube subscribers throughout the race, consistently increasing until the middle of the race and tailing off one week after

The daily reach of each Vlog post on Facebook, with a big spike in the final days of the race as it got more exciting to watch
You can read all about how I went about creating the vlogs here, but to explain how we went about publishing the posts: once I’d finished editing, I’d upload the vlog directly to Paul’s YouTube channel and then share it via his Facebook and Instagram. I created a short 30 second teaser for each vlog for two reasons; first it meant we could upload a video directly to Facebook rather than embed the YouTube link and risk having the post hidden by an algorithm; it was more interesting to post a short video than a photo on Instagram, which has a limit of 60 seconds for posts and 10 seconds for stories. The main video link would then be in the description on Facebook and in the bio on Insta.
An example of a typical Facebook post with the teaser video uploaded directly to Facebook and the YouTube link to the full video in the description

I aimed to publish them at 10am each morning for consistency but sometimes this was impossible due to slow internet speeds. As far as I’m aware, the main Red Bull X-Alps website had an ‘Athlete’s Feed’ that automatically displayed the vlogs too and there was a dedicated page on Redbull.com, also showing them.

Undoubtedly the vlogs increased Paul’s (and the race’s) exposure with this kind of audience reach. We received many comments from the fans saying that the videos gave them a great insight into exactly what an athlete was going through on a daily basis, something that the general highlight videos created by Red Bull just weren’t doing.

Although we kept the videos authentic with no sponsor logos or any paid product placement, the videos still gave daily airtime to Paul’s sponsors as he was naturally using their equipment throughout the race. This was a benefit for both parties – the sponsor getting authentic exposure and ideally Paul proving that his brand image is worth sponsoring!
Now the race is over, Paul also has an archive of material that can be used to market himself for years to come.

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row row_height_percent=”50″ override_padding=”yes” h_padding=”2″ top_padding=”0″ bottom_padding=”0″ back_color=”color-wayh” back_image=”18258″ back_position=”center top” parallax=”yes” overlay_color=”color-wayh” overlay_alpha=”60″ gutter_size=”3″ shift_y=”0″ row_height_use_pixel=””][vc_column column_width_percent=”100″ position_vertical=”middle” align_horizontal=”align_center” override_padding=”yes” column_padding=”2″ style=”dark” overlay_alpha=”50″ gutter_size=”3″ medium_width=”0″ shift_x=”0″ shift_y=”0″ zoom_width=”0″ zoom_height=”0″ width=”1/1″][vc_custom_heading heading_semantic=”h6″ text_size=”h1″ text_height=”fontheight-357766″ text_font=”font-134980″ text_weight=”300″ sub_lead=”yes” sub_reduced=”yes” text_uppercase=”” subheading=”John Williams”]It’s safe to say that because of my unique professional experiences, I’ve tested out a lot of headphones.[/vc_custom_heading][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row unlock_row=”” row_height_percent=”0″ override_padding=”yes” h_padding=”2″ top_padding=”3″ bottom_padding=”2″ overlay_alpha=”100″ gutter_size=”3″ shift_y=”0″ row_height_use_pixel=””][vc_column column_width_use_pixel=”yes” overlay_alpha=”50″ gutter_size=”3″ medium_width=”0″ shift_x=”0″ shift_y=”0″ zoom_width=”0″ zoom_height=”0″ column_width_pixel=”800″][vc_column_text]

A perfect fit.

Once I gave the headphones a thorough once-over exam, I tried them on. As I mentioned, they have a classic over-the-ear style and just looking at them, the padding on the ear pieces seem adequate and the peak of the headband seemed to be a bit lacking, but you don’t really know comfort unless you try on the product. So, I slipped the headphones on and found them to be exquisitely comfortable. In order to test how voices sounded, and the overall art of sound mixing, I pulled up Netflix on my iPad Air 2 and watched a few minutes of a movie to hear all the nuances of the film. None of them were lost. In fact, I ended up hearing sounds that I hadn’t heard before. Echoes…birds chirping…wind blowing through trees…breathing of the characters…it was very impressive what the headphones ended up bringing out for me.

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Quality.

Now that I had the headphones on my head, I was finally ready to plug and play some music. I plugged the provided cable into the jack on the headphones and then the one on my iPhone 6. Then I called up Pandora. I tend to have a very eclectic music purview and have many stations set up for different moods. From John Williams to Fallout Boy, the sound quality of these headphones was remarkable. There is an amazing depth of sound and incredible highs and lows that make listening to music a truly breathtaking experience.

In order to test how voices sounded, and the overall art of sound mixing, I pulled up Netflix on my iPad Air 2 and watched a few minutes of a movie to hear all the nuances of the film. None of them were lost. In fact, I ended up hearing sounds that I hadn’t heard before. Echoes…birds chirping…wind blowing through trees…breathing of the characters…it was very impressive what the headphones ended up bringing out for me.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row unlock_row=”” row_height_percent=”0″ override_padding=”yes” h_padding=”2″ top_padding=”0″ bottom_padding=”3″ overlay_alpha=”100″ gutter_size=”3″ shift_y=”0″ row_height_use_pixel=””][vc_column column_width_use_pixel=”yes” overlay_alpha=”50″ gutter_size=”3″ medium_width=”0″ shift_x=”0″ shift_y=”0″ zoom_width=”0″ zoom_height=”0″][vc_single_image media=”23384″ media_width_use_pixel=”yes” alignment=”center” media_title_uppercase=”” media_width_pixel=”800″][/vc_column][/vc_row]

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