The Importance of Video in Digital Marketing

Unless you live under a rock or don’t have access to the internet, you’ll know that video is everywhere right now. Search for anything on Google and you’ll get at least one video result. Scroll your social media feed and you’ll constantly be directed towards video content of all kinds.

Right now, video is the king of content.

You might be wondering whether you should use video too, especially as the market seems to be saturated with video content. The answer is a resounding yes! Let’s look at why you should harness video marketing and why video is so important, whatever your industry.

Video content is king for several reasons.

First - video is interactive, engaging and entertaining. Unlike text, which can be hard to read and absorb, video is easy to digest and simple to consume. In fact, According to Hubspot’s report on animated video statistics, most people (94%) watch explainer videos to understand the product or the brand better, and 84% of the watchers decided to make a purchase after the video.

 

Second - video can be consumed anywhere. We all know it’s easier to watch a video than read a post on the go. That’s why 90% of consumers watch videos on their mobile device. The average person is now predicted to spend 100 minutes per day watching online videos and watching videos now accounts for 82% of total internet traffic.

 

Third - video builds trust with customers. The best way to demonstrate value and show what your product or service does is via video. With 57% of consumers saying videos give them more confidence to make a purchase online, it’s time to get camera ready!

 

The importance of video for content marketing

Let’s start by looking at a few more numbers (you may have guessed I happen to LOVE numbers!).

• YouTube estimates people watch over a billion hours of video content each day.
• Twitter says tweets with video receive 10 x more engagement.
• Facebook sees upwards of 8 billion video views per day.
• Instagram stats show that Reels are being shared by people via DMs 1 billion times a day.

 

What does that mean for your business? It means video is clearly preferred by the majority of consumers. That’s why you need to lean into video marketing for your business - to give your customers what they’re looking for.

But the benefits aren’t just for your customers. From a content marketing perspective, video delivers the following benefits to businesses too:

• Education: video can share vital information with viewers in a very short space of time and increase the chance of conversion. In one study, 84% of users who watched an explainer video about a product or service went on to make a purchase.
• Entertainment: people are more likely to share content if it’s entertaining, increasing your potential reach. For instance, 76% of consumers say they would share a branded video with friends on social media if it was entertaining.
• SEO: embedding an engaging video on your website increases time spent on your site for visitors and sends positive signals to search engines. In fact, sites with video are 50 x more likely to appear first in search results(more on SEO later).

 

The effectiveness of video for advertising

It’s no secret that video is the go-to tool for most advertising campaigns. 83% of marketers say video is more important than ever while 87% of businesses are now using video for marketing, including advertising. There are a few reasons why so many marketers and businesses are turning to video for advertising.

• Conversions: video boosts conversions and sales by creating an emotional connection. Video helps speed up sales cycles as prospects think less and act sooner, with conversions increasing by 80% when a product video is added to a landing page.
• Return on Investment (ROI): video is seen as a great investment. Whether you spend thousands on a slick production or create a video with your smartphone, 88% of businesses believe video advertising and marketing delivers good ROI.
• Awareness: visual content like video is a great way to boost brand and product awareness. Facebook found 74% of total ad recall can be achieved within the first 10 seconds of a video advertisement, making video a powerful awareness tool.
• CTR: video attracts interest and engages consumers, so it should be no surprise that video is a highly effective advertising medium. In fact, video advertising boasts the highest click-through-rate of all digital ad formats at 1.84%.

The importance of video on social media

You only need to take a glance at your own social media feed to see how important video has become as a social media tool. Chances are, a quick scroll will reveal multiple social media video ads, whether you’re on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok or Twitter. The truth is, the power of video on social media is immense, whatever your chosen platform.

Video is popular on social media for a number of reasons. As we’ve already seen, videos are highly engaging and can be consumed on the go. They are easy to share, fun to watch and provide information without the need to read a wall of text.

Most importantly, when it comes to social media, video content can quickly spread your message to a larger audience. Through shares, likes, comments and tags, highly engaging videos are an efficient and effective way to share your knowledge far and wide.

But what sort of video content works best on social media?

The five main types of social video content

Before posting anything it’s important to understand the purpose of your video and the value you’re giving your audience. Is the purpose of your video to inform, entertain, engage or connect? What will your audience get out of watching your video? How do you want to make them feel?

Social media video content falls broadly into five main categories:

• Explainer videos: focusing on educating and informing customers. These include tutorials, walk throughs, how to videos and product overviews.
• Video interviews: featuring a conversation between subject matter experts. These can be educational, funny and entertaining.
• Review videos: sharing proof of the value of the product or service. Think influencer videos, brand ambassadors and user generated content.
• Live videos: used to create a personal connection with your customers. Use these to share behind the scenes glimpses and build trust with your audience.

• Reels/Stories: ephemeral content that’s only available to view for a short time. These short gimmick style videos are great for product reveals and sharing quick tips.

Once you’ve settled on the type of video you’re going to share, it’s time to think about length. The ideal length for videos differs for each social media channel. While YouTube videos should be at least 2 mins long, Instagram Reels shouldn’t be longer than 1 minute, while stories should be 15 seconds. Facebook likes videos to be less than 1 minute long while Twitter users seem to prefer 45 second videos. On TikTok brevity is your friend with the optimum video length being 7-15 seconds.

 

If you’re worried about video quality, don’t be. You don’t need to invest in a professional setup before getting started. As long as your content is top notch, your audience won’t care too much about production quality. With ephemeral and live content growing in popularity, people aren’t looking for perfection - they are looking for information they can trust (something video delivers). In a lot of cases, depending on the subject matter, an over-produced video is going to stand out in a bad way on the likes of TikTok an Instagram, where often the DIY authentic content is preferred.

Google loves video - Improved SEO

Another benefit of video is its ability to boost search engine optimisation (SEO). So, how can video improve SEO? There are a few key ways optimised video content can help you rise the ranks in search results.

• Embedding an engaging video on your website increases time spent on your site for visitors and sends positive signals to search engines. That’s why sites with video are 50 x more likely to appear first in search results.
• Videos feature in more parts of the SERP (search engine results page) and even have their own results tab. Google (who owns YouTube) lists videos at the top of the page for many search terms, giving video content a significant SEO boost.
• Adding keywords to titles, video descriptions, captions and other video metadata can also help your chances of ranking for relevant keywords. Ensure you include a strong call to action and links back to your site to further boost SEO.
• YouTube is the world’s second largest search engine. The more video content you produce, the more likely your chances of ranking well for relevant keywords and search terms (and remember Google owns YouTube so you boost your visibility there as well).

 

While not having video content on your site won’t damage your SEO, video content will give your site a boost. It can help your business be discovered by more people, grow your ranking, ensure your business ranks for more keywords and gives you more chances to get on the first page of results for your chosen search terms.

How video can help your business

I think you’ve got a good grasp by now on how video content can help your business, but here’s a quick summary of the benefits video can deliver to your business and businesses of all sizes.

Video content and video advertising helps:

• grow reach
• improve SEO
• build trust
• increase ROI
• boost sales and conversions
• promote engagement
• develop brand awareness
• educate consumers
• create relationships
• open conversations
• reach new consumers.

If you’re not already looking at video for your marketing and content strategy, it’s time to take action. Video is king and will be for a long time yet. To get the most from your marketing investment, it’s time to embrace video. Whether you’re a small business or a larger organisation, video will help your business thrive and grow into the future.

Creating good video content

In the past, creating video content has been an inaccessible skill for many; requiring expensive camera and audio equipment, pricey editing software, and the time and skills required that are unavailable to most small business owners. Nowadays however, we all carry cutting edge video and audio equipment in our pockets. While you can definitely up your production game where necessary, the average smartphone is more than equipped with a good enough camera and microphone to get you creating content.

There are also many free resources now for editing video. Of course, apps like TikTok and Instagram have their very simple built in editing platforms, but if you want to go a step further than that Canva have recently launched their fully fledged and fully free video editing suite.

For those not already acquainted, Canva‘s goal is to make content creation super accessible and it’s something we, even as content creators, graphic designers and videographers, can really get behind. Canva’s incredibly simple drag-and-drop video editing suite makes it so easy to create great video content by cutting together multiple clips, adding audio, adding text and graphics. It really is a game changer.

And though it can be daunting getting into that video content world, it is well worth taking the plunge. Most of the best engaging content going around is not highly produced, meticulously scripted and delivered with an oscar winning performance. People just want to see you, doing what you do. Giving people an insight into your business is an easy way to create engaging content, whether it be a video compilation of your busy day or a friendly step by step of how you design and build your product.

There are so many options for content concepts that don’t require you to perform the latest dance craze in your bathroom mirror. Take a look at other small businesses that are in a similar field to you or that you appreciate and see what is working for them.

Help with video marketing

Are you ready to get involved? The team at Poppy Seed Media is ready to help! Experts in video production, we create video marketing content to put your brand front and centre so you can take advantage of all the benefits of video for your business.

 

Get in touch with our friendly team to discuss your needs and how we can help you make the most of video marketing and advertising.