Is the Future of Content Marketing Audiovisual?

The world of digital marketing is always changing. Strategies, content, algorithms, you name it. But it has particularly changed in the last few years, due to the abandonment of laptops and desktops in favour of more mobile devices (literally!). Mobile phones and tablets are now our preferred method of communication, and subsequently, advertising follows.

Why is this?

Mobile phones are more portable, lightweight and run faster than the average PC system. In the past, nobody would have dreamed that you could perform all the same tasks on a mobile phone as on a desktop. Activities such as online shopping, watching music videos and sending work emails were confined to the computer, as they were considered complex and time-consuming. This meant that a lot of time would be spent in the home using the internet. However, this is not an option for modern millennials. More time each day is spent browsing on social media and working outside of the office. People also have a lot more free time while commuting back and forth to work.

Therefore, they seek a lighthearted distraction for the journey, and they do not want to read long articles of text after a day of work. Instead, people are choosing daily to explore the world of video, whether this be through watching ‘memes’ on Twitter, ‘how-tos’ on YouTube or ‘crazy cat videos’ on Facebook. Live-streaming has become very popular on these platforms, due to a huge rise in user engagement and interaction.

We can remember the days when Facebook and Instagram stories were not yet invented, although it seems a long time ago. The first social media platform to notice user trends in video sharing was Snapchat. This allowed you to share videos for a short length of time before they disappeared; the other social media giants followed suit and allowed users to share ‘stories’ in a similar manner.

Research has shown that over a third of the time that the average person spends online is dedicated to watching videos. This includes social media platforms Facebook and Twitter, as well as subscription streaming service Netflix, and platforms dedicated entirely to video content, such as YouTube and Vine.

So what is Content Marketing?

Content marketing is the process of creating, publishing and distributing effective content online for a specific target audience. This can form part of a larger advertising campaign, along with other marketing strategies such as SEO and paid social promotion.

With the rise of mobile phone usage, marketers have realised that content needs to be optimised to complement app and mobile web platforms. This is where the topic of video marketing is introduced. When we think of content, we tend to think of textual print and writing, whereas content can actually refer to a range of creative aids, including text but also images, audio clips and videos.

To work out whether your business should be using any form of content marketing, your first need to define the goals and objectives of your brand. Are you looking to increase brand awareness, traffic or conversions? Or are you simply looking to improve the quality of written and visual content on your website to increase visibility on search engines such as Google and Bing? If the answer is yes to any of these objectives, then content marketing is guaranteed to benefit your business.

Why should we focus on video marketing?

Marketers have recently noticed a trend in ad spending and delivery. Rather than using traditional print or text-based methods, 63% of businesses now focus their energies on Video Content Marketing and around 82% of the business world feel that it is necessary to start [MTS]. This means that if you have already produced video content for your website and advertising strategy, you are ahead of the game!

Content marketing agencies in London and around the world are becoming aware of these changing trends. We admit that it can be difficult to work out how to make video marketing work for your business. It is therefore important to develop a content marketing strategy in order to determine how your videos can complement other services, including search engine optimisation (SEO). This can be done either organically or through paid social advertisements on social media platforms.

The collaboration between SEO and content marketing may not seem likely, but the two services actually intertwine very often. With regard to video optimisation, you simply need to follow the golden rules of marketing. We would advise you to choose the correct hosting platform for your video content. Content then needs to be optimised in order to rank higher in search engine results, such as writing an accompanying transcript and title and choosing an eye-catching thumbnail. Keyword research helps us to identify repetitive themes and trends that users are searching for on the internet, whether relating to specific or broad products and services. High-quality written and visual content is important for SEO as search engines will thus rate your website and advertisements as informative, reliable and useful.

There are dozens of other technical, creative and strategic points we could include in this article, but we don’t want to give too much away! The point is, video marketing is in high demand and we guarantee that the majority of clients who decide to incorporate video production into their content plan will not be disappointed with the results.

By the end of 2019, 80% of web traffic will be claimed by video content. So, what can we predict for the future? Will advertisements solely rely on videos without text, titles or descriptions? If a picture is worth a thousand words, a video must be worth a million.