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Sharing Visual Information: Eight Reasons to Engage With Your Audience Through Video

According to Wyzowl’s The State of Video Marketing 2019 survey, 68 percent of the respondents say that they learn about new products or services by watching short videos. That’s a significant percentage! And a sizable chunk of your potential customers are many of those folks.

In addition, The Story Lab reports the following:

  • Eighty percent of website visitors would watch videos; only 20 percent would read text.
  • Eighty percent of all Internet traffic is video.
  • If it contains video, your website is 50 times more likely to appear on the first page of search-engine results.
  • Nearly half of the people who watch videos online act in response.
  • Three quarters of executives watch work-related videos online.
  • If its content answers questions from visitors well, video boosts conversions by 30 percent.

Well worth repeating is the finding that 80 percent of all Internet traffic is video. All those facts and figures attest to the conclusion shared by many that video is paramount for sharing online content and visual engagement.

Eight attributes account for the uniqueness of video, as described below.

Visual storytelling grabs attention fast because it attracts our sense of sight, reasoning, hearing, and, at times, speech, too. A short video that’s inspiring enough would automatically motivate the audience to delve into the details.

The message a well-made video conveys resonates far and wide. A case in point: I adore the Nike brand. To me, Nike commercials tell moving stories, often making me cry tears of joy, laugh, smile, and sometimes have goosebumps.

Here’s an example: “Dream Crazier.”

And here’s another one, which introduced Beatrice Vio and her inspiring story to me: “Stop at Nothing.”

Nowadays, videos on useful tips and suggestions abound online, from which many of us can learn a lot.

For example, I learned how to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) from a video. Text-based tutorials, no matter how well-written, can never rival the speed at which an instructional video can teach. In fact, watching instructional videos is akin to looking in a mirror and witnessing someone perform the tasks in question. All you need to do is follow.

Given that empathy is a crucial factor of success, video evokes empathy much more assuredly than written text. Needless to explain why: the visual way trumps.

True to the proverb that necessity is the mother of invention, many enterprises were born from a burning need for something. In creating a product or service to satisfy that need, viyou can show your audience through video that you understand and feel what they are experiencing from within their frame of reference. Why? Because video is an exceptional tool for expressing empathy.

A picture is worth a thousand words; a video, a whopping 1.8 million words. An abundance of information resides in even a short video, which, when played, delivers the message faster than other alternative media, such as blog posts and product documentation.

At their orientation, new employees would always opt for watching videos that explain the company’s operations, policies, software systems, and so forth rather than read manuals and other writeups on those topics.

Video stays in our memory. According to the Online Publishers Association, 80 percent of all Internet users can recall a video ad on a website they visited in the past 30 days. Forty-six percent of those people took related action afterwards, as follows:

  • Twenty-six percent looked up more information about the subject of the ad.
  • Twenty-two percent visited a website named in the ad.
  • Fifteen percent visited the website of the company that produced the merchandise spotlighted in the ad.
  • Twelve percent purchased the product featured in the ad.

I still vividly remember the video ads on MTN Nigeria, Emzor paracetamol, Blue Band, and some other popular Nigerian brands, which I watched as a teenager. No wonder that Nike is leveraging the memorability of video in its marketing campaigns, relaying the story of superstars and talented athletes as an engaging accompaniment of Nike’s merchandise.

Video’s nonverbal expressions, such as eye contact, body postures and movements like hand gestures, and nods, constitute a universal de facto language. If done well, video is an outstanding communication medium.

Humans are social beings who instinctively share what they enjoy. Videos prompts sharing by default. After watching an impressive video Nigeria, there’s this common slag, “Come and see oh” That means “I just saw something interesting. Come look!”

I’ve lost count how many times friends and family have shared videos with me on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Whatsapp. Not only does sharing show caring, it also spurs a sense of fulfillment.

Be sure that the videos you create tell a good story. Subsequently, whether they are inspiring, instructional, educational, or emotional, they can lead to endless sharing among peers and networks.

Video is an invaluable medium for visually transmitting information. Need more convincing? See these statistics from IdeaRocket:

  • The average consumer watches about 206 videos per month.
  • If both text and video are available for a specific topic, 59 percent of senior executives claim that they are more likely to choose video.
  • Consumers spend 88 percent more time on a website that contains video.
  • Video content generates 1,200 percent more sharing than images and text combined.

Cloudinary’s dynamic video platform enables businesses to simplify the video publishing workflow, engage and convert customers across all web, mobile and social channels, and effortlessly adopt new trends to keep up with customer expectations. Try it for free today!


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