trends

9 Video Trends Ruling 2018 that Brands Should Hop On

For brands that wanna be big influencers on Facebook and YouTube (so … basically every brand), the Tubular Labs‘ State of Online Video Q2 2018 report is a veritable goldmine of information. Here are the important bits:

Influencers Rule YouTube & Facebook

Influencers (basically YouTube celebrities) wrack up way more views than brands and also upload way more than brands. In the first quarter of 2018, the breakdown for YouTube views was: 84% influencers 13% media companies 3% brands Influencers clearly trounce companies, but they also uploaded way more content than media companies or brands. The breakdown for uploads is: 89% influencers 9% media companies 2% brands When you consider those numbers, media companies and brands actually got pretty good bang for their buck considering how little they uploaded. Over on Facebook, the viewing numbers were: 56% influencers 40% media companies 4% brands That compares to the following upload numbers: 56% influencers 38% media companies 6% brands So, brands fared slightly worse for the amount they were uploading on Facebook in Q1 this year. Clearly, if brands want to be influential on social media platforms, it would be a good idea for them to partner with influencers on the sites. These influencers can have millions of views of their videos and any endorsement they give can be a huge boon to a brand. Part of the reason they can accumulate so many views is that they either jump on or initiate trends that sweep through the platform they’re on. So, if you identify a type of video that is trending and you can somehow shoehorn your brand into an influencer video about that trend, you may find a winning combination.

What are some of these trends?

The report classifies 11 trends into four categories. Let’s look at nine of these trends across the four categories.

Vicarious Living

One of the great things about social video is that it allows viewers to spend some time seeing how other people live. The category of Vicarious Living lets people step into the lives of these influencers (visually, anyway).

Switching Lives

As the name implies, Switching Lives videos are when an influencer switches lives with one of their friends or another influencer. It can be simply switching clothing or cosmetics or it can be switching possessions. The popular ones, as you could probably guess, involve extreme switches, such as a man trying to live as a woman for a day and dressing like her and wearing makeup, etc.

24 Hours

This trend is when viewers are invited into a subject’s life for a full day or subjects take up some kind of challenge for a full day, like being handcuffed to someone or staying in a mall for a full day, for example. Other videos that use this trend are finding things to do in a certain city for 24 hours. The videos are, thankfully, not actually 24 hours long.

Room Tours

Whether it’s a room, an apartment or a mansion, giving people a peek inside where an influencer lives, works and plays is an ongoing trend that brands can take advantage of if the influencers happen to leave something with a brand’s logo laying around.

Food Fanaticism

Food is something we all share in common. Nobody can live without it. A couple of big trends in food videos in 2018 are eating a lot and eating off the streets.

Mukbang

A trend that started in Korea, (mukbang translates to “food broadcast”) this is where influencers eat food in front of a camera. Now, that in and of itself probably wouldn’t create a trend, but it’s the twist that’s put on the eating that made it a trend. That twist is usually people eating copious amounts of food. Think people eating more of one type of food than you can even imagine in one sitting. Sometimes they just eat a normal amount, but in an unusual setting.

Street Food

This is a trend that you can actually find on television, too. People love to learn about the various types of street food one can find around the world and, apparently, they love to see people eating said food. But, it’s not just eating, either. Videos showing street food vendors making their dishes are also popular, as well as interesting street food vendors with fascinating stories to tell.

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Anti-Tutorials

While tutorials are highly interesting and helpful, for entertainment value, influencers have gone in the other direction and have made anti-tutorials a big trend on Facebook and YouTube.

Not To Do

These can range from serious videos about what not to do while you’re visiting other countries to silly videos highlighting fails or social faux pas.

Tried Following

The tried following trend is a variation on the tutorial video, as it follows an influencer as they try to follow a tutorial, usually failing at it in the process, making it all the more entertaining.

Evergreen Video Trends

Another two trends worth noting are so-called evergreen trends, meaning they’ve been around for awhile already, but are still on the uptick.

ASMR

Autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR) videos have been around for a decade now, but they are really taking off right now. These types of videos are basically just people doing quiet activities like whispering, tapping on things lightly or brushing their hair, for example. The quiet sounds are meant to stimulate a physical and emotional response in people. Many people love listening to the quiet audio stimulation and they can easily be crossed with other types of videos, like the makbang ones.

Sent Me

An offshoot of the popular “unboxing” and “haul” type videos, Sent Me videos are where influencers unbox things that they’ve received from fans or sponsors.

How do you get in on the trends?

While it’s tempting to hop on one of these trends and partner up with a social video influencers, it’s worth noting that a trend becomes uncool approximately eight seconds after brands start using it for marketing purposes. So, it’s best to try and “sneak” your brand into a video rather than making it too obvious. If an influencer is seen using your brand, their cultish followers will take note, so it’s best not to draw too much attention to your brand and just let it somehow make its way into a video naturally. Having said that, allow us to draw some attention to our own brand. One type of video that never goes out of style is the tried and true animated explainer video, like a whiteboard video, for example. Click here to get started on planning and pricing your very own whiteboard animation video.

6 Best Video Marketing Articles of 2017

Time to take a look back at the year that has gone by and check out the best, most informative and most useful articles about video marketing that can be found on this here internet. This crop of articles includes guides, predictions, glimpses into the future, trends, triumph and tragedy (minus the last two).

If you are looking for useful reads regarding video marketing, check out these six articles:

1. Video Marketing: The Future Of Content Marketing

The title is a bit of a misnomer because video is so clearly the present of content marketing. Although, it’s also the future, so the title is technically still accurate. Anyway, the point is this Forbes Agency Council article takes a good look at the numbers behind video and why it’s such a good medium for content, especially now.

If you still need to convince someone in your business that video is the best way to be marketing, start with this article.

See it here.

2. Video Marketing: The Complete Guide to Creating a Video Marketing Strategy

It’s always nice to have a guide for your first foray into video marketing. This guide is about as comprehensive as it comes. It even goes through technical stuff like ISO and white balance and depth of field and all that stuff.

It’s easy to read, easy to navigate and it’ll make video production super easy, too. It goes through the types of videos you should make, how to make your first one, cameras you should use and how to use them, what equipment you need for a studio and how to set one up, editing video, hosting video, the sales funnel for your video marketing strategy and measuring the results.

Check it out here.

3. 4 Exciting video marketing trends for 2018

This list wouldn’t be complete without a look ahead to what’s coming up next year. This prediction post is actually from back in October, but it’s still a good gauge of where video marketing is headed next year.

Especially interesting is the first entry on the list; projection mapping. It’s probably not something that small businesses would use, but an interesting look, nevertheless, about a new trend that bigger brands are using. Maybe by this time next year it’ll be cost effective for small brands to use, too.

See it here.

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4. Automated video creation startup Wibbitz raises $20M

Wibbitz is maybe the most important new technology when it comes to video. It’s an AI platform that takes written content, matches it with appropriate images and creates short video content out of it. If this technology becomes cost effective enough, it means people won’t have to spend hours editing videos. They’ll just be able to create videos out of their blog content automatically.

The fact that the startup has raised $20 million from backers says people are interested in it. Look for more AI inspired video platforms in the future.

Read the article here.

5. 5 Social video marketing mistakes

Knowing what not to do is just as important as knowing what to do and with that in mind, this article focuses on the top five mistakes brands make when using social video marketing. They’re all easily avoidable mistakes, so this article is good to have a peek at while you’re getting your video marketing strategy in order.

The article goes over targeting, bidding, tailoring and more. If you know what not to do, it’ll make you even better at what you need to do.

See it here.

6. 4 Companies That Use Humor in Marketing (And How You Can Too)

This one is not exclusive to video, but it features two memorably funny video ad campaigns and tackles a subject that a lot of marketers are a little wary to take on: humor. Of course, humor is really subjective, but if it suits your product, then it can be incredibly effective. You just have to know who to target and how to wield the humor well.

The more you know your audience, the better you’ll be able to tailor your humor specifically for them. Much like dating, if you can make them laugh, you have a much better chance of success. (A successful relationship, we mean.)

See it here.

If you’re looking for more amazing articles about video marketing and video content strategies, you can always just stick around this blog ‘cause we’re constantly putting up helpful articles for businesses. Speaking of being helpful, we can assist you in getting started with your very own animated explainer video. Click here to get started on planning and pricing your very own 2D animation video.

Facebook Marketing Trends You Need to Take Advantage of in 2018

It’s nearing the end of the year and that means it’s time for the obligatory “trends” articles to start popping up everywhere. Join us as we take a look at what trends 2018 holds for Facebook advertising, which has become one of the most important ways you can advertise online.

Facebook Video Ads

Facebook users consume over 100 million hours of video each and every day. This demand for video along with improvements to video players means a sharp rise in video content of both the paid and organic variety.

Videos on Facebook average 135% more organic reach than static pictures. So, put down that camera and pick up that video camera instead. (Or, more likely, just switch your phone from camera to video camera.)

While it helps to have professionally shot videos, with some relatively inexpensive equipment, inexpensive editing software and some practice, you can make professional-looking videos. It’s really not that hard nowadays. Try it.

Ad Diversity

Video ads are just one type of offering from Facebook. The social media giant has been continually updating its inventory of ad types to cater to all types of marketing.

Carousel – These ads allow you to use multiple images and offers while telling a story about what you’re advertising.
Slideshow – Using “lightweight” video that loads faster, these ads are meant to be less intrusive to people’s browsing experience. Small businesses that want to start using more video can start with a slideshow ad.
Collection – With these ads, Facebook users can browse through multiple products within the Facebook app itself, which is good because people generally like to stay on the app if they can rather than clicking an external link.
Canvas – This mobile ad format takes a single ad and transforms it into a more immersive, full-screen experience with multiple photos and videos for people to scroll through. Use them for spotlighting big ticket items.
Dynamic – Using a single template, you can promote numerous products. If you prefer, you can also promote customized pitches for different customer segments of your market. They’re also good for quick A/B split testing of ads.
Link – With customizable CTA buttons that are displayed prominently, these ads are ideal if you want to direct people to a landing page.
Lead – These ads contain a way of capturing leads from directly in the Facebook app.

The more you know about these various ad types, the better you’ll be able to use them for their specific strengths.

Keeping People on Facebook

Like any business, Facebook prefers if people stay on its site or app. That’s why they’ve introduced ad formats like Lead and Collection, because they give users the chance to interact with your brand without taking them away from the platform.

Lead ads contain forms that people can fill out without leaving the Facebook app and can even be automatically filled out with a user’s information straight from their Facebook profile. This simplified process means an increase in leads and even gives you the freedom of foregoing a landing page and just using the ad itself as the lead capture device.

Hubspot says Lead ads can “skyrocket conversion rates and make mobile ads more effective for B2B marketers.”

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Paid Advertising Up, Organic Reach Down

Facebook began experimenting this year with newsfeeds containing no organic branded posts, instead moving the branded content to a completely separate “Explore” feed. Right now, it’s still just contained to a handful of countries, but if this move is adopted worldwide, branded Facebook business pages would see their organic reach drop dramatically.

Even if this change doesn’t end up happening, business pages have already experienced a drop in organic reach on the platform in recent years. With organic reach having slowly dried up, business pages have to rely much more on paid advertising (which you have to think was a calculated move on Facebook’s part to make more revenue).

If you want to reach your target audience on Facebook now, you have to pay for it. The beauty of doing this is that you can get a lot more focused with your targeting, avoiding people who are unlikely to buy your product or service anyway and zeroing in on those who are more likely to buy it.

By knowing the trends in Facebook advertising for 2018, you can put your business in a better position to take advantage of Facebook’s massive reach. You should definitely be using video by now and one of the best types of video to use is animated explainer videos. Whiteboard videos are ideal for capturing attention. Click here to get started on planning and pricing your very own whiteboard animation video.

6 Best Video Marketing Articles of 2016

We would say that video marketing is the future, but that would be a lie because video marketing is the present.

If you’re not using video to market your brand by now, you’re already behind. Today, we’re going to look at the six articles about video marketing that popped up throughout 2016. Some of them are how-tos, some of them are outlining why brands should’ve gotten into video marketing as of yesterday and some look at the innovative ways you can use video marketing.

1. Why 2016 is the Year of Video Marketing (And How Brands Can Take Advantage)

100% custom whiteboard videos, animation & video scribing — Pete/Flickr

This is probably about the thousandth article to talk about how video marketing is the current best way to get your brand out there, but it’s on an authoritative site and it’s got the numbers to back it up.

It’s short and it outlines why video works so well and why you need to adopt it now (spoiler alert: Google is looking at ways to embed video ads in general search results). The article also briefly outlines how you can quickly connect with your audience via storytelling learned from Disney.

Useful stuff.

See it here.

2. Building a Live-Video Streaming Studio Isn’t Close to as Expensive as You Think

What makes this article so important is that it addresses the number one concern for every brand when it comes to video (and pretty much everything else): cost.

Brands, especially when starting out, tend to see everything as an expense rather than an investment. The problem with looking at everything this way is that it gets you to think about everything you do in terms of how much money you’ll be losing by making a purchase.

However, building a brand takes investment. This article shows you how buying the equipment to make good quality live videos is an investment and on top of that, it’s not even an investment that’s going to cost you that much.

If you’re going to do live video, don’t just turn on your phone and point it at someone and get them to talk. Buy some decent lighting, sound equipment and editing software to make your production look like you put some effort into it.

Do it right and your relatively small equipment investment will quickly pay for itself.

See it here.

3. 31 Video Marketing Statistics to Inform Your Strategy [Infographic]

Not gonna lie (to you, anyway), this one is up here because it’s a handy dandy infographic that you can skim quickly and we all love that, right?

That’s not to dismiss the information in it, though. If you’re trying to convince a higher up in your company that you need to be doing video marketing (and you do), this is a convenient infographic to start with.

See it here.

If you think an infographic is too informal, you can always check out the source article for the stats, which is all text.

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4. Beyond the Viewer: Why Transcribing Your Videos is Crucial to Your Content Marketing Strategy

With all the talk about why you need video, how effective it is and how it’s going to start appearing everywhere (you’re totally going to be watching 30 second ads as you pee at the bar within a few years), sometimes an important thing gets overlooked: the written word.

Although SEO gets a little less important each year (but don’t tell that to an SEO “specialist” unless you want them blathering about keywords at you for an hour), some minimal SEO is always a good idea. And that’s where this article comes in. It stresses the importance of not just having a video, but having a transcription of it for reasons that go beyond the (thankfully) dying art form of SEO.

See it here.

5. 28 of the Best Marketing Campaigns and Experiments of 2016 (and the People Behind Them)

Not exclusive to video, this best-of rundown covers the top almost-30-but-nobody-wants-to-use-a-round-number-anymore marketing campaigns of this outgoing year.

There is quite a bit of stuff relating to video and how people used it effectively throughout 2016, plus a whole bunch of other platforms. The great thing about this list is that it is all non-standard stuff. You get to see how people used their creativity and ingenuity to tackle all kinds of different situations.

See it here.

6. 7 Video Marketing Trends in 2017 (And What They Mean for You)

No list like this would be complete without a look ahead to the future. Obviously, there are a billion-and-one articles online right now that are approximately the same in their look aheads, but this one was at the top of the SERP, so it has to have some value, right?

What we like about this one especially is that right at the top of the list is the continued rise of 360 degree videos and we think this is an important one. Not every video will be suitable to the 360 degree treatment, but if you’re a realtor or you have something to show off that would benefit from the 360 format, it is worth checking out.

See it here.

If you don’t have a lot of time (and we know you don’t because your mom has been complaining that you don’t call enough) these six articles will give you a good all around snapshot of why it’s more important than ever to start marketing your brand with video, how you should do it (we recommend explainer videos) and some innovative ways of using videos.

Speaking of videos, an explainer video is almost mandatory if your product or service is even the least bit complicated and we have fantastic rates on explainer videos that are highly professional and delivered in a timely manner. Book your appointment today.

Influencers Rule YouTube & Facebook

What are some of these trends?