Are You Keeping Up With Video?
The trends are clear: video is here to stay. What are you doing about it?
Whether you’re a hobbyist, educator, journalist, videographer or business, video is the most powerful medium of communication, and the 471% increase in video use since 2020 is only part of the equation.
Video Vs. Other Media
It's no secret that video enhances social communication, but there's more than a few reasons why. First, video is composed of the elements of all other media such as audio, text and infographics.
Digging deeper, video uses nonverbal communication. While we appreciate the power of pithy copy, we find ourselves too reliant on too many variables like diction, inflection and punctuation. There is no onus on the viewer to determine what you mean via video because it’s depicted exactly as intended. This is especially true for businesses trying to communicate brand and product.
The power of nonverbal communication also transcends geographic & language barriers. As a multinational team here at MediaZilla, we cannot stress the importance of global communication. As a SaaS, specifically a video-focused SaaS, we are able to reach all corners of the world and connect seamlessly.
Beyond geographic access, video boasts a smaller barrier-to-entry for newbies and experts alike. Most of us carry high-resolution cameras in our pockets everyday. Shooting video is as easy as point and click. Can the same be said about audio and podcasts or writing out communication?
Finally, as a marketing tool, video is more than 45 times likely to rank on the first page of Google than other media. It also accounts for more than half of mobile traffic.
Video In Education
According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, "this generation truly is the media generation, devoting more than a quarter of each day to media... Anything that takes up this much space in young people’s lives deserves our full attention."
Longitudinal studies on educational video use finds that the medium reinforces reading material and provides a greater accommodation of diverse learning styles. A separate study from 2021 found that 94% of teachers used video in the previous year, averaging around one use-case per week.
One of the only drawbacks of video in education is the potential for distractions. Platforms like YouTube and Vimeo are riddled with ads, comments and unrelated content in the sidebar. Distractions like these can diminish the benefits of video material, but other platforms exist to compete. MediaZilla, for example, is a completely private, ad-free video platform for showcasing collections and projects. The chapter system is especially helpful for educators that are using long-form video content.
Video In Marketing
In 2021, we’ve watched the rise of new video marketing tools such as live video and shoppable video, and more established tools like interactive 360 video continue to expand. These trends make sense for businesses, given the reports that viewers retain 95% more information than text (10%) on average.
The pathways for clients to reach products have also become incredibly video-driven. Google announced plans to use AI to process video while querying search patterns to boost said video to the top of organic searches. It's also important to note that the average U.S. household has an average of 11 video devices.
Similarly, Facebook made big strides for video, most notably their silent autoplay feature. LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube followed suit shortly after.
As far back as sales and marketing go, the idea has always been to show not tell. Video is the juggernaut in this category. Look at your competitors. Are they frequently using video? If yes, it’s time for you to play catch-up. If not, you have a head start.
The Future of Video
There are a lot of exciting predictions for the future of video: VR advances, the proliferation of streaming and resolutions/framerates higher than we could ever dream for. Although, a lot of this is uncertain in terms of dates.
What is quantifiable are these solid projections:
The number of mobile internet users is expected to grow to 295 million by 2023
Video advertising is projected to reach upwards of $12.66 billion by 2024
OTT video's compound annual growth rate is projected at 10% through 2025
Current studies show 54% of consumers want more video content from their brands of choice (a number that is growing month-over-month)