Even though most of you are not marketers and mostly business owners, you still have to market your business. Consistently. When it comes to consumers and social media, video is first with everything else coming in second. It is already a staple of our everyday lives — it’s everywhere: YouTube, Vimeo, LinkedIn, Instagram Live, Facebook Live, and the list goes on. This essentially means brands and businesses have to take a video-first approach when they are looking to reach their audience on social media. Social media is responsible for allowing consumers to discover new brands. As small businesses increase their digital presence with social media, video has to play a bigger role.

As to the challenges of using video, marketers identified the time it takes to make the videos, the complexity of creating videos, and the budget as the top three.

Consumers

In the consumer survey Animoto was looking to find out how consumer engage with video from brands, what they like, what they want to hear from brands, and what do they want more of?

When consumers are making a purchasing decision, 73% said they have been impacted by a brand’s social media presence. Forty-five percent said video is their number one favorite type of content to see from brands, with photos coming in second at 22%, followed by links at 13%, and text at 10%.

How does social media compare to TV? For millennials, 57% of consumers watch more video ads on social media than on TV, but it goes down to 46% for the rest of consumers.

Social media is also responsible for allowing consumers to discover brands. This is primarily driven by the fact close to a third of the respondents or 32% take a look at a brand’s social media before they even go to a website.

When they do watch a video from brands, 45% said it was responsible for the first introduction to the brand/product before they make a purchase. Another 31% said it was based on recommendations from friends, Facebook Groups was next at 30%, and sponsored influencer posts were last at 29%.

As to the best platform for watching social media videos from brands, Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram took the top three spots in that order.

When consumers are watching, the top three types of branded videos they like best are how-to videos, videos about sales and promos, and top five lists.

Marketers

The majority of marketers or 73% said they created at least two videos a month for social media marketing. When they do create the video, 93% said it drives results in the form of getting a new customer.

Video also gets the best ROI for their social media marketing effort for 63% of marketers. This was followed by 56% who said photos/graphics, 25% blog posts, 23% texts/quotes, and 22% infographics.

As to the challenges of using video, marketers identified the time it takes to make the videos, the complexity of video creating tools, and the budget as the top three.

Why You Need to Focus on Video Marketing

Video hasn’t only transformed how businesses market and consumers shop; it’s also revolutionized how salespeople connect with and convert prospects and how service teams support and delight customers. In short, video is incredibly useful throughout the entire flywheel — not just to heighten brand awareness.

Video can be a versatile tool for salespeople throughout the entire customer buying journey, and it can do much more than increase engagement. Backend analytics also help salespeople qualify and prioritize cold or unresponsive leads.

According to Gary Stevens, head of research at HostingCanada.org, “retargeting our website visitors on social media has led to a 47% increase in visitor value site-wide.” The granularity of video analytics on platforms like Facebook is one reason why, in 2018, 93% of businesses reported getting a new customer on social media thanks to video.

The options are also endless for service teams — onboarding videos, knowledge-based videos, meet the team videos, support video calls, and customer stories are just a few ways that video can create a more thorough, personalized customer support experience.

Video is within reach for businesses of virtually any size — team and budget alike. The easiest and most efficient solution is to have the TC Productions team create, implement and manage your marketing videos.

Your audience craves video. Your business needs video. We’re here to make that decision easier for you.Find out how, 678-744-3908