It’s no secret that video marketing has become a larger component of major companies’ marketing strategies; this year alone video marketing has exploded in a big way. Video now accounts for at least half of Internet traffic, and this percentage is projected to rise to 79% by 2018. Search engines, social media, and internet consumers all have a rapidly growing love affair with video. Within the last year, Twitter launched autoplay for in feed videos, Facebook gave advertisers the option of video ads, and live streaming video platforms, like Periscope and Meerkat, have been on the rise. Video marketing is no longer just an entertaining add-on, it has become a key factor for anyone concerned with SEO, conversion rates or brand awareness. While textual content still remain valuable, 93% of marketers have moved towards the trend of video marketing and visual content for online marketing and communications
SEO and Video Marketing
Videos are an important factor in helping drive traffic to one’s site. Google loves video. Experts report, “landing pages with video are 53x more likely to rank on the first page of Google search results.” Google places importance on video because they provide users with high quality content. More frequently, we are seeing videos as a result for a given query, especially any “how to” search. Possible benefits of video SEO are rich snippets, increase in conversion rates, strengthen brand awareness, and expand link and social shares.
Video Marketing on Social Media
Not only are social platforms like Facebook and Twitter saturated with video, but there are also networks developed entirely around videos, such as: Vine, Snapchat and Periscope. Video marketing on social media has proven over the last few years to be the most engaging form of content for users who share thousands of video every minute. Mark Zuckerberg projected that within five years, Facebook will mostly be made up of videos. In addition to Facebook, every major social media platform, from Twitter to Pinterest, has implemented native video services or promoted video ads.
Video Marketing for Internet Consumers
Online consumers love video because its helps bridge the gap between the experience of in-store and online shopping. Videos are an excellent to showcase products in order to give online shoppers a better understanding of what they’re purchasing. According to a report from comScore, users tend to spend an extra two minutes on site which include video and are 64% more likely to make a purchase after viewing a single product video. Similarly, landing pages that feature videos lead up to 800% more conversions. With a slew of statistics about the benefits of video marketing and Internet consumer indicating rapid growth, e-commerce that fail to include video in their marketing strategies will do so at their own risk.
Video Builds Links
When trying to build links, it’s important to focus on creating content that is shareable. According to Casey Henry from Moz, “having a video compared to just text will almost triple the average number of linking domains.” Users are the ones who create links to your content and users are drawn to video. Rather than focusing on link building, focus on link earning around content that actually matters.
Best Practices for Link-Building for Video:
- Publish your video on your site because building links to your YouTube channel won’t help your SEO.
- Focus your video on one topic because niche videos tend to get shared more often.
How to Incorporate Video into Your Plan
What should you video? Where should you share it? When planning to add video into your marketing strategy, it’s important to keep your end goal in mind: Do you want to increase sales? Build brand awareness? Introduce a new product? Entertain? You can do a lot with a video. Start by researching how other businesses are incorporating video. Look into what gains the most attention and shares across social media platforms. Create videos with your audience and end goals in mind in order for your video content to accelerate your marketing strategy.
The power of video marketing permeates the Internet. From search engines to social platforms to retail sites, video is everywhere. If you want to create content that is relevant in the coming months and years, incorporating video into your existing strategy plan is imperative. Videos are naturally a shareable media that consistently result in increased engagement and ROI in comparison to other content. While textual blogs are still very relevant, it has become increasingly clear that visual content will play a significant role in content marketing in 2016 and moving forward.
Sources:
http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/video-marketing-statistics