The Role of Video Marketing in 2023

Video is becoming a dominant tool in marketing. More people are consuming video content each day, and all the major social media apps, including Facebook and Instagram are pivoting to emphasize video to compete with the continued interest in YouTube and the rise of TikTok. To help you create great video advertising and social media, we discuss the role of video marketing for your business and the biggest trends and best practices to follow for 2023.

The Impressive Results of Video Marketing

Video marketing’s role has only grown this past decade as online video has become more and more widespread and easy to share. In 2018, already 78% of marketers found video marketing produced great ROI. This year, that’s grown to 92%. A study from Wyzowl also found that 79% of customers say a video has convinced them to purchase a service or product, while 91% want to see more video content from the brands they follow. Those numbers reflect not only the efficacy of video marketing, but also how its role as a marketing asset is growing.

Standing Out – The Role of Video Marketing

Video marketing plays a vital role by allowing your brand to show off more of its personality and character. Video ads and social media are great for showing off products, services, and your business in action. However, with video marketing also becoming a standard and a common part of most marketing strategies, you need to ensure your video gets attention by following leading trends and best practices.

The Best Trends and Practices for 2023

To help your videos stand out, we’ve assembled some of the trends and best practices for 2023 to help your videos get those views they deserve.

Short Videos

As the rapid growth of TikTok shows, short videos get a lot of attention and are extremely effective for getting views. In fact, two-thirds of consumers found short videos more engaging, impactful, and memorable than longer videos. Although TikTok’s future in Canada might be a little unclear, since it has been banned on government employee phones, even Ottawa still recognizes the power of short videos for marketing. Other social media platforms have as well. Instagram launched Reels and YouTube launched Shorts in 2020. These short videos are an effective way to market parts of your business, especially since all three platforms prioritize these shorter videos for their users.

The Perfect, Endless Loop Keeps Them Watching

Along with short videos, the endless loop has become a best practice for increasing views and engagement. Together, looping and brevity cooperate to create snappy videos that your audience watches multiple times. Those multiple views will also give your video preference in the platform’s algorithm, so loops are great for growing your video’s reach. An easy way to create a seamless loop is to have the final moments of the video be the same shot or a few seconds earlier in the clip that starts the video.

SEO

Short length and multiple views from seamless loops will optimize your videos for the suggestion algorithms. There are also methods to boost your videos’ SEO, especially any longer videos that won’t have these benefits. Properly title your videos to match search terms and include keywords in the descriptions. Focus videos on addressing questions and educating your audience; people are often looking for answers. Your videos will also receive SEO preference if you post consistently.

Faces in Thumbnails

Another tactic is including human faces in thumbnails. You have surely noticed that a lot of video thumbnails on YouTube and other platforms often include people with emotive facial expressions. The simple reason is that those videos get more attention and views. People are naturally drawn to human faces, and expressive faces attract our interest. As a result, at least 72% of popular videos on YouTube include a human face.

Silent Videos with Captions

Besides what will help your video get immediate attention and clicks, you need to create videos that people want to watch and engage with. One of the best practices that has developed in the last couple years is ensuring your video can be watched silently. Many of your audience will watch your videos in a setting where they can’t or prefer not to have audio on. As a result, you need to add accurate captions so that anyone can watch the video without sound. Otherwise, they will simply move on. All platforms include automatic tools to help you generate those captions, but you need to edit them thoroughly for accuracy. This will make your videos both watchable in complete silence as well as more accessible to those with hearing difficulties.

Creating Real Moments – Live Video and Stories

Another great way to generate engagement and attention in your video marketing is creating momentary content with live video and short-lived videos like Instagram Stories. Since these are time limited or specific to the moment, they create FOMO (a fear of missing out). Thus, live videos and interactive Stories are fantastic ways to directly engage with your audience, as they want to become a part of the moment themselves by participating in the chat, reacting, or providing their own input. This, in turn, forms real connections with your audience.

Being “Real” – Raw Video, Behind the Scenes, and User-Generated Content

Since live content and stories are typically more “raw” and often show behind-the-scenes (BTS) footage, they capitalize on a trend that emphasizes your brand’s authenticity. Less edited videos that show your business’ operations provide your audience with a more sincere presentation. Similarly, reposting and sharing user-generated video content is a great way to show your brand’s authenticity and its engagement with its audience.

Video Marketing

Thanks to the ubiquity of smart phones, it has only become easier to start creating video content, and its growing popularity means it’s essential for your marketing. If you want to ensure your video marketing is following the latest trends and best practices, contact our advertising team to create attention-grabbing video ads. Our social media team will help ensure your video content is engaging. Plus, if you’re looking for some more professionally shot and edited content, be sure to look at our video packages.