So you started a Vlogging channel to live the glamorous journey of getting paid to show people how awesome your life is. Everything was working out perfectly, until of course, you ran out of ideas. Lucky for you, FilmToolKit has put together this list of super creative YouTube Vlog ideas to make your channel explode.

We don’t believe in vlogging for the sake of vlogging. We think every video you produce should be packed with valuable, entertaining content. Not everybody has a life like Casey Neistat or Logan Paul, so you’ll probably find yourself with some classic YouTube writer’s block at one point or another.

This article is not going to be fluffy. We’re not including silly ideas that we think have been done to death. You don’t need 200 ultra specific ideas. You need guidelines you can follow to come up with great ideas of your own.

This master list of general concepts should provide enough inspiration to power your vlogging for years to come. You will be able to use these ideas to develop consistent engaging content, and we’ll make sure to give you tips on how they can be switched up and recycled indefinitely. We even have included some great examples that we think epitomize each idea.

To be a successful vlogger, you don’t even need to have the most interesting life. You just need to be really good at crafting engaging vlogs. 

19 Creative Vlog Ideas Proven To Grow YouTube Channels

Note: If you’re a beauty guru, check out our equally awesome Beauty Guru Ideas List

Without further ado, here’s our list. We even included video examples we thought were strong to give you an idea of what your content should strive for.

1. Storytelling

Everyone has stories, and many YouTubers have been able to completely sustain a channel solely off of telling interesting stories from their life.

You need to have a knack for storytelling, but that’s something that can be learned. Watch a YouTube tutorial, or check out some great storytellers to try to decipher exactly what makes them so entertaining.

Your stories should be enriched with supplemental content like animations, stock photos or reenactments. You don’t have to be a amazing artist, just think hard about how you can best use your talents and creativity to bring your stories to life.

Once you get good at this, you’ll typically find that even ordinary or boring occurrences can become very compelling tales if told properly.

Example: YouTuber Swoozie has built his entire 5.7 million subscriber base off of his skill with telling stories.

2. Behind The Scenes

If you have a primary stream of videos where you produce non-vlog content, giving people a behind the scenes look is an excellent way to get more mileage out of it. It’s surprisingly entertaining content for something that’s so effortless to produce. If you’re working on a really large project, ask a friend if they would like to come shoot BTS!

Vlogs are about forming personal connections and communities, and watching you joke around on set with your collaborators is a great way to make your viewers feel like they are a part of something.

Plus, you’ll come across as much more human and relatable as your audience begins to appreciate the effort you put into making your videos.

Example: This behind the scene look from Ryan Higa’s Fortnite parody has much more views than his average vlogs

3. Questions From The Audience

Once you’ve established a bit of a fanbase for yourself, taking questions from your comment section is a great way to generate content while increasing engagement on your videos.

If you’re planning on doing one of these, simply reach out at the end of one of your videos letting your audience know that you’ll be accepting questions for an upcoming Q&A.

Remember, people will respect you even more if you answer the tough questions honestly! Transparency is the key to gaining people’s trust.

Example: Even internet sensation Roy Purdy makes good use of Q&A’s every once in awhile.

4. Pranks

In our opinion, we believe pranks should be reserved for your friends. Please don’t go out and about bothering others in public. However, if you’ve got roommates or friends who can take a good practical joke, getting it on camera can be very rewarding.

Bonus tip: If your pranks are really good, consider adding a watermark to your videos in case they get featured on one of those prank compilation channels that rack up millions of views. Really good pranks often get freebooted on other websites like Facebook as well.

5. Teach People What You’re Good At!

If you’re a vlogger/filmmaker, teach people some filmmaking tips! Are you a fitness expert, show the world how you finally got your calves to grow.

Feel free to do some research in your area of expertise to see what kind of tutorials already exist, and which ones could be improved.

Make a tutorial that captures your creative style and personal sense of humor, ensure that it is the most detailed one out there, and you are sure to rank.

Example: Alan Thrall has a great comedic style in his tutorials that helps him to dominate the fitness video market.

 

6. Collaborations / Interviews

It’s no secret that collaborations are one of the best ways to bring fresh eyes to your content. Examine your analytics and search for other vloggers that have a similar audience to yours. Look into which content creators live in a close proximity to yourself, and send them a DM on Instagram!

If you are affiliated with people who might have an interesting story to tell, or have connections to any celebrities, reach out to them to see if they would consider doing an interview with you. You never know what will be your key to stardom.

In this example, Idubbbz‘s collaborates with Ethan to rack up millions of views. You can tell that the content of the video is a very close marriage of both of their creative styles.  

7. A Multi-Day Challenge

You’ll have a few options with how you have to execute this tip. You can turn this into a series of videos, or you can gather footage slowly and compile it into a mega-video as soon as you complete the challenge.

Choosing to do a multi-part challenge across several videos can be great for increasing repeat viewers and investment! People will become more and more interested in the outcome, and be more involved with you as a whole.

Note: Keep in mind, you don’t even need to do the challenge yourself! You can totally just document a friend or collaborator going through a daily challenge. 

The Buu To Broly Transformation Series by Gokuflex is an excellent example of a multi-day challenge series that rakes in the viewers consistently every week.

8. Viral Challenges

Viral challenges are a great way to bring people in to your channel. Previous examples like the cinnamon, ice bucket, or one chip challenge have all been great ways for people to get their videos in front of a larger audience.

Try to express as much of your personality as possible, and try to bring some unique creativity to your variation on the challenge. You don’t want to be just another iteration that viewers skim through, you should stand out in some way from the other participants.

Just make sure you’re not eating any tide pods.

Example: Vlogging superstars The ACE Family rakes in almost 5 million views with their spicy ramen challenge.

9. Tours

When people care about your life, they want to see more than just what you do in your free time. They want to see whatever they can to further strengthen their relationship to you!

For many of you, the only interesting thing you’ll be able to give tours of is your house or room. However, if you have access to a studio, office, or other location of interest, those can be great things to share as well.

Just be careful about revealing too much personal information. You would hate to have some fanatical subscribers showing up at your door at 2 in the morning.

10. Current Event Discussion

One of the absolute best way to get your content in front of a larger audience is by participating in discussions on current events. There’s an infinite amount of exciting events happening at any given time, and if you have a unique perspective, there are many ears waiting to hear it.

A good way to discover some hot discussion topics is by browsing through the trending sections on YouTube. See what other famous vloggers are saying and how they are responding to the latest controversy.

Do keep in mind, choosing to take a controversial position on political issues can have some serious consequences. You can wind up going viral and becoming a star overnight, or you can find yourself in the middle of a scandal and lose your entire subscriber base. Pick your battles and understand the consequences before uploading your position.

And don’t exploit tragedies for views. Only upload if you truly believe you have something important you can add to the discussion. Please.

This very tasteful example from Casey Neistat showcases some of his thoughts on the tragic Parkland school shooting. 

11. Milestone Events

Milestone videos are an excellent stream of content. They invite extra views for being “special”, and you’ll never run out of milestones! Ever!

Consider doing something special each time you reach an important milestone. Giveaways are a great way to incentivize interaction, and high-effort insane videos are even better. Try your best to make your community feel like they are embarking on the journey of growing your channel with you.

Below is a hilarious short video from when Videogamedunkey celebrating his 200k subscriber milestone.

12. Reviews

You don’t need to be a professional critic to input your two cents on the latest album, movie, or other piece of media.

If you recently watched something that moved you, or that you think you have a hot take on, don’t hesitate to put together a review! If your audience likes it, you might end up being the next Anthony Fantano!

13. Trying Weird Products

No matter what kind of content your channel produces, this is always a fun and engaging option. Whether it’s make-up and fitness equipment or just an interesting food, trying weird products is the best way to lure in new viewers while entertaining old ones.

The best part about this tip is that you won’t need to try very hard to be funny or to react in the video. The weird products will create more than enough opportunities for comedy by themselves.

Here’s an excellent example of H3H3productions trying out several different gold based products with hilarious results.

14. Reaction Videos

There’s no doubt about it, reaction videos have been the bread and butter of countless YouTubers to make it big in the last few years. H3h3productions built their entire brand off of the back of these videos.

You can react to the latest viral trend, an absurdly bad prank video, a bad kickstarter, or just about anything that you think will make for entertaining content.

If you’ve got a great sense of humor, this is one of the easiest ways to make high-value low-investment videos. You don’t need to think of anything crazy or write anything extensive. Just find an appropriately provoking piece of content to react to and be yourself.

15. Event Vlogging

If your daily vlogs of work and laundry are starting to wear out your audience, vlogging big events is a great way to easily produce killer vlogs. There’s plenty of engaging stuff for you to have a genuine reaction with, and you can meet other people who you’ll end up collaborating with!

Example: Famous YouTuber and Twitch Streamer Pokimane turns her tripo to E3 into an opportunity for content.

You don’t need to be on the list for comic-con or E3 to make awesome event based vlogs. Check your local listings to find smaller conventions, parties, and festivals!

16. Vacation Vlogging

Vacation vlogs provide tons of fun, dynamic activities, and allow your audience to live vicariously through you. Try to step outside your comfort zone to do cool region specific activities, like shark caging in Hawaii, or riding an elephant in Thailand.

You can even incorporate some cool clickbait titles like “Almost getting bitten by a shark” Or “I thought he was going to eat my hand” with an appropriately juicy thumbnail.

Finding activities that will make for entertaining vlogs will make your vacations even more fun and memorable for yourself!

This example from TimothyDeLaGhetto has around 2-3x the average views of his other videos. 

17. Meet My _____

In addition to tours of your house, people can also be pretty curious about meeting the important people in your life. Bringing your mom, dad, or grandparents into a video is a great way to strengthen the personal relationship between yourself and your audience.

This tip can be combined with any of the other vlog ideas on this list for double the value. Film your mom trying weird products, or your grandpa doing the spicy ramen challenge. The possibilities are endless!

This perfect example features Ethan from H3h3Productions reading mean comments (A great vlog idea) with his mom.

18. Routines

In a similar vein to the day-in-a-life vlogs, you can also make videos showcasing your many daily routines. If you have a dedicated fanbase that is eager to learn more about your personal life, they’re certain to be curious about what makes you the person you are.

Here’s a few basic examples of some routines you can showcase.

• Your morning routine
• Your Make-up routine
• Your exercise routine
• Your skin care routine

19. Day In The Life

Sure, you may put out vlogs that highlight the best parts of your life, but does anyone ever get a real idea of what it’s like to live a day in your shoes from start to finish?

This outrageously cool example from Vloggers Max & Lee showcases a standard day in their very out-of-the-ordinary life. They only have 65k subscribers, but the video has 1.5 million views.

20. Whatever Your Fanbase Wants To See

Finally, if you’ve completely worked all of the previous tips to the bone, you can never go wrong with giving the people what they want. Listen to their comments and consistently ask them what they would like to see.

You should be trying all of the suggestions on this list and constantly asking your viewers what they enjoy seeing the most. This will increase engagement on your videos, demonstrate that you listen to your audience, and help you find what vibes the best with them.

Bonus Tips To Be A Better Vlogger

If you haven’t already checked it out, we wrote what is likely the most comprehensive guide to getting more views on YouTube anyone has ever written. It’s full of great tips that are guaranteed to boost your channel’s performance.

Here’s a rundown of a few of the most useful tips specifically for vloggers. Please read the full article for in-depth explanations on how you can implement them.

Have A Vlogging Schedule

We at FilmToolKit Do not recommend daily vlogs. They’re a very easy way to cause burnout in not only your audience but yourself. Even people like Casey Neistat, a man raking in millions through his vlogs, are not capable of sustaining daily content long term. It will kill your long term interest in the hobby, and unless you’ve got some really great stuff, people won’t be able to stick around.

With that being said, there is a lot of value to having a set schedule for how often you post your vlogs. We recommend 2 to 3 videos a week on set dates that you can stick to. This will increase viewer consistency, as your audience will know to check out your channels on the days you always upload.

Find What Works And Double Down On It

While it’s great to throw all of these ideas against the wall to see what sticks, you should be very closely monitoring what is working and what isn’t. If your film reviews are gathering 3,000 views and your reaction videos are getting 20,000, it should be obvious what direction you should steer your channel towards.

In addition to studying your analytics and viewership, you should also be periodically asking for feedback in your comments. Each time you try something new, ask your audience if they want to see more of that type of content in the future. Many channels have died by failure to listen to their viewers.

Try to strike the perfect balance between what you want to do the most, and what they want to see. You need to be happy producing your content if you want longevity, but there’s no point in making videos that nobody is watching.

Don’t Be Afraid To Do A Little Clickbaiting

Clickbaiting can be one of the most infuriating, detestable behaviors on the entire platform. However, when used appropriately, you can reap all of the rewards without getting any of the backlash associated with it.

The key is to describe your video in the most curiosity-inspiring manner possible. It doesn’t matter too much if it’s vague or specific, just try to consider what would be difficult to not click on if you saw it.

Just make sure not to lie about the contents of your video. This may work in the short term, but sneaky business practices never have any real longevity.

In Closing…

With all the excellent ideas you should now have, your fears of running out of vlog content should be gone. Mix up these ideas, combine them with others, and look to the most popular channels for inspiration, and you’ll be running with the big shots in no time.

If you have any awesome vlog ideas that we failed to list here, leave them in the comments below and we’ll add them to the post! Happy vlogging and check out our entire YouTube section for more great YouTuber guides!