Honestly, when was the last time you read an ebook or a whitepaper? Chances are, you're not reading this article on a desktop computer or a laptop. You and the majority of the globe are getting your content from your tablet or mobile phone.With this major shift in the digital world putting information in people hands instantly, it can be a challenge for marketers to keep up and create content that will stand out in the crowd.
That brings us to the conversation at hand. Is video the future of digital marketing? Industry leaders and marketers around the world are claiming that 2017 is the year of video marketing, and social media is the best avenue for sharing and promoting premium video content.
Throughout this article, I will discuss how social media is changing and affecting the way that we think about premium content to support marketing efforts, social media advertising, and some tips to help you get started.
Changing How We Think and Consume Digital Content
If you have been on Facebook, Twitter, or any social media platform recently, you would have to be completely oblivious to not see that video and multimedia content has taken precedent to blog sharing and text ads. This is not a recent change either. In fact, we have now been conditioned to expect videos and high-level multimedia content such as GIFs, infographics, and animated content while perusing our social feeds. Spinta Digital collected the following stats on multimedia content consumption on social networks;
- 82% of Twitter users watch video content on Twitter
- 45% of people watch more than an hour of Facebook or YouTube videos a week.
- People watch more than 500 million hours of videos on youtube each day.
- More video content is uploaded in 30 days than the major U.S. television networks have created in 30 years.
- 87% of online marketers use video content.
- Every minute, 72 Hours of video are uploaded to YouTube.
- 85% of the US internet audience watches videos online.
Video Content for Digital Marketing
With the knowledge of how prominent video content is in the social media world, marketers are shifting their focus from premium written content to video and multimedia content. According to that same article from Spinta Digital, 51% of marketing professionals name video as the type of content with the best ROI and 59% of executives agree that users choose video over text. Even more, it has been proven that videos can convert leads at 46% after the viewer watches the ad.
Video and multimedia content is the future. It can increase your ROI from social advertising spending as well as increase engagement on all social platforms.
Tips for Video Content Creation
Generally, videos up to 2 minutes long get the most engagement. It is important to create content that tells the right story. However, anything over 2 minutes can be too lengthy and your viewers can become disinterested and miss the CTA in the video.
Many Facebook videos are watched without sound. Using text overlays or closed captioning on your videos is a must. This can help get your message to those that are sneaking a video in at their desk with the sound off.
Animated videos such as whiteboard and 2D explainers videos can be very valuable when discussing data and other high-level information. Rather than having some guy sitting on in a leather chair in front of a fireplace tell how good your product is, you can create one of these animated videos to give a lighter and more digestible piece of content to the viewers. Rather than having some guy sitting in front of a fireplace tell how good your product is, you can create an animated video to give a lighter and more digestible piece of content to your viewers.
If you are not already using video content to support your social media marketing efforts, you are behind the ball. It's time to change the way we think about digital content and make the shift to video and multimedia content.
Worried you're behind on video or multimedia marketing? Book a consultation with one of our talented marketing experts to learn how we can help solve for you today.