In 2022, experts at Cisco estimate that online videos will make up more than 82% of all consumer internet traffic—15 times higher than just five years prior. Social Media Week reports that 78% of people watch videos online weekly and 55% of those watch daily. Every platform from YouTube and TikTok to Facebook, Instagram, and beyond is streaming video to viewers’ computers, tablets, phones, and TVs, with the average person watching about 100 minutes of online video per day.
Think about that: 100 minutes per day.
So, what do all these stats mean for you and your organization?
Video has become an absolute necessity for digital marketing. As video content continues to grow in popularity, you’ll need more of it in your mix to get the most out of your marketing plan. Instead of creating one or two videos a year, it’s better to start utilizing videos for everyday posts on your social media channels.
You can use video on social media to support each tier of the marketing funnel: awareness, consideration, and conversion.
If you need to build awareness for your brand, product, or cause, you will want to set your targets on discovery, not sales. You cannot build a relationship with your prospective audience if they don’t know you exist. Used on your social media channels, you are looking for performance in the total views and view duration to measure success.
Next, you want to deepen your relationship with your prospects. With video, you can give personality to your brand and let your audience see behind the curtain: introduce viewers to your team, explain the culture and values your organization is built on, or share your knowledge and demonstrate expertise in your field. This transparency promotes connection between your organization and your audience, and these connections lead to benefits such as consideration and potentially conversion. In contrast to an awareness video, a consideration video’s success is measured first by click-throughs to your other content such as your website.
Videos are particularly useful when it comes to conversion—this is where the relationship cultivation should pay off. Match the style and tone of the video to your brand’s voice, and make that call to action irresistible. Demonstrating what you’re selling checks the product, price, and placement marketing boxes. Measure the click-through rate against sales, inquiries, or calls to validate that there is a connection between your marketing and what you’re selling.
Once you have locked down content that will support your marketing goals, you need to decide where and how to share it for the best results. Video content has been proven to get more exposure and engagement on social media. Most social media platforms’ algorithms favor native video content (video that is posted directly to the platform, not linked from sites such as YouTube). Both Facebook and Twitter have explicitly stated that this type of content is pushed more heavily to their users. By posting a video instead of a photo or standalone text, you’re already setting yourself up for success.
To take things a step further, tailoring your videos for different platforms increases the videos’ performance. This applies to both the content and the specifications of the video. For example, your organization's thought leadership or corporate recruitment is a perfect match for LinkedIn, while a major announcement might perform best on Twitter. Similarly, horizontal videos work best on YouTube and vertical videos are better for TikTok. For almost all online videos, captioning increases accessibility and helps your message reach viewers who are watching your video with their device volume low or on mute.
This doesn’t mean you have to dedicate time and energy to curating different videos for each of your platforms, though. With a video partner, you can repurpose your final product to optimize it for specific outlets. Planning ahead will ensure you get the most out of your content.
Every organization has its own specific goals, and it’s no different when it comes to video marketing. But we can say with confidence that regardless of the specifics, video will help your organization meet its marketing goals.
Our suggestion: Start off 2022 strong with video at the center of your marketing strategy.