Video creation has been around for a long time, it's not a new phenomenon. There's been an option for people to upload videos on platforms such as YouTube for many years. However, I think what we've been finding, in most recent years, is that businesses are starting to utilise video marketing as a way to stand out. Therefore, stepping away from more traditional types of advertisement such as TV ads. This allows businesses to branch out on their content strategy and creates something more engaging, enforcing trust due to their transparency. Video is quite a dynamic way for businesses to engage with their audience as viewers aren't required to read, like most usual types of content, blogs, websites, etc.

Also, I think this year, especially due to the pandemic, it's been more crucial because it's become easier for people to create content. Those who have no option but to work from home can create their own video marketing setup using just a webcam and good lighting. So I think that's why it's probably become a more important marketing strategy as it is easily accessible to most.

There are many different types of videos and formats. Stories and live streams are great examples of this. I think all social media platforms are competing with each other to get people to post more video content as they realise how massive it is. For example, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat all allow you to post a story and the format is the same on each platform. Therefore, it's up to the user to decide where to post to. A story is a short video lasting between 3 and 30 seconds. This is why LinkedIn Live was the thing not too long ago because they understand the potency of having video content on social media platforms because users are engaged.

There are quite a lot of mistakes that people make, especially if it's their first time trying video. The first common mistake is that they usually don't have the right equipment. It's not only important to have access to items such as webcams, microphones and lighting, it's also important that they are good quality. Personally, I believe that lighting is the biggest problem that people often have when it comes to creating video content. Good lighting can make a mediocre webcam look good, as it can enhance the quality of your work and make it look as professional as possible. And on the flip side, if you've got a very good webcam or a very good video camera, but you don't have good lighting, it will make it look very mediocre.

The second most common mistake I would say is when businesses create video content, a lot of them are doing it on an ad hoc basis. They don't have any kind of structure to them, neither are they episodic. Episodic video content is really important because it gives a form of structure for your audience so they can expect you to deliver the video content at a particular time. Consistency has a massive impact on the number of views you obtain.

Another most common mistake that I see, is the inability for businesses to maximize traffic with videos as they are unable to get their audiences and customers down the funnel. This is because some businesses do not put things such as CTAs in the videos. I think that's another key thing that a lot of businesses get wrong as they're only limiting that traffic when people see a video. Customers proceed to consume whatever else they have on their feeds. So that's another big problem.

Lastly, I would say the fourth most common mistake, which also is important, is that some companies are not weaving videos in with their overall marketing strategy. When you think of digital marketing, you think of how many disciplines are within it, such as PPC, SEO, content marketing, social media marketing, video marketing, viral marketing, etc. A lot of times when they're interconnected, making a strong overall marketing strategy. However, a lot of businesses are not weaving video marketing as part of their whole marketing or digital marketing strategy.

Yes. I think the consistency helps to highlight those who do not tend to engage with your posts or networks. When you think about the engagement, you're essentially pruning your own network by being consistent, so this means that you're only going to be left with people who do enjoy your content and who do engage with you. On a platform like LinkedIn, if you're able to get a high percentage of your network to engage with your content, then that will send positive signals to LinkedIn, meaning algorithmically you end up performing a lot better. This spreads your content to more people who have similar interests, who might want to then start engaging with your content.

You essentially want to be able to connect video marketing with other parts of your digital strategies as well. For example, you can combine video marketing with your SEO by aiming to increase engagement on your websites. For example, if you've got a service page on your website which contains lots of content such as, text, image and testimonials, you could add videos to the page, keeping viewers on your page for longer. Google monitors site activity and keeps track of which sites have the best rates of engagement.

Another thing that you can use video is to build trust within your brand. For example, getting a video uploaded on YouTube, you can embed that video onto your website, but you could also render a snippet of that video and upload it on social media. What you can do with these short video snippets is send traffic from that social media post back to your website, So that's another way where you can essentially use video marketing as part of your overall content strategy to then maximize traffic to different platforms. Essentially having different forms within that same video, you can have kind of sneak peeks to get people engaged and make sure that they want to watch the full video elsewhere.

I think there are a few things when it comes to video planning. The first one is going to be your equipment because if you don't have good equipment, then it doesn't matter what the content is, it's going to look bad meaning people aren't going to engage with it. Also, you need to plan within your organization about who's going to actually be comfortable being on the video, as some people aren't. Therefore, these kinds of discussions with your team are ideal to figure out who would be the best fit. Alongside this, you need to have good scripts and to know what form of software/ platform will be used to edit. There are loads of different types of editing software, both free and paid which can be used.

I think the last and most important thing to consider is how you plan your strategy, making sure that you plan it holistically. So when you plan video marketing, it's got to have an end goal so you need to think about exactly what the kind of user journey is going to be like. When it comes to creating episodic content, you need to identify exactly where you're going to try and target this audience what kind of content they might be interested in. Also, it is important to consider how you can help funnel them down to become paying customers.