Over the last months, companies are fighting to establish their reputation on the market. The rise of AI platforms and AI assistants have transformed the way brands connect with their clients. They’re coming back to video content to share information with customers and they have turned marketing into a battlefield to catch the public’s attention.
The effects of tech on the business landscape will be far-reaching, technologies and devices revolutionise the way companies interact with their customers and access the markets. They reshape the strategies used by businesses to market their brand. Once the dust settles we expect only some marketing solutions to be left standing. Most of the companies will use one or maximum two strategies to connect with their clients. Why? Because in time people will want to simplify their life and they will reduce the technology to the most important applications they want to benefit of.
Brands’ current obsession with creating marketing content will limit to using a powerful strategy and focusing their efforts in that direction. Consumer companies have started to be alarmed of the rise of opportunities for new businesses and a new trend grew in terms of marketing. Businesses today can gain success if they have the ability to win their clients’ loyalty and to signal their quality services. We expect therefore video marketing, the hottest marketing trend of the moment, to shift its focus and deliver solutions that maintain a strong tie between companies and clients.
So, we’ve decided to forecast what’s hot at the moment in video marketing.
Snackable Video Advertising Is on the Rise
Facebook recorded a 50% surge in ad revenue the last year; this means that ads have boosted its revenue by more than $9 billion. A great extent of the result is due to the video ads. Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s COO states that they advise their advertisers to focus on delivering short-form advertising content. Lately, even YouTube has started to recommend its users to switch to shorter videos than the ones they are producing. Sheryl Sandberg stated that they have conducted a study, they had shared on Facebook multiple types of videos, different in size, 6 sec, 15 sec, and 30 sec and they have noticed that the shortest form of video is the one that garnered the best engagement.
Facebook and YouTube state that short-form videos are an effective marketing mean, companies should use if they want to effectively compete for user’s attention. Social Media Examiner declared that a significant drop in view is registered for the longer content, after a few seconds the users decide to close the video, and to move on to the next piece of content.
YouTube released a top of the best performing videos on their platform to show people how effective short videos are. The video that ranked the highest is a 6 sec clip from Samsung.
Mobile Optimised Videos Will Wipe out Other Types of Video Content
For a long time horizontal videos have been the dominant visual content, but with the rise of social media platforms like Instagram and Snapchat, the trends have started to change. Snapchat is considered the platform that transformed the vertical video into a must, and it witnessed a 9x increase in engagement with its video ads. Studies show that vertical video ads reach with around 60% more viewers than horizontal ones. Instagram is one of the examples that show how square-shaped videos have changed the users’ experience on social media.
When comparing the metrics of landscape videos with the ones of square-shaped videos, the result showed that square-shaped videos have outperformed the other type not only in engagements but also in views. Companies have started to switch to square-shaped videos because the advertising costs are lower.
Social Feeds Are Filled with Live Videos
Year by year more and more social media users have started to use live videos to engage their followers. Social media networks have quickly understood the importance of live videos and they are constantly improving the experience the user and public have. Studies show that 1 in 5 Facebook videos is live and the live videos are 3 times more watched than standard videos. Because of the Facebook creator App, it is expected live videos to be used by both companies and individuals to share content that catches the public’s interest.
The War Between Facebook and YouTube Has Started
Everyone knows that Zuckerberg does not like competition, and YouTube is one of its most powerful ones. If in the past he managed to acquire his competitors or to outgrow them, this time the process is more difficult than expected.
Facebook has started to take videos more seriously, especially when we are talking about corporate videos. They are high-quality pieces of content, produced by experts with the focus on the subject they share. Facebook has a new goal, to become the biggest video sharing platform for both businesses and individuals, and for accomplishing their goal they have introduced Facebook Watch. If at the present when brands share video marketing content they target both platforms, Facebook wants to gain supremacy, and users to know they will achieve maximum visibility if they stick with Zuckerberg’s platform.
Facebook Watch comes with features that can be personalised according to the preferences of the user. The user can discover new videos based on what is trending and they can save videos to watch later. For businesses, Watch is the platform that can help them make money and build a passionate following. Facebook receives more than 9 billion daily views; therefore, it is a matter of time since it will be declared the winner of the war. The battle for supremacy is interesting to watch because it is as intense as a boxing match of Mayweather and McGreggor.
However, the two platforms should not forget about Pinterest, a niche social media platform that has enabled promoted video and has offered brands a new possibility to market their name. Since the moment they made the movement, the number of video pins has recorded a significant growth and it is expected to grow even in 2019. Pinterest is a platform with more than 80% female users, therefore the companies that target this category of clients focus their marketing efforts on producing Pinterest compatible videos.
