Recently I witnessed first-hand just how powerful, and inherently social, video really is. I have three sons and one day noticed my oldest (10 years) sitting around the house, looking at his iPod, and giggling. Over the course of a day, this transitioned to scenes with all three of my boys sitting around the small screen giggling together. It was very cute and my curiosity increased. Finally, I could no longer resist. I had to know what was going on. So, I approached the small group of gigglers, and asked to see what was so funny. My oldest, still giggling, handed me the iPod and I watched the video.
It turns out he had recorded a video of his cat with his iPod. The video starts with his cat sitting comfortably and contently in front of the camera for a few seconds. The scene then suddenly transitions to the cat attacking the iPod. The screen goes black and the viewer – this viewer anyway – is left with one thing in mind… you can’t trust cats. Just kidding. It was funny. I mean, I didn’t giggle about it all day, but it was good content.
My first born then proceeded to tell me about how he’d captured the footage, shared it with all of his friends, and how his friends had shared it with family and so on. I was so proud. My boy was making videos and viral ones at that.
What is compelling to me about this, on an albeit small and giggly scale, is what a great impact video can have. We take it for granted, but it’s an effective and meaningful way to communicate with others… Especially with all the social media and technology we have today. All of us can participate and experience success.
As far as businesses and organizations are concerned, the optimal way of communicating a message is in the form of a commercial. It’s been used for years on TV and is increasing in effectiveness with the addition of the Internet. At Pikewood Creative, we produce commercials for TV and online campaigns on a regular basis, and we’ve seen first hand that the real power behind using video in today’s market is the social aspect. The fact that people will share your message, if it’s good content, is exciting and powerful incentive for including video as part of an online campaign. Adding the social factor makes the ROI of online video production skyrocket, and the potential is unlimited.
eMarketer reports that “video is the fastest-growing ad format online, and social sharing capabilities can only help that growth by allowing users to act as curators and promoters, passing appealing videos to a larger and larger audience of network connections. eMarketer estimates US advertisers will spend $3.1 billion this year on video ads, up from $2 billion in 2011. By 2016, $9.3 billion in online ad spending will go toward video.â€
There’s no better time to get started with online advertising with video. If you have content that will make folks giggle, then let’s get the camera out and produce something great.
