Why Video is Important for Growing Your Small Business

Picture of iPad with words Video Marketing on it

The average person will spend over five years of their life on social media. That’s more time than we will spend eating or socializing. In that time, we could fly to the moon and back 32 times or watch the Simpsons series 215 times – whichever you find more useful. So why is video content so important to growing your small business?

Social media has become a big part of our daily lives—so take advantage of it. People aren’t looking at billboards; they hate your spam emails, and please don’t call unexpectedly. Today people spend, on average, more than 3 hours a day consuming content on various social media platforms.

“We’re operating in a world where one good video can lead to a massive social following.” – Mike Henry

People like video content

Video Content Picture of iPad with the words Video Marketing on itIn fact, people say they want to see more video from brands in 2018. The use of video as a marketing tool is up 20% from last year. That means 81% of businesses are trusting video and realizing the importance of it. As a growing small business, you should too.

Video increases website traffic and the length of time people stay on your website. The longer people are on your website, the longer you have to get your point across to them. People have short attention spans, grab ahold of every second you can.

Using a video on your landing page can increase your conversions by 86%. Do you feel like you’re throwing your content out there but no one is looking? Give them a good video to watch.

Tips:

  • You have about 3 seconds to catch someone’s attention in your social video. So skip the introductions and start right away with useful and interesting content.
  • Make sure your videos have subtitles. More people are beginning to watch videos on social media with sound, but there are still many who don’t turn the sound on. Go by the rule; ‘design for sound off, delight with sound on.’

People like to share

Sure, that viral video of cats being scared out of their minds by cucumbers is worth a share. But people don’t just want to share silly cat videos; they want to share your videos too. Make your content easy to spread around.

Landing pages with videos are 40x more shareable. When we like what we see, we want to share it with our friends. People like looking at videos a lot more than they like looking at paragraphs. The average person only reads about 20% of words on a webpage.

There are more visual learners in the world than not. So not only do a lot of people respond better to videos over plain text, most are getting more out of it. You want people to remember your thoughts and ideas. Knowing the way people learn and take in those ideas are essential to your small business.

Tips:

  • Your videos need to be quality. The novelty that anyone can post a video on social media has worn off, and people want something made well.
  • Your video will give you different results on different social media platforms. Test them out to learn which platform works best for your brand.

People Like People

“Using video to connect with a prospect is so much more than a cold call. It humanizes the selling process.” Jill Rowley

People are done with impersonal and cookie-cutter marketing tactics. They want honesty; they want something real. They want to feel a connection with you, your brand, or your product. Most customers throw reason and logic out of the window and use their emotions when making a purchase.

Video provides that face to face interaction that people want. When you have their attention in that way, it opens up doors to make that connection. They can read your physical cues and see your passion. If you can touch on their emotions in an honest and positive way, your video will do much better than one that is empty and fake.

This concept especially applies to small businesses. The mass majority doesn’t have a clue who you are yet – but that doesn’t mean they don’t want to. Take advantage of the fact that you’re not some huge company that people can’t get close to. Let people in, in simple ways. People want to know you, what your workspace is like, who you work with, how you relate to them — your customers. Video will help you do just that.

Tips:

  • Businesses who optimize an emotional connection tend to outperform their competition. Test out different scripts and find which ones resonate more with your audience.
  • Be yourself. Your audience will be able to tell if you’re forcing emotions or trying to deceive them.

What next?

People trust videos to teach them how to do things, to make them laugh when they’re having a bad day, to get to know people, to be told information about life and what’s going on in this crazy world.

So you, as a small business, need to use video content to teach your customers how to use your products, find ways to speak to them about your business and make their day a little brighter at the same time. Use video to help your customers get to know you, and give them information about how you can make their life in this crazy world a little better.

It is important for you to take advantage of every resource you can. Using video content as a part of your social media marketing strategy is one of the easiest and most rewarding resources available to you.

If you’re ready to start growing your small business, call (469) 907-1057 or send a quick email (information@lucemedia.net ) to our team at Luce Media. Let us help you create effective video content for social media.

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