Video content consumption has been on the rise in the last few years. It’s effectiveness in connecting brands to audiences increases, which is why more and more businesses are making use of it in their digital marketing strategies.
But it comes down to more than just mastering video as a messaging medium. With more and more brands leveraging the efficacy of video and saturating the market with content, the only way to really stay ahead of the competition is to craft video content that truly stands out.
To help you gain insight on how to do that, we’ve listed the latest trends in video marketing and what they mean for the success of your strategies.
Key Trends for Video Marketing in 2019
Going mobile
The expected number of mobile video viewers this year is 174.9 million. It should come as no surprise based on the trends reported by the chart below:
Image Source: Statista
Going Vertical
Research finds that mobile users are actually viewing videos in portrait mode more often. Even media platforms like Instagram are recognizing this and adjusting content accordingly. Check out how IGTV is geared towards it:
Source: Instagram
A study published this February by Buffer and Animoto found that vertical video, generally speaking, has a lower cost per view compared to square video.
The study ultimately led to the discovery that vertical drives more engagement on Instagram and Facebook, with Instagram Feed outperforming Facebook and Instagram Stories in cost-effectiveness.
So if you’re already optimizing video content for mobile, why not take your game up a notch and reduce cost by optimizing for vertical views?
SEO-Friendly Videos
You might’ve noticed that videos now turn up in Google search results. The search engine can detect which videos contain content that’s relevant to users’ search queries. Short previews called “snippets” are then played once search results are generated.
Why does this matter? Well, it turns out that snippets are typically more successful than first position rankings when it comes to user clicks.
There’s a lot of buzz when it comes to using videos on social media, but with so many people using Google regularly, leaving this resource untapped is an outright sin.
To better capitalize on this feature, marketing guru Neil Patel suggests placing videos on your own websites instead of YouTube.
Other tips for search optimization include:
- Using a crawlable video encoding.
- Choosing an appropriate thumbnail.
- Using keywords in video titles and descriptions that mimic user intent.
- Using keywords tailored to voice search queries.
- Having your feature video embedded on the first page of your site.
- Setting a future date as an expiration date or not including one at all.
- Including a video transcript, especially for longer videos.
Live is Lucrative
Particularly so for online content. Take a look at this chart from eMarketer:
In a survey conducted by Livestream and New York magazine, it was confirmed that users can’t get enough of live stream videos.
The survey also revealed that:
- Consumers prefer videos over regular social media posts.
- Users want to see more behind-the-scenes content.
- More than half of users turn to live videos for breaking news. Just under half watch conferences and concerts live.
- Respondents preferred YouTube over Facebook videos but only by a small margin.
On Facebook alone, live videos were found to gather as much as 10 times more comments than its regular counterpart. Overall, views are also eight times longer.
In case you have yet to give live videos a try, 2019 is definitely the time to incorporate them into your marketing strategies since the video streaming market is projected to continue growing even more.
VR & AR: Video’s Next Stage
These tidbits are just the tip of the iceberg. Look out for more trends involving virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) like 360° videos that immerse the user in the content and allow her to take control of the experience through devices like the Oculus Rift, for example.
Big brands have already been tapping into this type of video and seeing great results. As far back as 2015, home improvement company Lowe’s was already using virtual reality to give shoppers the ability to envision improvements to their home.
While it may not be cost-effective at the moment to go out and make your own virtual reality video, this niche is definitely developing quickly so you want to keep yourself apprised.
Looking to bring video marketing into your repertoire and enjoy its ROI first-hand? Implement the above-discussed tips or hire a professional team of digital marketers to take care of the complicated stuff.
Sources:
- Statista
- Statista
- Wired
- Buffer
- HubSpot
- Neil Patel
- Search Console Help
- Digital Marketing Institute
- Livestream
- ZoomInfo
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