Video has taken the marketing world by storm in the past decade. It has dethroned every other type of content and established a solid kingship that’s becoming increasingly difficult to overturn.
The reason? It has high adaptability. Quite the chameleon this medium is.
Whether its B2B or B2C branding, live streaming, internal comms, corporate comms, or social media promotion, there’s little you can throw at video that it can’t handle.
A recent survey of marketers in the United States and Canada, conducted by MotionCue, showed just that.
Video and the marketing funnel
Videos are used as an ally at different points in the marketing funnel.
58% of businesses are taking on videos to create brand awareness.
52% of businesses are using videos to explain their products and services. All hail the power of explainer videos!
Videos are being employed the most at the end of the marketing funnel. The survey indicated that 62% of marketers use videos to increase sales.
Video and social platforms
Marketers also love video because it is persuasive enough to drive engagement from any platform.
The survey we conducted gave us an insight into the video marketers’ platform preferences.
While you would think that YouTube officially houses this great king of content, we found that 71% of marketers share brand videos on Facebook, and 68% share them on Instagram.
YouTube, surprisingly, stood at number three when it came to marketers’ branding preferences.
Rise of the bourgeoise perhaps?
We assume it’s because building a following on YouTube ‘exclusively’ for videos is hard to do.
YouTubing is also turning into art itself. The skills and equipment required to record and edit aesthetically sound videos may not be in everyone’s reach.
Moreover, the YouTube audience prefers a special brand of raw and fast-paced content. Creating content that is ‘YouTube appropriate’ may not be every brand’s style.
With platforms like Facebook and Instagram, marketers have plenty of other tools to increase their following, and videos add a cherry on top.
Videos are going live!
Video is inevitably made vital with the increasing popularity of Facebook and Instagram live.
Facebook is quickly catching up with YouTube in this regard. 53% of marketers prefer to go live on YouTube while 51% on Facebook and 44% on Instagram respectively.
This indicates the audience’s increasing preference for organic and impromptu video content that humanizes both B2B and B2C brands.
They want to see who you are behind the curtain of the written word and the glitz and glam of pre-recorded or ‘manufactured’ video content.
Live videos are also shared through short stories. They’re quick and easy to do and involve minimal effort. Also, they rank high on the relatability factor!
This is why marketers are making full use of this feature. 60% of marketers love sharing short video stories on Facebook.
56% use YouTube, and 48% use Instagram to share their stories.
Although being exclusively micro-content platforms, Snapchat (14%) and TikTok (8%) still have a long way to go to become marketers’ favorite video stories platform.
Marketers’ perception of sharing brand videos
LinkedIn videos are also gaining popularity among marketers but still have a long way to go as only 54% of marketers claimed to share brand videos on LinkedIn.
This could be because LinkedIn is overwhelmingly seen as a B2B platform, and B2C marketers are still not making full use of it.
However, 78% of marketers that do post brand videos on LinkedIn believe that it’s beneficial for their business.
And the street cred doesn’t stop there.
72% of marketers who post videos on Facebook and 65% of those who do so on Instagram, swear by the power of video to drive results.
When it comes to YouTube, 73% of marketers believe that videos are good for their business.
Case in point, video has extended its territory beyond YouTube, and while the popularity and perception regarding different platforms may vary, video, as a medium, is going strong.
82% of businesses are posting at least one to four videos a month.
Future outlook for video marketing
The coming years look promising for video. Marketers are nowhere nearly done with the medium. It brings in the sweet numbers that marketers like to see in their analytics software.
Not surprisingly, 86% of marketers plan to incorporate more videos into their marketing strategy in the future.
85% believe that video will play an important role in marketing in the coming years.
So, by the looks of it, the reign of the video is here to stay. Its empire is thriving and growing stronger by the day.
Overall, marketers seem happy about it, as 76% have reported positive ROI and 72% have claimed improved Google search engine rankings all because of video!