Video Production Trends for 2020
Given the volatile nature of digital marketing that is attributed to the fast-paced nature of the development rate of the technology upon which it is riding on. A marketer must always be on the lookout for market trends and ride the wave with the most traction. We are already midway through the first quarter of the year and by now, you should’ve already gone and jumpstarted your video marketing strategy. If you haven’t, don’t fret. It is still the early part of the year and you have plenty of time. So if you need to jumpstart your video marketing efforts, we have put together a list of leading video production trends for 2020.
There is no doubt that video marketing gets more traction compared to other most forms of marketing. You only need to look at the early 1960s and ’70s when most homes began owning TV sets. TV advertising blew out of the water print and direct mail advertising combined.
Video and marketing go well; almost as good as peanut butter and jelly on breakfast bread spread. However, the underlying technology has come a long way from the ’60s and ’70s video productions.
New technologies have ushered in a new age of high-resolution videos that comes in various formats, including shoppable videos, 360-degree experiences, and ephemeral videos. While it may not always be wise to quickly catch every wave in the market trends, it is good to be on the lookout for the trends that will optimize your marketing efforts.
The Top Video Production Trends for 2020
Being in February, we have seen some of these video production trend waves ramp up, while others are starting to fade away. Without deep insight, you might catch the wrong wave, and you will not enjoy the surf that much, as it will fade away quickly.
We have dug deep into reports, analysis, and projections, and can safely say you will enjoy the surf riding on the following video production trends for the year 2020.
1. Live Video Streaming
Live video streaming has made it easier for brands to connect to their target audience more affordably and efficiently. Making selling your product to the consumers much more effective.
That is mostly due to social media platforms, which has circumvented the traditional and expensive TV and radio media. These days, it cost close to nothing to set up a social media account and start posing promotional materials.
However, merely posting promotional content to your feeds will not be enough to get the message across to the target audience. For your posts to be seen by the target audience, you need to capture the attention of your audience.
Luckily, social media platforms prioritize live videos because they are happening in real-time. Often, users will get notifications that ‘Channel X’ is live now, and it appears like the social media platform is encouraging them to join in on the live event happening now.
Live streaming increases your chances of getting more eyeballs on your message. Than simply uploading a recorded video hoping the hashtags, and algorithm on the News Feed will put your message in front of as many eyeballs.
Statistics have it that live videos are six times more likely to hook viewers compared to pre-recorded videos. They are also six times more likely to get viewers’ interactions compared to pre-recorded videos. That is because they offer a more authentic experience for the viewers and gives your marketing campaign a more human personality.
2. Vlogging
One of the video production trends for 2020 that is all the rage right now is vlogging. According to a report by Global Web Index in 2018, after how-to videos and educational videos, vlogs were the third most watch videos on the internet, standing in at 34%.
Social video viewers were watching these videos predominantly on YouTube at least once per month. As individuals use vlog posts (video posts) to share their experience, showcase talent, express themselves, and give an account of their day-to-day life.
A more recent trend has seen more celebrities and micro-influencer use vlogs to better interact with their fans. Brands, too, have joined the vlogs bandwagon to publish videos on the ‘hows and whys’ of using their products.
The advantage of vlogging to brands, companies, and personalities is that it makes you human. That is thanks to the raw and unfiltered nature of vlogs recordings, which makes your fan base connect and relate on a more personal level — making your brand authentic and approachable, something critically important in this era when most consumers are distrusting brands.
3. Ephemeral Stories
Ephemeral Stories are new forms of vlogging, where the video only exists for a short time before disappearing forever. Just like vlogs, they humanize your brand as you capture and share in the moment experiences.
The low-fi nature of ephemeral stories often means there is little to no video editing is done. People will watch, but they will not be overly judgmental about the quality and what they expected to see. Thus lowering the bar for video production and making it easy for more people to post promotional videos.
Ephemeral videos have become a hit, especially with the youth. So much so that it is a feature being widely adopted across the social media platforms. It was a feature initially available on Snapchat but has since been adopted across Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, YouTube, and even Medium.
Ephemeral videos are compelling because people are there in the first place because of the connection they have with the personality of the platform. They can be used for marketing midstream the personality’s postings of the ephemeral videos, as off the cuff approach.
- organizational stories — anniversaries, capabilities, teams, among others. (Facebook, Instagram stories)
4. Tutorials and Educational Videos (Skillshare, YouTube tutorials)
For years, the internet has been leaving a sour taste in the mouth of conservationist professors and educators who religiously believe in the traditional classroom form of learning. Schools, through books, used to be the biggest source of information.
These days, the internet is churning out more information, at a faster rate, and more conveniently to the masses. Right now, the internet has replaced conventional schools as the biggest source of information.
However, as much as people are turning to the internet for information, they are leaning more towards video tutorials than explanations given through blocks of texts and pictures. People simply don’t like to read blocks of text that much; watching a video is much more convenient.
A good example is Ikea. This company produces furniture that can be quite difficult to assemble. The manual that comes inside the packaging has an explanation in blocks of text and pictures.
If you go on YouTube, you will find a buzzing community of YouTubers with channels centered on tutorials showing people how to assemble Ikea furniture. Though some of the videos were hit or miss and went to show what an opportunity Ikea is missing out.
That would have been a great marketing opportunity for Ikea. Instead, YouTubers knowing the need for the tutorial to be presented via walk-through video are capitalizing on it.
There is a rising demand for ‘how-to’ tutorials and virtual classes in video format on the internet across platforms such as YouTube, Skillshare, and Masterclass, among others. Thereby presenting a big opportunity for video producers.
5. Captions on Video
The good news to you as a video marketer is that most people consume digital content on their mobile devices. So it makes much sense to create video content with good user experience viewing on mobile devices.
The bad news is that they use these mobile devices while they are on the move. There is a good chance your content will reach the user while they are in an area they must maintain silence or don’t want to draw attention to themselves.
Since the user will not want to turn on the volume on their device, they will have no choice but to skip your video. To avoid that, it is best you accompany your video with captions. That way, they can still watch the video without the sound, and use the caption to understand the message.
6. Vertical videos
The majority of smartphones in the market are designed in a rectangular shape. The user grabs it somewhere, midway along its length standing vertically. Although the best video production in terms of capturing as much of the scene as possible is horizontal (landscape) shot.
However, most smartphone users, despite having the option of flipping their phone horizontally, simply choose to view content with the phone situated vertically. As the customer (user in the case) is the king, it will best serve your interest to present videos in the orientation that best suits them.
A growing trend in video production is shooting in the 9:16 aspect ratio. That is what you get with the Facebook Live, Instagram Stories, Snapchat, and WhatsApp Status. According to MediaBrix, a video ad platform owned by Verve and dedicated to producing mobile videos, vertical mobile video ads have a 90% completion rate, while horizontal video ads have a completion rate of 14%.
People simply don’t like the inconvenience of flipping their phones from portrait to landscape mode to better view horizontal videos. You are better off working with what they are comfortable with; that is producing vertical videos.
7. Easily Searchable Videos
In 2018, Google added several new features to its search engine, including a new ‘Featured Videos’ card. This feature plays a snippet of a video containing content related to the searched keyword. Ever since videos have been inching closer and closer to the top of the organic search engine result page for searches on both mobile and desktop.
In 2020, Google is refining that feature by integrating an AI system that identifies the snippet of a video related to the search query. When a user hovers video, as shown in the result page, the video will autoplay.
Making an easily searchable video has now become a SEO tool in the businesses’ competition to have their websites ranked highest on the search result page.
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