Create marketing videos that stand out with these emerging video trends.
August 14th, 2024
In today’s fast-paced digital world, video marketing has become a powerhouse, transforming how brands connect with their audiences. As the landscape shifts, video content is set to account for 82% of all consumer web traffic by next year. If you’re not leveraging video marketing, you risk falling behind your competitors.
Video marketing offers unparalleled opportunities for photographers and videographers looking to promote themselves on social media, websites, and other online spaces, especially when you embrace emerging trends. Here’s a look at the key trends you should consider to stay ahead and maximize your photography business’s potential.
Live videos
General use of live video rose during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. With many people sheltering in place, live videos facilitated in-person connections in a virtual environment. Even when the world returned to normal, people still used live video to interact.
Both then and now, live video became a crucial tool to keep brands connected with their customers. Brands in virtually every industry found ways to offer immersive environments with virtual videos and retained customer loyalty.
If you only consider one trend in 2024, live video should be it. There’s no question that consumers want more live videos. In fact, the leading social platforms have amassed about 7.2 billion hours of live video content in just Q3 of 2022.
Video search optimization.
SEO is nothing new in digital marketing, but it also applies to video. Optimizing your videos for search visibility is an important part of boosting your search engine rankings and traffic, and by extension, getting your videos and brand seen by wider audiences.
Google puts videos in search results in multiple spots, from the primary search results page to Google Discover. If you want to improve your video’s visibility, conventional content marketing best practices apply. Focus your videography content on education, value, and addressing the common questions and concerns your audience has.
You should also be consistent with your video content. If you post a bunch of videos at once, then nothing at all for weeks, you’re likely to lose your audience. It’s also important to optimize your videos for technical SEO with relevant keywords, title tags, and captivating thumbnail images.
Pro tip: Find a video creation plan that works for you (we recommend recording several at once!)—then schedule out the posts, allowing yourself a little breathing room to make new content while ensuring a consistent schedule.
Brand storytelling
Brand storytelling is crucial to humanizing your brand and building an emotional connection with your audience. Videos evoke emotion and tell stories much more effectively than written content, especially if you use tutorials, testimonials, product demos, or behind-the-scenes content to showcase your photography or videography services.
Based on a survey from Lemonlight, 94% of participants stated that watching a brand video has influenced a purchase decision. This is because these videos demystify products or services, showing clients how you offer value.
Social media connections.
Storytelling is important in general, but storytelling on social media caters to the exact reason consumers expect to see brands on social in the first place–humanization. Social media storytelling helps consumers see who your brand is behind the scenes and what you stand for, giving them more information to support the brands that align with their own values.
Videos are a great way to tell your brand story. Videos naturally perform well on social media and capture attention in crowded newsfeeds, giving you a unique edge. Social media consumers also have lower demands for polished, professional videos. In fact, they prefer authenticity and creativity. This doesn’t mean you should have an off-the-cuff video with poor lighting or blur, but is a great reminder that you don’t have to spend weeks in post-production to create a viral Q&A session or customer testimonial.
Futuristic augmented reality and virtual reality.
Augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) have been around for a while, but their accessibility is a newer development in the marketing world. AR and VR offer interactive elements that have been used in entertainment and gaming, but videography brands have been finding new ways to use AR and VR to create immersive experiences.
For example, fashion, interior design, and art brands offer AR and VR features to allow consumers to “try on” products remotely or see how a product fits into their home or office. Real estate agents use AR and VR tools to help out-of-state buyers visualize a space much better than photos or a plain video could. Consider how you could leverage AR and VR to elevate your videography services.
Source: Amazon
Interactive video elements.
Interactive videos use features like quizzes or “choose your path” storytelling techniques to nurture engagement from the audience. Instead of viewing a video passively, the audience has to make decisions and actively participate in the video, drawing them in.
While there are many ways to incorporate interactive video elements to suit your brand, including any interactive details not only boosts engagement and makes the experience more memorable but gives your brand vital data to improve future campaigns. While it might not make sense to use this technique for all your video marketing, it can serve as a unique experience for potential clients on your website to learn more about you, your services, or your client experience.
Personalization
Personalization was once a hot trend, but it’s now a requirement for virtually every marketing effort. Audiences demand more personalization at every stage of the marketing funnel and want to know they’re heard and valued by a brand.
Keep in mind that personalization doesn’t need to be expensive, elaborate, and time consuming. Small personalization efforts like micro demonstrations or tailored customer support that’s suited to the customer’s stage in the journey can make a huge difference to your audience.
Pro tip: Record “how-to” videos for frequently asked questions, containing tips on anything from what to wear to their session to what their gallery delivery experience will look like, then link to or insert them in client emails and/or your website.
Long-form videos
With attention spans getting shorter and shorter, there’s a lot of emphasis on short-form content that’s easy to consume–especially on social media. However, the demand for substantive, detailed content that dives deep into a topic–rather than skimming the surface–hasn’t gone away completely.
Some industries and topics simply aren’t suited for 30- or 60-second video spots. They require more depth and analysis. Long-form videos have the space to get into these topics and present them in a way that’s easier to understand and remember.
According to a report by Wistia, long-form videos are holding viewers’ attention. Though the best practice has been short form, long-form videos are getting high watch and completion rates with viewers. Of course, you have to tailor the content to long form, such as how-to guides or educational series, to keep the content interesting.
It’s also important to know when to choose short-form video or long-form video for which platform. TikTok will always be the foray of bite-sized videos, while YouTube allows much longer videos and series.
Silent viewing
Music and sound effects can enhance the video experience and make it more engaging. However, you should still create videos that can be watched on silent as an option. About 80% of videos on LinkedIn are viewed without sound, as well as 85% on Facebook. Viewers read the captions, and about 37% of them will turn the sound on if the captions get their attention.
A lot of internet users consume content in areas that aren’t necessarily private. For example, people may spend time on social media on a morning commute or during a work break. It’s also common for people to kill time in a waiting room or unwind in the evening with their phones, and they keep the sound off to avoid disturbing others. These are still opportunities for you to reach your audience, but they won’t watch if they can’t understand the content in silence.
Offering silent viewing as an option is simple–you just have to provide captions or a transcript, giving the viewer the message without sound. This also makes your content inclusive and accessible for people with hearing impairments.
Promote your services to clients.
If you specialize in headshots, commercial videography, or brand photography and videography, consider offering your video marketing services to clients once you learn the trends. In addition to creating videos for your clients, you can offer packages which include sharing your expertise inI think t how to market them effectively and use them to build their brands. Your own success with video marketing and best practices can promote your services to others.
Some services you can offer include full-scope video marketing campaigns, educational or promotional videos, product videos, brand videos, short-form social media videos, tutorials and explainer videos, and video editing services.
Embrace Video Marketing Trends
Video marketing is constantly changing with the rise of new technologies. Whether you’re just gaining traction with your video campaigns or you’re looking to get a competitive edge, these trends can help you capture the attention of your online viewers.
