20 Reasons to Use Video in Your Communication Channels

When people think of the video, they often think ‘personal’. There are, however, several good reasons incorporating video into business communication channels is a good idea. Worldwide video production and consumption are exploding exponentially, access to high-speed connections is widespread, and whether you employ video to strengthen your brand, gain competitive advantage, connect with your clients, launch a new product or empower your sales team – the opportunities are exciting.

A quick check of the state of video today shows over 6 billion hours of video are watched monthly on YouTube, with over 100 hours of video uploaded every minute. Cisco says online video users are set to double to 1.5 billion, and online video traffic will be 55 percent of all consumer Internet traffic in 2016. So where are you in this video frenzy? Are you tapping the potential video can have for your business? Are you set to benefit from everything happening in the video? In this article, we share some possibilities available if you embrace video and include it in your company’s communication channels.

How your brand can benefit from video?

• Differentiate yourself. Visitors greeted by a well-thought, carefully crafted, and professionally presented high-definition video footage about your company can get an instant taste of who you are, what you offer, and most important – why you are better than the competition.
• Get personal. You can use video to give your business a personal face. A corporate website is a great asset but even better is a personal touch. Use the opportunity to put forward your best, present your team in an approachable and informal way including team members who are comfortable in front of the camera, walk the viewer through a tour of your premises.
• Build trust. Meeting you on video will instill more trust in the visitor than the ‘About us’ section of your website. People are hard-wired to use the human face as a gathering point for information and believability, voice conveys a wealth of information, and the simple sound of a fellow human speaking converts audio information into meaningful content. Emotions displayed onscreen are often contagious, emotional body language is appealing, and as a result, the viewer feels naturally at ease.
• Leave an impression. Having seen you, your company, your team, or your product live on video people will retain much more about you in the way of facts and feelings, and the impression will last longer.
• Establish expertise. Educational and informative video content outlining facts about your industry and line of work, case studies about past projects, video newscasts, or even a collection of other experts’ materials can assist in establishing your professional expertise.

What video can do for your clients?

• Experience information. The storytelling advantage of using video allows a business to tell great stories. This medium is rich with images and sounds, and it creates a platform for viewers to “experience” information. In written words, your company news is simply so much writing. That same information becomes a video narrative that, presented professionally, engages, and enchants. Video captures your audience’s attention and helps them be much more receptive to your message.
• Ensure engagement. Let your customers join the fun and ask them to make videos using your product or service and share them with you. Nothing beats personal validation of this magnitude. A well-timed customer video contest can get you many website visits. You can even create functionality allowing your customers to upload videos directly to your site or provide embedded links for use in their own blogs and pages.
• Offer product demos. Videos can be used to present a new product, explain features of existing ones, or show the product in action. Libraries of how-to-videos are popular and can educate customers, earning your customer service brownie points and relieving pressure on your staff. In just a few minutes, you can get your point across to clients. Why not even make two videos – one to introduce and hook and another explaining features and benefits in-depth.
• Showcase testimonials. Assuming you are doing your job well, recording customer experiences can be a real driving force for your business. Short features can be shot with your smartphone or a tablet, or you can invest in a professional to do the honors but the point is – shoot and share those invaluable moments when a client is happy with you and enjoys sharing it with others. This type of content is one of the strongest possible endorsements you can get.
• Stream live events. Let your viewers join you as you stream events you host or visit, such as webinars, conferences, concerts, or a grand opening live over the Internet, and offer access to the video on your website afterward. Depending on the service you select for doing that, you can have registered viewers pay for access or even offer interactive features, like answering questions from your audience.

Stay with us for the next installment of this article, where we review ten more reasons to look at the video as a business communication tool.

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