August 20, 2015
Video is racing ahead of any other medium on the web. It’s capability to lead on engagement and shareability is undeniable. Web consumers are eating up video at a rate that is literally shifting mainstream provision from larger production channels. On demand services like Netflix are clearly challenging the convention of more traditional providers such as BBC with the need for such things as the UK TV License coming into debate against opting for more segmented payment options that Netflix and similar on-demand companies have to offer. These viewing habits are also transferring to on-line and mobile video consumption too. Looking at the following statistics we can see that if marketers aren’t considering a move to employing video content in their strategy they are clearly risking losing a huge slice of the engagement pie. Consider the following info-graphic by HighQ.
These consumption habits are undoubtedly trickling down to social channels too. Currently, leading video sites like YouTube are receiving more than 1 billion unique visits a month with a clear lead on video interactions, but what does this mean for social Media? Well; Facebook overtook that lead of most last November and Brands posted 20,000 more videos on Facebook in December 2014 than they did on YouTube. Unsurprising for such a dominant engagement platform that made the huge push to prioritise brand page native video content to encourage brand led video production and hence give a clear lead on social video ROI, hence totally blowing the lid off social video interactions. It’s obvious that the dominant social channels are prioritising video as an essential anchor for the larger engagement numbers with no less than ALL the top social media platforms now providing ‘some’ native video feature.
So what are the things to consider to even start to think about providing video content into your marketing strategy
Relevance.
Ok, so you may think cats and baby’s might be the way forward after all people share those all the time! But actually delivering a relevance to your target audience via video should be your first concern. A short attention span means you only have produce short videos but packing as much value into a few seconds in order to get not only views but shares too.
Creativity
This mean focusing not only on value and usefulness but also creativity and excitement! Brands like Red Bull and GoPro are nailing this kind of thrill-seeking, extreme sports kind of content for obvious reasons but judging by some of the shifts in content budget spends its not just the thrill seekers that are producing awesome video;
Channels and production
You don’t need big budgets to produce video content (but it helps). Platforms such as Vine, Instagram and even Twitter directly now allow for hand held and mobile phone video editing to produce acceptable results, however creativity is often dominating quality with the most exciting videos often being some of the most lo-fi formats but delivering these variations of quality across multiple channels and using each for their own strengths can hold the key to combining cross platform engagement and benefiting from the sum of the parts. Vine videos can being watched natively on Twitter, Facebook and Twitter native videos benefit from news feed auto-play, platforms like Periscope and Meerkat offer very easy live-streaming options and even animated gifs have strong engagement value at a very low production demands.
The bigger brands know that multi channel video driven storytelling is key to maximum engagement and brand sentiment with behemoth brands like Applemusic are at the cutting edge of not only static video but live video with up-to-the-minute, live stream interactions and exclusives. Coca Cola were among several international brands that recently admitted to spending more on creating content than on TV advertising as an indication as to how much value and true ROI mobile / social video can bring.
So how are you going to embrace the power of video? and how can we start to implement awesome video content into our marketing strategy.