Change How You Think About Video – Part 4
Check out previous blogs in this series
Think of digital content as gas in your car’s gas tank. The more content you create, the farther you can go on a single tank. In this metaphor, PPC campaigns are your car – your means of conveyance. A car without any gas renders it useless. On the flipside, having gas without a car to put it in won’t get you anywhere.
Running PPC or social media advertising campaigns won’t get you very far without some kind of significant investment in the content you are putting your money behind. This often begs the question: “What type of content should I make”
The short answer is that you should create content of all media types. A well-rounded mix of media in your content marketing strategy will help you reach far and wide, but video stands above the rest. It’s your high-octane fuel.
What Makes Video So Powerful?
Besides the obvious richness of video content, videos are favored by almost all the search engines and social media ad networks. The best illustration of this is in a previous blog which we tested video ads against static image ads. It’s clear that Facebook is giving a little extra love to video content, leading to better performance. This is true for organic and paid social media strategies.
So why do ad platforms favor video so much? One way for platforms like Facebook to increase revenue is to increase the amount of time users stay logged in. Videos are a great way to keep people on your network for extended amounts of time.
Another reason, I believe at least, is that video content usually requires a large time and resource commitment to make. So those creating video content are usually companies with large ad budgets to dump into social media ad platforms. Again, it goes back to the bottom line for the platform.
Don’t Sleep On YouTube
YouTube is often overlooked when building out a PPC campaign. While it is owned by Google, YouTube is actually the second largest search engine – and directly linked inside of Google Ads, so it’s quick and easy to run an ad campaign. Billions of hours of video content are uploaded and viewed everyday on the platform. So chances are you’ll be able to find your target audience on YouTube. Running YouTube campaigns are a natural fit if brand awareness or driving ecommerce sales is your goal.
YouTube also has tons of new ad units that can help amplify your video content or expand your text ad reach. Non-skippable video ads can be very powerful, and if the creative is done right, they can be enjoyable for the viewer. Non-skippable ads can be placed before during or after a video so you’ll be able to reach a captive audience.
YouTube also launched product listing ads (PLA) that will show individual products from an ecommerce source right below the video you’re watching. So if you have a video showing a product you’re selling online, the viewer is only one click away from landing on your product page, and that much closer to a conversion.
What To Do About It
So the deck is stacked to make sure video content comes out on top. What is a small to medium-sized business to do to stay competitive?
Technology First
Ever used Canva or Snappa to create quick designs for social media? There are a handful of resources that operate just like Canva, but for video. So you don’t have to worry about a five figure price tag for a creative production crew. Below are some of the most popular resources we’ve found online:
Use What You Have
Take a look at the content you have already created. Blogs, podcasts, case studies, and one-sheeters can all be turned into a quick video. Take the highlights or a few eye catching snippets and make a video out of it. For example, infographics that you might have already created in a program like Canva can be animated and repurposed for a video format. Going back to the car metaphor, think of it as increasing your MPG.
