7 Ways to Upgrade Your Video Content in 2022
For the past several years, video has been the king of all online content. A study by Cisco in 2020 revealed that by next year, online videos will make up more than 82% of all consumer internet traffic— a number 15 times higher than it was in 2017.
At one point, just having a video for your business was enough to differentiate you from your competition. But in today’s digital landscape, video is seemingly everywhere— which is why it’s really important to create quality video content that can rise above the noise and connect you with your customers.
Here are seven ways to upgrade your video content in the new year.
1. Use lifestyle content to draw customers in.
In 2022, we’re setting out to help businesses understand the importance and impact of lifestyle content. This video style is crafted to showcase your product, service, or destination with emphasis placed on the customer— not the product itself.
Though there are several ways to approach lifestyle content, there are a few key things that it achieves:
Lifestyle content understands your audience: Understanding your audience is crucial in marketing. Lifestyle content turns your buyer persona into an actual person on screen. These videos are able to better reach your audiences because they feature the type of people that you’re targeting as a customer.
It connects with people: People don’t really connect with products. They connect with other people. Instead of saying “I want that product”, customers will be saying “I want to be a person that uses that product”, which is a much deeper psychological connection.
It builds a brand: Lifestyle content does more than just sell a product or service. It builds a brand. Because people are what give brands an image and personality, including them in your video marketing content is crucial to building and maintaining a brand image.
Lifestyle content is an opportunity to sell an experience and emotion— not just a product, service, or destination.
2. Tell more stories.
Our brains really aren’t that much different than they were hundreds and thousands of years ago when humans used stories to teach and entertain each other. Our minds still respond to stories in a similar fashion, whether we realize it or not.
Telling a story goes hand-in-hand with using emotion in your video.
When we listen to stories, we feel empathy for the main character. As we continue to watch, our brain instinctively begins to trust the person telling the story. And when we can put ourselves in the character’s shoes and believe the person telling us the story, we respond and make decisions in a way that data alone cannot prompt.
When crafting your story, remember that it needs two main things to be effective. First, it needs the ability to hold and capture your audience’s attention. Second, you must be able to transport the audience into the storyteller or characters’ world, even if it’s just a 30-second ad. If you accomplish these two things, you can guide your prospects to act on their emotions.
3. Speak to your audience.
We can’t overstate the importance of knowing your audience in marketing. Who are they, what do they care about, what kinds of stories do they want to hear? The answer to all of these questions will help inform the content that you produce.
Similarly, it’s important to find where your audience is. Your video content doesn’t do you much good sitting in a folder on your office computer. For your content to be effective, you need to be sure that you’re sharing it across the right channels.
Think about your target audience. Who are they? What platforms do they use most? For instance, if you’re primarily a B2B company, TikTok is probably not the best place for your organic marketing efforts. Instead, you should focus on platforms like LinkedIn and Twitter, which both have large B2B communities.
Targeting every channel might stretch you a little thin. Rather, focus on the ones that matter most to your audience. If you aren’t quite sure where your audience is yet, check out some research like this study from Pew to get a general idea.
4. Take risks.
Digital marketing pioneer Ann Handley once said, “Think bigger, braver, and bolder. The biggest missed opportunity in content marketing is playing it too safe.”
Like the quote from Handley reminds us, the biggest missed opportunity in content marketing is not thinking outside the box. You may be used to sticking with what works, but what if there’s a tactic out there that works even better? You will never know unless you take a risk and try.
Take the real estate industry for example. Typically, agents create dry walk-through videos that simply narrate the space as the audience gets a look around. Instead of offering the same old listing video that focuses on the number of bathrooms and bedrooms, this would be the perfect opportunity to create a lifestyle video where you tell a story using the house as a backdrop and your characters interacting with the features of the house.
It may be a little unconventional, but it weaves together things that people are looking for— a story, emotion, and necessary information about the house. The goal is to transport them to the scene. You want them to be able to imagine themselves living there, not just touring it.
Don’t be afraid to try new things. You might be surprised by what brings you the best results.
5. Create more content.
The internet is a noisy, crowded place. Every day is a fight for people’s attention and engagement. However, you eliminate your chances of competing if you aren’t even playing.
Getting on a regular schedule of posting content that speaks to your dream clients is a must. This means reaching your audience with a consistent mix of pictures, blogs, testimonials, and of course, video.
It’s no secret that social media is fast-paced and ever-changing. If you aren’t keeping up with the content demands of your audience, it’s not hard to become obsolete. Posting often will accomplish several things for your brand:
It will keep you top of mind
It will boost audience interaction by providing more touchpoints for people to engage with
It will help your potential customers know what to expect from your content and brand
Of course, your marketing budget or bandwidth may prevent you from sharing content everyday, and that’s okay. The key here is consistency. It’s better to post twice a week, every week rather than four times in one day sporadically.
6. Consistently brand your videos.
Consistency in marketing builds trust with your audience. People expect brands to maintain the same tone, voice, and personality through everything from social media posts to email marketing campaigns to commercials.
Branding a video is more than including your logo at the end. It’s about establishing a look, feel, and style to your content. Are you upbeat and bright? Are you sleek, luxurious, and refined? Are you family-friendly and outgoing? Decide who your brand is and stick with it.
Not sure how to visually portray your brand? A video marketing agency can help you craft your story and your look.
7. Optimize the videos that you share.
A video without a solid distribution strategy will have lackluster results for your business. Part of your distribution should involve some simple search engine optimization.
Search engine optimization— or SEO for short— can be an intimidating topic for new marketers.
Luckily, making your videos easily accessible on YouTube and Google is fairly simple. Here are a few basic tips to keep in mind when you upload your video to video hosting platforms like YouTube.
Create a catching, engaging title for your video. Don’t forget to include keywords that people are looking up most. You can use free tools like this one from Ahrefs to find relevant keywords.
Write a description. This is an opportunity to elaborate on what your video is about a little further. Be sure to include more relevant keywords here, but keep the language natural.
Select an eye-catching thumbnail. You can manually select thumbnails for your video. Since this will likely be the first image a person sees, choose something eye-catching and relevant.
Doing these three things will give more legitimacy to your brand and help get eyes on your video. If you want to dive deeper into the world of SEO for your videos, here’s a more in-depth guide.
Elevate Your Video Content
Video in and of itself isn’t enough to stand out from the crowd anymore. Your video content has to be engaging, emotional, and impactful to break through the noise.
Tackling high-quality video content on your own might feel a little overwhelming. If you want to learn more about how a video marketing agency can help you create winning content, don’t hesitate to reach out to us here at Rising Tide Studios.
Whatever you do, take ownership of your video content marketing and go for it. Don’t be afraid to fail. Find your voice. And most importantly, have fun.
