Video Content Rising: Are text contents day numbered?
Video marketing is gaining popularity, does it mean the death of the Blog?
“This article was written as part of the SEMrush Big Blogging Contest”.
I am a bookworm, and I love reading. But I can’t ignore the onslaught of video across all social media. What I couldn’t understand was how could three minutes read, with super useful content like on the SEMrush or Moz blog compare with a video on the topic? But I could be weird.I decided to dive into research mode, to see whether video content was more useful, got more reader engagement and eventually helped my reader and me!
Seeing the hoopla around video, you would think the answer to this is a no-brainer. Wait up I have some news.
Let’s Dive in!
Video marketing: Is it rising?
What is the downside of Video?
The other side of the Video marketing story
Video marketing or text?The point of it.
My Verdict on Video marketing versus text.
Video marketing: Is it rising?
According to Hubspot by 2019, 80% of internet traffic will be video.
But why is Video content rising?
- Video content gives a boost to a blogs SEO. It increases user engagement and landing page videos will help you convert traffic by 80%( Unbounce).
- Videos in emails increase click-through rates.
- 80% users can recall a video they say in the last 30 days (Lumen5)
- 96% of buyers find videos helpful while making purchasing decisions. (Animoto).
Twitter says Videos with tweets get the most Retweets. Video traffic will be 82 percent of all IP traffic (both business and consumer) by 2022 (Source) and according to eMarketer, 78.4 percent of digital videos are accessed by mobile
This is all great right?
Could be. But before diving head first ask yourself these questions,
- Do these data reflect your audience?
- Have you seen your videos getting more traffic than your Blog post?
- What about the blog posts with video content? Are they helping you earn more consistent revenue?
This is where you need to get your stats in hand, before buying expensive video equipment and just pumping out videos. If there is one question you must ask, is about return on investment.
Is it all worth it?
Where does video work?
- It helps us reach a new audience, who can’t read due to any reason.
- A video is better to connect, for some people or at least that’s what brands think. Many high profile brands turned to full-time video content and reduced their editorial workforce.
- If not text heavy, just listening to videos, while doing housework can help you learn.
- It’s easier to understand how to use a sewing machine, tech stuff or crocheting seeing a video than text.
- Maths, science, languages, teaching anything, needs a visual element. Online teaching needs video.
- User-generated videos are great as a brand advertisement.
Make videos online or using software, one thing you can’t do is ignore the video. There was never a better time than now, to start your own digital media network.
What is the downside of Video?
Is the downside real or all in your head?
1)For small bloggers and biz owners who can’t afford dedicated hosting for video, there is a problem. You will be putting YouTube embed link. This one is hence tricky. The reader may decide to click-through to YouTube or look at the video on your blog. Having an external link on the home page can be tricky from an SEO point of view as well as engagement.
It’s a critical balance. If you are not making videos, you are missing a leg up. If you are making videos and putting YouTube links on the Home page, you are diverting traffic from your website.
Here in lies the tricky part. Should you embed the YouTube video, pay for hosting or should you skip the video bandwagon? No, that would be a mistake. If you follow what Google does, you will see there are video carousal features on the first page of search results, many times above the text links.
2)You have paid to host your videos, but you are not optimizing your blog. Mobile users are rising. But data is not free. Some people may not be comfortable watching random slowly loading videos on the phone and eating up mobile data. This is a real problem as increasingly people are using mobile for consuming content. Are your videos mobile ready?
3)Making money from your Video is not a cakewalk. If Ryan is the top grossing YouTube in 2018 with the majority of earning from ads, this tells you a few things. Ryan’s target audience is kids who may not be skipping advertisements, unlike adult video watchers who most likely skip ads. So if you want to reach that level of income as a YouTuber, your target audience needs to be the same.
But what if one day, Youtube decides to cap your video limit, behave like Facebook, just like they changed the criteria for monetization? Nowadays you need at least 1000 subscribers on Youtube and at least 4000 hours of annual viewing time on Youtube before your channel’s monetization is possible. You are working hard, but making a cardinal mistake. You are putting your content and monetization at the mercy of a third party, who can change rules any time. You are in a binder! Is this going to work or am I just a pessimist?
Blog or Vlog which way should you be going? Should you avoid FOMO and ditch videos? Or stop writing and make videos?
The other side of the Video marketing story
- Power of written word is this. It’s a blogging contest, about video content.
- I can still name more authors, than filmmakers or YouTubers.But that’s just me!
- Even for a good movie, you need a written script for it to work. If you sign up for Amazon studios, they will want a written script. That’s non-negotiable. Until your writing is spellbinding, it will not draw in the viewer. The written word has survived thousands of years. Sumerian and the Hieroglyphics were all text, dating back to more than 3000 BC. That says something about the power of text!
Don’t let your writers and editors go. You need them to make a good video and some of us still understand better when we read.
Video marketing or text?The point of marketing!
As Seth Godin says,”
True marketing makes things better and helps serve those who need it!
Video or text whatever it is, things need to help. Everyone doesn’t have unlimited data.No one wants to watch the full video. With text, the quick skim helps us determine whether we want to dive deep. Difficult to do with a video, until you provide time-stamped content. Even then it’s just not the same.
It is essential to make video a part of your arsenal, but not the only arrow. The ultimate aim for all things online is to reach the people you want to serve. Write your blog posts. Repurpose them into podcasts and attractive, useful videos. Make your website audiovisual with multimedia content. Let the choice be available for the audience you hope to help. Whatever content you make, don’t waste your audience’s time. They remember. If you don’t, believe me, you must read why HubSpot thinks pivot to video is misguided .
My Verdict on Video marketing versus text
[bctt tweet=”Video content may be rising, but the text is here to stay!” username=”misra_amrita”]
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