The Engagement 4Cast
Americans have an insatiable desire for online videos. We collectively watch over 150 Billion videos per month, that’s 94% more than in 2014. And 20% of those views are on mobile. That’s why promoting your new content via email and social networks is an essential step in driving views and digital engagement. When publishing through these channels you will literally drive your content directly into your audiences’ pocket. You cannot post a video only to your website and hope that your viewers fi nd what they are looking for. That’s why we make it easy for them in a world where a distraction are always just a click away
Getting started is simple. Upload your new video to each of your social networks. YouTube, Facebook, and most services will give you a bump for natively uploading your content to their services. In fact Facebook is 400% more likely to show your video if you natively upload it to their site versus linking to the same YouTube video. Where supported, add your video into a playlist with your other content. That way if a viewer makes it to the end of your video, the next will auto play or be shown as related content. These services also allow you to embed those videos onto your website, and you can choose your favorite network to use. Once uploaded to your social networks and on your website, you’re ready to start spreading the word with an email campaign.
Making your content mobile-friendly is paramount: with more Google searches coming from mobile and one fi fth of all videos viewed on phones and tablets, you’ll want to make sure your email is mobile ready. Don’t risk losing views by having your reader pinch and zoom. That simple pause could mean the difference between someone clicking to watch your video and swiping right over it. Right now embedding video directly in email isn’t widely supported. And when we talk about promoting putting video in your email, what we really mean is putting a screenshot of the video that links back to the video source. Some email services like MailChimp make this a breeze. Other may require you to provide your own screenshot.
Questions to consider when adding video to email
Now that your video is out there and you’ve actively promoted it across your different communications channels, there is one more step. Do it all over again! It’s not secret that users don’t read the full content of every email or webpage they visit. Nielsen Group pioneered user studies in this fi eld as far back as 1996 and the concluded the following about how people read on the web:
They don’t. People rarely read Web pages word by word; instead, they scan the page, picking out individual words and sentences.
-Nielson Group
The same holds true today for when people are reading your email or scanning their social network feed. To get the most out of your video content, you’ll want to promote it multiple times. On Social Networks your post may be viewed by as little as 5% – 10% of your followers, posting links at different times of the day and on the weekend vs the weekday will allow for different segments to be exposed. And in your subsequent emails include links to your video, or put a thumbnail in the sidebar or footer for readers to click on.
Did you know that Youtube and Facebook receive more video views than the 10 next largest networks combined?
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