As marketers, we're always looking for new ways to engage our audiences with branded content.
Video has become a huge part of this with 61 percent of businesses saying they now use video as a marketing tool.
We also know that 69 percent of audiences prefer to watch video when it's available on a web page.
So we can all agree, video is definitely a big part of branded content but what we want to know is, is a particular kind of video the next big thing in Branded content?
And the type of video we're talking about is vlogging.
I would hazard a guess that most of you know what vlogging is, but just in case: A vlog (video blog) is a blog that contains video content.
It usually consists of someone talking directly to the camera/audience about a topic or interest that they have particular knowledge of.
It's a good way to communicate on a personal level with your audience.
Now you know what it is, will it be the next big thing in branded content? Well first we need to look at why, how and where you can use vlogging, and then we can determine if it's the next big thing for branded content.
Why?
In today's digital world, and with the possibility of 65 percent of your audience being visual learners, the best way to engage them is through visual content.
Vlogging certainly comes under this umbrella, plus it has the potential to adapt to the many ways we use other content to communicate to an audience.
The most obvious being a standard blog, instead of creating an 800 to 1,000 word written piece that helps your audience with their problem you could create a vlog where you talk through the points that help to solve their problem.
Moz Blog do this with their weekly Whiteboard Friday vlogs, where founder Rand Fishkin talks about the latest techniques, trends and topics of inbound marketing.
It also provides a personal way to communicate with your audience, as they can see your face, or the face of the people who work within your business.
This Humanises your brand so that people will trust you, and it gives you a chance to show off your shining personality.
The other thing is, a vlog is still a video and using videos on your website is likely to help you rank higher in search results as Google now places more emphasis on video content.
It's also worth considering bounce rate which video can play a big part in reducing as it encourages visitors to stick around on your site longer.
The Marketing Director at MixerDirect agrees as adding more videos to their different website pages saw an almost 20 percent decrease in bounce rate. Therefore, adding vlogs to your video library can only be a positive thing.
How?
There are many ways you can use vlogs as part of your branded content depending on what your goals are. And like your other branded content you need to decide what works best for your business.
Some examples of vlogs you can create include:
Introducing Your Company and Your Team
This type of vlog works because it shows your customers you're more than just a business selling a product. This is the type of vlog to help gain your customers trust as they get to know who you are and what you're about.
The example from our own selection is a possible question people thinking about making a video will search for and when they find the answer in our video it will then lead them to us at Wyzowl, who make videos.
Q&A
Once you have created the vlogs that are most beneficial for your business you can use them to generate more leads by making them into gated content.
Gated content is content that requires a short data field to be filled out before the user can view or access it.
This isn't suitable for every type of vlog, the best type to use it with is the knowledge videos which people probably won't mind handing their details over for.
Where?
Depending on the type of vlog you're sharing will depend where you place it. Although, any of the types of vlogs you create will be great for hosting on sites like YouTube where they will no doubt get you a lot of traffic.
There are, of course, many other video hosting sites to consider and each will offer pros and cons.
Once you have chosen a video hosting site you can then embed your videos in other places to help get the most out of them. Below are a few suggestions:
- Homepage: the introduction to your team or client testimonials would work best here.
- Blogs: knowledge or Q&A vlogs, ensure you write a short summary about the content, and you could even write out the transcript which will be good for SEO as it will help search engines index the content better.
- Dedicated landing page: similar to a blog, but this is best to use when you want your audience to do something specific and not be distracted by anything else. So any middle funnel video content that you can gate would be good to have a landing page for.
- Social media: there are many ways you can use your vlogs on social media, and more than anything else the chance for the content to be shared is reason enough.
Related Article: A One Minute Video Is Worth 1.8M Words: Content Marketing's Newest Weapon
Final Thoughts
So is vlogging the next big thing in branded content? On its own? No. But with other content as part of a whole marketing strategy, yes.
It's not the stand alone next big thing but when used with other video content and as part of a bigger picture of useful content for an audience it works really well.