By Greg Shepard
It should be entirely unsurprising to anyone who has spent even the smallest amount of time in the marketing space that video is big — really, really big. Couple that with the concurrent explosive growth in content and influencer marketing, and you’ve got a trifecta of awesome for any brand looking to connect with new and existing customers.
According to a recent study aggregation by digital marketing agency WebpageFX, by 2019, 80% of online content consumed will be video. Additionally, people retain 95% of a message when that message is consumed via video versus just 10% when the message is read.
On the effectiveness of influencer marketing as a whole, a Burst Media study found that advertisers realized an average earned media value of $6.85 for every $1 spent on an influencer marketing program. Further, according to Influencer Marketing Hub research, marketers realize an average earned media value of $7.65 for every dollar spent on influencer marketing.
If we marry the growth of video with the effectiveness of influencer marketing, we arrive at a holy grail of sorts in terms of a powerful media combination. The majority of people prefer to consume video content, and it’s been shown that video is effective in delivering information that’s retained. Influencer marketing, very much like word of mouth, has proven effective because, among many other plusses, it thrives upon a trusted bond that is created between the influencer and the follower.
As the effectiveness of video content and influencer marketing have, time after time, proven themselves to be extremely effective forms of communication, media platforms, marketers and martech firms have immersed themselves in the space. Early video platform YouTube remade television and is now the premier platform for influencers looking to build large followings, which marketers tap for branded messaging.
In early 2017, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg said: “I see video as a megatrend. That’s why I’m going to keep putting video first across our family of apps.” And that’s exactly what has happened with the increasing prevalence of video on both Facebook and Instagram with Facebook Live video, Facebook Stories, Instagram stories and, just recently, IGTV.
While pre-roll and mid-roll video ads, which were the early form of video advertising, still exist, many new forms of tech-focused advertising solutions are now quite prevalent. These new video adtech solutions have taken a cue from programmatic advertising and have married reams of available viewer data with algorithm-based, artificial intelligence (AI)-fueled tech, resulting in the ability to automate many forms of video-related advertising with pinpoint accuracy.
Some of these tech solutions are designed to monetize preexisting influencer-created videos by algorithmically delivering advertising messages via video comment. Others provide for the entire shopping experience to occur without ever leaving a social media platform. As well, there are solutions out there that provide the syndication of shoppable videos through an affiliate program that allows influencers to tap affiliate product links through a network of their choice. These shoppable videos are then uploaded to platforms of an influencer’s choice from the solution provider’s system, allowing for the inclusion of shoppable links.
The point is, video has matured far beyond the now quaint 15-second pre-roll and mid-roll ads. Delivered through trusted influencers with large followings and powered by tech-enabled, AI-driven solutions, video has proven itself to be the holy grail of influencer marketing and marketing at large.
