A Plea For Quality Video Marketing
Even in 2011 businesses were catching on to the virtues of online video marketing. A 2011 IMS Enterprise Web Communications Survey found that one-third of corporations planned to use videos at least once per week. The same survey found that 64 percent of companies were planning to use video marketing in 2012.
Doubtlessly, both of those numbers will increase in the coming year. Those 36 percent of companies who weren’t planning to use videos in 2011 are probably dwindling in number.
It might seem snobbish to say that the plethora of would-be video content auteurs stalking YouTube have, collectively, reduced the quality of the online video content – but it probably wouldn’t be an unreasonable assessment. Professionalism has suffered and there is a pervasive amateurism about much of the video marketing now flooding the Web.
Too many video content marketers have adopted that aphorism commonly attributed to Stalin – “Quantity has a quality all its own.”
This development could, perhaps, be excusable if there wasn’t a connection between professionalism and engagement. Fortunately, however, there is. A polished, professional video production enjoys a number of advantages over a sloppy one – no matter how snappy and clever its title may be.
If you want to realize the full benefits of video marketing content, you need to produce high-quality productions – productions that stand out from your competitors.
The Benefits of a Little Spit and Polish
Google seems to have noticed that the Web is increasingly cluttered with video content of dubious quality. The company has, as a result, taken measures to reward the Terrence Malicks of the video marketing world and punish its Uwe Bolls.
Late this summer, Google announced that it plans to invest a sizable sum into the creation of high-quality video channels on YouTube. $200 million, precisely. These videos have been a demonstrable success; ten of them average more than a million viewers per week and there are now more than 100 of them. This number is sure to increase, a fact only partially attributable to Google’s capital. That these channels are so popular says much more about what consumers are looking to watch than about Google’s business strategy.
Perhaps more importantly, YouTube recently declared that its search algorithms will no longer evaluate the popularity of videos by the number of clicks they receive. Videos will now be ranked based on the amount of time that viewers watch them.
YouTube’s head of creator marketing communications, Eric Meyerson, justified its change in direction:
“For YouTube to become the most important media in more people’s lives, we’ve got a lot of growing to do…over the past few months we have made some changes to YouTube to encourage people to spend more time watching, interacting, and sharing with the community. To support this, we’ve updated what we call video discovery features, meaning how our viewers find videos to watch via search and suggested videos. These changes better surface the videos that viewers actually watch, over those that they click on and then abandon.”
Collectively, these changes broadcast Google’s vision for the Web. It wants to preside over a Web where quality determines popularity and where clumsiness is punished with obscurity.
Aside from getting in Google’s good graces, professional video content gets you favorable attention from the only other audience that matters: consumers. Quality video content has the following effects:
- it lets viewers focus on your content rather than on your production
- it makes you seem like a credible, legitimate authority
- it helps you cultivate a reputation for competence
What Makes for a Professional Video
A lot of video producers – and their clients – think that the essential quality of a high-quality video is that it is eye-catching. They will, to that end, employ focus pulls, tracking shots, pans, and assorted cunning editing tricks to get the attention of an increasingly jaded audience. There is nothing wrong with these things – they are absolutely necessary – but a professional video consists of more than camera trickery, animations and special effects.
A professional video demands a concise, clear, and comprehensible script. Written text needs to adhere to an accepted framework and linguistic conventions or else those reading it will discount it. The same applies to video content. Videos unblessed with competently written scripts will not engage with their intended audiences.
This is neither a plea for dullness nor an attack on creative license. Anyone producing video marketing content should consciously avoid dullness and express themselves creatively. Video producers can generate content that is, at once, engaging, creative, inspired – and professional.
If you are going to make video marketing content, you should strive to produce work that has all of these qualities.
Care About Your Content
The abundance – and popularity – of amateur video content on YouTube probably persuaded many businesses (and marketers who should have known better) that online video content doesn’t need to live up to the standards of other marketing materials. Google is doing its best to dispel this notion. But video marketers should aim for quality video marketing content because it represents their brand and because it engages audiences. Few brands would embrace an unintentionally-oafish identity in their printed marketing materials. Why should video marketing content be any different?