Video marketing is bigger than ever in 2015.
If you’re not employing video content to the benefit of your business, you need to seriously consider doing it.
Video content has a proven reputation of a great attention keeper and engagement booster. Through increased levels of engagement, video keeps people on the website and social media pages longer. It also presents information in a visual way, aiding in information retention and brand interest.
The modern world moves at increased speeds and is shaped by the most media-saturated environment in human kind history having a negative effect on our shortening attention span.
In fact, the National Center for Biotechnology Information reports that the average attention span in 2013 was 8 seconds. An 8-second video is usually more informative than a 8-second read, so if you want your customers to discover something important, a video may be a way to go.
Our attention-deficient generation scans content to find the best, most valuable information to be presented in a visual way that is both easier to consume and understand. Video becomes the format of choice. It’s easy to see that a “how-to” demonstration is more useful than a written user guide or how a “sneak peek” and “behind-the-scenes” content is more engaging and exciting for brand followers.
YouTube is the website of choice when it comes to video content and is the second largest search engine in the world. Yet, YouTube has to watch its back as it faces some serious threats from completion. All major social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest, are playing around with video uploading possibilities.
The direction they’re taking is clearly seen in the latest industry headlines. Facebook is rolling out a “featured video” option for business accounts. A selected featured video will appear prominently in the “About” section of the page.
Twitter mobile app has an option of capturing a video directly in the app.
Instagram is now playing videos on the loop similarly to its Twitter counterpart, Vine. These networks favor the videos being directly uploaded on to their platform through preferred treatment that can be seen in ways of enlarged video screen, pushing out posts with videos in them to larger audiences and providing special ad opportunities.
This trend will definitely result in a rapid increase of marketers uploading videos to each respective website. This might look like even more work for marketers, but in reality once you make videos, uploading them to different platforms should not be time-consuming. On the positive side, you will have an amazing video library on every platform you are present on. This library will drive higher engagement and longer times on business pages.
So, how would a company with limited budget and staff go about staying on top of video trend? Easily.
The videos don’t have to be Hollywood quality and highly-rehearsed.
An entry level digital camera that produces a decent quality video can range from $80 to $200. Don’t shy away from occasional cell phone videos for Vine or Instagram; you can share those to other platforms as well. As long as subjects are well-lit and speech is clear, you’re golden.
In fact,
Consumers prefer casual and relaxed videos to the staged ones.
The reason is authenticity and sincerity. Remember that “people want to do business with people, not brands.” Consumers want to see the human side of the brand, and videos are a perfect way to lift up the curtain.
To save you time on scouring for ideas, you can repurpose your old and new content.
One of the most thought-after industry leaders of today, Jay Baer came up with his daily show “Jay Today,” in which he shares his thoughts on industry news and trends, as well as, recycles his written content found on the blog. The show helps Jay reach new audiences, keep old audience happy with a variety of content formats as well boosts his website traffic.
Start by identifying your best-performing blog posts and shoot them in video format. Look for similarities among your most engaging posts – are they “how-to” tutorials, industry analysis or behind-the-scenes moments? You can also create a few videos highlighting your product’s benefits or compare it to competition.
Don’t stress over how long your videos are.
It is actually better to keep videos under five – better yet, under three – minutes in lenght. This forces you to focus on the important information and cut down the fluff. Besides, shorter videos have a better chance at retaining your viewers through the whole video before they’re too bored or distracted.
Wistia analyzed millions of video views and discovered that 80 percent of people will finish a 30-second video; more than 50 percent of viewers will finish 5- to 10-minute video, and less than half will finish a video that’s dragging for more than ten minutes. So, as a general rule, shorter is better.
In case you have lots of insightful content to share, you could cut one 30-minute video into three 10-minute video series and build anticipation and interest of your audience. As with any of your branded content, you decide on how to best shape and distribute it.
With all of the great abilities to create a video in a variety of apps, it is still best to create a video with a camera or a cell phone through its camera application. This way, you will have greater control on post-production effects and freedom of where to upload it (don’t ditch YouTube altogether).
So, take these 5 steps for a fast start on video production:
- Go out and get a $100 camera, if you don’t have one yet.
- Identify your best-performing blog posts.
- Rework that content to sound natural when spoken out loud.
- Identify a few people who feel comfortable in front of a camera.
- Create and experiment.
Once you’re happy with the final result, upload it to all social media platforms you’re on. Share it on your blog; YouTube videos embedded in blogs might improve your SEO. You might even want to embed it in your newsletters and see if that will boost engagement and traffic.
Upload a video to YouTube, Facebook and Twitter separately. Facebook and Twitter will give your content preferential treatment. Finally, you will have a rich content library on all of your channels. Don’t stress out to produce lots of videos fast.
By creating just two short videos a month you will have lots of new exciting content. If you can, create more.
Finally, have fun and consumers will share the joy with you!
Lesya Liu is a photographer and a social media expert whose background includes years in journalism and marketing. She was born and raised in Ukraine. Her passion lies in art and marketing (and combining the two).
She shares an interesting relevant content on topics of social media, email marketing, digital marketing, content marketing strategies and so much more on thesocialmediacurrent.com.
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