The King of Content in 2024

It’s Pretty Obvious…

As we navigate through the first few months of 2024, the digital marketing landscape continues to evolve, but video content is still leading the charge. We've observed firsthand the transformative power of video in engaging audiences and driving brand growth. We want to share some strategies for integrating video content into your marketing efforts.

Trends in Video Content:

Diving into a few cornerstones that have been popular, and will continue to be moving through 2024, and how they can help your brand grow.

Short-Form Videos:

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know how popular short-form videos are. Platforms like TikTok and Instagram Reels continue to dominate this space. These bite-sized clips are perfect for capturing attention in today's fast-paced digital environment. This also allows you to create quick, authentic content to share with your audience. Content that shares the real and human side behind your brand.

Live Streaming:

Live content creates a sense of immediacy and authenticity, fostering deeper connections with your audience. From Q&A sessions to behind-the-scenes looks, live streaming invites viewers into your brand's world. Pretty much every major social media platform has a live streaming feature, so play around with different ones and see which one is best for you. Try live streaming the more “boring” or mundane parts of your day, like maybe packaging orders. This isn’t necessarily exciting, but it gives you a chance to interact directly with your audience, and them to interact with you.

Educational and How-To Videos:

As consumers increasingly seek out learning opportunities online, educational content that entertains and informs will become even more valuable. Studies show that more and more people are turning to the TikTok and Instagram search feature to find answers on certain topics instead of Google or Bing. This can play a huge part in your content strategy, by answering questions about your business or industry that people are searching for. Take The Kallian Group for example. The majority of our content that we share, across all platforms, is educational. This allows us to share out knowledge of the industry with people searching for those answers, while also drawing attention to our brand.

User-Generated Video Content:

Authenticity reigns supreme. User-generated videos provide credible, relatable content that enhances trust in your brand. By encouraging your customers to share content showcasing your brand, or developing a brand ambassador or influencer strategy, you show the world that your brand is being used and enjoyed by real people. Think of it similarly to a google or product review. When people see other people using your product or service, this can encourage them to learn more about your brand, leading to a follow and possibly even more sales.

Strategies for Leveraging Video Content:

Here are a few key points to keep in mind when looking to create video content.

Embrace Platform Diversity:

Tailor your video content to suit the unique characteristics and user demographics of each platform. Instead of creating a video in TikTok and cross-posting it to all the other platforms, either create a separate video within each platform, or create a video outside of your socials with a 3rd party app and share it individually. Creating one video outside of your socials can be less time consuming, but creating videos within each platform allows you to use certain templates, trending audios, and more. Try them both out and see what works best for you.

Focus on Storytelling:

Regardless of length, every video should tell a story that aligns with your brand values and engages your audience on an emotional level. Remember back in grade school, “beginning, middle, and end.” Your online video content should follow a similar structure. By focusing on telling a story, this can help keep your video on track, and be more easily digestible by your viewers.

Invest in Quality:

While authenticity is key, maintaining a certain level of quality ensures your content is taken seriously. In our opinion, audio should be the main focus when it comes to quality. Studies show that you can almost always have a less than perfect visual, as long as your audio is crisp, clear, and appealing. But, if you have poor audio, your video is dead in the water before you even hit share. Think about investing in external microphones or audio recording devices. There are a TON of options out there for both cameras and cell-phones.

Encourage Interaction:

Use calls-to-action in your videos to encourage likes, shares, and comments. There is an endless number of ways to achieve this. When doing your own scrolling through social media, be on the look out for these little nudges. One that we personally see a lot is “comment *something* below and we’ll DM you this information.” The idea behind this strategy is to A) get more people to comment, thus boosting engagement, but also B) giving the people something of value in exchange for them commenting. Sending them a helpful guide, or discount code, or anything at all in exchange for the engagement is a great way to boost reach and your customers trust in your brand.

Conclusion:

Video content is not just a trend; it's an extremely powerful medium that's here to stay. By adopting these strategies, you can ensure that your brand not only keeps pace but stands out in the digital arena.