Are you planning your new social media campaign? You may be considering the benefits of using video marketing vs. text and/or photo marketing for your campaigns. While both techniques have a place in social media marketing, the fact remains that video advertising is infinitely more powerful than text and photo advertising.
In this article, we take you through some of the differences between video ads and text/photo ads and make a case for why video content is better.
Top 4 differences between video advertising and text/photo advertising
Videos are more dynamic than photos and texts
While text and photos can evoke deep feelings and responses in audiences, the impact isn’t as strong as you’d find with a video. Scientists have shown that 95% of the message is remembered when people watch a video, compared to just 10% when the message is consumed in static text or photo format.
When you use video ads, you bring to life various experiences and make your campaign something that viewers can connect with. You allow the viewer to immerse themselves in the journey of the video protagonist and start to imagine themselves as the characters in the video that are using your product/services.
Plus, videos allow you to display your brand’s tone. This helps you find and connect with your ideal target market, whose life expectations and aspirations are something your brand can expressly cater to.
Videos give more space to explain products/services/concepts compared to text and photos
Photos are helpful in enticing viewers to learn more about the brand. But the very nature of photos makes it difficult for you to dig deep and explain how a product works and why viewers need to buy it. Even if it is an infographic, a lot can get lost in translation due to the static and uni-dimensional nature of photos.
Text is slightly better than photos when explaining concepts to prospects. But, text is a format that not every individual finds easy to consume. From limited vocabulary to a shorter attention span, a lot of challenges can reduce the effectiveness of your text ads on social media.
Videos marketing circumvents these challenges by giving you an engaging and dynamic platform where you can:
o Unbox and showcase a product.
o Describe a service/concept by showing it in practical use.
o Provide pointers on how prospects can use the product at home/office.
o Visually showcase the benefits of what is being sold.
o Add other visual elements that can evoke strong, positive emotions towards the brand.
o Share marketing information in a short and snappy format that is easy to consume and understand.
o Share customer testimonials by having people talk about the brand.
o Make the advertising more personable by facilitating an almost face-to-face conversation.
Video advertising performs significantly better on search engines
You would think that text ads on social media would outperform other formats because of the presence of keywords. While optimizing text content for search terms is easier, the fact is, search engine algorithms are skewed in favor of video formats. Research shows that video drives organic traffic up by 157%. Landing pages that contain videos generate 80% more conversions than landing pages that use only texts and photos.
This once again has to do with the human ability to understand and retain information better in video format. Plus, since videos are, by their very nature, extremely fun, engaging and memorable. This is why they are more likely to be shared by viewers with other people on social media. In fact, it is this high shareability of videos that makes websites with videos 45x more likely to rank higher than websites without videos on search engines.
Videos give you a leg-up in the world of short attention span, compared to text and photos
If you consider how social media platforms are evolving today, there is a greater emphasis on short content formats that quickly convey their message (usually in under a minute). This is because humans have a shorter attention span today than a few decades ago. Research shows that in the early 2000s, the human attention span was 12 seconds. But now, it is just 8 seconds.
In order to leverage shortening attention spans, Instagram is pushing its Reels feature to engage users. YouTube has released its Shorts feature and TikTok’s best-performing videos are ones that are 9-15 seconds long.
Given such a short attention span, text advertising becomes a problematic solution. A short write-up will not be able to help you describe the USPs of your offerings clearly. When it comes to photos, they may not be aesthetically compelling enough for prospects to consume your content. Even if you interpose text-based content on photos or create an infographic, it may take a lot of time and effort for viewers to get value from the photo – something they may not wish to do.
Videos can help avoid all of these challenges. With smart video production, you can share the message you want to convey in under 15 seconds. For example, filming a customer who is experiencing a problem and using your product/service as a way to solve the problem, or, a quick How-To video showcasing how prospects can use the product quickly and easily within seconds. Even a walkthrough of your service facility to showcase how safe, clean and beautiful it is, will work out well.
You will be able to deliver more powerful messaging to prospective buyers in a much shorter period of time compared to text ads and photo ads.
Use video advertising to supercharge your social media marketing
While you can continue using text and photo-based ads for your social media campaigns, video marketing should be your key tool to engage with the largest customer base quickly. At Melty Cone Video, we are a video agency with extensive experience bringing to life your unique brand voice and messaging through a well-targeted and smartly-created video. Give us a call and discuss your video marketing needs. Our video production team will sit with you to create a bespoke video advertising campaign to enhance your social media performance.
