{"id":21408,"date":"2017-09-11T10:11:51","date_gmt":"2017-09-11T09:11:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fifteen-staging.fifteen.dev\/blog\/the-digital-marketers-guide-to-video\/"},"modified":"2017-09-11T10:11:51","modified_gmt":"2017-09-11T09:11:51","slug":"the-digital-marketers-guide-to-video","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fifteendesign.co.uk\/blog\/the-digital-marketers-guide-to-video\/","title":{"rendered":"The Digital Marketer’s Guide to Video"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cWithin the next 5 years Facebook could be All Video.\u201d That was the spine-tingling battle cry echoing throughout the digital marketing world. It was commented last year by Nicola Mendelsohn, the Vice President of EMEA Facebook \u2013 to some, the most prominent digital soothsayer within the British digital marketing sphere. Whether it\u2019s true, or the intention behind this was genuine, this sort of trickle of information is something marketers scramble to dissect. The general insight that we can gain from it is that video is big, but it\u2019s going to be even bigger \u2013 like super-massive. With this in mind, let\u2019s take a look at the current state of play showing all the tools at your disposal.<\/p>\n

What Video Content Works?<\/h2>\n

Over a 100 years ago an Englishman by the name of Eadweard Muybridge was one of the first ever people to truly capture motion and did so by sequencing a series of shots of a galloping horse. Why did he do this? To answer a burgeoning question: during a horse\u2019s gallop at any point does all its feet leave the ground?<\/p>\n

What does this reference to a Victorian stop-motion pioneer (who shot and killed his wife\u2019s lover) have to do with video marketing? Well\u2026<\/p>\n

Content needs to have a purpose \u2013 and it needs to have meaning.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Even if you\u2019ve spent a grotesque amount of your marketing budget on creating fantastic looking content, if it does not serve a need from the consumer then it\u2019s going to be seen by as many as Blackbeard\u2019s treasure.<\/p>\n

Gaining insight into what types of content is working and what\u2019s popular is worth finding out. Look at what attracts the most search volume at any given moment, but also pay some cold hard attention to the sort of content being presented to you. For example:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Youtube<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not too sure about \u2018How to be an Anime Superhero\u2019, but you get a general gist of what\u2019s being watched and who the general audience is \u2013 which we\u2019ll come to shortly.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re creating an informative piece, emphasize the type of person or presenter who might lead to more shares of the video. A more neutral character is more likely to get shared more \u2013 this is similar to how vloggers look to create their content.<\/p>\n

Instructional videos gain a lot of views. This is due to bringing in traffic via search engines within a particular niche. Users can then see the volume of what\u2019s been viewed and how many likes the video has, which helps to validate the video in the viewer\u2019s mind.<\/p>\n

Look at the words or language used in the titles: words like \u2018best\u2019, \u2018everything\u2019, \u2019how to\u2019, \u2018all time\u2019. This sends almost primal signals to the user that this is definitive<\/p>\n

The first couple of seconds of your video is the most crucial element. This is where the viewer decides to fully commit to watching it in its entirety. Don\u2019t waste their time by spending the first part with a fancy animation of your logo \u2013 the user is simply going to turn off. In fact, from our own research, we\u2019ve noticed a 25% drop in views for videos that start with a logo.<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t emphasize enough about quality being a major part of your video content. \u2018Corporate video is often given a bad reputation. It conjures up images of extreme close-ups of customer testimonials, with the faux leather sofa in tow, or hard-hatted near-retirees pointing at labyrinthine machinery. Think about how to make your content appear natural because that\u2019s what glues our eyeballs to our devices. We\u2019re able to emphasize and feel as if we\u2019re being taken on a journey. This is especially important if you\u2019re a B2C setup.<\/p>\n

Another key aspect of your video content is actually how it\u2019s structured. With video, you need to be telling a story, and a story traditionally has three acts that you might want to follow:<\/p>\n

1.The Setup<\/h3>\n

Set the tone and establish your narration. For example, focus your audience comfortably on who\u2019s telling the story or where the video is set. Outline a challenge that your company has faced.<\/p>\n

2.Confrontation<\/h3>\n

Show your audience how you tackled the challenge, all the pitfalls, and how your workforce developed new skills in the process.<\/p>\n

3.Resolution<\/h3>\n

The payoff. This is what the whole video has been building up to, the best place to tie everything up in a neat package and show off your best qualities. And let\u2019s face it, if your viewer has come through this far, they\u2019ve more or less invested themselves in the video, so it\u2019s peak time for a return on their investment.<\/p>\n

What are the benefits of Video?<\/h2>\n

One of the less obvious benefits of creating video content is Time. The ratio of information you can get across in a short time is much larger than, say, that 7,000-word whitepaper.<\/p>\n

Video is then by its sheer growth the true future usurper of content marketing. We need to be looking at some of the key developments over the last year, such as:<\/p>\n