Showcasing your company with video is fast becoming a necessity. It's estimated that, by 2020, 75% of global mobile traffic will be via video.
Jumping on this visual communication shift, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg has stated that by 2021, at least 90% of the platform will be video content. So naturally, this drives a crucial question – does your business strategy include video content?
We know video content will be essential to every business within five years. By increasing the use of video beyond just marketing, companies can capitalize on this growing trend.
INVESTING IN VIDEO CONTENT CAN HELP YOU:
Reach more top talent
Save your business time and money
Spread brand awareness
Grow your audience exponentially
Read on to discover five ways your company can integrate video content and boost your business's overall value.
how to integrate video content for your business
1. REACH TOP TALENT
Suppose your business recruitment strategy in the next few years only includes Monster, Indeed, and the like. In that case, chances are you'll be missing out on an opportunity to attract bright talent on YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook, and other platforms that host video content.
Plus, for candidates with winning personalities and skills, a job hunt without deeper insights into the company's culture might be a dead end.
Consider the recent job posting from New Zealand's police force; the video became a trending international discussion. Beyond drawing worldwide attention, the recruitment video highlighted available roles and addressed the questions that every job posting should answer but often fail to mention.
Every recruitment video should answer the big question - "why you should work for us and join our team." Video recruiting is quickly becoming a key approach because of the versatility, personalization, and the ability to address the "Why."
Keep in mind that a recruitment video doesn't have to be flashy. Businesses can also use laid-back, quirky video content to broadcast their job openings to applicants.
Recruiting with video allows your business to:
Widen its candidate search and more effectively reach top talent
Convey the 'why' for candidates who contemplate joining the team
Share insights about your company with a wider audience
If you plan to bring on new candidates this year, then keep in mind that recruiting videos is one of the fastest ways to witness results from video content.
2. MEET THE TEAM. FOR REAL
When it comes to answering the question of 'why us,' the core of that answer should be about your company's culture and mission. The voice of your business should be something captured with video and thereby easily shared worldwide for brand awareness.
One of the first things I did when starting Tabrizi Productions was highlight our brand through video. To put it simply: video content can transcend audiences, from potential recruits, new hires for training, B2B partnerships, and – most of all – your client base.
Whether you're a small to medium-sized business, startup, or nonprofit organization, capturing your business's culture on video is also emotionally powerful. Video has the added advantage of coupling your business's identity with feeling and eye-catching purpose.
Consider Home Depot's recent culture video that highlights some of the team and cleverly interweaves the company's mission. A video about your business' culture can emote in a way that printed words cannot.
Videos highlighting your business' culture can:
Convey your company's mission in a clear and memorable way
Express emotion and solicit a connection from the viewer
Allow you to share your brand across a variety of audiences
Overall, capturing your business's culture on video becomes a window for viewers of all kinds to identify with and relate to your brand.
3. LIMITLESS PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Let's be honest; once new candidates start at your company, their onboarding process will demand significant time from current employees.
But the training required for new hires is likely repetitive, and, as companies are finding, this repetition can easily lend itself to onboarding sessions through video content.
Create detailed video content in a clear presentation with screen share and voice recordings, and your business will have reusable recruitment content without sacrificing time from other employees. Best yet, with video training, new employees can pause, replay, and save content for future reference and possibly learn at a deeper, accelerated pace.
But why stop with the onboarding process? With the advent of technologies and educational webinars, even large companies like T-Mobile are awakening to the idea of professional development and career growth through video content programs.
Developing training video content is business savvy because it:
Saves time and resources retraining the same content
Empowers employees to stay on and continue their professional growth
Elevates your business and its network by joining a progressive movement of video education and engagement
There is more than one way to create training video content. But when it comes to saving time and resources, the advantages of professional development through video make it a rising approach within businesses of all sizes.
4. PR THAT SHOWCASES YOUR BRAND AND VISION
Public relations is a marketing necessity for all organizations - a necessity that should include a video content strategy.
Whenever you speak about your business, this is PR. But when it comes to generating strong public relations exposure, most companies lack visibility, budget, or both. So video content is fast becoming the tool for creating authentic, affordable content about your brand. Even better, it's also entertaining and shareable.
Businesses are even looking to low-tech video recording efforts as well. For example, recently, Verizon undertook a video PR campaign where two ordinary friends documented their road trip with the video camera on their smartphone. Although you'll still need to pay attention to lighting, framing, focus, etc., this example demonstrates that showcasing your brand with video does not have to be a costly endeavor, and you do not need to invest in videographer services.
As the old adage goes, a picture is worth a thousand words! Likewise, creating video content to showcase authentic messages about your brand can be worth thousands of words and potentially millions of shares.
5. REACH 10X MORE WITH VIDEO AD MARKETING
Using video content for ad campaigns is not a new endeavor. The striking development in this area is how more platforms, like Facebook and Google, will weigh video content over written content in the near future.
In 2017, we witnessed that some of the highest viewed ad campaigns were video segments – with more than 100+ million views in some cases. Marketing data tells us that video content sees ten times the number of shares compared to still images and written content, a figure social media and news platforms seem to support as they continue to bet their algorithms on video content. It seems that the widespread use of video for ad marketing campaigns will continue to rule.
Whether your business is already rocking a video ad strategy or not, consider ways your brand can step up its video marketing profile.
"Look within your team and discern more about your employee's interests and skills..."
How to Create a Video Action Plan
Whether you're looking to amplify your company's existing video content strategy or aiming to create a video strategy from scratch, consider the following steps:
First, sometimes the seeds for a new or updated undertaking can be under your nose! Look within your team and discern more about your employees' interests and skills. Are they passionate about video? Do they understand how to use video editing tools, such as iMovie or Adobe?
If they possess enthusiasm for video, but lack recording and editing skills, consider investing in their professional growth and secure them video training for the team's benefit.
Second, be sure your business has a clear mission or vision for your company culture. This can be determined by your leadership and narrowed down with input from your team.
Next, consider your market and research the best networking platforms associated with your audience. It might be helpful to poll your customers and discover the web platforms they most frequent. For example, are they more likely to visit Facebook on the weekend and Instagram during the week?
After you've learned more about your market, evaluate the types of video content that perform best on the networking platform, you'll be using. Also, consider your company mission and your business culture and brainstorm a dozen different ways to convey those messages through video.
The combination of platform, company mission, and market audience should ultimately define your video content strategy.
Understanding your company's strategy for video will help determine your video equipment needs. Will a smartphone suffice, or would you need to rent or buy a higher-end camera? Do you need a computer for editing?
IMPORTANT: businesses often start with the stage (rather than doing the research in the earlier steps), resulting in unclear messaging or unnecessary equipment purchases.
Once you've published your brand's first videos – celebrate!
Finally, measure the statistics from your videos, including the number of shares and the average time spent watching. As a team, continue to reevaluate and refine ways to showcase your brand. Did shorter videos garner more shares? Were videos that showed people from the team able to reach a wider audience than videos with the product but without people?
For any one or every one of these steps, consider investing in a video consultant or a boutique video production company. It will help your business determine the right video content for your audience and set up your content with the best tools and special effects to create a professional showcase for your brand's message.
FINAL THOUGHTS
With the growing trend for video content throughout social networks and the media, a winning business strategy should include video. Social media platforms are betting on video content more heavily than other communication.
This is because videos can transcend a variety of audiences. It can effectively recruit candidates, train employees, capture your business' culture, enhance your business's public relations, and reach ten times more customers with your ad marketing.
There are steps you can start making now to build your video content strategy, but investing in a video consultant would definitely empower your team with professional video insights to showcase your brand far into the future.
If you're not ready to invest in a video production company yet, we encourage you to check out our free 5 Steps to Stellar Videos with your iPhone downloadable and our #DoItOnCamera Coaching course to get your business set up for success.
However, if you are ready to take the leap and work with a video production company, we're here to help. Tabrizi Productions is a boutique video production company with a mission to make video accessible for all. We are locally serving Oakland, Palo Alto, Santa Clara, San Francisco, San Jose, San Mateo, and the surroundings of the Silicon Valley area. Sound like a fit? Fill out our no-obligation form to schedule your next video production project.
