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Videos are at the forefront of easily consumed — and shared — media. Video can be used for a variety of messaging, from advertising and branding to outreach and communication, and new technology is adding more features to video messaging than ever before.
While video has a variety of applications, what works for one industry or brand may very well not work for another. It takes a discerning eye to know the best way to use video to your business’ advantage. We asked members of Forbes Technology Council for tips on ways to leverage video technology and what you’ll need to be successful.
1. Send Custom Videos
Customized videos stand out. Instead of sending customers a boring email newsletter, send a bespoke video that includes their business logo and details. These customized videos are major attention grabbers and are still novel enough that even distracted users take note. Companies like Impossible Software or Sezion provide inexpensive APIs for video generation to use in marketing and outreach
2. Demonstrate Your Product
“Show, don’t tell” is a common mantra in movie making, but the same applies to product demos. A thousand words explaining how your product works is good, but a five-minute demo of it that people can watch will connect with a broader audience much faster. Even better than product trials, you can showcase the most amazing parts of the experience right away and tempt customers to try or buy
3. Showcase Your Customers Succeeding With Your Product
There is no more personal and engaging way to share the success your customers and partners have with your products than through video testimonials. We generate brief video case studies as often as possible, then leverage them broadly via social media as well as on our website. The videos get very active social engagement and have proven to be a compelling tool to activate new prospects
4. Optimize For Video Search
The world loves video content. Viewers can’t get enough of it, and its watch rate is snowballing. As a result, Google has started placing new carousel-formatted video boxes into its desktop search results. Depending on the vertical, search marketers should consider adding more video content, with appropriate markups to stay relevant and keep up with the ever-changing search landscape. - Abishek Surana Rajendra, Course Hero
5. Livestream New Product Features
Every time a new software, platform or feature is released, new questions and issues arise. Livestreaming is a great solution for companies that want to provide good customer support without spending a fortune on equipment, save some time building the knowledge bases, or just be on trend. No matter how you use it, livestreaming can be engaging and help build a brand connection. - Daria Leshchenko, SupportYourApp Inc.
6. Offer Video Tutorials And Troubleshooting
Most of the time, people use your product unassisted, so when they get stuck, it will often be an annoying struggle to read through a step-by-step guide, searching for the words that are written somewhere in your interface. Anyone who has helped their parents install something over the phone knows this pain. In-context videos, put directly in your product, are a great way around this pain. - David Isaac Murray, Doctor.com
7. Use It To Tell Your Company’s Story
I use video daily on social media and with my team on Slack to share what I’m doing and get those team members I am with more attention from the home office. It’s also good for sharing outwardly with customers and prospects so they see our culture and what we do to build something for them. - Jon Bradshaw, Calendar
8. Switch To Video Conferencing
Getting in face time through video conferencing with clients, other branches of your office or remote workers exponentially invests more into building those relationships than any amount of emails can do. This doesn’t require sophisticated software. Set up video conferences regularly, and over time you will build a solid foundation that will reap loyalty, clear communication and profitable business. - Arnie Gordon, Arlyn Scales
9. Find Good Storage And Software
Video data and analytics can be used for various business purposes. The main difficulty, though, is that video data is expensive to store. Video analytics is also hard because it either requires too much manual work or super powerful servers to analyze the video data and look for patterns. So, in order to leverage them, look for good storage for video data and good software to analyze it. - Ivailо Nikolov, SiteGround
10. Don’t Forget The Small Talk
Replacing face-to-face meetings with video conferences avoids the pain of commuting and business travel. However, what can get lost is the time between meetings to socialize with collaborators. When making heavy use of video conferencing, be sure to let your guard down and engage in small talk to establish relationships and keep them strong! - Steve Pao, Hillwork, LLC
11. Create Compelling Ads
We’ve seen video ads outperform text and image-based ads. The tools to create video ads are getting better and easier to use as well. You no longer need a big production budget to create compelling ads with motion. Tools exist to easily create videos for your ads to display on ad networks from Google to Facebook. - Matthew Kolb, AllHighSchools.com
12. Embed Videos On Your Blogs
When you see two-digit and three-digit views for most videos published on corporate YouTube channels, you know a ton of money has gone down the drain. Here is a simple tip to escape from this. Create one-minute videos and embed them in some of your high-performing blogs. This gives a double benefit: Blog engagement increases, and your YouTube channel doesn’t look like a ghost town. - Suresh Sambandam, KiSSFLOW
13. Keep It Short And Punch It Early
When adding videos to any content the key is to make it short — under 30 seconds — and make the most impactful statement within the first five seconds. While not many users would intentionally click on a video when scrolling through the content, lots of media platforms allow autoplay, so there are a very few precious seconds when a video can grab someone’s attention and the person will actually see it. - Jake Diner, Elafris Inc, AI for Insurance
14. Don’t Be Afraid To Be Yourself
A Hubspot survey found that 54% of consumers want to see more video from brands they support, yet most leaders and businesses are afraid of the time commitment and resources required to produce video content. The key is to get your message out there with an authentic voice and a value-add mindset for your audience. And don’t be too self-critical — what you may think is bad may actually be really powerful for others. - Marc Fischer, Dogtown Media LLC
15. Plan For Viewing On Multiple Devices
Video technologies have been established as a mainstream business practice in both the B2B and the B2C markets. Delivering video streaming that considers all quality levels and resolutions needed for today’s most popular devices is fundamentally important both to improve user experience and fully reach your audiences. -
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