The explosion of online video is one of the biggest changes affecting video marketing today.
Numerous studies have estimated that over 80% of all internet traffic will be video-related by 2021. On every platform, video is on the rise in a big way. Here are some of the top video trends to keep in mind in order to better shape your digital marketing strategy and deliver results.
Social media is becoming more video-focused
Video content has exploded on social media in recent years.
View counts of branded video saw an increase of 99% on YouTube and 258% on Facebook in just one year. It is also shown that on Twitter, a video Tweet is six times more likely to be retweeted than a photo Tweet. Furthermore, on Instagram, time spent watching videos on continues to grow more than 80% year over year (where 73% of teens say is the best place for brands to reach them.) These video posts are more popular than photo posts and typically see at least twice the amount of comments that a photo post would. To stay ahead of the curve, be sure that video content is at the forefront of your social media marketing strategy.
Vertical Video
Audiences watch more hours of video on their phones than on any other device. In fact, YouTube – the largest video sharing platform – reports that hours of video viewed on mobile phones is increasing at least 100% year after year.
Because of the naturally vertical position for most phones, vertical video is becoming increasingly relevant and important. This is especially true given the ride in popularity of Snapchat and Instagram stories.
Stories
Stories are a fairly new tool on almost all social media platforms – found on Instagram, Snapchat, and Facebook. These are a separate feature of the platform, typically found at the top of the home page. They are meant to be short, candid and posted incrementally and regularly to keep viewers hooked.
Posting Stories from your business’ page are great for building hype, promoting authenticity, and connecting with your customer base on a personal level. Now, you can also promote sponsored ads in story format as well. Story ads are shown in between user stories, making them oftentimes difficult to distinguish from the rest of the organic story content. Story ads are immersive, full-screen, and easily interactive with added reach, views and traffic.
Virtual Reality
Virtual reality (VR) has seen an enormous spike over the past few years. While already hugely popular within the video gaming industry, it is also beginning to find itself in the marketing world.
One such application is VR allowing prospective customers to preview products and services. In fact, ticketing platform StubHub now has a feature which allows buyers to virtually preview the view from their seats. Virtual reality is also a fantastic way to immerse your customers into your brand storytelling. One-for-one shoe company TOMS ran a VR campaign that allowed customers to virtually join them on a shoe delivery in South America.
Virtual reality content has the potential to be an effective, exciting and immersive marketing tool. However, VR won’t fully catch onto the video marketing world until more consumers and video production companies have the tools for both viewing and creating VR content. In the meantime, keep your finger on the page of VR – it’s on a massive upswing.
Improved accessibility
Not captioning your video assumes that your viewers all are hearing-abled, English speaking, and in an environment where they’re able to watch video with sound. Additionally, without captions you’re potentially appealing to only 20% of your audience – over 80% of videos on Facebook are viewed with the sound off, not to mention those who may be deaf or hard of hearing, and non-native English speakers. Captioning and subtitling your videos is a pretty good catch-all for maximizing your video’s reach, ensuring accessibility for people of all nationalities and hearing abilities, and increasing your visibility in search engine results.
Authenticity
When promoting or building a brand on social media, it’s important to keep the “social” aspect in mind, which is what makes these platforms unique and affords you a vast new set of marketing advantages.
Take social media influencers and YouTube celebrities for example. Their enormous popularity may be baffling to some, but the reality is that audiences are attracted to them for their sense of approachability and inclusion. These social media stars speak directly to their audiences, respond to their comments and treat them as friends, as opposed to consumers. They speak “to” and “with” them not “at” them.
Brands can use this to their advantage when creating video marketing content.They can build trust with audiences by letting their guards down and offering a more “real” and connectedexperience. Some of the ways brands have accomplished this is through the use of engaging and attentive responding to comments, stories offering snapshots into brands’ behind-the scenes, and live video streaming.
Live streaming video
Live streaming is a powerful marketing communication medium that allows your small business to engage your audience, garner brand trust and transparency, and turn passive viewers into active audiences. In fact, Facebook studies show that viewers comment 10 times more on live videos than on standard video posts. Additionally, statistics show that 80% would rather watch live video than read a blog post from that same company, and 82% prefer live video over regular social media posts.
Partnerships and Sponsored Content
With the occurrence of social media celebrities on the rise, many brands are making use of their huge following and influence to advertise their products and services. Using social media influencers, while possibly a costly endeavor, is a surefire way to reach a massive amount of people, guaranteed. It also helps customers hear about your company from a more natural source, and feels like a friend making a recommendation.
Keep your thumb on these rapidly growing new trends, and you’ll be poised ahead of the curve. Contact us today to get you started on a successful year of marketing for your business!