Vlogging, the simple art of blogging combined with the richness of depth available through video has changed the face of video marketing in the last decade and a half. Vlogging in its current form got into the limelight with the launch of YouTube in 2005 and since then, a whole industry of people uploading content, people subscribing to view the content, and advertisers who want to reach niche audiences was born.

A survey conducted by Variety revealed that YouTube stars such as PewDiePie, Smosh, and KSI, among others are influential than other films in the 13-17 year old age group in the U.S.

However, under the shiny impressive statistics is the reality that vlogging like other forms of content marketing has its fair share of problems. This piece looks at some of the biggest challenges in the vlogging industry and how the decentralized nature of Blockchain technology might proffer solutions.

Current problems with the vlogging industry

• Vloggers may not be as influential as brands think they are

One of the way vloggers make money is getting paid for direct/indirect promoting of products and services on their channels. Brands assume that vloggers have an influencer status commensurate with the number of their followers and that the large following represents an audience that will defer to the vlogger’s recommendations/endorsements of products and services.

However, the results of a study by GlobalWebIndex revealed that followers on vlogging channels are mostly looking for entertainment and news  rather than recommendations. In fact, three quarters of respondents say they try new products based on recommendations while about two thirds only want the latest tech news, and more than half only want to keep up with the latest fashion trends.

• Vlogging platform charges high fees

Secondly, vlogging platforms charge high fees that often eats into the earnings of influencers while also driving up the cost of advertisement for brands. YouTube, which is undoubtedly the most popular vlogging platform takes as much as 45 percent cuts from the ad revenue fees available to its partner channels.  The fact that the high platform fees are already baked into the cost of ads in turn makes it somewhat pricey to make a justification between the cost of video ads and the expected ROI.

• A monopolistic collaboration between top vloggers and top marketing agencies

Interestingly, while top YouTubers could earn 7-digit figures from ads, sponsorship deals, and promoted content, there’s a high level of income inequality among vloggers. In 2016, Bärtl revealed that top 3 percent of channels got 90 percent of the views and a study conducted by researchers at Offenburg University of Applied Sciences in Germany, 96.5 percent of YouTubers don’t make enough annual ad revenue to reach the U.S. federal poverty line.

Unfortunately, the new criteria that YouTube rolled out – in which a channel must have at least 1000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of views over the last 12 months – will also make it harder for smaller content creators in niche markets to earn revenue on their vlogging efforts.

Blockchain presents interesting solutions

AQER is a blockchain-powered AI platform that wants to solve some of the problems ailing the vlogging industry by improving the relationship between video, content creators, brands, and marketing agencies. Leveraging smart contracts, AQER is an intermediary-free marketplace for content creators and consumers to transact business transparently.

AQER's CEO Philippe Perotti notes that: "Not only inter-mediation in the vlogging industry accounts for 70-80 percent currently, it is also done wrong in many ways. First, prices are neither fair nor transparent. Meaning, vloggers do not know how to price their content, and brands take advantage of that. The lack of transparency between the various vloggers grants a leverage to brands.

Secondly, vloggers tend to carry huge financial burden in their operational expenses and delays in payments from brands might make it somewhat difficult to offset those expenses. A smart contract can serve as a custodian for a deal and the contract is programed to release payment once execution standards are met."

The startup is also leveraging smart contracts to enhance trust in the traditionally “trustless” environment of the advertising industry by ensuring that no party in the advertising value chain can hold other counterparties to ransom. Using Adeezy, the efficient distribution of the budget of an advertising campaign can be automatically shared to all the parties involved in the transaction.

Final words…

Blockchain technology provides a greater degree of transparency in advertising and digital marketing. The fact that there are no generally agreed KPIs to determine whether the success of an advertising campaign can be solved with smart contracts. For one, the smart contracts also make it easy to define the terms of a business deal and measure execution against preset KPIs to ensure that none of the counter-parties feel cheated.

The decentralized nature of Blockchain technology can end the oligarchy of giant tech and media companies. Digital media companies have too much power, they own the data and identity of consumers; and they determine the advertisers that can reach out to these customers using price control mechanisms.

More importantly, Blockchain technology will cut down the time it takes for advertisers to establish relationship with their target audiences by building a system of trust between creatives, influencers, ad platforms, and consumers.