by Paul Wolfe on January 30, 2012
Video and Content Marketing are two topics that – separately – are hot in 2012, and only going to get hotter as they get bigger. In case you haven’t heard the statistic, Cisco Systems estimates that 90% of web traffic will be driven by video by the end of 2013. And Content Marketing is definitely going mainstream.
What’s strange is that there are relatively few blog posts or articles or videos where the two topics are discussed together. And that’s strange because video should not only be a natural part of any Content Marketing strategy, but also it has several distinct advantages over the kind of content that most content marketers use (which is written content).
Let’s look at those advantages:
1. Video Can Be Syndicated More Effectively
The whole purpose of Content Marketing is to get your message in front of your potential audience. With written content that usually means you can only publish it in one place. Authority blogs in your market area will rarely publish your written content if it has previously been published…so your content gets published once. And that’s it.
Now there are strategies you can use to make sure that content that attracts eyeballs won’t get buried on your blog – you can use sneeze posts, you can link to significant posts in the side bar, you can use ‘Start Here’ pages and if you have a plug in like ‘Tweet Old Post’ installed then periodically you can link to it via Twitter.
And of course your written content can be found via Long Tail Keyword search in Google.
But Video is just much easier to syndicate. And the whole purpose of syndication is to try and get that video in front of as many eyeballs as possible. Here are just a few of the syndication possibilities:
■Post video to YouTube
■Post video to other video aggregators using TubeMogul (e.g. Veoh, Blip, Metacafe,etc)
■Embed link on Facebook Fan page.
■Embed link on OTHER PEOPLE’S Facebook pages(!)
■Embed video on your website
■Get other people to embed your video on THEIR websites
■Post video to iTunes as video podcast
And there are other platforms and ways you can syndicate your videos too. (Currently, I’m about half way through a course called VIDEO TRAFFIC BLUEPRINT where I’ll lay out my full syndication strategy in step-by-step detail….keep tuning into The Spoon for more details!).
One video. Dozens of places to put it. That’s just the first advantage video enjoys.
2. Video Establishes Your Personality Faster
If your content marketing is built around written content it takes exposure to quite a few articles or posts for new members of your audience to truly start to perceive your personality.
But on video…it’s laid out right in front of them. Even if you prepare a detailed script that you read from some kind of autocue, your audience can see and hear you.
And your personality will come through in the way you speak, the facial expressions you use, the body language you use. That will turn some people away…but the people who are attracted to your message will go to the ‘like’ part of the ‘know, like and trust’ equation a whole lot faster via video than they would via written content.
(If you primarily do screencast videos your voice still gives you an advantage….my personal tip is to intercut your screencast videos with some short live clips of you actually speaking so people can see you as well!)
3. Using Video Differentiates You From The Competition
Although video is established, in most market areas there are still few people using video effectively. This I believe is because there is still an ‘overwhelm factor’ attached to video.
I can’t remember where I read this – so if you recognize this can you tell me, so I can attribute it correctly! – but I once read a marketer say something to this effect:
“To be successful in your niche all you need to do is find out what your competitors are too afraid or too lazy to do. And go and do it. And do it repeatedly.”
In most market areas or niches this is still true. Don’t be part of the 95% who are too afraid or too lazy or too overwhelmed to do video. Be part of the 5% who create significant competitive advantage for themselves and their online businesses.
4. Sometimes A Picture IS Worth A Thousand Words
Two words: video testimonials.
Imagine this scenario – a few months ago Seth Godin mentioned my bass guitar website on the Copyblogger Podcast. Now for US (i.e. people interested in online business/content marketing/blogging etc) that’s a pretty big deal.
But in the world of bass guitar I’d be surprised if more than 1 in 10,000 bass players know who Seth Godin is. But what if I could get a video interview with the bass playing equivalent of Seth Godin – where that guy praises one of my courses, or my teaching methods, or something like that.
How effective do you think that would be?
And video testimonials don’t have to be given by the superstars of your industry either – whatever it is that your industry does, most of your competitors will be publishing bland little testimonials like this:
“Thanks for such a great service, it was professional and delivered great results.” AJ. London.
And most people don’t pay attention to those bland testimonials that if we’re truthful with ourselves we know that ANYONE can make up.
But what if you had 10 or 20 or 30 or more video testimonials where regular folk like you and me are extolling your virtues and what you’ve been able to do for them? How powerful do you think that would be in your content marketing?
(Paul’s Note – this is a note to myself as well as you. I haven’t done this. Yet. But man it’s high on my To Do list. The ultimate social proof…real people telling real stories in their own words. If you’ve got your target profile stuff worked out properly, effective video testimonials will be like putting gold dust on your website).
5. Video Plays Better On Mobile Devices Than Text
The Internet is going mobile.
Already more users worldwide access the Internet via a smart phone or tablet of some kind or other.
Now tablets are Ok for text – but have you tried reading a long(ish) blog post on a Smartphone? The experience is a suck fest. Whereas a video – hit play and let it roll. You can even consume on the move, plug in a headset and then anything that you want to watch you can stop, rewind the bit you need to say, and then move on.
And the experts tell us that the gap between mobile users and traditional desktop users is going to grow.
Have I Convinced You Yet?
Now those aren’t all the reasons you should be incorporating video into your content marketing efforts. But hopefully they are pretty persuasive. Over the coming months I’m going to be talking a lot more about video and content marketing – and although I walk the video walk on my bass guitar website I haven’t done much in the way of videos here at Da Spoon.
Time to change that too….so if you saw my video over at Adrienne Smith’s website last week, expect to see more of those. If you missed it, it’s a video version of last Monday’s post and you can see it here:
How Bloggers And Content Marketers Can Generate Unlimited Video Ideas
Please leave a comment too – as another 20 comments or so will push it onto Adrienne’s sidebar ‘Most Commented On’ posts!
But stay tuned to these posts…we’re going to have case studies, and next week I’m going to talk about a specific brand of content marketing that I’ve personally found to be incredibly powerful. And that’s tutorial marketing.
Summary
Video is a great tool to put into your content marketing arsenal. Today we looked at five reasons why it has distinct advantages over traditional (i.e. written) content:
1.Video can be syndicated more easily
2.Video establishes your personality (and brand) faster
3.Using video differentiates you from the competition
4.Two words: Video testimonials. ‘Nuff said?
5.Video plays better on mobile devices.
Your Shout
Here’s what I want you to do – if you’re NOT convinced that video should be part of your content marketing strategy….tell me why. Go into length if you have to. This is a debate I want to have in the open…there’s not enough good old fashioned debate on the old Interwebz, so please, if you disagree with me then TELL ME. (But don’t shout! J )
Over to you…
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