Last week in Exo marketing’s blog, we talked about how, in social media, a picture is worth a thousand words. Based on current trends, it would be a safe bet to say a video is now worth more.
Know your offer, make your video
If you’re a B2B company that is thinking about getting on the video bandwagon, make sure that your offer lends itself to video. Is it photogenic or visually impressive like high-end office furniture or high-tech industrial robots? Then bring it on. If it’s financial services or CRM integration planning, then your best bet is to get interesting talking heads: Interviews with people who have compelling ideas that can draw the viewer in. You have to think about what the customer wants to buy into, not what you want to sell.
Video needs other content too
Also, videos are best not left standing alone without other content around. Videos should have a short explanatory title and a few links to related content, to keep the customer engaged in the content consumption loop, either after the video, or during, if they decide to drop out at any time. Give the viewer options. Alternate calls to action are essential, since in B2B, one size doesn’t fit all. Many people from the same company will be called upon to view your content. Be ready with a good display of the important aspects of your offer, closely associated with your video. This additional material is best set up on your own company website even if the video is embedded but actually posted on Youtube. You want to make sure you’re in control of the content as well as the analytics. As the saying goes, don’t build on rented land.
Video streaming
Most companies could profit from video streaming. It is an exciting way to present a new product or a new training or other announcements. For example, if you are presenting at an event, consider live streaming from it, while taking care to request permission from the organizers to do so. It might also be a good opportunity to cross-brand (a ‘collab’ as it is known to YouTubers). Remember, however, that live conditions can be difficult to control, so it takes particular preparation to make sure your viewers are being presented with a clear message, from visuals to sound and the structure of your presentation.
It’s interesting to note that YouTube has offered free live streaming to anyone who has an account in good standing since December 2013.
And speaking of YouTube, if you are new to video, YouTube has a great resource called the Content Creator Academy. Although it was a course offered in the spring of 2015 that’s now closed, it still has an enormous amount of educational content on video production (Sound, lighting, location etc) as well as how to manage your YouTube channel.
Considering that sometimes video is a temporary effort and that YouTube is strewn with horribly out-dated corporate presentations, you might be more interested by Periscope, a video streaming app that allows you to create your streaming event but then wipes it from the servers 24 hours later. It certainly saves you the trouble of curation and cleaning up your account. Periscope was purchased by Twitter in March 2015 and since then allows people to tap into your video using their Twitter account. Very useful if one of your main social medias happens to be Twitter.
More about video on Facebook and LinkedIn in a later post…
