Crystal Ball: Video trends to keep an eye on in 2018

As I write this, I have to question if you’ll even read anything after this sentence. At best, you may skim the subheads, seeing if there is anything that jumps out at you. But if not, I’ve lost you – maybe for good, most likely because you’ve got to read this and not just watch. Cisco projects that video traffic will account for 82 percent of all consumer Internet traffic by 2021.

Content consumers just aren’t reading anymore and marketers like us will have to keep up with the Joneses.

At The Hodges Partnership, we have our finger on the pulse of video marketing trends. Not only do we advocate that video be integrated into our clients’ strategies when appropriate, but we also put our money where our blogs are. You may have noticed an increase of our own use of video – thanks to an internal team of video production wizards.

With this trend comes four video tactics we think will play a pivotal role in content marketing strategies in 2018.

Getting Smart With Native Video

Now that videos across most social media channels are operating natively, marketers need to get smart when planning and producing video content. Digiday reports that 85 percent of Facebook video is watched without sound. Google found there is a 46 percent increase in brand recall when the brand is mentioned in the first five seconds of a native video ad. These stats along with dozens of other insights tell us that marketers will start to play with things like the timing of when logo/branding appears in the video and which colors and style will capture those nine-second attention spans.

Video Lead Generation

According to Hubspot, 43 percent of people want to see more video content from marketers and Animoto found that 4X as many customers would rather watch a video about a product than read about it. Here’s where your opportunity comes in to sell your product with video, rather than use words. Wistia, a video platform, has a feature that allows you to gate a video with a form, requiring visitors turn over their name and email in exchange for your video content.

Quality over Quantity

With over 100 million hours of video viewed each day on Facebook alone, it’s no surprise that the “content market” is already saturated with video. While quantity is important, quality will become a premium and cell phone video won’t cut it any more. Vidyard reports that 86 percent of businesses now have internal video production resources. Vidyard also found that an overwhelming majority of views to business-related video content takes place on desktops. This means your video is likely being watched on a bigger screen, making quality that much more important.

One-to-one Video Marketing

Hubspot found that 55 percent of people consume video content thoroughly. As you nurture your leads and get them through your content marketing funnel, instead of sending a traditional follow-up email or leaving a boring voicemail, take the opportunity to market to them one-on-one using video. No matter what the reason for your communication (thanking them for reaching out, providing a product demo, etc.), recording a video for that person helps humanize the process and allows you to stand out among the clutter.

Casey Prentice

A self-proclaimed organizational junkie and data geek who confesses to a secret desire to be a professional organizer, Casey enjoys account management, writing, editing and digital content strategy. Her agency work has helped clients like Virginia’s Community Colleges, VCUarts and Swedish Match.

Read more by Casey

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