Just starting out in business? Fairly new to the entrepreneurial realm? We can tell you that in 2016, you want to build your online presence in a way that devastates your competition… but we also know, from years of experience, that this prospect can be most time-consuming and, at times, overtly frustrating. It is, however, VERY important because your online presence is what enables prospects – potential buyers – to find you, interact with you and get to know/like/trust you.
Before we dive into the online video marketing and content marketing side of the web presence pool, let’s define “online presence.”
Defining Online Presence
An online, or web, presence is the sum of all the identities you’ve crafted – both personal and business-oriented – and the interactions those identities have established, and participated in, online.
Another way of defining online/web presence is any existence of an individual or business that can be found via an online search – an example of an individual who is inactive on the Internet but who boasts an online presence is one who is a member of an association that possesses a “member directory” listing online.
Further, the terms web/online presence and “website” are often used interchangeably, but they are very far from being the same thing; a web presence is the online collective existence of a company or individual, as we alluded to above, while a website is just one aspect of that.
Content Marketing and Online Presence
If you’re a business owner with an honest-to-goodness company you want to market in the modern digital age, your website must provide your “branding” with a customized look and feel. We’ve seen millions of websites running the gamut from small and simple to interactive and much more intricate, and while everyone pretty much understands what a website is and what purpose it serves, it’s essential to establish an online presence via your site for your business.
While this blog is going to cover the content marketing and video side of web presence building, the following are some elements that often help improve an online presence in an overall, all-encompassing sense.
Elements that Improve Your Overall Online Presence
• A clear market definition
• Understandable and appropriate keywords
• Website and/or social media pages properly optimized for search engines
• Website and/or social media pages that boast aesthetically-appealing and properly organized components so that any visitor immediately understands what the business offers
• Complete social media profiles
• A clear focus on target connections and target market
• A strategy on how to gain fans, followers and business connections
• A strategy on how to promote oneself and/or one’s business and disseminate marketing messages
• Compelling content (which we will get to) and effective calls-to-action
• An effective social media marketing campaign for the business
• A high volume of traffic on a consistent basis
• Effective lead capture and conversion strategy
First and Foremost: Some Stats Regarding Video Marketing
Today, video is INCREDIBLY important when constructing a well-rounded content marketing strategy for an online presence. The following statistics tell the story with regard to why there’s no reason you SHOULDN’T be considering the video medium as you look to build your company:
According to Forrester Research, it is 50 TIMES easier to achieve a page-one ranking on Google with a video.
The 3M Corporation and Zabisco have found that 90-percent of information transmitted to the brain is visual, and visual stimuli are processed 60,000 TIMES FASTER in the brain as compared to text.
Simply Measured discovered that visual content drives engagement – in fact, just one month after the introduction of Facebook’s timeline for brands, visual content (both photos and videos) saw a 65-percent increase in engagement.
Blog posts incorporating video attract three times as many inbound links as blog posts without video, according to SEOmoz.
The average user, says Mist Media, spends 88-percent more time on a website with video, and video and email marketing can increase click-through rates by more than 90-percent.
MarketingSherpa has found that video attracts two to three times as many monthly visitors, doubles their time spent on the site and has a 157% increase in organic traffic from search engines.
According to Insivia, viewers retain some 95-percent of a message when they watch it in a video compared to 10-percent when reading it in text.
Internet video traffic, according to Cisco, will be 69-percent of all global consumer Internet traffic by 2017.
Maximize Your Online Brand Presence with Video Content Marketing
Creating and distributing quality content is one of the best ways to gain online visibility, and remains one of the most effective marketing strategies to promote a business and create brand recognition in the digital age. And while creating quality content has become essential to any successful marketing strategy today, this can be taken a step further with video. Businesses of all sizes and scale can benefit from video, regardless of channel – YouTube, Vimeo, Metcafe, et al – and posting branding videos relevant to your business’ niche is a very effective way to promote your business, drive traffic to your website and get your brand noticed in front of a targeted audience.
Video Extends Your Online Reach
Are you considering allocating a budget to video? That’s a wise first step, if we must say so ourselves. Whether it’s a one-time production in the tens of thousands (not usually a scenario surrounding small to medium-sized businesses) or a long-term investment that has the ability to reach hundreds of thousands, video is directly related to successful content marketing.
Video Tells Your Brand’s Story
For one, video is an ideal medium for brand storytelling pieces, which can exist on your website or on social media channels. Whether you or your spokesperson is sharing the brand values, brand origin or brand mission, video has the ability to immerse your audience in your story – while offering a richer, more nuanced experience than other forms of media. Think about it: When was the last time you visited a home page of a website and DIDN’T experience a video of some kind? Yes, to be perfectly honest, it was circa 2008… but while videos were once only used to explain the operation of complex products or solutions, they are now as likely to provide a brief and engaging overview of your value proposition in two minutes or less.
Video Is a Traffic Driver
Let’s put it in a nutshell: Creating video allows you to expand your online presence because video can be posted on multiple sites beyond your own, and can become sharable social media content – and that is one of the most important aspects of doing business today. If you’re thinking of creating a professional video for your business (or having one expertly crafted for you by a company such as Green Screen Talent Now), it’s vital to remember that it can indeed exist in many virtual spaces beyond your website. The more places it shows up, the more viewers you can reach and drive to your website (as we hinted at a bit earlier).
Why Content Marketing with Video Works
Utilizing video – and we’re not just talking about commercials only, but promotional pieces and information/instructional guides, etc. – is a proven method of engaging guests to your website and solidifying your web presence by:
Keeping People’s Attention
Here’s something we’ve said tirelessly in our blogs, but which remains true to this very moment we find ourselves in as we move through 2016: Most online viewers today lose concentration after a mere eight seconds, making their attention spans shorter than an average goldfish. A video on your website is an effective way to keep viewers focused on your messaging.
Encouraging Visitors to Stay on Your Website Longer
Want your potential buyers to spend more time seeing and hearing the message or messages that you wish to convey about your business? Video is the answer.
Allowing Viewers to Get to Know Your Business on a Personal Level
Video puts a human face on your content, and in doing so the information you present stays in the mind of the viewer after he or she navigates away from the page.
Helping Boost Your Website’s Search Ranking
Because Google owns YouTube, creating engaging videos projects “strong signals” to the search engine which helps your site rank higher in search results.
If you’re ready to put a professional video on your website, Kickstarter page or social media channels, you’re on the right path to success.
Learn how and why utilizing a Spokesperson Video for your brand is so effective!