If you have been paying attention to our social media chats here at business.realtree.com, you’ve probably noticed the increased attention on video. It’s for good reason: because video is where it’s at.

If your social media platforms are humming along without a video component, you will not believe what’s ahead of you once you play this trump card. That being said, here are five big take-aways a good video marketing plan can bring your business, brand or generalized social media effort:

1. Instant Brand Awareness

In earlier blogs I’ve consistently stressed a one-size-fits-all approach to social media. It doesn’t matter if you are selling, repping or distributing Realtree-clad Crocs, Otter Boxes or Remington backpacks, if you can produce, modify or just share someone else’s video on your social media platforms, you can increase your bottom line.

Online videos are the most consumed pieces of content seven days a week. In fact, more than 50 percent of all content viewed daily is video, and mobile video accounts for more than three-quarters of all user traffic. Facebook generates more than 8 billions video views a day, while Snapchat tallies more than 3 billions daily views, and the up-and-coming Periscope (live feeds) accounts for almost 2 billion. That’s a lot of eyeballs that will surely be seeing something for the first time through one of those videos. Perhaps it will be your product or service?

2. The Best Metrics in the Business

With those kind of numbers, you would think everyone is already ahead of the game, right? Wrong. According to one marketing study, 47 percent of branded Facebook pages do not utilize video in their feeds. That’s plenty of meat left on the bone for you to get organized and implement your own plan. Does that mean they know something we don’t? Most likely not, when you consider that quality video content will not only attract thousands of viewers, they will drive total consumption rates of 60 to 80 percent with ease. That means six or eight out of every 10 viewers is watching the entire video. Compare that to an average click-through rate of less than 10 percent for textual posts and single digits for off-site links, and you can quickly see how video trumps just about everything else that is being done on social media.

3. B2B Upside

If your focus is on the business-to-business segment, video is a way to start showing (not telling) your colleagues exactly what you can do for them to increase their industry standing. Another marketing study reveals that 73 percent of social media video viewers elicited a positive impression of another business via video content provided on Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn and Vimeo. There are many more platforms where you can share your videos, but the take-home point is the vast and oftentimes immediate satisfaction of actually seeing your business message go viral. In the old days, it would take numerous PR mailings and advertising campaigns to achieve the numbers you can receive today in a matter of hours. The added bonus is that you can reach out directly to the individual business you want to work more closely with, and give them a good first impression.

4. Mobile Mavens

According to the Pew Research Center, 72 percent of Americans use at least one social media account, and 42 percent of those use their mobile devices to access them. The numbers get better, however, when you break it down. Of the 18-29 years olds, 89 percent use social media, and 70 percent of them only via their mobile devices. 

Ask any marketing expert, and they will tell you mobile is where it’s at for just about anything online related — be it shopping, news consumption or … video viewing. Taking video to your social media platforms is not only a great extension of your current marketing efforts; it’s absolutely necessary in today’s mobile-hungry environment. What worked in 2012 — click-bait photos in outbound links — has been replaced by short streaming videos (always shoot for 2 minutes or less) that inform and entertain our attention-deficit tendencies.

5. Consumers Can’t Get Enough

The average social media user watches at least one video a day, while the upper 25 percent of active users spend a mind-numbing 32 minutes each day watching videos uploaded on their favorite social media pages. Today’s final take-home: If you can target your most active connections (dare I say “fans”), you can market to them in such a precise manner that you’ll quickly learn what is and isn’t working in given demographics.

One word of caution: Embrace the home runs, but don’t make broad-brush assumptions on your entire marketing strategy based off of a few online videos. View the video component as just that — one more cog in the machine you are building to keep your brand, business or strategic message moving in an upward direction.

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