According to eMarketer, 49% of US marketers are boosting their video ad spending in 2012, because it is one of most popular and effective ways to engage your audience. However, that doesn't mean every online video will be able to reap the benefits.
So before you get started, there are a couple of details that must be considered.
First things first, let's figure out the purpose of web video marketing. What do you want to say and why should people listen? Are you a new business trying to introduce yourself for the first time? A traditional company, proving that you're just as hip as the next guy on the block? Or simply, you just want to improve your brand preference by creating something worth watching and sharing.
Once you have a clear agenda, you can move on to the belly of the beast: Getting people to enjoy and wanting to share your video. FiG's theory is that it doesn't necessarily cost a fortune to create something worth sharing. Here I'm going to lay out a couple do's and don'ts of creating a popular online video.
Dos
Hook your audience within five seconds
Create emotional roller coaster: Joy and Surprise work well, constant joy and surprise work best!
Title it! and stick with that theme: You want people to find it easily? Give search engines a reason to place you higher in search rankings.
Provide real value: A video teaching people how to boil water will never get popular, unless you're boiling it on the moon.
Create a reason to share: A video is not about “you, you, you”. People share videos that make themselves look good and funny.
Don'ts
Read an article: Your viewers know how to read, and they can do it faster by reading alone
Auto-play, if it's not on YouTube: How many times have you searched all over a site to find a “stop” button to shut down a video? Did you watch it later?
Shock your audience: People like shocking videos, but they don't like sharing shocking videos
The biggest advantage of video content is its visual capability. It brings a story to life. A good video has a clear agenda and a creative approach to keep a story brief, vivid to remember, and fun/meaningful to watch over and over again.
We at FiG believe that creative marketers (like us) know how to make people remember a brand without talking about the brand, and online video is one of the most effective ways to make it happen, by visually enabling people's imagination and creating an emotional connection. If you have a brand to market, contact FiG to make it a story to tell.