One marketing buzz word that might be on its way out is "engaging." This term is not on its way out due to irrelevance; in fact the number one goal of any modern marketer is to grab the attention of potential customers and begin a conversation between them and the brand. The term is dying because it has run its course. Engagement is so important that the word itself has been used, used again and finally overused until we all need a new term to describe the same thing.
While the term might be dying, the concept is still alive and well. Not just marketers, but anyone who wants to garner attention, needs to find means of providing content that people actually like. One thing that is proven to be a crowd pleaser is video. This past January Nielsen Media shared some figures that state that versus just one year before people are spending 45% more time viewing video on Macs, PCs and laptops than they did just a year ago. Although online platforms such as Netflix show movie watching accounts for a significant portion of this increase, platforms such as YouTube, Facebook and Yahoo! (which show shorter length videos) also make the Top 10 list pertinent to unique viewers.
YouTube is literally the offspring of a marriage between social media and video, but it is not the only member of the social media community that can benefit from video. YouTube has been kind enough (or smart enough...) to make it simple to share a video hosted there on myriad other social sites, from blogs to Facebook. This makes it feasible for anyone from a veteran marketer to a mommy blogger to incorporate video into their social media efforts.
Video Spices Things Up
Different people have different interests and learning styles. An auditory learner will benefit much more from a video, than from even the most wonderfully written blog. That visitor is much more likely to click on the video and watch, rather than read the blog. Many people skim over content and stop paying attention once they feel that they have the gist. An informative video can get points across to your audience that they might not extract from written content. If the purpose of your communication is to explain something, especially how to perform a process, then the visual aid of a video can deliver more than words, regardless of how descriptive the writer is.
Best Practices
- K.I.S.S.: Unless you want to lose your audience, keep videos short, sweet, and simple. Think five minutes or less in most situations.
- Pertinence: Your message, be it a 100 character Tweet or a 500-word blog, should be closely related to your video. Do not force fit a somewhat relevant video into your communication just for the sake of having video. Remember: the purpose of the video is to provide greater clarity to-and reinforce-your written message.
- Fun: If it fits, make the video fun. People are looking to be entertained, so find (or make) videos that communicate your point in an entertaining way.
- Originality: If something is being passed around on the internet left and right, then featuring it in your social media is worthless unless you are one of the first. Email the viral stuff to your personal friends who might appreciate it (after all, who doesn't love Charlie Sheen's Winning Recipes?!). But for your social campaign, choose videos that are both original and relevant to your company's core business.
Video makes a great and increasingly necessary addition to your social media offerings. It should be a part of your overall strategy. If you would like to discuss how video can complement your social media campaign, give us a call.