According to Experian Hitwise:

“The UK Internet population made over 785 million visits to online video websites during September, an increase of 36% year-on-year.

The average Internet user will make 18 visits to video sites per month and almost half will visit at least 3 different sites. The majority of growth has been driven by YouTube, which dominates with 70% of all visits to online video sites.

Every month, UK internet users spend 184 million hours watching YouTube content, with an average session time of 20 minutes.

As people consume more video content online, brands should increasingly be looking to use video as a core part of their digital strategy. Online video is a very diverse media that can be used to build brand awareness, to bring traffic to a website, as an educational tool to demonstrate a product or service, as a customer service channel, or as a way to attract a completely new online audience.”

And I agree! With sites like YouTube and Vimeo offering a platform to host your videos for free! there is no excuse for not being able to showcase video for your products.

However is the content you are putting up compelling? BAD footage can be more damaging to your brand than having any footage at all.

If you don’t have film footage then consider hiring a filmer – there are many freelancers or independent film-makers who do a fantastic job of this along with post editing production as well – which is very important – and not as costly as you may think.

On the other hand if you already have some good footage, there are many online programmes that you can use to put together clips. Make sure again than you need to think about the marketing angle, make it look good and have a good storyboard and goal in place.

Alternatively you can look into buying some stock footage or hire someone to put together footage for you and edit it professionally and add in music and effects.

Video should be part of your website and in a position to attract and engage your visitors immediately and keep them on your site – therefore pushing up your search rankings. You can easily imbed your video from YouTube and other online video sources or add it in direct (check with your hosting company though that you have a package with enough bandwidth and webspace if you are expecting large volumes of views).  If you are looking for a cleaner slicker look for your site then consider a customised player.

About the Author: Karen Black is the Co-founder and Director of Mamba Media – a Creative Agency that specialises in Websites, Design and Digital Marketing for the Travel and Tourism Industry.

About Karen Black

Karen Black is a Co-founder and Director of Mamba Media, a boutique digital marketing agency based in the UK. Karen works with a range of starts ups, individuals and small businesses to develop their website & digital marketing strategy (social media, email, video, blogging) and grow their business online. Karen also offers social media training and digital marketing consulting to businesses.