The power of video content is growing at an exponential rate. There are many reasons why platforms like TikTok and Instagram have recorded so much success due to their multimedia capabilities. Video content is generally easier to digest, and more relaxing to consume in comparison to large swathes of text, and it can be far more engaging for followers to view. As the video boom continues, it’s essential for businesses to utilise more video social content.
Video marketing’s relationship with modern social media is clear, and business has never been better for marketing to an audience on a social network. According to Statista data, in 2021, more than 4.26 billion people around the world were using social media, and this figure is set to grow to 6 billion by 2027.
Furthermore, statistics show that the average internet user spends around 144 minutes per day on social media and messaging apps–making social networks a key marketing opportunity for advertisers.
In 2020, advertisers spent around $132 billion on social media advertising. While this shows that there’s nothing new about marketing on social media, video content is an emerging market opportunity that can help brands and campaigns stand out from the competition.
With this in mind, let’s see how marketers can work to tap into emerging video social media marketing trends to generate more engaging and attention-grabbing content:
How TikTok Changed Marketing
In a social landscape that’s been dominated by the likes of Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for over a decade, the arrival of TikTok caused much disruption. In 2021, TikTok generated $4.6 billion, representing a 142% increase on the $1.8 billion earned in the year prior, according to The Business of Apps data.
At the heart of TikTok’s operations is video content, and the network has been heavily focused on improving targeting options for advertising which can make the platform an even stronger resource for businesses in 2023.
“One of the things that we’re gonna see from TikTok next year is the simplicity around business tools,” explained Alison Battisby, social media consultant at Avocado Social. “They’ve already been making waves in improving the usability for businesses around their ads dashboard. I’ve been looking at some of the new targeting options they’ve launched for their ads, which are brilliant.”
At the core of TikTok’s USP is short-form video content. Today, 90% of marketers are using short-form content, and they’re set to either maintain or increase their investment over the course of the year ahead.
Furthermore, one in five marketers intend to leverage short-form video content for the first time in 2023–signifying the value that the medium holds in marketing today.
The appeal of shorter content helps marketers to recapture the soul of their industry. It enables creatives to add short and punchy calls-to-action within short videos that are guaranteed to earn engagements on popular platforms.
This, accompanied by the growth of the 5G smartphone market, has broadened the potential of utilising short-form video as a core component of advertising campaigns. Although long-form content can offer greater depth and information surrounding products, marketers are learning that keeping to the point in shorter videos can be more effective for winning leads.
Not only is it better aligned with the more fast-paced attention spans of target audiences, but short-form videos are also far more straightforward to create and rely on fewer working hours to construct.
Alongside TikTok, Reels, and Snapchat, many video-focused platforms are gaining better levels of exposure through video content, and it’s becoming imperative that marketers accommodate the vlogging boom.
(Image: Hootsuite)
We’ve also seen more organisations utilise influencer marketing via these platforms to help create engaging content that’s guaranteed to generate more impressions among a broad range of followers.
This trend, as Hootsuite statistics show, is particularly prevalent among larger brands featuring 1,000 employees or more.
Video Content Leads the Way in SEO
In recent years, we’ve also seen that video content has become a key component of great SEO. For marketing teams that upload videos to YouTube featuring the right keywording and anticipating strong search terms, it can make for the perfect cheat code to make it on the front page of Google. Leveraging video production for education is another effective strategy to create engaging and impactful content tailored for specific audiences, further boosting online visibility.
As we can see from the example above, some queries can return a broad selection of video content that’s displayed ahead of the very first webpage option at the top of Google’s SERPs.
This makes video an excellent way of getting your brand on the first page of Google. In the above example, we can also see that evergreen content can still rank higher over time than recent videos, too.
Building into Short-Form Video Marketing
At its best, short-form video content can be a relatively easy-to-create tool for helping a brand or campaign to reach its specific goals and record a strong ROI. Through vlogging platforms like TikTok, it’s easier than ever to encapsulate creativity and storytelling to promote brands and work with influencers to create content that’s bound to resonate with the right audience.
By embracing video marketing today, you can not only enhance your SEO credentials but also future-proof your campaigns and build into multimedia that’s likely to form the backbone of modern social media over the coming years.
