We’re All Watching: Why Video is the Most Engaging Medium
While organizations are always on the lookout for the right content to satisfy their audience, it’s becoming increasingly apparent that videos take the cake when it comes to engagement. People not only prefer video to plain text–consumers are often more likely to buy after watching a video!
The average user spends more time on sites that display video; as a consequence, these websites typically perform better on major search engines. Because of this, organizations everywhere are investing more in video content, as well as trying to integrate it with their initiatives.
However, knowing how effective video can be is only half the battle. To get the most out of your video content, you need to know why it’s effective:
- What is it about video that makes it perform so well on so many different stages?
- How does it alter the experience for viewers and increase engagement?
To help you improve your video content strategy, we’ll be looking at what makes video special. After that, it’s up to you!
1. It Combines Learning Styles
One of the main components of engagement is understanding.
The more users understand your content, the more they’ll be entertained by it, the more they’ll discuss it later.
By combining a variety of content mediums (such as text, music, and images), videos become a multisensory experience, allowing them to appeal to many different learning styles.
For obvious reasons, visual and auditory learners can find videos especially useful, but did you know that even kinesthetic learners can benefit?
By including visual demonstrations in your content, physical learners can put themselves in the place of the video “protagonist” to better experience the lesson.
Because viewers understand video content better than text and static images, they tend to watch videos for longer and interact with them more. More engagement doesn’t just mean more viewers either–it also means better return on (content) investment and improved search results.
How? Well, search engines track how long people stay on a page, too; when viewers stay on your content longer, search engines qualify it as more useful.
Crucially, content that is well-understood by viewers leads to greater immersion and stronger connections being made between viewers. This, in turn, more memorable content and superior brand recognition. Success!
2. You Process Video Faster
While the ease of understanding that videos provide is remarkable, it’s also the speed at which the content is processed that makes videos so effective.
In fact, research indicates that video and visual content is processed 60,000 times faster than text!
Why? Because our brains are wired to find information visually first; taking time to read text and gain meaning from it is still a relatively “new” advancement evolutionary-wise.
Additionally, in our fast-paced times, people tend to prefer the most economical route when consuming information. Unlike text and other mediums–which have people reading at vastly different rates–videos help to ensure that your consumer base follows along at a more uniform rate.
Another positive is that, with video, organizations can present a great deal of information in a short clip. By combining visual and audio information, videos boast higher information fidelity (the amount of information conveyed vs. how much effort it takes to convey it), making it one of the most effective content vehicles available to us.
3. It’s Social Media-Friendly
As social media continues to dominate the marketing landscape, organizations are on the constant lookout for content that is engaging while still integrating with as many channels as possible; after all, if a post can work well on all platforms, that cuts down on a lot of work for creators!
When it comes to interactions between social media users, videos are shared 12 times more often than text and image content combined. Additionally, videos also generate far more conversation–an essential step when it comes to content gaining ground on social media!
Statistics back up the video movement, too.
More than 80% of Twitter users watch videos, and nearly half of Facebook and YouTube users watch an hour of video each week. Currently, more than 85% percent of online marketers use video content for their promotions.
In just 30 days, more video content is uploaded online than major television networks have created in the last 30 years. Video has become the main source of online information, and it’s showing no signs of slowing down!
4. It’s More Mobile
The best (and most easily spread) content is that which can be digested quickly and easily. Consumers want to be able to take in the greatest amount of information in the shortest period of time.
To achieve this, content should be mobile-ready–meaning it can be accessed on smartphones and tablets in a variety of ways. Compared to text and images, videos fit on smartphones better and require less attention.
Unlike images or text that often require you to zoom in and move around (especially when not optimized!), video typically displays information in steps, maximizing the visibility of information. For consumption purposes, the convenience of videos makes them perfect for advertising and training content.
5. You Can Make an Emotional Connection
It’s said that the vast majority of consumers buy with their hearts, not their heads. Since videos can make an emotional connection with viewers that is generally unrivaled by other mediums, this is music to the ears of video marketers. The way videos convey emotions allow them to speak to viewers in immeasurable ways.
First of all, can use body language, verbal tone, mood, and inflection to convey emotion. In the right video producer’s hands, each of these elements become tools for connecting to an audience. Emotion can shift the mood of an audience to make content more impactful; even the presentation of information in a video can impact how an audience relates to it.
While it might be enticing to make a video look as idyllic as possible, a little rawness can actually boost the effect it has on viewers. By taking some of the sheen off a video, your association’s message may appear more authentic and realistic.
What does this mean for your organization? That a little budget can go a long way–so focus on your content “cake”, not just the icing on top!
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Conclusion
When it comes down to it, video content is simply one of the most incredibly powerful tools for organizations. Not only is it a highly engaging medium (that your audience will likely stick around longer to watch!), it also combines different learning styles, is social media-friendly, is mobile-accessible, and allows you to make an emotional connection with your viewers. By understanding just why video content is so effective, you’re one step closer to creating compelling video content that will engage your audience and stand out from the crowd!
