Video Content Soars Away
There are lies, damn lies and statistics.
Stats for online video are mind boggling. Last year users of Twitch watched 459,000 years of video, and that’s only one video platform.
So according to the online analytics guys, if you believe their stats, there’s a sea of video out there and the demand for it seems only to increase.
The decision for marketers is whether internet video can work for them and their brands to influence buying behaviour.
The truth is that not all video works well for brands; in fact, unless it is a deep part of an overall marketing campaign, video can be just as invisible as other online media.
Despite the zillions of video clips jangling around on the internet, the lie is that unless you have a plan for how your video is going to stand out or make an impression, it’ll just merge into the general glut of content.
But given that there is an insatiable demand for video and that no blog or social media post seems complete without a clip, how do marketers go about making sure the material they upload is going to grab attention.
Some tips:
Make sure the content you commission is high-quality and professionally made. If you want to upload something you did on the weekend on your iPhone that’s cool; it might briefly appeal to your Facebook friends but it won’t do anything for your brand
Make sure that you have a strategy for your video. Professional video is important marketing content. It’ll have cost a few quid, so it needs to be delivered on a timeline into the social media channels and website in a measureable way.
Recognise that one video is not going to cut it (except in exceptional circumstances) and that you’ll need an agreed video output over a marketing cycle.
Budget properly for video production – there are many ways to do this. Bring it in-house, contract a partnership with a reliable outsourced production company, work with your existing agency, but don’t think that video is a bolt on. Once it’s part of the marketing strategy it’s as integral as any other marketing spend.
Make time. Creating good video is complex. It’s a process that requires client input. So ensure you’ve got someone who’ll take charge of the process and input the thinking, the vision, the brief and the time to work with the video producers to create the right output.