In 2017, Cisco, a worldwide leader in IT and marketing, made a bold prediction about video viewing. The company said that by 2021, eighty percent of the world’s internet traffic would be video. More specifically, Cisco predicted the world would watch three trillion minutes of videos on the internet each month.
Now that we’re on the first half of 2021, it’s not so hard to see why Cisco made that particular forecast. Just one scroll through TikTok, YouTube, or Facebook, and you’ll see tons of video content from users and brands alike. But besides the growing digital transformation among brands, the increasing use of video marketing, and the rise of content creators, the COVID-19 pandemic may also have a hand in it.
Socially Distanced, People Cling to Screens
In 2020, the coronavirus pandemic hit the world, one country after another. Suddenly, local and national governments set months-long travel bans and shelter-in-place measures to curb the spread of COVID-19. Thousands of people started working from home; many children went online to continue their schooling. In turn, the use of video calls for meetings and hangouts has increased in the past year. Socially distanced, people have also clung to screens, consuming video content for interaction and entertainment.
In particular, TikTok’s popularity exploded amid the coronavirus pandemic. Teens and adults alike bonded over viral duets and dance steps, posting their own videos and commented on their friends’ TikTok videos. Brands even joined the bandwagon by partnering with rising TikTok content creators.
YouTube, the biggest online video platform, has also experienced a flock of video content and increased video viewing in the past year. The Google-owned video platform saw usage grow from 73 percent in 2019 to 81 percent in 2021. Many actors and musical artists, who couldn’t shoot movies or hold concerts, created YouTube channels to post videos and interact with their fans. Add that to the rising popularity of thousands of vloggers and growing diversity among content (from ASMR videos to how-to’s, YouTube got it all), and it isn’t hard to see why tons of users have flocked to YouTube.
This video-viewing trend isn’t easy to ignore, especially if you run a business amid a pandemic. How can you use this increasing popularity of online video platforms to go beyond traditional video marketing?
Finding the Right Mix of Video Content for Your Brand
It’s tempting to join the bandwagon and start posting videos for your business. But keep in mind that social media and online video platforms like TikTok and YouTube are so competitive. You need a strategy to rise above the noise and attract the right audience at the right moment through the right video content.
For starters, you have to make visually stunning videos. Get the right tools, brush up on your video editing skills, and learn the magic of storytelling. You can also work with a professional corporate video production company to ensure every video is spot-on and aligned to your overall marketing campaign.
Next, you need to find the right mix of video content for your brand. Explore the following video types.
- Short Videos
With tons of choices online, users can easily switch from one video to another. On YouTube, you only have a few seconds to catch users’ attention and keep them from clicking the “skip the ad” button. YouTube Shorts, the video platform’s response to TikTok, is also on the rise. Dominate YouTube Shorts, and your brand won’t only gain a strong following online but will also receive a huge monetary reward.
Clever short videos are also your golden ticket to attract people through Instagram and Facebook stories.
- Silent Videos with Closed Captioning
Ninety-two percent of people watch videos on mobile with the sound turned off because they are in a quiet space, they are multi-tasking or don’t have their headphones on. The auto-play feature on YouTube and other social media platforms also enables related videos to play one after another until the user hits the stop button. So if you make sure your videos have close captioning and are easy to understand even if they are silent, people will more likely watch them than many other videos online.
- Shoppable Video Ads
Shoppable ads are a great way to interact with consumers while providing them a seamless buying experience. These ads are basically videos of different products or services that allow users to hover over a particular item to get a link to buy them or drive them to a product page that can offer more information. You can post these shoppable video ads on Facebook, Instagram, and even Pinterest.
Going beyond predictions, video content is now an evolving niche. It continues to engage users, especially during a global crisis. Use videos not only to remain competitive online but also to connect with consumers, who keep on clinging to screens to get their much-needed interactions and entertainment.