Darcy's thoughts
Video Content: A powerful tool
Video is often an element that most companies forget to give enough weight to when it comes to online campaigns, especially considering that they are currently one of the most powerful tools in the digital marketing world.
Some companies may think that it is too costly to create videos. Despite this preconception, many viral videos are made with minimum expenditure and can be hosted on free platforms such as YouTube, so there really is no excuse for not using them. Successfully utilising videos in a campaign can help to achieve many goals; promote brand awareness, create a brand personality, improve your search ranking results and ultimately drive traffic to your site.
Did you know?
- YouTube receives over 1.3 million views per minute – your campaign could be a part of that!
- An hour of video content is uploaded to the site every second
- In 2011, YouTube videos achieved more than one trillion views
- Analytics software on YouTube can provide insights into the demographics of your viewers. This can give you a better understanding of your audience which will help develop future campaigns
You need to be realistic when it comes to viewing figures – don’t expect a million hits in a day! Often, it’s the unexpected, unusual or just very clever campaigns that make a video successful. The best option is to keep it simple, but be as innovative and creative as you can.
Videos can also be embedded into press releases to give them an eye-catching feature. Think about it: would you rather spend twenty minutes sat reading a page of lacklustre copy or watch a fast-paced, attention-grabbing video?
A study carried out by Forbes stated that 83 per cent of senior executives watch more work-related videos online today than they did this time last year and 54 per cent said that they share videos with colleagues on a weekly basis. However, it is not surprising that they more often watch these videos on business-related websites (75 per cent) than on platforms such as YouTube (51 per cent), providing plenty of reason to use videos in an integrated part of your whole campaign – don’t just leave it on a Youtube channel!
The beauty of video is also that you can often turn the most boring topics into something fresh and exciting. For example, a public transport authority in Australia created a video campaign to raise awareness of railway safety. It received 30 million views within two weeks of going live:
If you are going to use video, here are some useful tips to bear in mind:
It’s important to keep your audience engaged, so make sure that your video is as short as possible whilst getting across your intended message clearly. It is understood that 82 per cent of people will watch 30 seconds of video but only 55 per cent will keep watching for ten minutes. Cadbury’s completely random Gorilla advert is the perfect length – clocking in at 1 minute 30 seconds – a sufficient time to keep the audience engaged and thinking about the brand without them getting bored.
So, if you haven’t already, now is the perfect time to dust off your camera lens and get shooting!
Yes, videos are great and powerful tools for marketing but sometimes it was being abused. It should be created with great details and should be digested by your users easily. You must have a storyboard and should be brief. I would prefer only a minute video, that should be enough.