By Victoria Page
Before the invention of the printing press, our culture was visual and oral. It then became literal and analytical for hundreds of years. With the introduction of technology and media, we have now come full circle. We have short attention spans, coupled with the ability to instantly jump from one piece of information to another.
Enter, the explosion of video.
Video provides an efficient way for us to process information without draining our precious mental energy supply. With the amount of internet users consuming video, video content is vital to every brand. Wyzowl says that “79% of consumers prefer watching video to reading about a product.” Video is now so ubiquitous that customers are expecting to see it from companies more than ever before.
According to Forbes Magazine:
- Viewers retain 95% of a message when they watch it on video, compared to 10% when reading it in a text
- Video is projected to claim more than 80% of all web traffic by 2019
- 90% of customers report that product videos help them make purchasing decisions
- 64% of customers are more likely to buy a product online after watching a video about it
Online streaming is growing as the most popular method for video consumption. It’s projected that the average hours spent per day online will be equivalent to the number of hours spent watching television in the next year.
With the addition of video content across social media platforms, including recent options such as “stories” and live video streaming, video is hardly exclusive to YouTube anymore.
Facebook videos have more reachability than YouTube, and are better suited to promote feedback.
Another advantage of Facebook video is that for most users, as they scroll through their feed, videos start playing automatically. However, 85% of the time, the sound does not.
For that reason, video content created for Facebook should be kept short –2 minutes or less– and include an element of text, like subtitles, so that it is effective with or without sound. YouTube on the other hand, is made for video content. The inclusion of text is not necessary on YouTube because people expect to hear the audio component.
Video content provides an opportunity to build trust and rapport with your audience, which is one of the most important components of a branding strategy. We have all experienced misinterpreting a person’s tone in an email at some point, which completely affects our reception of the intended message.
Tone, as well as body language, are examples of nonverbal communication that are best interpreted face-to-face, or, through video. The phrase “actions speak louder than words” comes to mind when utilizing video as a way to express your company’s unique culture and connection with customers on a personal level.
Video is an all-encompassing medium.
It can incorporate photos, music, an article, dialogue, and nonverbal communication all at once, and present the information faster than visuals or audio on their own. The majority of business today are utilizing video on their websites and across social media.
