In 2021, consumers have a shorter attention span than ever before.
In fact, in 2015, Microsoft performed a study that found consumers, on average, have an attention span of roughly 8 seconds, which is roughly the same as that of a goldfish.
In other words, today’s brands need to ensure that they’re creating branding and marketing materials that are eye-catching and attention-grabbing, or else they risk blending in with their competitors, meaning they’re not likely to succeed.
Below, we review the importance of video marketing and how you can start using videos to promote your small business in 2021.
The Importance Of Video Marketing in 2021.
Because modern consumers have such a short attention span, brands only have about 8 seconds to catch their attention.
Traditionally, you could use long-form articles and website content to do this.
But because it can take anywhere from 5 to 10 minutes to read an article, videos are preferred by most consumers today.
Roughly 54% of consumers want to see more videos from the brands they follow online.
Video Marketing And SEO.
Besides the fact that modern consumers prefer watching videos to reading blogs and site content, video marketing also goes hand-in-hand with SEO, which can help boost your search engine rankings, driving tons of free, organic traffic to your site.
For every video that you create and share on YouTube, Vimeo, or any other video hosting website, you essentially create a new web page that search engines like Google can index.
In other words, the more videos you have, the more likely search engines are to find your content when a searcher inputs specific keywords or search terms.
You can even go a bit further by doing keyword research to determine what search terms your ideal customers are already using.
Then, you can optimize your videos, headlines, descriptions, and alt-tags with these keywords to ensure they get seen by search engine crawlers.
Endless Possibilities.
One other important point to understand of growing a small business with video marketing is that you’ll have endless possibilities regarding the type of videos you can create.
Depending on the type of products or services you offer, you can create brand introduction videos, instructional how-to videos, broader industry-specific videos, informational videos, or you could even start a video diary or vlog about each day at your office place.
Keep in mind that your videos don’t necessarily need to promote your products or services.
Instead, it would help if you focused on offering as much value as possible to the viewer. Or else, why would they even want to watch your videos?
Therefore, try creating videos that solve problems or answer questions that your target audience might have.
Auto-Play Your Videos
When a user scrolls through their feed, for the most part, unless something grabs their attention, they’re not likely to stop and read what a post is about.
However, most social platforms offer an auto-play feature, where your videos will automatically play when a user scrolls to them.
This doesn’t guarantee that they’ll click on your video, view it, or visit your website.
However, it does increase the chance that the individual will see your brand name and logo, and remember it in the future.
You should also include subtitles in your videos so that the viewer can still read your message, even when a video automatically plays without any sound on.
Video Marketing in 2021
There are many reasons why your brand should be using video marketing to promote itself and grow.
However, the most important reason is that today’s consumers have shorter attention spans than ever before and that video is their preferred method for consuming new information.
So what are you waiting for?
Get started creating videos, and you’ll be well on your way to growing your small business in 2021! Read more about the different types of marketing videos.