When superbrand McDonalds does away with its youth-aimed YouTube channel you know even the biggest brands sometimes get video content wrong.
Video content
It’s not that the fast-food giant wasn’t getting the views – although only 750,000 compared to the many millions the likes of Red Bull et al receive – bosses said they were focusing their attentions elsewhere.
The reason for closing the channel? An acceptance that the content, though great, was not focused at the core McDonalds audience.
From the mega-corporate brands like the aforementioned Red Bull who thrive on viral, to the companies who use video to entice a potential client to look around their site, video content as a marketing tool is nothing new, but it is finally evolving from the exciting new kid, to a key part of the marketing mix every brand should have, as long as it abides by the age old marketing lessons.
A recent article on Marketing Insider Group outlines the content marketing trends for 2017 and touches on both the importance of video and the need to use it wisely.
“The rise of live video, behind-the-scenes content, and true brand journalism will begin to tip the storytelling balance from glossy “best foot forward” to documentary style realism.” said Jay Baer, President of Convince and Convert.
Meanwhile Marcus Sheridan, President of The Sales Lion, also added that experienced companies with content marketing will see themselves going “all in” for video where they will produce more video than text-based content.
Whilst Bryan Rhoads, digital and media strategist, summed it up nicely , saying “2017 will be the year when creatives start to understand the power of marketing technology – its more than beautiful images and great video – it will be about designing content and aligning it to your marketing stack.”
In other words, quality well-planned video content is essential, but more important than that is aligning video firmly to the brand and organisations objectives.
It’s time to make video content a key part of your content/marketing mix, just remember to stay on target. As always, keep your content on brand/brand aware and be aware of who you are sharing your content with. There are no points (or clients) to be gained from producing a video which has no relevance to who you want to speak to.
Nick Hyde is PR & Content Manager at Happy Creative, a full service marketing and creative agency based in Blackpool, Lancashire. To learn more or contact us please go to www.happy-creative.co.uk