The Power of Videos

How many videos have you watched today? And I’m not talking about the 80s Betamax/VHS type. I’m talking about on-demand television services, music videos on YouTube, animated adverts on your app of the week, even news-clips that your particularly political friend is sharing on Facebook with enraged comments.

I’ve been up for all of three hours, and I would estimate that my count is already over 20. Maybe I haven’t watched them all the way through, maybe some were muted, maybe some started without my permission and I quickly scrolled past, but they’ve been there for me to see.

Figures show that 60% of visitors to a website will watch a video before reading any text, if one is available, so it’s hardly surprising that my number is so high already. As usual I’ve spent the majority of my awake time online, on any number of devices, as my millennial generation is prone to do. A trip to the fridge is wasted if not simultaneously catching up on the latest Bemes from around the world. If you don’t know what Beme is yet, just give it a quick Google. Oh look, there’s a handy infomercial a couple of results down. And it’s hosted by YouTube, nowadays the second largest search engine, according to Etailinsight. Oh and the video was posted by Casey Neistat, arguably one of the most popular Vloggers, with over 2 million subscribers and 700 videos on YouTube alone. And in this infomercial he explains how Beme works which is, in short, with a smartphone.

In 2015 mobile video traffic accounted for 55% of all mobile data traffic, a staggering fact when you think about it. More than half the time we spent online on our phones last year was watching video! What’s more, experts predict that this is going to increase to 75% by 2020, which no doubt the forthcoming arrival of 5G will contribute towards.

But it’s not just personal videos on social media that we’re engaging with in our millions. We’re also using online videos to inform ourselves about ways to spend our money. Animoto state that 73% of U.S. adults are more likely to make a purchase after watching an online video that explains the product or service, and a Kickstarter project is 85% more likely to be funded if there’s a video to accompany the pitch.
If you can watch a slick and informative film about a product while on the go, on your phone, why wait until you have time to go and check it out in the shop?

At Chalkstar, we’re so embedded within the world in video production and online video content that it can be easy to forget that we’re part of a bigger picture, especially when we’re working on projects where we have a chance to really show our creativity and expertise. But whether it’s our beautifully crafted pieces of work, or an off-the-cuff upload from an amateur with a smartphone, it’s worth taking a look at the facts every now and then to remind ourselves of the power of video.

Maria Passingham