Kapwing Resources

How Much Do Podcasters Make?

Lauren Strapagiel — Wed, 22 Nov 2023 18:56:56 GMT

Whether as a side hustle or a full-time venture, creating podcasts can not only be a creative outlet but a way to earn money.

The world’s top podcasters can make millions of dollars from their shows, though they only represent a very small percentage of the estimated 2.87 million podcast series that exist. The vast majority of podcasters are making only a little bit of money, or none at all.

However, if you consistently make great episodes and grow your listeners, it’s very possible to make a stable side income with a successful podcast, or even approach it as a full-time job with income that matches.

It really all comes down to numbers — how many people are listening to your episodes? The more listeners you have, the higher your potential income.

The biggest potential source of revenue for podcasts is sponsored ads inserted into an episode. The rate you can command for these is typically calculated as CMP, or cost per mille, which usually means a cost per one thousand listeners.

The math is pretty simple. If your advertiser offers $40 CPM, and you have 10,000 listeners, that means you’ll be paid $400 for that episode.

That CPM rate can vary a lot.

A huge show with millions of downloads and celebrity guests can command a higher rate, while a new show just getting started will be offered less. The quality of your listeners also matters. If you can show advertisers that you have a highly-engaged, niche audience — like a B2B podcast, for example — you may be able to get a higher CPM.

According to Influencer Marketing Hub, the average CPM for podcasts ads that are 30 seconds long is about $18. For 60-second ads, the average CPM is $25.

Looking at that, if you have 10,000 listeners and release weekly episodes with a 30-second ad, that translates to $720 per month.

Although advertising is core to most podcasters’ revenue strategy, it’s not the only way people make money podcasting. Here, we’ll go over all the most popular podcast monetization methods you can use to make money, as well as look at what the top podcasters make. We’ll end with a reality check of what the you can expect to earn if you make a podcast.

How to make money from a podcast

As we said, ads are important but far from the only way to make money podcasting. Let’s take a closer look at each option.

Affiliate sales

Another way to make money as a podcaster is affiliate sales. This is when you promote a product or service in your podcast and make a small commission each time a listener makes a purchase.

You’ve probably heard this happen on a podcast yourself, like when a host says to use their unique code or affiliate link for 10% off from a brand. That code or affiliate link tracks sales and gives the podcast a percentage or flat rate for each sale.

The trick to making income through affiliate sales is to find brands with affiliate programs that align with your podcast audience. A podcast about pets or animals would pair well with a brand like Barkbox, a monthly dog product box that has an affiliate program. Or, if your podcast is about technology or entertainment, ExpressVPN’s affiliate program might be a good fit.

Audible is another popular option, regardless of your podcast niche, because podcast listeners are already more likely to be interested in audiobooks.

It’s important to have a sense of who your podcast audience is, such as their age, gender, and location. This will help you when negotiating with sponsored ad placements, but also with finding affiliate marketing partnerships that will convert.

The brands with affiliate programs typically pay a flat rate per purchase or sign-up, and some have a cap of how much you can earn per month.

Research brands you’re interested in working with to find out if they have an affiliate program. Some have an automated program, like Audible, and with others you’ll have to reach out to get your unique code or URL.

You can also choose to work with multiple affiliate programs — just don’t forget to share your code or URL in your show.

Patreon and premium subscriptions

Podcasts are almost always free to download and listen to, but there are options to create a premium experience for a premium price.

The first and most popular option is to launch a Patreon for your podcast. Patreon is a website that allows anyone to convert the fans into members of an exclusive club. Members pay a monthly fee to support their favorite creators and gain access to rewards like exclusive content.

Creators on the platform can create their own fee structure, although premium plans on Patreon will take either 8% or 12% of your total earnings.

The Basement Yard is a great example of a successful podcast with a Patreon campaign. They have over 27k paid members across three different membership tiers at the time of writing this. Even if all of those members were only paying the lowest tier of $5 per month, that’s a massive $136,120 per month, minus fees from Patreon.

While some fans will be happy to pay a small amount just to support you, to really gain members on Patreon you have to offer something of value.

Below, you can see what The Basement Yard offers its Patreon members. The most basic plan includes getting podcast episodes a week early, while the higher plans include an exclusive, extra episode every week. They also offer discount codes on their merch to members.

For true fans, those perks make membership totally worth it. Invite podcast listeners to join the Patreon for your own podcast by mentioning it and its perks in your episodes.

Another way to create a fee structure is with premium subscriptions, such as with Apple Podcasts Subscriptions. This allows you to charge a monthly or yearly subscription fee and, in return, provide a premium tier of episodes, like ones without advertisements, or bonus episodes just for subscribers. Spotify also offers a similar paid subscription option.

Sell your own products

Creating and selling your own products is a common podcast revenue stream.

This could be as simple as creating fan merchandise — for example, t-shirts, mugs, and mouse pads with your logo, funny quotes from the show, or images of your hosts.

There are several ways to go about creating fan merchandise. First, there’s purpose-built services for merch such as TeePublic, Bonfire, or Teespring. On those sites, you upload your designs, choose products, and direct fans to the website to make a purchase. The website will take care of printing and shipping the goods, giving you a small percentage of the sale.

The You’re Wrong About podcast, for example, sells merchandise on TeePublic, including apparel and home goods.

A slightly more complex option is to create your own merchandise website with a provider like Shopify or BigCommerce and partner with a print-on-demand service, like Printify, Printful, or Gelato. Fans make the purchase through your website, but the print-on-demand provider prints the product and ships it. You can keep a higher percentage of the sale with this option, but only by a bit.

The most involved option is to create a merch website and produce and ship the goods yourself, either by printing at home or by buying your goods wholesale. This requires a much bigger investment up front, but you’ll keep more of the profits.

Basic fan merch is just one of many things you can sell. You could create a whole new product from scratch and launch a whole e-commerce venture, or you could sell digital goods like e-books, an online course, or downloadables. If you make it big in podcasting, you could even start selling podcast related services.

Like with affiliate marketing, you want to sell products that will resonate with your niche audience.

Promote your business

Perhaps you already have a business and the purpose of your podcast is to attract new clients or customers.

Podcasts are a great way to connect with customers, share your brand’s story, and attract new customers all at the same time.

If you’re a B2C or DTC business, your podcast is likely a branded podcast, a company podcast, or an enterprise podcast. Some very successful podcasts are in fact produced by brands, such as Trader Joe’s: Insider Trader Joes. It started in 2018 as a look behind the scenes at the grocery store, but is still going strong with 67 episodes plus bonus mini episodes.

For a B2B podcast, your goal is to attract and retain business clients, who tend to be savvy consumers that take much longer to complete the customer journey from awareness to conversion. Instead of launching right in with the hard sell, we recommend using your B2B podcast to share your expertise and take a deep dive into your industry.

A great example of this is HubSpot’s podcast network, which has 39 shows aimed at professionals.

Promoting your business with a podcast can add real value to your brand. According to the Future of Marketing newsletter, 42% of decision makers use podcasts to access business-related content. As well, organizations with branded podcasts reported 89% higher awareness and 57% higher brand consideration.

Finally, you can make extra income with your podcast by sharing and monetizing clips on social media.

While you can add waveforms and graphics to create clips from an audio-only podcast, these types of posts don't perform as well as actual video footage of people talking. That's why we highly recommend creation a video podcast. Most very successful podcasts record a video version and more and more, it's becoming table stakes for smaller shows as well.

For short-form clips, the best platform to upload to is TikTok. Although the TikTok Creator Program is sunsetting, the new TikTok Creativity Program rewards creators that post videos of at least one minute long to the platform. To join the program, you need to be in the US, be at least 18, and have at least 10,000 followers and at least 100,000 video views in the last 30 days.

The other place you can monetize videos of your podcast is on YouTube. Some creators upload clips, while others upload whole episodes. Either way, you can monetize these videos with AdSense and the YouTube Partner Program. This can actually boost your CPM for sponsored ads because you can add your YouTube views to your listener count.

Some of the most successful podcasts have larger audiences on YouTube than more traditional podcasting platforms. The Bad Friends podcast, for example, has 1.16 million YouTube subscribers.

How much do the highest paid podcasters make?

You’re probably wondering — how much do podcasters make when they’re actually successful? The answer is a lot. The highest-earning podcasts make millions per year and it typically comes down to how many listeners they have and what kind of brands they can attract.

Here’s a snapshot of the income top podcasters make:

The Bill Simmons podcast earned an estimated $7 million as of 2020
Joe Rogan’s deal with Spotify was reportedly worth over $200 million
My Favorite Murder reportedly earns $15 million annually and the Exactly Right Media podcasting network (owned and produced by the MFM hosts) was acquired for more than $100 million by Amazon.
Dax Shepard, host of Armchair Expert, was reported to have made $13 million in 2019

These are estimates of course, as podcasters don’t typically share their revenue details. But the general theme here is that a celebrity-sized podcast can earn quite a lot.

Temper your expectations for your own podcast, though. Podcastle estimates that average podcasts with 10,000 downloads per episode can earn from $500 to $900 per episode.

With a bit of work, you can definitely beat that. Jack Dodge, who we heard from earlier, said you can reasonably expect to earn $100 per 1,000 downloads or listens if you consistently have several ads per episode. His own podcast earned about $3,500 per episode.

Keep in mind that you may not get to keep all that money. Starting a podcast requires an investment in podcasting equipment and if you hire outside editors or producers, they’ll get a cut, too.

Diversify your podcast revenue

The big question was “how much do podcasters make?” and the answer is more complex than a simple estimate.

The truth is that a podcast can earn you nothing, to a few dollars, to a steady income, to millions in revenue. Podcasts make money based on listeners, so the more you can get, the higher you can aim for your podcast income.

The best way to make money podcasting is to diversify your revenue streams. Sponsorships will always be the highest earner and should be the pillar of your marketing and advertising strategies, but you can add on to that with affiliate sales, selling products or an online course, or promoting your business. Adding new podcast monetization methods increases the total you can earn.

And, of course, the best thing you can do is consistently publish new episodes and always create interesting podcast content.

Identify the best revenue streams for your unique show and see how much your podcast can earn.

Additional Resources:

How to Build a B2B Video Marketing Strategy (Plus and Inside Look at Our Own Video Strategy)

Meghan Crawford — Tue, 21 Nov 2023 21:36:17 GMT

There's been a lot of ink spilled on the importance of video in B2B marketing. We've added to discussion, too, and firmly believe video should play a significant role in every content team's strategy—and should even be the anchor medium for most teams.

But what does that actually look like?

Rather than offering armchair analysis, we're going to unpack our (current) use of video across our content marketing efforts. We'll share our goals with content, how video supports those goals, and the content mix we're currently using and why.

Transparent and practical examples are way more useful than abstract theory, but first, a quick disclaimer: We don't claim to have video fully figured out. We're students of great video marketing and just sharing what we've learned.

Do you really need a "strategy" for video?

This might seem like an obvious question to start with, but it's worth unpacking.

Video affects so many marketing efforts that some companies, especially larger ones, could hardly claim to have a unified "video strategy." In fact, according to HubSpot’s 2023 State of Marketing report, only 43% of companies feel they have a video strategy.

Of course, that’s not to say that the other 57% of companies aren’t making video. It's more that video tends to show up as part of the strategy for most marketing teams or initiatives, rather than its own initiative.

For content teams, this question is a bit more interesting. Content teams decide on formats based on their overall strategy, which is itself informed by things very unique to the business, like the customers they serve, the current marketing objectives, and so on.

Despite the (honestly, deserved!) hype around video, content teams should be cautious of leadership pressure to create a video strategy. This can lead to just creating video content for the sake of it, rather than to forward any specific marketing or business goals. Instead, we recommend creating a content strategy (or a broader marketing strategy) that outlines specifically where and how you’ll use video – and, perhaps more importantly, why video is the best medium for those purposes.

“We should do video” is maybe the worst reason to do video.

Building content strategy objectives with video at the forefront

That brings us to Kapwing.

To give you a peek behind the curtain, Kapwing doesn’t have a “video strategy.” Shocking, we know. We’re a video software company, after all!

Rather, Kapwing has a marketing strategy, mostly powered by content, much of which is video. It seems like a distinction that is mostly semantic, but we believe it’s an important difference because the strategy informs the content format, not the other way around.

And what we want our content to do is as important as where and how we distribute that content.

In our content strategy, for example, we rely on SEO and tools pages to capture existing demand. We know someone searching for “automatic subtitle generator” has a clear and present need for an auto-subtitler. They find our subtitler tool page and voilà, our product can meet the demand.

Because these pages are so effective at this job, we rely on video mostly to create demand, rather than capture it.

Here’s how we do that.

1. Start with a key narrative

Our content strategy is guided by Key Narratives that share Kapwing’s points of view on how video marketing works and where things are headed, things we want our prospects to believe about video creation.

We share these POVs for two main reasons.

We have unique, solid insight into the video creation industry and we believe that we can help content marketers be more successful with video.
We know that prospects who share our opinions about the industry or some specific video creation problem will more clearly see the value of our product.

2. Strategically distribute

Video is a great vehicle for these kinds of messages because it has some of the best reach of any content format currently. Nearly every social media channel is prioritizing video content, users are more likely to consume and share video content, and video is by far the most personable format, which is helpful when your goal is to change beliefs and behaviors.

We develop video content ideas that tie back to our key narratives and publish on multiple channels in multiple formats.

Here’s an example of how we’ve explored a single topic across multiple channels and mediums:

More on our specific content split in a moment, but you can see that one idea generates at least five separate pieces of content.

3. Measure and optimize reach

Platform-native video content is much harder to measure than something like paid search. It often weighs last touch attribution too heavily and gives a lot of the credit to Google. It’s the reason many marketers are leaning into the concept of dark social and looking for new methods of accurately analyzing and attributing reach and conversion.

At Kapwing, we rely on tools like self-reported attribution to determine where people are hearing about Kapwing first. We track our success by whether or not specific social or video channels grow or decline in their approximate contribution to Product Qualified Leads or signups that fit our ideal customer profile.

Kapwing's self-attribution survey for new users.

Of course, this isn’t a perfect way to measure success. You never want to rely too heavily on any metric that only accounts for one phase of the customer journey. Which is why we also look at more operational metrics, like social analytics.

Yes, views and impressions do matter, you just need to pair them with something deeper in the funnel.

With this mix, we can keep our finger on the pulse of how our content is performing and whether it’s driving the results we want to see. If something looks off, we adjust. If things look great, we double down.

B2B video marketing breakdown: the content mix we rely on

Let’s take a look at Kapwing’s own content mix as a case study for how to build a B2B content strategy around key narratives with video as the primary content engine.

Here are our 5 key content formats:

1. Video Podcast

We settled on creating a video podcast as the best way to unpack our key narratives and cover our points of view in depth. We also bring in outside perspectives with guests who add color and new view point to our take on things (and give us access to that valuable resource, OPA–other people’s audiences–when they share their featured episode on their own channels).

This podcast, The Shortcut, is our anchor medium: the content format where our big ideas make “first contact” with our audience. But that’s only one aspect of what an anchor medium does.

So, the show itself is just the beginning. We then lean heavily into

Content repurposing: pulling and resizing clips for social media, and
Content atomization: creating net-new content from the same ideas, but not the same exact footage or material.

Speaking of content atomization…

2. Atomized Editorial Content

This is technically a few different content formats in one, but the general idea and execution are the same. After exploring a topic on the podcast, we’ll turn it into several pieces of editorial content: a blog post for our Resources Library, an email for our newsletter, a takeaway post for social channels.

By doing this, we’re accomplishing a couple of things: 1) reaching audiences we might have missed with the podcast (some people still prefer blog posts!) and 2) ensuring that wherever you encounter Kapwing, you’re getting exposure to the same ideas.

In addition to the video content we repurpose for social from our anchor show, there are a few other formats we use for social channels.

For example, social media is a great platform for experiments. Make it for social first and then if it does well, make a long-form version. Jack Dodge, our Video Content Strategist, often runs experimental content on our Shorts, Reels, and TikTok channels.

Recently, as a bit of pre-marketing for the launch of Kapwing’s new AI text-to-speech voices, he created this video, to see if viewers could guess which voices were AI and which were our flesh-and-blood team members.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Kapwing (@kapwingapp)

There was no clear consensus among the commenters, which was a pleasant surprise. We actually included the video in our press release about the new feature as evidence pointing to the high quality of the voices.

Other social-first formats we create short-form video for include product demos, often to show off our new AI features, and explainer videos, distilling big ideas down into quick, bite-sized content.

4. Founder Brand

Another area where our key narratives get exposure is the personal LinkedIn account of Kapwing’s CEO and co-founder, Julia Enthoven.

Executive social media, or as we call it internally at Kapwing, Founder Brand, is a way to expand your brand’s audience. It’s well-documented how much extra reach a personal account on LinkedIn gets over a company page, but it still feels a little shocking when you look at the actual numbers.

We could spend hours and hundreds of dollars creating the best content for our company page and it would see a quarter of the views and engagement of a video our CEO made on her phone and posted to her page. Maybe less.

To capture some of this reach, we pitch Julia thought leadership topics, asking for her take and insights into the same ideas and narratives we unpack on other channels. We also set aside dedicated time to record videos of her talking through these topics. We’re lucky to have a hands-on founder with as much experience and insight into the industry as she has, so we absolutely leverage that wherever possible.

5. YouTube Product Videos

In addition to the channel where we host our video podcast, Kapwing also has another YouTube channel, used primarily for product videos: in-depth tutorials as well as product announcements.

With our tutorials, we try to solve for specific problems that we know users are searching for (capturing demand, not creating it). These videos typically sit at around the three to five minute mark and include detailed screen recordings to walk viewers through how to create audio waveforms or add automatic subtitles to a video.

For product announcements, we provide a clear product demo of the new feature as well as examples of common use cases.

We don’t just hit publish on YouTube and call it a day, though. Remember, these videos help capture demand, just like our tools pages. To add additional value to our tools pages (as well as help our pages surface on Google as video results in addition to the regular SERP), we embed many of our YouTube product videos onto product and tools pages across our website.

How to build your own B2B video strategy

If you feel compelled to have a solid “video strategy” for your B2B brand, consider incorporating it as a part of your content marketing strategy at large instead. You can even call that slide in the Google presentation “Video Strategy” if you need to.

The trick is to figure out what you’re trying to say, first, then decide where and how you want to say it. And, as you can see from the breakdown of our own content mix above, there are a million different ways to do video. Find the ways that are right for your brand – and your brand’s key narratives.

☝️ Check out the latest episode of our podcast for more insight into how Kapwing builds our B2B video marketing strategy.

How This 7-Figure Marketing Agency Grew Video Production 43% Using Kapwing

Meghan Crawford — Mon, 20 Nov 2023 21:35:22 GMT

Longhouse Media is one of Canada’s best marketing agencies – and they’re only getting better.

This team of 12 has earned awards like British Columbia Business’s 30 Under 30 and Young Entrepreneur of the Year thanks to their hard work and full-scale marketing services. With over 500 satisfied local, national, and international clients, Longhouse Media has optimized their team’s workflow and toolkit to create content that will achieve brands lasting results.

In a video-first world, delivering high-impact results requires an efficient video production workflow. With Kapwing, Longhouse Media has their clients’ video needs on lock, nearly doubling their video production in the past year.

Why Longhouse Media needed better video creation software

When social media shifted a few years ago to prioritize short-form video, the Longhouse Media team shifted, too. But the video editing software they were using for long-form content didn’t. They found the heavy-weight editing programs frustrating for creating short videos.

Because their software wasn’t built for social video, the team faced delays and bottlenecks. As a marketing agency, any delays your team faces get passed down to the client, which is why Longhouse decided to make a change.

“We didn’t want our team to be stuck editing content for so long,” says Tristan Taylor, Results Manager & Partnership Specialist at Longhouse.

Enter: Kapwing.

Longhouse Media was looking for a faster way to produce short-form video content. With Kapwing, they have been able to significantly improve their production speed and streamline their team’s collaboration process.

“We save so much time using Kapwing,” says Keenan Beavis, Founder at Longhouse Media.

“The platform improves the quality of our video content and makes it fast to keep everything on brand.”

As the team used Kapwing and got familiar with the editor, they quickly noticed a new opportunity: the ability to create more interesting and creative content with Kapwing's built-in features. They began to add custom captions to videos with the auto-subtitler, source photos and GIFs quickly with the integrated stock libraries, and customize colors and text to be completely on brand using Brand Kit.

All of these small wins added up to give Longhouse Media a competitive edge they didn’t have before.

Why Longhouse Media chose Kapwing

The team at Longhouse Media wanted to work smarter, not harder. When comparing Kapwing to other options, they found Kapwing’s user-friendly interface removed many standard video creation headaches, saving the team time and effort. And because the team was able to onboard quickly with the new software, Longhouse was confident in their ability to transition their workflow to Kapwing without any disruption to their clients.

In addition to being intuitive and easy to use, Kapwing is packed with a full suite of editing tools and templates. This versatility was crucial to the Longhouse team as they serve diverse clientele that all require different video content and styles.

The team was also impressed by Kapwing’s real-time collaboration features, something that was lacking in many of the other tools they’d considered.

Time is of the essence at any agency, and one area where Kapwing delivered for Longhouse was with our AI-powered smart tools. The team at Longhouse likes technology that’s always advancing and appreciates that Kapwing has made big moves to become a player in the AI video space. Not only that, the automation of certain tasks, like subtitling and trimming, has been a game changer for the marketing agency. Cutting down editing time with Kapwing’s automations, the team has been able to focus more on the creative aspects of content production.

How Kapwing helped Longhouse Media grow their business

Since switching to Kapwing, the video production side of Longhouse Media has grown by 43% and their overall business by 22%.

The Longhouse team told us there are three key ways using Kapwing has helped them achieve these results:

Using Kapwing has provided Longhouse Media with a better way to create short-form videos for Reels, TikTok, and YouTube Shorts. This means more opportunity for their clients’ to go viral and grow their businesses with organic content.

Having an efficient, powerful video creation tool has also boosted Longhouse Media’s digital advertising offerings, since short-form videos perform great as ads, as well.

And speaking of ads…

2. Kapwing simplifies the process of creating great ads

Not only has Longhouse Media improved their video content creation for their clients, they’ve also leveled up their own marketing.

With Kapwing, the team has been making more high-quality advertising assets to earn new customers. Their new, efficient video creation workflow means they don’t have to sacrifice client work bandwidth to create snappy, short-form ads like this:

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3. Kapwing speeds up video creation

With Kapwing, the Longhouse team saves time and effort editing so they can focus on telling great stories for their clients and growing their business.

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Testimonial from a satisfied Longhouse customer, made

“Because of Kapwing, our partners are even more happy with our video production service,” says Simran Rai, Results Manager at Longhouse Media. “And I save time that I can put into other aspects of growing Longhouse, like writing scripts for our social media content.”

Other ways the Longhouse team spends their newly found time since using Kapwing include:

Increasing the quality of clients’ video projects through strategy, storyboarding, and filming.
Optimizing Longhouse’s business processes and systems for internal efficiency.
Scaling their client base, so they can serve more customers and grow their business.

Longhouse Media’s goal has always been simple: to work alongside their clients to ensure they achieve lasting results. Now, with Kapwing, Longhouse is able to meet that goal more efficiently and scale their video production services with ease.

“We’re going to keep growing our marketing agency by telling great stories,” says Longhouse Media Founder, Keenan Beavis. “Having a tool like Kapwing in our corner makes growing businesses easier and we’re reminded of that every day.”

The 3 Fears that Stop Marketers from Creating Video

Lauren Khoo — Fri, 17 Nov 2023 19:34:28 GMT

Video is the modern marketing medium. Most social media platforms are prioritizing it, SEO platforms are ranking video results more highly, users prefer to watch videos over other forms of content. We've talked about video-first content strategies and how to maximize your video content with repurposing here on our channels, too.

Yet, despite knowing that video is still on the rise, 43% of companies still say they don't have a dedicated video strategy.

To get a better understanding of why that is, we asked marketing professionals what’s stopping them from creating more video?

While the typical "business reasons" often came up, like budget or resourcing, it was just as common to hear about a marketer's personal fears or reservations when explaining why they don't invest more in video. In fact, the biggest fears we found were:

"I have nothing insightful to say."
"I don't want to appear on camera."
"I'm not a video editor."

In this article, we're going to address where these reservations come from and what marketers can do to get more comfortable with creating video.

Fear #1: I have nothing insightful to say in a video.

There is a lot of content out there. Because of that, as marketers, there is sometimes the worry that you’re adding to the noise instead of saying something insightful or new.

This worry rears its head in a big way when marketers are creating thought leadership content. But the fear is acute with video for any content format because being on screen and saying nothing of substance feels like being on stage and forgetting your lines. There's just something about being on camera and lacking good talking points that feels especially embarrassing.

Tips for coming up with video content ideas

The first step to feeling confident enough in your message to share it on video is to realize that this blocker is really a mental one.

Yes, there are tactical things you can do to help (which we'll cover), but that won't matter until you internalize this idea that your personal experiences, points of view, and vantage points on certain problems all combine to create opinions that other people want to hear.

It's not about having a single, novel idea. It's about taking good ideas and adding your personal experiences to them.

One way to address this is to think about "prompts" instead of ideas.

Prompts are moments in time that you naturally encounter in your work that might make for helpful content for other people. Diana Smith, a product marketing leader at HashiCorp, shared a short list of prompts that we really liked. They’re quick questions to ask yourself and your team to help spark great content ideas.

Diana Smith's content prompts

You can sit down and ask yourself these questions in a brainstorming session, but it’s also helpful to make mental notes whenever you encounter these moments in your daily work. You can even keep a digital (or physical!) notebook to log your ideas.

To help your ideas feel sharp and snappy for video, we recommend rewriting them as a script. Modern video creation software like Kapwing includes AI-powered scriptwriting tools, which can be helpful when you have a brain dump document full of ideas but need help turning them into something usable. AI can take your concepts and generate a script that feels more natural as spoken dialogue.

More quick tips for scriptwriting:

Read it out loud. Does it sound natural? Try changing it to sound more like how you’d talk to a friend or colleague.
Try an outline, instead of a full script. The more comfortable you get on camera, the less scripting you’ll need. Make sure you have your main points down, but if you know the topic well, you’ll be able to speak confidently on it.
Tie it back to your POV. What do you (or your company) believe about your topic/industry? Your video will feel more engaging and authentic if you provide evidence supporting that point of view.

Fear #2: I don't want to appear on camera.

Let's not beat around the bush: Many people feel anxious about their appearance on camera, and that issue crops up in video marketing, too.

Add to that, lots of content marketers come from an editorial background and grow a comfort or at least a preference for staying off camera where their on-screen appearance, speaking patterns, or recording space don't play a role in the content—just their ideas do. That can be a hard pattern to change.

Tips for getting more comfortable in front of a camera

While it’s definitely nerve-racking, there are a few things to keep in mind that should help.

1. If it’s not live, you’re in complete control.

Say things as many times as you need, say it in different ways, reshoot it if you have to! The stakes are not as high as they feel.

2. Fix it in post.

There’s a lot you can do with the magic of video editing – add overlays, title cards, b-roll, and more to cover up any weird jump cuts where you may have had to cut three different takes together to get it right.

Our video expert here at Kapwing, Jack Dodge, uses jump cuts all the time to make polished, professional videos for all our channels. “In most videos, I go sentence by sentence,” he says, “looking at the camera and speaking into the camera, and then I look down and study the next line. Jump cuts are ok and expected.”

3. Practice makes perfect.

Being on camera is like building muscle. No matter how painful it might seem at first, the more you exercise that muscle, the easier it gets over time.

4. Follow the 80/20 rule.

The Pareto Principle says that 20% of your effort results in 80% of the outcome. That’s certainly true for video. There’s a small set of things you can do that make the most difference.

Let’s unpack that a bit.

A quick getting started guide for looking good on camera

There’s no need to obsess over expensive gear or hyper-optimizing your setup when you’re just getting started. If you get the following things right, you’ll look more polished than 90% of marketing videos:

1. Audio quality.

According to Jack, good audio is more important than video quality. “If you sound good, I think you fool people into thinking the quality of the video is better, too, and it affirms that what you’re saying is important because the sound is clear and people want to listen to you.”

You don’t need the most expensive mic to achieve good audio quality. There are a few different tiers of microphone we’d recommend:

Lapel mics. You can grab one of these online starting around $15.
USB mics. Something like a Yeti will run you around $100 - $130.
XLR mics. These can range wildly in price, but a nice one from Shure is around $400.

Post processing can also help increase audio quality. Kapwing has a Clean Audio tool just for this purpose. There are also others, like Adobe’s Audio Enhancer and Reaper’s ReaFIR plugin. Explore editing tricks like these to polish up your videos’ sound.

2. Video quality.

You already have an amazing camera, probably sitting on your desk or in your pocket right now (or maybe you’re reading this article on it). Yes, your phone.

Smartphone cameras have great resolution and capture high quality video. With tools like the Continuity Camera mount from Apple or even just a regular tripod, you can connect your phone to your computer for streaming and recording. This is especially true for short-form video. These platforms were built with the expectation that you'd be taking and posting video with your phone.

Most importantly? Don’t use the built-in Macbook webcam. Just… don’t.

3. Lighting.

Indirect, natural light is best for video recording. We recommend choosing a room with several windows for your recording set up. But if natural light is in short supply, which is often true during winter, you can substitute with other lighting.

A ring light is good to have on hand for this sort of thing. You can buy one online at almost any price point, starting from very budget-friendly to more expensive, which are typically more powerful and have more settings. It’s a worthwhile investment, as you’ll use this over and over.

4. Basic editing.

You don’t have to take night classes and get a secondary degree in motion graphics or animation, but spending time learning some video editing basics will improve your videos’ quality by leaps and bounds.

In particular, we recommend learning how to add title cards for scene changes, add jump cuts to cover any flubbed takes, and add some dynamic visuals with zoom cuts to punch in and out with timing.

Fear #3 "I'm not a video editor/producer."

Scroll through any social platform and you're sure to see at least a few highly-polished and meticulously edited videos—the kind of videos that make post-production seem impossible for the average person. The editors behind these videos are certainly impressive, but is that level of wow factor production needed for marketing?

And does that sky-high production quality really correlate 1:1 with a video's impact?

We’re not convinced it does.

Don’t let the fear of not creating the best, most high-production value video stop you from creating anything at all.

Tips for getting started editing videos

In marketing, it’s more important that the video production is good and the content itself is great. You make great content by tackling a tough problem or valuable idea, packing it with insights so that busy viewers can get value from it right away. Not by adding motion graphics or cool transitions (although we like those!).

Most edits, outside of making your content snappier or more accessible, are superfluous.

The most basic edits are still the ones that hold up the best: jump cuts, moving zooms or the Ken Burns effect, adding text or overlays, and adding music can completely change the pace of videos. And the best part is, these are all tools you can learn in no time, especially as video editing software gets more intuitive and user-friendly.

Rough cuts have gotten so much easier, thanks to text-based video editing. Our own marketing team uses this feature all the time. When you can draw a line around the content you want from your footage without ever having to touch the timeline editor, it makes the process 10x faster and smoother.

At the end of the day, your videos don’t need to be super polished.

There are some basic edits that are important and we’ve built Kapwing to make applying those pieces automatic and intuitive. But really, the video is about the story or the script. If you’re sharing an authentic experience and real insights, that comes through and makes for engaging video. And if you use the tips from the first two sections of this article, your final video shouldn’t need too much editing anyway.

We believe marketers should feel empowered to lean into video creation right now. Even though all these fears are valid, they’re not insurmountable. And the payoff is really great.

☝ Catch this episode of the our podcast to hear our Video Content Strategist, Jack Dodge, and our Head of Product, Lauren Khoo, dive into this topic even further and share their own tips and advice for getting started with video.

How to Grow Your Business with Thought Leadership

Meghan Crawford — Wed, 15 Nov 2023 21:34:00 GMT

Thought leadership is often pitched as a cure-all tonic to every content marketing woe.

Influencing your customers toward the right outcomes is obviously an important part of marketing, but most thought leadership is more concerned with being flashy and impressive than it is with being convincing. Or, if it is convincing, it might convince prospects of things that just don’t matter in the end—at least not for the company that spent the time and money producing the content.

Hot takes are great, but only if they actually serve a purpose.

In this article, we’ll take a look at how you can avoid these traps and approach thought leadership in a simple, direct way that will actually help grow your business (not just your LinkedIn following).

First, though, what is thought leadership?

Watch our podcast episode to get the full scoop ☝️

We're not talking about 50-slide carousels on LinkedIn that over promise and under deliver.

Instead, think of thought leadership as content that tries to influence people to change their behavior in a way that benefits them, yes, but that is also good for your business. Thought leadership content can vary in terms of production quality, execution, and medium, but the high level goal should always be the same.

You’re convincing your prospects and customers of your company’s unique point of view, often by leveraging experts within your organization or industry to lend authority to the message. If done correctly, you’ve primed your audience to be better customers, with higher conversion and retention rates.

What does most thought leadership get wrong

One of the most common mistakes we see in thought leadership programs is that they fail to consider their end user, the customer, when developing the topics and themes they want to speak on.

It’s not just about demonstrating expertise on some topics you feel strongly about. At least, for brands it’s not. That might be successful for entrepreneurs with personal brands who plan to monetize with courses or coaching down the line. But for companies, it all begins with the customer.

Our framework for better thought leadership content

The “goal” of all thought leadership content should start by assuming success.

Let's assume a prospect does stick around and listen to all (or most) of what you have to say. What should change from before they started, to after?

To help you answer that question, we recommend following this three-part framework.

1. Create a shared point of view

Exposure to thought leadership content should create a shared point of view between you and your audience.

Over time, customers or prospects who are reading or watching what you produce should share your beliefs about email marketing, project management, password security, or whatever it is that you’re creating content about.

Perhaps they see it first through a blog post, then a video series, then a weekly thread of LinkedIn posts from your founder. With this change in belief should come a change in behavior.

Here at Kapwing, for example, we believe very deeply in video being a driving factor for content strategy. So, we produce content that aligns with that belief and explains why we’re so convicted. Then, we atomize that content so that it appears everywhere that we have an online presence: our company blog, our YouTube channels, our social media accounts, email marketing, even on our founder’s personal social accounts.

As an example, take a look at all of the different pieces of thought leadership content we produced on the single topic of branded streaming platforms:

One idea, multiple pieces of thought leadership content

Of course, we can’t say that we’re successful until we see behavior changes – marketing professionals pitching video strategies for the first time, more video podcasts popping up on our feeds, more people considering using video as their anchor medium. But that’s true for any thought leadership program.

Which leads us to the second goal of our thought leadership framework.

2. Create stronger-fit customers for your product

If you can affect a change in people's beliefs and behavior, you are making them better prospects for your business.

Kathy Sierra talks about this in her book Badass: Making Users Awesome. It’s always easier to sell a product to a customer who’s already bought the problem. They should believe that there’s some opportunity that they don’t have yet.

Good thought leadership is about getting users to that point. Then your product will start to look like the obvious solution.

3. Create context around the problem and solution

Finally, thought leadership should provide context for your prospects.

It’s hard to care about an isolated problem without seeing the bigger picture of how it fits into the current industry landscape. Give users a sense of the stakes and an understanding of where things are headed and why that matters. Give them evidence so that they know they’re not just getting marketing messages from a company with an agenda and a biased point of view.

Data is an excellent tool for providing this sort of context and proof.

If your audience is asking, “ok, but why should I care?” after engaging with your thought leadership content, there’s not enough context.

Thought leadership with commercial intent must persuade the reader in such a way that it either makes profitable customer action come easier or more fruitful. Otherwise, you might impress and influence people but create no connection to your product.

And that's the job of marketing: to connect customers with products.

So, now that you have this framework to start from, it’s time to decide what to talk about, aka choose your thought leadership narrative(s).

How to pick thought leadership narratives

Firstly, marketing narratives need to either start with or get buy-in all the way up. Marketing must tie-back to the product you're actually building, so all of these pointed thoughts mean little if they aren't reflected in the product.

When developing thought leadership topics and themes to come back to, there are three areas to look at:

1. What's changing:

What changes are happening in the space/market?
What old approach is losing its luster?
What are new or nascent concepts sprouting up?

2. What's wrong:

What's a best practice that's anything but?
What's a frequently misunderstood (but important) concept or strategy?
Where are people causing themselves undue misery?

3. What's the idea/future look like:

Once we apply the "new way," what's better?
What will we never go back to?

If your thought leadership addresses these questions and ties the answers back to your product, you’re on the right track. Remember, though, the third pillar of the thought leadership framework is to create context.

Avoid publishing hot takes in a vacuum by mapping all of your points to:

Evidence that proves these things are true (data, examples, personal experience)
Evidence your product meets these changes (better than the competition)

Remain open to customer and prospect feedback

Sometimes, even our most educated guesses as marketers fall short of the mark.

So, trust your instincts when developing your topics and themes, but stay open to customer and prospect feedback, too. A modified OODA loop works well for defining thought leadership narratives:

Observe: Look at what's happening in your product's industry/vertical.
Orient: Form your points of view based on what you see.
Act: Create your narratives and test content ideas.
Assess: Listen to both current customers and incoming prospects for feedback.

By keeping your customer at the center of your thought leadership program and supporting your claims with evidence and proof, you’ll be able to build strong, well-supported narratives.

The era of LinkedIn threads full of hot takes that are actually lukewarm is (hopefully) behind us. Thought leadership that actually earns customers is compelling, convincing, and customer-focused.

Why B2B Influencer Marketing Is On The Rise (With Examples)

Lauren Strapagiel — Tue, 14 Nov 2023 19:29:32 GMT

Influencer marketing has become a staple of DTC customer marketing. You’d be hard pressed to find a brand — whether they sell beauty products, electronics, home goods, or really anything else — that doesn’t work with influencers.

Influencer marketing is when a brand partners with a well-known online creator (someone who’s influential, you could even say!) and has them promote their brand or product in some way. In DTC, that could look like a famous beauty TikToker being paid by Dior to make content about their newest lipstick.

@theoliviasaurusrex dior beauty have released a glittery version of their rouge dior forever liquid transfer proof liquid lipstick 🤌🏻. this is the 999 sequin shade and it was £39 from the dior uk website ☺️. #rougediorforevertransferprooflipstick #diortransferproof #glitterylipstick #partyseasonmakeup #transferprooflipstick #highendbeauty #highendbeautyreview #diorbeauty #luxurybeauty #luxurymakeupreview ♬ original sound - olivia ancell

The end result typically gets posted to social media platforms, but it could also be used in paid ads or content marketing.

Increasingly, B2B marketers are catching up to DTC and engaging in influencer marketing themselves. According to TopRank’s B2B Influencer Marketing Report, 94% of marketers believe influencer marketing is a successful strategy for B2B brands. They also found that while only 34% of B2B marketers used influencer marketing in 2020, that number ballooned to 85% in 2023.

Why are so many B2B brands trying influencer marketing?

While DTC and B2B influencer marketing can look a little different, the benefits are very similar.

First, people generally trust recommendations from influencers. In the past, people may have turned to family, friends, and colleagues to discover new products and services. Now, influencers have replaced that word of mouth marketing in many ways. This is especially true among younger consumers. Consider that half of millennials trust product recommendations from influencers, but only 38% said the same about celebrities. As well, 33% Gen Z consumers polled have bought a product based on an influencer’s recommendation in the last month.

The reason people trust influencers is that they carry authenticity. Whether they’re being paid or not, influencers live and breathe the lifestyle related to the products they’re recommending. That’s just as true of a parenting influencer talking about children’s toys as a successful entrepreneur talking about their favorite video editing tool.

It works in DTC, and it works in B2B, too. Your customers are simply going to trust a person more than the company line.

Influencer marketing is also a human-first type of marketing. It considers the needs and desires of the people engaging with your marketing, and that matters. Even though as a B2B company your customer is other companies, it’s the humans at those companies who ultimately make decisions.

As well, influencer campaigns make excellent fodder for your video marketing efforts. Marketing has become increasingly video-first and a report from Wyzowl found that 91% of businesses used video as a marketing tool in 2023, up from 86% in 2022. And, according to Livestream, 80% of people would rather watch a live video from a brand than read a blog post. Whether short-form, long-form, or going live with a webinar or conference, B2B marketers have just as much reason to focus on video as DTC marketers.

Finally, perhaps the biggest benefit of working with influencers is that it gives you access to the audience they’ve built. That means reaching a highly-engaged target audience that may not have even heard of your brand before.

With all that in mind, it only makes sense that B2B marketers are turning to influencer marketing as a method for boosting brand awareness and beefing up their social media marketing.

Here, we’ll explore how B2B influencer marketing differs from DTC, some examples of B2B influencer marketing, exactly why B2B brands are getting in on this trend, and some tips for building your own influencer marketing strategy.

What is B2B influencer marketing and how is it different?

When you think of influencer marketing, you probably think first of the lipstick example above. B2B influencer marketing is similar, but with a few key differences.

First, B2B influencers look a little different.

You’re not going to tap a famous TikTok dancer to sell your product or service. Instead, you’re looking for professionals who are influential in their industry. They’ll be people who have a sizable following and engagement rate on social media platforms, whether that’s X, LinkedIn, or YouTube. Or maybe they have a podcast that’s rising in the charts or their newsletter does numbers.

Whatever their medium, the ideal B2B influencer is someone that people follow because they have industry-specific expertise, give great advice, and have a proven track record of success. Whereas a DTC influencer may be selling a lifestyle, a B2B influencer sells success and experience.

You’re looking for an influencer who’s in a position to actually use your product or service. For example, if you’re an e-commerce platform, you’d look for people who have successfully created their own e-commerce brands and have developed a following because of it. If you could call this person a thought leader in your industry, they’re a prime candidate for a B2B influencer marketing campaign.

The target of B2B influencer marketing is also different.

A DTC influencer marketing campaign is aiming to convert a single person into a customer, whereas a B2B campaign must win over multiple stakeholders within the target company they want to convert into a customer. B2B marketing is also more niche. Rather than a broad target audience of consumers, you’ll be zeroing in on a specific target market.

Where these marketing campaigns end up also differs. A DTC marketing campaign demands a wide audience. In the B2B world, you’ll see that LinkedIn posts, email campaigns, blog posts (including guest blog posts), webinars, podcasts, and even events are much more likely destinations for influencer marketing. However, you don’t want to overlook the growing B2B community on TikTok and Instagram, which we’ll see below.

Examples of B2B influencer marketing

Let’s take a look at some examples of B2B influencer marketing to highlight what makes them unique from DTC marketing campaigns.

Here’s an example from Nik Sharma. He’s known in the e-commerce world as “The DTC Guy” and has founded multiple successful companies in the space. He boasts 166,800 followers on X plus 39,000 followers on LinkedIn. He’s done all sorts of e-commerce podcasts, webinars, and events and is a go-to e-commerce influencer.

He recently posted this thread on X sharing what he’s heard from DTC business founders about the importance of cash flow. It’s an insightful 11-part thread with genuine insight on the topic.

At the end, he reveals it was an #ad for Parker, a credit card made for e-commerce brands.

It ends with a call to action to sign up for the service and earn a gift card to boot.

As you can see, this campaign isn’t meant to target a general audience, but rather Sharma’s own audience of e-commerce entrepreneurs. This also isn’t just a simple promotion — Sharma used his connections and expertise to offer valuable information, which will catch the attention of his followers and lead them to the eventual ad placement. All of that makes this campaign very effective.

Here’s another example, this time from TikTok. Brand Nat is a business-focussed creator who posts content about using AI automation. She has 235,700 followers on TikTok, plus more on LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram.

Here, she partnered with Active Campaign, a CX automation tool, to make this TikTok.

@brandnat Never cold call again using the best automation tool out there for b2b sales! @ActiveCampaign #activecampaignpartner #activecampaign #b2bsales #b2b #businesstips #businessautomation #aiautomation #brandnat #nataliechoprasert #emailmarketing #ad ♬ Epic Music(863502) - Draganov89

She’s a trusted voice in automation and tells viewers that this saved her a ton of time with following up on leads via email. She walks viewers through how to install and use the tool, and highlights its AI features.

Both of these B2B influencer marketing examples work well because the brands chose to work with influencers who have expertise in their niche. Those brands now have access to the audience each influencer has built, which again is a major benefit of influencer marketing.

Why are B2B brands starting to invest in influencer marketing?

We’ve looked at the “what,” so now let’s take a deeper look at the “why” of B2B influencer marketing.

First, some numbers.

Going back to TopRank’s report, 61% of brands with an extensive influencer marketing program saw increased sales revenue. As well, 58% said it improved brand reputation, 47% said it improved brand advocacy, and 47% said it improved customer retention.

And marketers who had substantially invested in influencer marketing said for every $1 spent on, they saw $5.20 in returns.

You need faces for your video marketing

The rise of video marketing is a very compelling reason to work with influencers as a B2B company.

We mentioned above that marketers are increasingly turning to video as a pillar of their campaigns, but it’s not just a trend — it’s a smart business move. According to Wyzowl, 92% of marketers reported a positive return on investment from using video, and more of them said that in 2023 than any other year. As well, 70% of marketers who weren’t using video planned to start in 2023.

Video can take many forms, from graphics to animations, but if you really want a video campaign to have impact, you need people. In fact, that’s backed up by science. Our brains are hardwired to be drawn to faces. We actually seek out and look at faces as newborns. Seeing another human builds trust and an emotional connection, and that extends to when we’re watching videos.

You need faces for your videos and that’s where influencer marketing can come in. You want to showcase people who are confident on camera and can deliver your message with confidence. You might have all kinds of expertise among your employees, but being in front of a camera may not be one of them.

Plus, commissioning one video means you can resize the video for other platforms.

Here’s an example of an influencer marketing video from Figma, a collaborative design tool whose main user base is other companies. For this video, they had employees of Yeti on camera to talk about how they use Figma in their work.

The video walks through how Figma helped Yeti solve a problem. Figma also posts plenty of tutorials and other content on their YouTube page, but nothing is quite as engaging as seeing and hearing from people who have used the product with success.

Access a new audience

Influencers come with a built-in audience, and by working with them for a B2B influencer marketing campaign, you can gain access to it.

The best thing about these new audiences is that they’ll be primed to buy your products or services. People who follow influencers do so because they create content around a particular topic or niche. That’s incredibly valuable. When you post organically to your own channels, you can use hashtags and keywords to find your target audience, but an influencer will already have them on lock.

If, for example, your product is a video editing tool (like Kapwing!), a video production influencer will already have an audience of followers who are keen to learn tips about video editing.

Check out this TikTok example from Adobe. Here, the brand worked with @sara.and.misc, a graphic designer. Adobe partners with artists all the time, but in this TikTok, they’re zeroing in on a more B2B-focused use case for one of their tools. Sara shows how she uses Adobe Illustrator to create product packaging with a UGC-style video.

@sara.and.misc My 3 quick tips to creating packaging design with Generative Recolor (beta) in @Adobe Illustrator. ☀️#AdobePartner #AdobeFirefly #AdobeIllustrator #graphicdesign ♬ original sound - Sara

Her following consists of many other graphic design professionals who will be keen to learn about new features to help them do their work. By partnering with Sara, Adobe now has access to them.

Extend your reach

If you want to grow your own channels on social media, B2B influencer marketing can help.

By tagging you in a post, your social media profiles will be exposed to a new audience, potentially gaining you new followers that could one day turn into customers.

Some platforms have even streamlined this, like on Instagram. When two accounts partner on the platform, content is shared to both account’s followers.

For influencers, especially micro-influencers, working with a brand is also an opportunity to grow their own following. Either way, it’s a win-win.

Humanize your brand

B2B brands have traditionally been faceless. It’s a more conservative space than DTC. It even has a reputation for being a bit boring. But that’s all changing.

The biggest trend in B2B marketing is that it’s looking more and more like DTC marketing. Rather than being buttoned-up and dry, B2B marketers are leaning more into storytelling, showcasing their values, and being more personable.

A great way to do that is by leveraging actual people, rather than just charts and words. Influencer marketing humanizes your brand by showcasing your offerings with real life examples.

Here’s an example from SurveyMonkey. They worked with Nico Rojas, a brand strategist with 381,000 TikTok followers, to make this TikTok.

@iamnicorojas Want to know how to keep your customers coming back? 🤯 #JustAsk them with @SurveyMonkey and see what they really want from your brand! #SurveyMonkeyPartner #SurveyMonkey #brandstrategy101 #brandstrategy #smallbusinesstips ♬ Aesthetic - Tollan Kim

Rather than just a faceless tool, using an influencer shows how SurveyMonkey is used by real business owners, and that’s powerful.

How to get started with B2B influencer marketing

Creating a B2B influencer marketing campaign is similar to creating a DTC campaign, but more refined. Your target is more niche, but the steps to follow are the same.

1. Decide your content formats

The first thing to decide is what sort of content you want to make for the influencer campaign.

Some options to consider include:

Host a webinar or other streaming video
Make a podcast
Create a LinkedIn video or post
Create a YouTube video
Create a TikTok
Write a blog post or commission a guest blog post
Sponsor a thread on X
Host a live event
Create an Instagram post or video

Whatever you pick, consider where your customers are.

This can vary by industry, so also look at where your own accounts are receiving the most engagement. Remember that engagement is more important than reach for B2B marketing. It’s better to reach just a handful of customers with a high potential to convert than a million people who have no interest in what you offer.

2. Choose influencers to work with

Now is the fun part — who do you want to work with? This will partly be influenced by what form of content you’re hoping to create. You want to work with someone who has a large following where the piece of content will end up. You don’t want a TikTok creator writing a post for you on LinkedIn.

This part can also be hard. According to that TopRank report, 53% of B2B marketers said identifying and engaging with ideal influencers was the most challenging part of running an influencer campaign.

These are the types of potential influencers you want to look for:

Industry experts who can boost content with deep industry knowledge
Your own top customers
Internal employees who have built a significant following
Content creators who specialize in your niche

If you have people who meet one or more of these criteria in your existing network, reach out to them and propose a partnership. You can also seek out influencers on social media platforms or other research and cold email or DM them, although that might prove less effective.

One tried and true (but more expensive) method is working with an influencer marketing agency or an influencer marketing platform, which connects brands to influencers. Remember that the best influencer marketing platform in general might not be the best influencer marketing platform for you. Look for one that specializes in B2B influencers.

An experienced influencer will also be able to provide you with statistics on their engagement and reach, that should help you narrow down your options to the right choice.

3. Craft a campaign

There’s a lot that goes into striking an influencer marketing deal, but the basic overview is that you want to make a written agreement that clearly outlines the content the influencer will create and how they will be compensated.

That should include how many posts will be created, where they’ll be posted, and how you can reuse that content.

Keep in mind that rates may vary compared to DTC marketing. If you’re hiring an influencer for written content marketing, they might charge by the word. A B2B influencer may also charge based on the value and engagement of their audience, rather than just their number of followers.

4. Measure the results

Once you’ve launched a B2B influencer marketing campaign, you need to find out if it was effective.

This will vary based on what type of content was created and what your goals were for the campaign. It could be your looking for video views, new followers, or new customers. Successful influencer programs should give you the results you’re looking for. If you got views, but not the new customers you wanted, it’s time to go back to the first step.

Launch your first B2B influencer marketing campaign

The potential benefits of integrating influencer marketing into your overall marketing strategy are immense.

A good influencer marketing strategy seeks out influencers who are aligned with your brand and will deliver results. The most successful influencer programs are the ones that understand who will resonate most with your potential customers.

As B2B influencer marketing becomes more and more popular, you’ll soon find yourself falling behind if you don’t incorporate influencers into your marketing strategies.

Realistic AI Voice Overs Just Launched in Kapwing

Meghan Crawford — Tue, 07 Nov 2023 17:04:27 GMT

Text-to-speech has already become a significant part of many teams’ workflows, saving them time and money by replacing recorded voice overs. Now, with more realistic, human-sounding voices, it’s an even more powerful tool.

We’re thrilled to be bringing these new AI voices directly to video creators in Kapwing, with tech powered by ElevenLabs.

How has text-to-speech changed?

If you haven’t checked out text-to-speech tech in the last few months, you might be surprised by just how good it’s gotten.

In fact, we recently ran a quick experiment where we recorded the voices of our marketing team and played them alongside a single AI-generated voice. We asked our followers a simple question: Which voice was AI?

Commenters were all over the place. Some held fierce conviction that the (real) voices from our team must be AI; others asserted that, in fact, every voice was a human. One thing was for sure: AI voices now sound so natural that it's hard to tell the difference.

Realistic, high-quality text-to-speech voices

We’ve added high-quality, realistic voices across 9 languages into our existing text-to-speech feature, built on ElevenLabs’ powerful speech API.

ElevenLabs is at the forefront of exciting new developments in realistic text-to-speech; their research powers the natural human-like tones and speaking cadences of the new AI voices we’ve added to Kapwing:

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Save time with AI voice overs

Recording voice overs manually takes more time and effort than it should – getting the audio levels just right, getting through the script without flubbing a take, getting last minute changes to the script that mean rerecording the whole thing. And that’s before you get to the editing process, removing filler words and background noise.

Text-to-speech lets you skip all that.

Kapwing’s newly-available AI voices allow you to convert a script or document into a video without ever having to press record.

With professional-sounding text-to-speech, you can:

Create engaging social media videos
Create polished, engaging video ads
Add consistent voice overs to new training videos
Update old training videos, instead of rerecording

Reach new audiences with translated voice overs

Only 5% of the global population are native English speakers, which is why localization becomes pivotal for scaling the reach of your content With AI-powered voice overs, you can confidently convert your videos for global audiences sooner than you thought possible.

In addition to three English accents (US, UK, and Australian), Kapwing now offers premium text-to-speech voices across eight other languages: Arabic, French, German, Hindi, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, and Spanish (both Castilian and Mexican).

Here's a sample using one of the new Italian voices:

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Translate your video script or voiceover transcript to one of our supported languages, then let our text-to-speech tool handle the rest.

Finish editing your video all in one place

Just like our other AI-powered tools, these new AI voices are integrated right into the Kapwing editor. After creating your AI voice over, fine-tune the rest of your video with a full video creation suite at your fingertips.

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Get better AI-generated voice overs

Voice overs have always been integral to creating great videos; they literally give voice to your ideas. Text-to-speech voices have made it easier than ever to create those voice overs. But up until recently, they haven’t been very convincing. You knew you were listening to an AI voice over.

Now, truly realistic voices are just a few keystrokes away – right from the place where you already make your videos.

The new voices are live in Kapwing now; give them a try.

Why Marketers Should Be Repurposing Their Content

Lauren Strapagiel — Mon, 06 Nov 2023 23:25:00 GMT

As a marketer, you spend a whole lot of time and effort creating content, whether that’s videos, social media posts, or written content. For all the work, you want that content to stretch as far as possible.

That’s where content repurposing comes in. Content repurposing is taking existing content, whatever form it’s in, and reusing it across multiple platforms for multiple purposes. This is sometimes also referred to as content atomization and it should be a standard part of your content strategy.

That could look like repurposing video content by cutting a long-form YouTube video into short segments for TikTok, or turning a blog post into a series of infographics, or flipping a thought leadership post on LinkedIn into a script to become a video, or even simply translating a video for an audience in a different market.

The biggest benefit of content repurposing is that your content’s lifespan is expanded, creating a better return on investment for each video, blog, or post. It saves the effort and expense required to make a totally new piece of content each time you want to post something fresh to a channel or your website.

Let’s take a closer look at why content repurposing is so popular among marketers, why video is a particular area of emphasis, some ideas for how you repurpose your own content as part of your own content marketing strategy, as well as plenty of content repurposing statistics.

Why content repurposing is so hot right now, with content repurposing statistics

If you’re looking for creative ways to get more value out of existing content, you’re in good company. According to a survey from ReferralRock, 94% of marketers they asked had repurposed content for different channels and mediums. And that 6% that isn’t already repurposing content? Well, they’re actively thinking about doing it in the future.

There are a few reasons why content repurposing is a winning marketing strategy and a part of content creation for most marketers.

The rise of video

A huge reason why marketers are so interested in content repurposing is the meteoric rise of video on the internet. Video is now a non-negotiable pillar of any good marketing strategy.

Consider that a staggering 82% of global internet traffic came from video in 2022, according to Cisco. As well, people consume an average of 17 hours of online video every week. Add to that the fact that in 2023, 91% of people said they wanted to see more online videos from brands, which is up from 88% in 2022.

Marketers have certainly taken notice of this trend. According to an annual report from Wyzowl, video marketing is at an all time high with 91% of businesses using video as a marketing tool in 2023.

There are now also more places than ever to post videos. Beyond long-form videos on YouTube, there’s been huge growth in short videos on platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and even on YouTube itself with Shorts. In fact, according to Sprout Social, 66% of consumers say short-form video is the most engaging type of social media content.

What that means for marketers is that demand has never been higher for video. That also means a high demand for resources to make those videos. A two-minute marketing video can take four to eight weeks to produce. According to HubSpot, 65% of marketers say the production stage — including filming, lighting, and audio — is the most expensive part of the video creation process. And 38% said pre-production — ideation, writing, and casting — is the most time-consuming stage.

With all these platforms demanding daily content, you can see how that timeline just isn’t going to work. This is where content repurposing comes in.

Spending weeks to create a piece of video content that’s only posted one time isn’t efficient at all. But, if you can take a single video and cut it into a series of short-form videos, social media posts, and some blogs, then you’re maximizing your return on investment. You can also work the other way, turning blog posts, infographics, and reports into video content.

Going back to that ReferralRock report, 31% of marketers said creating video is the most effective method for repurposing existing content.

Repurpose content to save time and money

We know that repurposing content will boost your video marketing, but what are the other benefits of this strategy? Content repurposing statistics show that marketers agree that this strategy saves money and time for marketers, as well for improving engagement.

ReferralRock asked marketers which generates the best engagement, leads, and conversions: creating new content, updating existing content, or content repurposing for different mediums and channels. Repurposing content won, with 46% of marketers saying it had the best results.

Marketers also agreed that content repurposing was the most cost-effective strategy, with 65% saying so. By comparison, only 2% said the same about creating new content, and 33% picked updating existing content.

They also said repurposing content was the most effective strategy in terms of making the best use of your time. In the survey, 48% of marketers said repurposing content was best based on the time it takes to accomplish, but only 6% said the same about creating new content.

The surveyed marketers named a few other reasons why content repurposing is beneficial. 31% said content repurposing helped increase engagement with their content, 21% said content repurposing helped increase brand reach and awareness, and 15% said it helped increase web traffic.

What kinds of formats are marketers repurposing?

Now we’ll look at exactly how you can repurpose content, whether you’re starting with video or written content formats.

Ways to repurpose video content

We’ve already talked about how time-consuming it is to produce video content. Between coming up with ideas, getting those ideas approved, the planning process, and actually filming and editing a video, you’re looking at what could be weeks’ worth of work.

That effort and careful planning is certainly necessary to make effective, high-quality content, and the end result is worth it. Make the most of that content with these ideas for content repurposing.

Webinars

The use of webinars is on the rise, especially among B2B marketers. According to Search Engine Journal, 54% of B2B professionals watch webinars on a weekly basis. As well, viewers watched three times more webinars in 2020 compared to 2019.

Webinars are live events and in order to repurpose them, it’s crucial that you’re also keeping a recording. That recording can easily be flipped into multiple content formats.

Tip: A local recording is best if you’ll be repurposing your webinar content, as you’ll get higher quality video. There are plenty of streaming and video podcasting software that double as remote recording studios that we recommend.

First, you can take clips from the webinar to turn into short-form video. Look for insightful quotes or slides that can stand alone as a fun fact or piece of advice. TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts are all primary destinations for short-form video, but video clips also perform well on LinkedIn.

If you post a full, hour-long webinar on LinkedIn, very few people are likely to click and watch the full video. However, if you create short, teaser clips you’ll see higher engagement. Watching these clips may even catch someone’s interest enough to then seek out the full webinar.

Webinars tend to have a slow start with introductions, so the clips you create should do the opposite of that and have an immediate hook.

Another option with webinars is to turn them into written blog posts. Some people would rather read an article than watch a video, especially if they’re short on time. Try creating a blog post that summarizes the webinar and highlights key quotes, insights, and graphics. One quick way to do this is by generating a transcript of the webinar. This makes it easier to convert video into a blog post.

Finally, webinars are a perfect starting-off point for creating infographics. According to ReferralRock, infographics are the number one format marketers make when they repurpose content with 69% saying they do it. Take an interesting statistic and flip it into an infographic that can be shared on social media platforms, or even animate it to create a short video.

Video podcasts

First of all, you are making videos of your podcasts, right? Because you should be.

Although podcasts are traditionally audio content, podcasters are increasingly releasing video versions of their episodes. According to research from Morning Consult, 46% of avid podcast consumers actually prefer video podcasts to audio-only. Gen Z and millennials especially prefer to watch podcasts rather than just listen.

Once you have your podcast as a video, you can cut it into shorter clips to share on social media. TikTok in particular is a fantastic place to post podcast clips. On TikTok, the tag #podcast has 96.9 billion views on TikTok, and #podcasts has 4.6 billion views. Many of these clips have gone viral on the platform.

Like with webinars, you want to look for great moments. If the destination for the clip is TikTok, Instagram Reels, or YouTube Shorts, search for moments that are particularly entertaining, as that’s what people are looking to watch on those platforms.

The advantage here is that you can reach a new target audience who may not be aware of your podcast, or may not even be podcast listeners yet.

Also consider turning your video podcast episodes into blog content by transcribing it. You can do this even if your podcast is just audio content.

Long-form videos

Whether you’ve created a long-form video for YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, your website, or elsewhere, it can be repurposed into short-form video. One method is to cut a long-form video into short clips, under 15 or 30 seconds, for use as TikToks, Reels, Stories, or Shorts. Short-form video is a smart move for both your business and for viewers.

According to HubSpot’s State of Marketing 2023 report, marketers agreed that short-form videos are the marketing trend with the highest return on investment — more than influencer marketing, direct messaging, or even search engine optimization. As well, 90% of marketers who use short-form videos plan to either maintain or increase their use in their marketing strategies in 2023.

The most popular destination for short-form videos is TikTok, with 42% of marketers already using it and 56% planning to increase their investment in TikTok in 2023.

Long-form video, similar to webinars, can also be flipped into blog posts or infographics.

Ways to repurpose a blog post

Like video, a high-quality blog post takes time and investment to create. According to a survey from Orbit Media, the average blog post takes three hours and 51 minutes to write. A blog post with in-depth research or interviews can take much longer, not to mention the expense to have it created either in-house or by a freelancer.

So again, just like with videos, repurposing that blog content stretches the life of a post and creates a higher turn on investment.

Let’s look at what you can create by repurposing a blog post.

Long-form video

All the great information found in a blog post makes an excellent basis for a long-form video.

While you could do this with simple b-roll, graphics, and narration, the most engaging format would be to have a host on camera to present the information in a blog post. Don’t just have them read the blog post though — rewrite it into a conversational video script. You can then add infographics and b-roll to flesh out the video and keep it interesting for viewers.

For example, a blog post of statistics on a particular topic can be repurposed into a listicle-style video, like “The ten most interesting facts about (your topic).” Or, if your blog post is a tutorial, you can create a how-to video following along with the instructions in the post.

Also consider hosting the video first as a livestream. According to Livestream, 80% of people would rather watch a live video from a brand than read a blog post.

Multiple short-form videos

Higher word-count, authoritative blog posts can contain enough info to inspire a series of short-form videos.

Look for interesting sections that could become a quick fact or insight. Short-form videos actually lend themselves well to a simple b-roll and captions format with some music. Or, if your blog post is a tutorial, do a sped-up version as a short-form video or create a separate short-form video for different sections.

These clips can then be posted to social media, such as TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube.

Again, content repurposing statistics show the infographics are the number one type of creative made when flipping existing content.

Look through a blog post for interesting statistics and create infographics sized for social media posts like on Instagram, such as with a carousel post, on X, and on LinkedIn. These can act as teasers for the blog post itself and encourage clicks.

Content repurposing tips

Here are some general tips to keep in mind when you repurpose content as part of your content marketing strategy.

Check analytics and search engines

You might have a lot of content to choose from when it comes to selecting content to repurpose. Don’t make it guesswork — have a look at your analytics, whether internally or with Google Analytics, to determine which content to repurpose.

Look for content, whether that’s videos or blog posts, that have already made an impact. A blog post with particularly high traffic is more likely to have statistics or insights that would work well as a standalone video or graphic. If you’re starting with a long-form video, pay attention to where viewership dropped off, or if there are any moments that people have commented on. If everyone is commenting on a funny moment in your video, that’s a perfect moment to clip for TikTok.

Repurposing content that didn’t receive many views is riskier because you may be wasting effort, but on the flip side you can try to drive new traffic to that content by repurposing it. It could be that in a new format, it finds a new target audience.

Look for evergreen content for content repurposing

Evergreen content is media that remains relevant long after you first publish it. An eyeliner tutorial is evergreen, for example, but a blog post about sales for June 2023 isn’t.

You want to look for evergreen content to use for content repurposing because whatever you create with it will have a longer shelf life. Even ancient blog posts can be repurposed now and again in the future if it's evergreen.

A good way to check if the topic of the content you want to repurpose is with keyword research. Using a keyword research tool like Ahrefs, or even something simple like Google Trends, you can check the search volume for a particular topic. If the volume is high or growing, you’re good to go. If the topic is in decline, you may want to pick something else.

Consider the platform

Simply reposting the same piece of content to multiple platforms without changing it is a terrible way to repurpose content. Each platform and medium is different and needs to be treated differently.

For example, instinct probably tells you that posting a webinar as 60 one-minute long TikToks is an awful idea. The same is true of simply reading off a 2,000-word blog post as a video.

Shorter video content needs to be conversational and fun, especially if it’s going on a short-video platform like TikTok or Instagram. Content repurposing for LinkedIn should be of interest to a professional audience, but still attention-grabbing. A blog post written from a long-form video should have a different tone, with more information to flesh it out.

Along with that, don’t skip crucial steps like making sure to appropriately resize video for different platforms when repurposing content.

Repurpose your existing content and improve ROI

Your content marketing strategy will inevitably be strengthened if you include repurposing content.

Whether you’re working with old blog posts or videos, you can repurpose content into new formats for posting on social media, short-form video apps, or wherever else your content lives. When you repurpose content, you’re expanding the usefulness of each piece of content, which in turn improves your return on investment.

Content repurposing is popular for a reason, so when planning your content creation, consider how you can turn one piece of content into many.

Shining a Light on Dark Social: What Is It and How to Measure It?

Gregory Ciotti — Mon, 30 Oct 2023 22:08:52 GMT

How do you measure success in content marketing when your attribution data doesn’t tell the whole story?

Channels that are easy to track with attribution software, like paid ads, search, and on-site activity tend to be overrepresented in reporting. Smart marketers know, though, that just because you “have the data” doesn’t necessarily mean you’re drawing the right conclusions. In fact, misinterpreting or solely relying on certain sets of data does more harm than good.

Marketing channels that weren’t showing up in these attribution reports were often written off as awareness or vanity channels. Now, though, marketers are starting to come around to the concept of “dark social”—channels that underperform in attribution tracking software but actually play a large role in awareness and even conversion.

Let’s take a closer look at what dark social is, how to measure it, and why it matters for your video marketing strategy.

“Dark social” is an umbrella term that encompasses any channels or platforms where you just can’t track things in the way you can on your own website.

Think about the places where potential customers are coming across your content, engaging with your brand, or having discussions about you or your product. Dark social includes offsite initiatives from your marketing team, like native social media, podcasts, etc., as well as community activity that’s entirely out of your control.

We typically see dark social broken down into the following three categories:

Organic, offsite content. Traditional social media, podcasts, etc. Often the first awareness channels, but not credited in last-touch attribution or even first-touch attribution.
Other brands’ channels. Off-site blog posts, newsletters, etc. It can be difficult to track attribution from spontaneous mentions of your brand or product in someone else’s email newsletter or blog post.
Community channels. Digital word of mouth, shared in closed communities, like Slack channels or Discord servers. This can also include social DMs. You have almost no insight into who is talking about you or sharing your content in these spaces.

None of these are new channels, of course. So, why the sudden interest in dark social?

There are four main catalysts we see pushing marketers to reconsider how they measure their content marketing efforts.

1. Platforms don’t want to send clicks off site. This has been true for a while, and it’s only becoming more of a problem. Just saying “link in bio” in a TikTok video can cost you views. Referral traffic from social media has plummeted over the last couple of years, according to new data from Axios.

While this study is charting the referral traffic to news sites specifically (and they track traffic closely), it’s representative of a larger trend: Social platforms are becoming less generous with referral traffic and the performance of link posts in general.

2. Analytics data has become muddier. This is a symptom of both high-level data privacy crackdowns – like the iOS 15 privacy update from Apple and the recent third-party cookie changes rolled out by Chrome and other browsers – and consumer-level privacy concerns, with a rise in ad blocker and VPN usage. You can’t collect the sort of data you used to.

3. Platforms are continuing to grow. With a few exceptions, social media platforms just keep getting bigger. Even compared to 10 years ago, there are more users and much more activity on (most) social platforms. This broadening of your potential audience makes tracking who’s seeing what that much more important.

4. Digital marketers are looking more closely at where data is really coming from. When dashboards and reports aren’t lining up with what their experience and intuition are telling them, digital marketers are starting to ask more pointed questions. Where is the revenue really coming from?

To help answer that question, the team at Refine Labs analyzed data on the inbound pipeline, comparing self-reported attribution (what customers say) versus software-based attribution (what your analytics platform says). They pulled this data over a 12-month period from a variety of businesses across different industries.

If you’ve ever been personally victimized by “other,” “unknown,” or “none” showing up in your attribution dashboard, you’re not alone.

Their discovery was that these channels that classically under-perform with software-based attribution are showing up in self-reported attribution in a big way. They posited the measurement gap is as large as 90%.

The problem with software-based attribution (and self-reported, too!)

This data, along with many anecdotes from marketing teams, shows that we’re missing a lot of potential opportunities when we rely too heavily on traditional attribution tracking tools. The overperformance of search in these reports in particular is noteworthy, but there’s also the squishy “Other/Unknown” category which drops down to zero with self-reporting.

So, how do we compensate for attribution blind spots created by muddy data?

One straightforward way is to simply ask your prospects and customers, “Where did you hear about us?”

Of course, self-reported attribution has its own problems. Surveys of any kind are prone to bias and user error. And, ironically, prospects that engage with a lot of your content will probably have the hardest time remembering where they first encountered you.

The biggest issue, though, is this: The first touchpoint isn’t always the most important. That’s only a single point in the journey, and any attribution system that relies too heavily on any one point in time is never going to tell the full story.

Self-reported attribution isn’t a one-and-done replacement for software-based attribution. Instead, it’s a good way to counterbalance the fact that we know software tends to mostly give outsized credit to the last part of the attribution relay race.

Social is important, of course, but it’s also a long game. Sometimes, the customer journey on social is as simple as seeing an ad one time, clicking on it, and making a purchase on the website right then and there. But more often, it’s a series of interactions over weeks or months (or more!), giving you time to create content that people can actually enjoy and leading them back to you when they have a need for your product.

The move toward dark social is a call to focus on that harder to measure middle chunk.

Betting on dark social means producing more organic and native social content, which is to say, native video content. There are a couple of compelling reasons why we think video is the key to successful dark social activation:

1. Video is the most shareable content form.

In 2023 (and beyond), video content is what performs best across nearly all social media platforms. Part of that is just based on infrastructure changes – people watch more video because their feed pushes more video content to them.

But also, people love sharing video.

In fact, they’re more likely to share video over anything else: image posts, text posts, blog posts, etc. And it’s not a slight preference for video. It’s significant.

According to this research from Wyzowl, 51% of people are more likely to share video over any other type of content. That’s nearly twice as popular as the next largest response, which is still social media.

Much of the value of dark social comes from users sharing content with each other, both on and off platform, so betting on video just makes sense.

2. Video lends itself well to multiple channels

There are so many more places to take a single piece of video content than a single piece of written content. You can break down a long-form video into several clips and publish them across multiple platforms in a way you can’t do with a blog post.

That’s what makes video an excellent anchor medium – but only if you pair it with an intentional repurposing strategy. Not just creating short-form content for the sake of it and posting clips at random.

Instead, consider video as the first place to share an idea. How do you share that idea in multiple places, so no matter where your prospects find you, they’re getting the same message.

Any repurposing formula should start with that idea first. Video is just the best medium for atomizing ideas and distributing them well.

Dark social sounds nebulous and even a little ominous, but in reality, it’s just another way to connect with customers where they're already spending time and investigate how well your marketing efforts are actually working. If you’re seeing high engagement and reach with native video but it’s not showing up in the attribution data, ask questions before dismissing the approach.

Marketing attribution has always been about trying to triangulate your way to the truth. And the truth is, we may never be able to fully shine a light on the impact of dark social. But that shouldn't stop you from testing and directly asking users about their own customer journey; you might be surprised by what you learn.

What Is Content Atomization and How to Approach It for Success

Gregory Ciotti — Thu, 26 Oct 2023 20:18:42 GMT

Content teams are feeling the pressure to create more content in more places than ever, which can lead to engaging in random acts of content: creating clips just to fill your calendar, without conviction that they’ll perform well or further your brand’s message.

So, how do you broadcast content that actually resonates with your audience? Start with a compelling idea, then create the content tailored to each channel —also known as content atomization.

What is content atomization?

Content atomization is the process of taking a core idea, concept, or theme from an existing piece of content and remaking it into entirely new assets. The assets are all original; only the ideas or messages are reused.

This is fundamentally different from content repurposing, which takes existing content and adapts or remixes the source material for a new audience or channel. With content repurposing, many of the assets—the footage, visuals, or copy—are the same, only altered to better fit the channel. Clips on social media pulled from longer-form videos are a tried-and-true example.

Both approaches have their purpose. Content atomization, while it takes more effort, is ideal for propagating strong opinions across multiple content formats, or just when a content asset doesn't naturally translate to another channel you're investing in.

But first, why bother?

Marketing re-entering a "do more with less" era wasn't enough? Jokes aside, we do need to unpack the benefits of content atomization that go beyond the obvious. Yes, if you run an atomization program the right way, you should end up creating more content. But let's also not forget about the fact that:

1. Marketing messages stick when repeated

Content that has a compelling point of view helps align customers to your product's value. But these messages will only stay with people if you reinforce them over and over, revisiting them from new vantage points or with additional examples and evidence. Leaders know that important ideas deserve to be repeated, and marketers should take cue.

2. Great content creates outsized results

Content marketing follows a power law; a small percentage of your efforts end up producing the lion's share of the results. One simple truth that drives another is truly great content ideas are few and far between. If you create a winning concept or asset, you need to extract as much value as possible—and atomization unlocks that for you.

3. New channels expose you to new audiences

Your content isn’t going to find the exact same audience from one channel to the next. Not everyone reads long-form editorial; some people who prefer video will never make their way to TikTok, etc. That can be a good thing, but only if you’re reaching the right new people.

This is where content atomization really shines brighter than content repurposing. Being incredibly intentional about your message and approach to the content you publish on new channels will help you build the right audience, rather than just reach… anyone who happens to be around.

4. The efficiency gains are nothing to sneeze at

We advise caution when looking at "scale and efficiency" as your only reasons to pursue content atomization; as we'll cover, you can end up repurposing content without a purpose. But with good foundations in place, reworking a small set of core ideas or concepts is significantly more efficient than having to ideate each channel or individual piece of content.

How to approach content atomization

1. Start with themes and strong points of view

There are two main mistakes we see brands make with atomization: (a) building an atomization "strategy" without clear narratives and (b) trading the content treadmill for the repurposing treadmill. Let's start with the first issue first, then move to the second.

The goal of atomization is to get a small set of pointed messages distributed through many content assets. Simple enough, but far too many brands get caught up with the deliverables, forgetting that the core messages are what you're actually distributing. And this is true regardless of the content styles you use—whether your content educates, entertains, or offers insight, there's always an opportunity to infuse your brand's point of view.

Why does this matter? Because reach without resonance creates no business value. Fortunately, picking these messages doesn't have to be an arduous exercise. When we came up with the central narratives or themes for our own content strategy, we insisted they hit the following marks:

Strong narratives drive changes in behavior. The audience that engages with our content regularly should begin to form a shared point of view with us that ultimately leads them to change their behavior. If we aren't changing our audience's behavior in some fashion, our content isn't having a real impact.
Strong narratives turn prospects into better customers. The change(s) in behavior we're driving should, in turn, make certain members of our audience stronger-fit customers for our product. Customers who share your worldview have a sharp understanding of the problem you're solving and clearly see the value of your product; it’s easier to sell a solution to a customer who’s already aware of the problem.
Strong narratives capture the larger context. Our narratives should also help customers understand what's changing in the world that makes our point of view so important and relevant right now. Kapwing, for example, believes strongly in the value of atomization and repurposing, but we also believe the marketing landscape is changing in a way that makes these activities more important than they've ever been.

Spoiler: This takes some work.

But remember, this is your foundation. If you build on top of a weak foundation—with milquetoast opinions or no narrative at all—you might earn impressions, but you certainly won't change or reinforce anyone's view in a way that helps them see why they need your product. And if you aren't doing that, you aren't doing marketing.

A simple exercise your team can do is to list your Narratives and then unpack these broad-stroke beliefs into smaller Points of View, or specific opinions that get into the details. At Kapwing, we believe that "AI will fundamentally change the nature of video creation," a core narrative, but we unpack this idea with multiple points of view that expand on what we mean.

2. Pick your anchor format and main platforms

Atomization requires some wrangling—there are lots of content assets in motion, and multiple paths your team can use to transform one idea into another. Everything in your life gets easier if you can commit to one or two anchor formats for your content strategy.

We think of anchor formats as where "new ideas make first contact" with your audience. Put another way, these are the formats you'll frequently head to first to share an opinion or idea before reworking the content for another platform.

Typically, small or one-person content teams should start with a single anchor format, while medium-sized teams (and above) may have two or more anchor formats, one covering the long form → short form path, and another covering short form → long form.

Why two paths? Because long-form content is generally best-suited for ideas your team has conviction about; ideas that are central to your product strategy and position in the market. Short-form formats, meanwhile, are great for litmus-testing ideas to gauge how people will respond before creating something long-form. You should use short form for both purposes, not just for clipping long-form content.

Let's explore this idea with a quick example:

Long form → short form. You decide on a video podcast. Honestly, great choice. The podcast records once per week with a mix of guests and in-house interviews. You plan a calendar to cover your main points of view in individual episodes, then revisit and unpack core ideas with follow-up episodes. The content gets clipped for brand social and the personal account of your show's host. Episodes are also fully rewritten for content on your blog, usually 1-2 posts per episode. Finally, you write takeaway posts and tailored summaries for your founder's social accounts.
Short form → long form. You decide on your founder's LinkedIn profile. Your marketing team works with your founder to post short observations that include a mix of trends in the space, examples from peer companies, and opinions on where the industry is headed. You publish 1-2 thought leadership posts per day; the posts that fizzle get forgotten, and the posts that land are a signal to further flesh out the idea on your blog, video podcast, or a follow-up series of posts.

Marketing is not just about distributing messages; it's about developing them. In the example above, two paths are available: one for high-conviction ideas, and one for ideas where you're just testing the waters. For most teams, it takes both approaches to truly stay close to the frontier ideas within your industry.

3. Build a clear system for atomization

Atomization is often seen as a way off the dreaded content treadmill, but it can turn into a brand new treadmill if you aren't careful. Now, not only are you producing at the same rate, you've just added on repurposing and full recreations to your calendar.

A better approach, and one we're revisiting for our own team, is to build a deliberate system for atomization with a content map. Mapping out how you plan to take great ideas and re-run them removes the stress and allows you to build your content calendar with atomized content as a known input; the whole calendar gets built with a reuse and repurpose philosophy at the forefront.

In short, a system takes out the guesswork, but it does require a little guessing up front until you actually try it in practice. That's because you'll have to make some decisions about what you'll atomize, how often you'll do it, and where the new content will go—activities that are easier to do in theory than practice.

Some tips:

Create a map for atomization

The map itself will act almost as a flow chart for how you approach atomization. After a piece of anchor content is created, where does it go? What messages are important to your brand right now? What clips tend to do well on those platforms? A good litmus test for a content atomization map is that a new member to the content team could get relatively up to speed on what to recreate and repurpose just by looking at the map.

Be as specific as possible

Despite the guesswork inherent in the first version of your content map, it's better to be specific about your approach and call frequent audibles than it is to rely on vague guidance for what to do. Bias toward precise instructions but stay flexible—content is a marketing activity that relies on serendipity either way.

Label atomized content based on relative effort

Effort labels can be an important consideration for choosing which formats to recreate content for. The cost of writing a quick social post versus the cost of producing an entire standalone article (with inline assets) are two different things entirely. A simple label of High, Medium, Low or an easy-to-discern score should invite the right kind of conversations around effort.

4. Put measurement in place to track results

Being honest, we get the sense that a lot of atomization and repurposing work is happening as a result of marketing teams being asked to "do more with less." The follow-through, or the number of teams that can prove repurposing is (or isn't) producing business value, seems to be much smaller if the community discussions we've seen are any indication.

That's why it can be helpful, internally, to have some way to report back on atomized content specifically—even if that's just how it's affected your output. For example, having enough data to say XX% of content last quarter was repurposed, which increased output by XX%. If you're attributing the growth in revenue contribution to output, you now at least have some tenable connection to atomization helping you increase your about.

Better still, of course, is if you're able to attribute the contribution repurposed content has made to qualified pipeline or revenue directly. Of the content assets you've produced that were based on an existing asset or central theme, what contribution of revenue does that represent? For some teams, the data lift to answer this question is too high and it's simply easier to report on content's overall contribution to revenue, and atomization's contribution to overall content output.

When to repurpose vs. atomize content?

We’re not arguing that you throw out your content repurposing strategy in favor of content atomization. A robust, high-output content strategy will lean on both.

The trap to avoid is simply chopping up a piece of long-form content and distributing it across multiple channels just to fill your content calendar. Ideally, content atomization will help you share key concepts and themes across platforms while content repurposing helps you earn more value out of each piece of content.

When both strategies are in lockstep, it looks like: greater reach, consistent messaging across channels, and more efficient content production for your team.

For a further deep dive into content atomization and repurposing, check out our podcast episode on the subject. ↓

Additional Resources:

Video Marketing Statistics You Need to Know in 2023

Lauren Strapagiel — Wed, 18 Oct 2023 20:24:07 GMT

Video marketing is at an all-time high, with 91% of businesses using video as a marketing tool in 2023, according to an annual report from Wyzowl.

Between TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Twitch and other platforms, there are more places than ever for digital video to live. Video marketing can take many forms, from traditional video ads, to organic marketing on TikTok, to working with influencers or UGC creators. Not to mention there’s live video, webinars, and other types of informative video content.

There’s a reason nearly every platform has pivoted to prioritizing video. Every year, more and more video content is consumed by the masses. In 2020, 244.4 million people in the US alone watched digital videos. On a weekly basis, people consumed an average of 17 hours of online video per week in 2023.

As a marketer, it’s important not only to engage in video marketing, but to keep up with video marketing trends and data. In this piece, we’ll take a deep dive into all the video marketing statistics and data you need to know in 2023.

The rise of video marketing

Interestingly, online video consumption has actually slightly cooled off — but don’t take that to mean that it isn’t still huge.

Online video consumption reached an all-time high during the pandemic in 2022 at 19 hours per week, dropping to 17 hours per week in 2023. We can assume this has a lot to do with most people returning to normal work habits and getting back outside.

What’s important to note is that the trend is still towards growth. According to Wyzowl, back in 2018, people were consuming an average of just 10.5 hours of online video content per week. In 2019, it was 14 hours, and in 2020 it was 16 hours. So even though there was a slight dip for 2023, time spent watching online videos is still much higher than it was only five years ago.

All in all, a whopping 82% of global internet traffic came from video in 2022.

Also on the rise is demand for branded videos. In 2023, 91% of people said they want to see more online videos from brands — up from 88% in 2022, and 85% in 2021.

Video is also the most shareable type of content on the internet. According to Wyzowl, 51% of people are more likely to share a video with their friends compared to every other type of content marketing. For context, 26% are likely to share a social media post, and just 13% are likely to share a blog post.

All that means marketers have had to adapt and prioritize video in their strategies.

Video effectiveness and engagement

We know more people are watching videos, and more marketers are utilizing video in their strategies, but is video actually an effective engagement tool? According to the data, the answer is yes.

Video has proven to be a very effective marketing tool when promoting a product or service. According to Wyzowl, 96% of people have watched an explainer video to learn more about a product or service.

And more compellingly, 89% of people said watching a video convinced them to purchase a product or service. If you’re in the business of software and apps, 79% of people said a video convinced them to make that kind of purchase.

Video comes in many forms, but it’s short video that’s currently dominating. According to Sprout Social, 66% of consumers say short-form video — like what you’d find on TikTok, Instagram Reels, or YouTube Shorts — is the most engaging type of video on social media.

Interestingly, this short-form video is also a bit of an untapped opportunity. Wyzowl reports YouTube is the most widely-used video marketing platform, with 90% of marketers trusting it. That makes sense considering YouTube is the second-most popular website in the world. However, only 35% of marketers put their trust in TikTok, despite its massive popularity.

We can also talk about ROI — return on investment — for video marketing. According to Wyzowl, most markets — 63% — judge the ROI of their video efforts based on views, and 61% also look at audience engagement.

It’s also clear that marketers see video as a win, with 95% saying video has helped increase brand awareness. And 96% of video marketers say their efforts have increased user understanding of their product.

Additionally, 90% said video marketing generated leads, and 87% said video marketing helped increase sales. No matter how you look at it, video marketing is a win.

Mobile video consumption

You can’t talk about video consumption habits without also talking about mobile. Fact is, mobile is where most people are watching video.

Data shows about 90% of video is watched on a mobile device and the average person watches 25.7 minutes of video on their mobile device every day. According to Statistica, 63% of watch time on YouTube came from mobile devices in 2021, compared to just 12% on desktop.

The most-downloaded short-form video app is TikTok. That makes sense considering the short attention spans of mobile video consumers. According to HubSpot, the majority of people say the optimal length of a marketing video is under three minutes — and 16% say it’s actually under one minute. Short-form video platforms like TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts are all vertically-oriented to be optimized for mobile consumption.

That’s why it’s vital that you’re optimizing your marketing videos for mobile. Keep them short, vertical, and consumable even if a phone is on mute. Interestingly, 75% of people watch mobile video on mute, and it’s higher for millennials at 85%. That means you should always add subtitles to video content.

This also presents an opportunity for mobile video ads. More people in the world own a smartphone with internet access than a desktop computer with internet access. That means mobile should really be your primary platform for video ads. Again, that calls for optimization. Only 30% of mobile users will bother turning their phone sideways to watch a video ad, so make sure to keep them vertical. Another reason to go vertical: Viewers will watch up to 90% of vertical ads, but only 14% of horizontal ones.

The majority of videos marketers are creating are for social media — 71% in fact.

The most popular destination is YouTube, with 90% of companies creating videos for the platform. Next is Facebook, at 86% of companies, then LinkedIn at 79%, Instagram also at 79%, Twitter at 54%, and TikTok at 35%.

According to Sprout Social, marketers also agree that video is the best thing to post on social media, with 54% saying it’s the most valuable for meeting social media goals. That’s followed by images at 53%. Live video also makes an appearance, with 25% of marketers using it.

Interestingly, video is still underutilized on social media platforms, with only 14% of Facebook content being video, although stats show it’s the content people love to consume most.

According to Meta, 91% of active Instagram users watch videos on Instagram every week and video is still the most engaging content type on the app. Videos, on average, receive more than double the comments of static image posts. And according to Statistica, even small accounts with up to 500 followers see a massive 892% reach with Instagram Reels, compared to only 77% for static images.

Over on TikTok, the app is dominating engagement for Gen Z.

In fact, more Gen Zers use TikTok than Instagram and 40% of TikTok users don’t even have a Facebook profile. Given that TikTok is purely mobile video, that says a lot about the importance of video marketing. The average TikTok user spends 95 minutes on the app each day. With more than a billion users, that’s a massive potential reach, yet so few marketers are tapping into it.

TikTok also has the highest engagement rate of any social media platform, at 4.25%, compared to just 0.6% for Instagram. Facebook is more in the middle at 0.15%.

No matter where you look, video is the most engaging type of content on every social media platform, and can’t be overlooked. When producing video for social media, you’ll get the best results with using a social media video editor.

Video and SEO

Search engine optimization inevitably plays a role in your marketing strategy, and video is a factor in that, too.

You should care about video for SEO because Google cares about it. As the world’s number one search engine, Google prioritizes placing relevant videos in search results. As the owner of YouTube, it makes sense that Google would do this, but it shows videos from other platforms, too. In fact, 70% of the top 100 search results listings contain video.

One of the factors Google takes into consideration when ranking results in its search results is the time spent on a page. Including videos boosts that time, thereby boosting your SEO ranking. Additionally, producing high quality video can earn you backlinks, another factor in Google’s algorithm.

Creating videos and sharing them widely can boost your click-through rate on search engine results pages, especially as Google is more and more keen to show videos in search results. That also means you need to be optimizing your videos for SEO.

Optimizing videos for search includes:

Adding relevant keywords and hashtags to captions and descriptions
Creating optimized thumbnails that are highly clickable
Compressing large videos into mobile-friendly sizes
Writing clickable video titles that include relevant keywords
Including keywords in your video file name
Utilizing tags effectively
Including captions or subtitles, such as with an .SRT file, which can be made using a video editor

Explainer videos and product demos

Some of the most popular videos marketers create are explainers and product demonstrations. After social media videos, explainers are the most popular video type marketers create, with 70% making them. Additionally, 36% make product demonstration videos.

Education is what matters here. According to Wistia, 52% of companies create videos to educate their audience about their products. We know this is effective. As mentioned earlier, 89% of people said watching a video convinced them to purchase a product or service and 96% of consumers have watched an explainer video to learn more about a product or service.

The reason why explainer videos are so powerful is that people are inherently visual learners. In fact, viewers retain 95% of a message delivered via video, compared to only 10% for text.

Product demo videos are also crucial for any video marketing strategy. For consumers looking to make a purchase, 69% said a product demo video is the best assistant for making that decision. That’s compared to 15% for explainer videos, and 16% for customer testimonials. Especially when shopping online, product demos give customers the best insight into how a product actually works and will fit into their lives, even if they can’t touch or try it for themselves.

80% of people say product videos give them more confidence when making a purchase. Again, it’s all about being able to better understand how a product works before making the final purchase decision.

Add that all up and you have strong evidence that video — especially explainers and demos — are a powerful conversion tool. One retailer, StacksandStacks.com, reported that visitors were 144% more likely to make a purchase after seeing a product video, compared to those who didn’t.

Video in email marketing

Video can live almost anywhere on the internet, and that includes in emails. Videos are a powerful component of email marketing, and the stats back that up.

Just teasing that your email contains a video can boost your open rate. SuperOffice found that including the word “video” in a subject line boosts the open rate by a cool 6%. And, according to Campaign Monitor, including video in email marketing boosts open rates by 19%, click-through rates by 65%, and reduces unsubscribes by 26%.

Wordstream also reports that an initial email with a video receives an increased click-through rate of 96%.

The most straightforward way to include video in your email marketing is to embed video directly in your email sends. This can be as simple as embedding a YouTube link, or with a little more work you can host a video yourself to embed.

Segmentation and personalization have also proven to be important tools for conversion in email marketing. Take advantage of that by, for example, sending a product demonstration video via email to a customer who has just purchased your product for the first time. This is especially effective for SaaS brands looking to increase retention by supporting new customers through an onboarding process. Making videos demonstrating how to use your product and answering frequently asked questions by first-time users will help empower customers and alleviate any frustration or learning curve.

You can also use video in emails to entice customers to become repeat buyers. After an initial purchase, try sending an email with a video highlighting related or complementary products or announcing a new product.

Live video and webinars

Creating live videos and webinars is an excellent way to engage more directly with your audience and make interactive experiences.

You’ll actually be ahead of the curve if you create live videos — according to Wyzowl, only 36% of marketers have published live video content, such as livestreams on their social media channels. And it’s a missed opportunity.

Insider Intelligence reports that there are 163.4 live video viewers in the US in 2023. As well, 24% of US internet users ages 16 to 64 began watching live video during the pandemic. Although platforms like Twitch and YouTube seem most synonymous with live video, the most popular platform that creators use to go live is Instagram, at 62.1%. Facebook is next at 5.3%. Live videos are even stealing attention away from TV — 44% of people said they watch less live TV because of online streaming.

Live streaming accounts for 23% of video watched online — that’s big.

For marketers, the benefits of live video are a huge and eager audience, as well as the opportunity for real-time engagement.

Live video webinars are an especially effective tool for B2B brands. Consider that, according to BrightTALK, 62% of webinar attendees request a demo afterwards. As well, 54% of B2B professionals watch webinars on a weekly basis, according to Search Engine Journal. Webinars are also on the rise, with viewers watching three times more webinars in 2020 compared to 2019.

Finally, for e-commerce brands, live video is rapidly increasing in popularity as a marketing tool. It’s most popular in Asia on platforms like Duyin. In China, 77% of consumers have made a purchase from watching a live stream, as well as 75% of consumers in India, and 72% in Thailand.

It’s been slower, but live stream shopping iis making inroads in Western markets on platforms like TikTok, Poshmark, Facebook, and Amazon. The US livestream shopping market is estimated to be worth $68 billion by 2026 and account for 5% of e-commerce sales.

Video consumption behavior by demographics

Finally, we need to understand exactly who is eager to consume video marketing.

It should be noted that online video is popular across all age groups, but it’s especially watched by younger people. For Generation Alpha, 85% of children aged two to 12 say they watch YouTube. As well, about 15% of YouTube’s audience are ages 18 to 24 — about 377 million of them, according to HubSpot.

Gen Z also loves online video, making up 32% of the world’s population with 76% visiting YouTube at least weekly. As well, seven in ten teens spend more than three hours a day watching mobile videos.

All that means that if your target audience as a marketer skews younger, video is a must-have as part of your marketing strategy.

We also know that women are more likely to consume online videos. On YouTube in 2023, 51.4% of users in the US are female, compared to 48.6% being male.

Geographically, there are also some interesting patterns. The United Arab Emirates has the highest penetration rate for YouTube usage, at 98.5%, followed by the Netherlands at 92.6%, and Norway at 91.9%.

Going by pure volume, people in India watch the most online content per day, followed by the US, Brazil, Indonesia, and Mexico.

Win with video marketing

The numbers don’t lie — video is a must-have for marketers.

Online video consumption is higher than it's ever been and shows little signs of slowing down. We know that consumers make buying decisions based on video and that including video in your marketing, including marketing emails, is a proven conversion booster.

If you have to choose one place to create videos, social media reigns as the top destination for watching videos and can’t be overlooked.

What that tells you as a marketer is that platforms like YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook are a prime destination for videos. In the future, expect to see a rise in live videos, particularly webinars and live shopping streams.

If you want engagement, conversions, and highly shareable content, look no further than online video for your marketing strategy.

Additional Resources

Three Fears of Video Creation (and How to Overcome Them)

Short-Form Video Statistics: Why Short-Form Matters (and Where It's Going Next)

Lauren Strapagiel — Thu, 12 Oct 2023 23:11:59 GMT

If it feels like your attention span for online video has gotten shorter, it’s not just you.

Short-form video has taken over the internet and our phones. You could trace this phenomenon back to Vine, the now-defunct short-video app that introduced audiences to the joy of six-second looping short-form videos.

What Vine introduced to the masses, TikTok went on to perfect. TikTok is really the driving force that took short-form video from a fun meme format to a legitimate marketing pillar.

Short-form video is typically defined as anything under one-minute, although even videos of up to three minutes may be considered short-form. And while many platforms allow videos over a minute, the sweet spot for short-form videos is typically around 15 seconds.

Short-form videos are popular because they are:

Digestible: Being under a minute, you can open up an app and quickly consume content.
Entertaining: Short-form videos cover all kinds of topics, but the main theme is that they’re typically funny or entertaining.
Scrollable: Short-form videos are presented in a never-ending feed, making it easy to get hooked in and scroll for hours.

Since TikTok’s meteoric rise, we’ve seen Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts come about to compete in the vertical, short-form video space. Now, marketers have several platforms for sharing short-form video, and they’re definitely taking advantage.

Short-form videos have exploded as the hottest creative to invest in for marketers. According to HubSpot, 33% of social media marketers plan to invest in short-form videos in 2023, compared to only 11% who said the same about long videos.

Let’s dig into why short-form videos are absolutely worth the effort for marketers, with key short-form video statistics to back it up. We’ll also examine how short-form videos compare to long videos, and how we think short-form video content will change in the future. Finally, we’ll take a closer look at exactly how you can incorporate short-form videos into your marketing strategies.

Why marketers should invest in short-form videos

Whether you’re hoping to engage with your target audience or reach out to a whole new market, short-form videos are an ideal way to get the job done.

We know the statistics back that up. According to HubSpot’s State of Marketing 2023 report, marketers said short-form videos are the marketing trend with the highest return on investment. A third also said short videos are the trend that they intend to leverage in their marketing strategy. By all accounts, short-form video is the fastest-growing trend in marketing.

As well, 90% of marketers who use short-form videos plan to either maintain or increase their use in their marketing strategies in 2023.

Of all the options for short-form video platforms, TikTok endures as the most popular, with 42% of marketers already using it and 56% planning to increase their investment in TikTok in 2023. Also consider that the average TikTok user spends 46 minutes a day on the platform.

If you’re chasing virality, short-form videos are also the way to go. Again, according to HubSpot, 47% of video marketers agree that short-form videos are the most likely to go viral. Only 12% said the same about long videos.

Add that all together and you’ve got a compelling case for why marketers should be making short-form videos.

How short-form videos compare to long-form channels

Short-form video is red hot right now, and if we look at how its consumption differs from long-form video, we can see why.

First, short-form video is a mobile-first experience. Although TikToks, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts can all be accessed from a desktop browser, they’re intended as a vertical, mobile experience, and that’s how most users watch them.

In the US, monthly TikTok users have now passed 100 million, which works out to just over 37% of the US’s mobile internet users. And according to Semrush, 84% of TikTok’s traffic comes from mobile devices.

Meanwhile, TV is becoming an increasingly popular viewing platform for long videos on YouTube, with over 120 million people watching from their TV every month.

Short-form is also inherently a more participatory experience. Long-form videos are often a one-way experience — you might have favorite YouTubers but have never posted a video yourself. Meanwhile, on TikTok, 83% of users have posted their own content, according to Wallaroo.

Short-form videos tend to skew towards a younger demographic. On TikTok, according to The Social Shepherd, nearly half of all users are under 29, and only 11% are over the age of 50. But on YouTube, 67% of those 56 years and older use the platform.

Overall though, online video is wildly popular for both forms. According to Statistica, 60% of YouTube users visit the site more than two times per day, and 54% of TikTok users visit TikTok twice or more on the daily.

How short-form video has changed (and how it will change)

When TikTok launched, video content could only be up to one minute in length, but that has changed. TikToks can now be up to three minutes long and for some users, even up to ten minutes.

As short-form video content evolves, users are blurring the lines between short-form and long-form content. While ultra-short videos will always be popular, statistics show that many accounts are posting longer content.

According to Statistica, the largest accounts on TikTok post videos with an average length of 41.9 seconds. Medium-sized accounts average 35.4 seconds and the smallest accounts average 32.4 seconds.

Don’t be mistaken though — these are just averages. A typical TikTok creator posts video content of varying lengths, some long, some short.

Another reason TikTok lengths are increasing is that creators have been incentivized to post longer content. In early 2023, the TikTok launched a beta of the Creativity Program. In order to be eligible for revenue under the program, creators mostly post TikToks that are at least one-minute long.

TikTok has also been keen to play around with its own limitations. In February 2023, Hilton Hotels and Paris Hilton posted a 10-minute long TikTok — a novel and massive length for the platform. It was posted organically, rather than as an ad, and reportedly saw 86 times more views than the average brand on the platform.

@hilton Unexpected & amazing things can happen when you stay, and we want you to stay with us for 10 minutes. Yup, we made a 10-minute TikTok AND we’re giving away 10M Hilton Honors Points + more. #HiltonStayFor10 #HiltonForTheStay ♬ Hilton’s 10-Minute Stay - Hilton

Another way creators have been pushing into long-form territory is with multi-part TikToks. This is a common method to boost engagement, because they leave a cliffhanger in each part, encouraging viewers to scroll to the next video. Perhaps the most talked-about iteration of this is when Paramount posted the entirety of the movie Mean Girls for one day in a 23-part series.

In the future, you can expect to see longer videos and multi-part series in organic content and video marketing alike. Similarly, don’t be surprised to see even shorter videos on platforms that are traditionally for longer videos, such as YouTube.

How to use short-form video in your video marketing strategy

By now you should be convinced that short-form video content is integral to any social media marketing strategy. But how do you put that into action?Let’s look at x ideas for how to use short-form video content.

1. Repurpose long-form content as short-form video

If you already have long-form video content on hand, then it can easily be flipped into short-form content.

You might already have different types of business video on hand, like webinars, ads, promotional content, behind the scenes footage, or documentaries. They all work.

First, look through your long-form video content and look for clips under one minute (or even under 15 seconds) that can stand on their own, such as:

Insightful quotes
A funny moment
A product demonstration
A piece of advice
A how-to section

After you’ve found that great clip, you simply need to use some editing software to create social media videos. The most important things will be to resize the video to fit in a vertical format (1080×1920 for TikTok) and also add captions to the video as many people watch social videos on mute.

Another method is to use a video editor to turn a long-form clip into a shorter version, like a teaser or trailer. You can even use this to promote the longer piece of video content.

Once a video is edited into short-form, it can be shared to TikTok, Reals, and Shorts.

You can also repurpose content ideas as short-form video, even if the original asset doesn't lend itself well to a simple resize or reformatting. This is called content atomization, where you take one idea or theme and repurpose it for many assets across multiple channels.

The buzziest term for video marketers right now is UGC — user-generated content.

UGC is video content that is created organically by everyday people, but that may be of interest to brands. Think of someone reviewing a new mascara on TikTok, or someone showing how they prepare for a workout with a specific protein powder.

UGC plays well with audiences because it’s more authentic — the opinions expressed in this type of video content is genuine, rather than having been paid for by a brand.

A survey from Stackla found that consumer-generated content is viewed as the most authentic, with nearly 60% agreeing. By contrast, only about 10% said the same about traditional influencer content.

79% of people surveyed said UGC most impacts their purchasing decisions, compared to only 12% who said the same for brand-created content, and 9% who said the same for influencer-created content.

By using social listening, you can keep track of creators that are organically talking about your brand. Then, as part of your short-form social media marketing strategy, you can reach out to these creators and repost or license their content. You’ll find it's more effective at gaining engagement and converting customers than anything you make yourself.

There’s also UGC-style content, which is created by brands or professional UGC creators explicitly for the purpose of being used by a brand. This type of short-form video typically uses creators or actors who aren’t recognizable, as opposed to known influencers.

Here’s an example from Adobe. This ad was created to look like a creator organically sharing a photo editing tip, but is in fact a sponsored ad.

@danisorkphoto we’re living in the future, its fine 🤯 #adobegenerativefill #ai #photoshopai ♬ original sound - Dani Sork Photo

The trick to UGC is making sure it’s not overly-polished the way a brand-produced campaign would be. One popular format for UGC, for example, is a fake podcast setup. The people on screen look like they’re organically talking about a brand as part of a podcast, but it’s actually all a pre-scripted piece of content.

Whichever UGC method you use for short-form video, you’re bound to see great ROI.

3. Be experimental with your short-form video content

One of the joys of short form videos is there aren’t really any rules. They’re an opportunity to experiment and try out new formats and styles.

It’s recommended that you post to TikTok one to four times per day. Rather than letting that stress you out, take it as permission to quell any perfectionist tendencies.

Because short-form video is scrollable and flies by so fast, you can really get creative and take risks. The oddest things can turn viral or turn into memes on platforms like TikTok, but you won’t get there if you’re thinking too hard about every single second.

This is also important advice because we know that authenticity is the most important currency on TikTok. It’s better to earnestly try new things and have some fail then to stick to a script and consistently get mediocre engagement.

One of the best examples of this is language learning app Duolingo’s TikTok account. You could describe it as chaotic, but also hilarious and authentic. Some of their TikToks get millions of views, and some get far less. That’s a good thing — it shows they’re willing to throw everything at the wall and see what sticks. That should be your strategy, too.

If you need some inspiration, check out this list of YouTube Shorts ideas.

4. Move quickly and jump on short-form video trends

As a video marketer, you know that campaigns can often be slowed down by red tape or too many stakeholders. That just won’t fly when it comes to short-form video content.

Trends for short-form videos move at a lightning speed. And while they always trickle down to Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts, these trends most often are born on TikTok.

New, viral memes and trends pop up on TikTok everyday. Some will only last for a day or so, while some can stretch out for a couple of weeks. Taking part in trends, whether it’s a trending song, a challenge, or just a funny thing to do, is a great way to gain engagement and appear in people’s For You pages.

The best way to keep up with trends is to be scrolling through TikTok, Instagram Reels, or YouTube Shorts yourself, or you can also reference the TikTok Creative Center. Because these trends are so short, you need to move quickly and join in as soon as possible.

If your short-form video content has to go through layers of approval or process that delays posting, you’ll be too late and look out of date and, frankly, pretty cringe. And cringe is the last thing you want to be on short-form video platforms.

Create a winning marketing strategy with short-form content

Short-form video content’s reign is here to stay, which means it must become an essential part of your social media marketing strategy.

The key to creating short-form video that resonates is to stick to the core tenets of authenticity, entertainment, and speed. Whether that emerges as UGC, cutting webinars into short-form videos, or a silly meme video, sticking to that advice will get you far.

We know from short-form video statistics that this medium is the preferred way for audiences — especially young audiences — to consume video content. If your target audience is Gen Z in particular, you really can’t go wrong with short videos.

The short-form video trend isn’t going anywhere, so hop on and see what you can create.

What's a Branded Streaming Platform (And Should You Have One)?

Meghan Crawford — Wed, 11 Oct 2023 17:44:16 GMT

Video-first strategies are emerging as the new standard for content marketing teams.

For most brands, that means producing original video content across multiple platforms. For some brands, though, that means producing original video platforms.

Recently, brands have been grabbing attention by launching their own "streaming hubs."

So, what is a branded streaming platform? And is this the future of video marketing, or yet another hype-fueled distraction?

To answer these questions, let’s dive deeper into two recent launches: Lavender Land by Lavender.ai and The Flow by HockeyStack. Today, we'll share a look at the platforms, insight into the apparent strategy, and what the potential takeaways are for marketing teams broadly.

What is a branded streaming platform?

We’re all familiar with classic streaming services, like Netflix, Hulu, etc.

Branded streaming platforms work similarly, minus the monthly subscription fee. Best described as video-first content initiatives, produced and hosted in-house—though sometimes including external creators—these streaming hubs focus on building brand awareness through original, organic content over direct conversion.

The main style of this content is franchise or serial video content that tries to reach end-users and buyers. It ranges from pure entertainment to niche education.

First, some examples of branded streaming platforms

Let’s take a look at The Flow, a streaming platform hosted by the brand HockeyStack.

The homepage layout is similar to what you’d see on Netflix, with multiple suggested shows—if Netflix only hosted content about B2B marketing.

There are several categories of content (Entertainment, Edutainment, Tactical, and Educational), as well as a variety of mediums. You have short-form video shows, like “How Times Change with B2B Ross” and “The Worst Marketer in the World” with 40-second episodes.

You can also tune into longer-form content, like podcast episodes and even a documentary series.

Another brand (also in the B2B space) producing and hosting their own content is Lavender.ai. Here’s Lavender Land, a content hub completely dedicated to sales education:

The majority of content here is short-form, like their “3-Minute Sales School” series, but you can also watch longer videos, ranging from on-demand live recordings (usually hitting the 30 min mark) to video podcast episodes (typically ~15 min).

A nice touch: Video length is clearly marked for all episodes right on the homepage, so viewers know what they’re getting into up front.

Why are brands investing in streaming platforms?

So, what’s going on here? What’s driving companies to experiment with efforts like this?

While we can’t know exactly what compelled any individual company to try something, or how they're measuring success, we can look at the marketing trends that seem to be spurring these efforts.

From discovery to purchase decisions, people favor video at nearly every stage of their customer journey. The natural result? Brands create more video. But where are they putting all of that video? Most brands don’t have a “Resources Library” for video, the way they do for blog content or help center articles.

But what's driving the newfound enthusiasm for video right now? Let’s break this trend down into its individual parts.

1. The way people buy products is changing

Think of running a “search” in 2023. What does that mean?

It used to unequivocally mean going to Google or some other search engine. For many people, it now means starting your search on a video-based platform like TikTok or YouTube.

In some cases, people default to a video-based platform simply because it’s the platform they’re most comfortable with. TikTok or Reels are where many people spend the rest of their time online, and so they begin searching on these platforms, too.

In other cases, people default to YouTube or TikTok because they prefer a video result for their specific question or problem. They don’t want to find a page that maybe has a video about how to change their car battery. They want to find a video of someone walking them through it, step-by-step.

More and more, however, people are searching video platforms because of a growing aversion to traditional search engines. They've come to expect half-spun content curated by affiliate marketers, or some brand trying to aggressively pitch them on their product.

Because of this shift in search behavior, we’re now seeing even traditional search engines bias more toward video. The top results for many queries now contain videos—almost always a YouTube video, unsurprisingly.

And video platforms have definitely caught on to users’ search behaviors, too. TikTok is pushing their search function more with the “related searches” button on certain videos.

2. Teams are placing more value on properly attributed demand creation

For a long time, search was king when it came to acquisition because tracking it in attribution software is easy and reliable. Now, champions of more nuanced, hybrid attribution like Chris Walker of Refine Labs are questioning if software-based attribution tells the whole story.

By comparing what the software was telling them with what customers were saying, Refine Labs was able to zero in on this attribution gap.

Data like this has many brands questioning traditional (and increasingly competitive) marketing channels, like paid search and display, and placing bigger bets on “dark social”—channels that are harder to track directly and under-perform when measured solely with software-based attribution. But once you ask paying customers...

3. Brands are looking for ways to extend the shelf-life of their videos

The net result of all of this is far more investment in content, and video content in particular.

HubSpot data shows that the marketers are investing more into video than any other channel in 2023. Why? Because they see more ROI with video. In fact, short-form video is the #1 predicted marketing investment this year.

All that investment means that brands have stockpiled a lot of video content—but all of it is posted natively on social platforms. That’s not a bad thing: more organic content means more opportunity for discovery.

But when you’re posting on channels you don’t own, a lot of things are left out of your control.

One major hurdle for brands to clear is getting viewers from whichever platform they discovered you back to your own site. Every social media channel where you distribute video is stingy about driving people off site. They want you to stay on the platform. Even saying the words “Link in bio” in a TikTok video feels like it will summon the algorithm gods to bury your video at the bottom of the FYP.

Another issue with social media is the flash-in-the-pan nature of social content. Especially when it comes to short-form video. You’re looking at a shelf-life of a few days for some posts. For fleeting video trends and current events, that’s fine, but what about more evergreen content and thought leadership pieces with staying power?

Brands that invest heavily in video are creating content across the full funnel: educational content about their product and narrative as well as entertaining content that drives awareness and gets people to associate their brand with a certain outcome. Once these videos vanish from social feeds, they don’t necessarily lose their value—as long as you have a way to repurpose them.

Like, say, hosting them on your own streaming platform.

What can we learn from branded streaming platforms?

We’re not suggesting that every brand needs to launch their own streaming hub. But, new initiatives like these can reveal or simply remind us where video marketing is heading.

What every brand should be asking is what they could be doing to unlock more value from video. Ask yourself: Are most of your videos living off site on social platforms? Are they really getting the shelf-life they could? Can new customers or prospects discover them once the algorithm says, "No more"?

Studying Lavender.ai and HockeyStack, we can see three apparent key principles for the branded streaming approach emerge:

1. Video is the premiere medium to create demand

Video is the best channel for creating demand. And not just because most platforms bias toward video right now, although that helps. It’s easier for viewers to build trust and connection watching a video, especially a video featuring a person talking, than reading a blog post or scanning a white paper.

Traditionally, we think about channels like social and video (now essentially synonymous) as awareness channels. But that’s likely because we’re not attributing leads and conversions with enough accuracy. Looking at video as the demand driving activity means it needs to be measured as such, too.

2. Bet on content value; not production value

Back in 2019, Mailchimp debuted their streaming platform, Mailchimp Presents. It’s all glossy, high-production shows in collaboration with studios like Vice and WME.

Impressive, award-winning, and clearly feasible for a brand like Mailchimp—they’re still pumping out content four years and one global pandemic later. It's inspiring, but not exactly replicable by your average content marketing team. And who's to say how well it's actually working?

The shows on Lavender Land and The Flow are lower-fidelity but just as effective for their respective brands, if not more so. Small teams know: You'll get better ROI when the production is good and the content is great.

3. Distribution is baked into the strategy, not an afterthought.

Both Lavendar.ai and HockeyStack sourced outside creators with existing audiences and influence to support their in-house teams produce shows.

And as a content distribution format, streaming hubs are definitely attractive. They allow you to (1) organize content to increase discoverability, (2) de-anonymize social video viewers into traffic on your website and pass those details off to sales, and (3) prevent users from navigating away from your videos.

Are these good enough reasons to go all in on this strategy, though?

Time will tell.

Branded streaming is still a trend to watch

Turning a branded streaming hub into a content viewing destination, a la Netflix or Prime Video, will likely be a tough, uphill battle.

Unless you create a surprise smash hit series, you can expect most of the ROI for your video content to still come through the traditional native social channels. And any marketer who’s ever been given the missive to “just make it go viral” will know how hard it is to bank an entire strategy on the expectation of creating a smash hit.

Brands selling products with a high Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) can afford to reach a smaller number of people and spend more time nurturing that audience. Add to that, selling their brand’s point of view and establishing expertise and authority are must-haves, not nice-to-haves. They only need their streaming hub to win a select number of deals to see significant ROI.

For brands that need to reach a much larger audience, building an entire streaming hub might not be as feasible.

This could still be a trend to watch, though. We’re fans of anything that challenges existing perceptions of video and content marketing, even if it doesn’t prove to be the next big thing for everyone.

For a more in-depth discussion, catch the first episode of our new podcast, The Shortcut:

Video Marketing Trends for 2023 to Level Up Your Content Strategy

Lauren Strapagiel — Fri, 06 Oct 2023 19:21:18 GMT

As a digital marketer, you know that online behavior is changing at the speed of light. It’s your job to keep with trends to stay relevant and ahead of the curve.

The hottest and most enduring “trend” in marketing is undoubtedly video. It wasn’t that long ago that TikTok wasn’t taken seriously, written off as an app for dancing teens. Fastforward and short-form video is everywhere, with Shorts, Reels, and other platforms following suit.

Now, any marketer worth their salt is fluent in online video. In fact, it’s less of a trend and more of a standard. And if you dig down further, you’ll find trends within video marketing itself.

Here, we’ll dive into the video marketing trends that are defining 2023 and that marketers absolutely need to know.

Why use video marketing in 2023?

Video in marketing is no longer something that’s nice to have, it’s an absolute essential. The internet has coalesced around video-first content and your marketing strategies should reflect that.

If you prioritize video content, you’ll be in good company. Wyzowl’s 2023 video marketing trends report found that 91% of businesses use video as a marketing tool — up from 86% in 2022, and a huge jump from 61% in 2016.

And 96% of marketers said video was an “important part” of their marketing strategy, which is the highest percentage in all nine years Wyxowl has done their survey.

Marketers also agree that video is a worthwhile investment, with 92% reporting a positive ROI. Again, more marketers said that in 2023 than any other year. Even for those who aren’t currently using video, 70% said they planned to start in 2023.

So why are marketers so obsessed with video? The answer lies with the fact that people watch videos more than ever.

According to Statistica, three billion internet users watched or downloaded a video every month in 2022, and that number is only expected to increase. No wonder video accounts for 82% of internet traffic. The rise of social media sites like TikTok and Instagram have also made video ads essential. It’s estimated that $78.5 billion will be spent on video ads in 2023.

Using the internet is now synonymous with engaging with video content, so if you don’t have a video marketing strategy, you’re being left far behind. Use these video marketing trends, along with other marketing trends, so get ahead and stay ahead.

6 B2C and DTC video marketing trends

Let’s take a look at the video marketing trends popular with B2C and DTC businesses.

1. Short-form video

When TikTok came along, it totally revolutionized video. Sure — short-form video existed before TikTok. You might remember Vine, for example. But TikTok ushered in an era of short, vertical videos and they’ve reigned supreme ever since. Short-form video has been adopted by every major platform, from Shorts on YouTube to Reels on Instagram.

When we think about short-form videos, they’re usually under one minute and sometimes less than 15 seconds. They’re meant to be punchy with an immediate hook that draws viewers in, and with a punchline not far behind.

According to Hubspot, short-form video is by far the most popular format that video marketers use on social media at 54%. Long-form videos trail behind at 36%. Marketers also reported that short-form video has the highest ROI of any video.

It’s also become a rather convenient format because the same clip can be reposted as a TikTok, Reel, and YouTube Short.

These short clips are meant to be entertaining and highly digestible, encouraging people to spend hours scrolling an endless feed. That means short-form videos also need that wow factor. Using humor is the most common tactic to get that done and even brands with a more serious tone elsewhere often adapt their short-form videos to be more light-hearted.

Short-form videos also have their own trends, including memes and trending audio, which most often originate on TikTok. Playing into those trends is another way to find engagement.

Here’s an example from Scrub Daddy’s TikTok:

@scrubdaddy That one hurted. #scrubdaddy #smile #cleantok #cleaningtiktok #americasfavoritesponge ♬ ok its got a little kick - em

It’s only eight seconds long and may seem incomprehensible to those who aren’t native TikTok users. But it uses a popular piece of audio and a meme-style format. It appears simple, but has over one million views.

Short-form video also creates greater efficiency for content teams because it provides more places to repurpose your existing content. This can be as simple as creating clips of longer videos and resizing them for social media platforms. Or, if the original content isn't well-suited to being resized and reformatted, it might look more like content atomization, where you take a key theme or idea from existing content and use it to create multiple assets across channels.

2. User-generated content for organic posts and video ads

User-generated content, or UGC, is popping off all over the place, especially from DTC brands.

UGC is video content that is created by regular social media users, as opposed branded content or video content made by a paid influencer. That could look like someone posting a review of a new product, doing an outfit-of-the-day video, or even showing a recipe that uses a particular product.

However, user generated content has expanded to also include UGC-style video content. It’s made to look like it was created organically by an everyday person, but was actually crafted in-house by a brand or a freelance UGC creator commissioned by a brand. When it’s done well, you can’t really tell the difference. That makes user generated videos ideal for paid video advertising as well as more guerilla organic marketing.

In either case, UGC has become popular because it feels authentic. The deinfluencing trend revealed how many people are skeptical of influencer content, being left wondering if the influencer in question genuinely recommends a product or is just being paid to do so.

UGC on the other hand signals that the person in the video actually uses and enjoys the products they’re showcasing. They typically don’t have the polish of a brand or influencer-produced video, but that just adds to their authenticity. That builds trust with viewers who prefer watching videos from relatable users.

There are two ways to go about using UGC. First is to search social media for video content created organically by fans and then reposting or licensing their video content.

The other option is to work with professional UGC creators who make this style of video. The advantage to working with a UGC creator is that you can ensure you’re getting the right message across while still keeping that UGC feel. These videos can then either be shared on a branded channel, or appropriately tagged and shared by the creator.

Savannah Sanchez, known as @Social_Savannah on Twitter, is a professional UGC creator who often shares her work.

Here’s a thread where she shares some UGC-style hooks, with examples.

Marketers, listen up👂!

I'm letting you in on my 8 top-performing ad formats. You need to be testing these before Q4!

#1 "3 things that will convince you to try _____" pic.twitter.com/ni9dPPCbzD
— Social Savannah (@social_savannah) August 25, 2023

3. Live video

Virtually every social media app that offers video also offers a way to stream live, and people are definitely watching.

According to Insider Intelligence, live streaming saw a major surge during the pandemic. It was estimated that live video viewers in the US would reach 163.4 million by 2023. As well, nearly half of the US population has streamed a live video. And, according to Livestream, 80% of people would rather watch a live video from a brand than read a blog post.

One of the advantages of live streaming video is that these are interactive videos. Viewers can ask questions or leave comments in real-time that you can respond to, and different social media networks allow for different reactions such as emoji or special animations.

Twitch has been a pioneer in live video, particularly for brands in the gaming space, but there are live video options on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube as well. After a stream is done, the video can also be cut into clips with a video editor for both short-form and long-form videos.

Some brands also host shoppable videos. And it’s not just legacy e-commerce channels like Amazon that support live shopping. The advent of TikTok Shop means that TikTok Live streams can now be shoppable videos, too, with the ability to purchase an item on screen just a click away.

4. Educational video content

Company blogs were once the main format for educating customers and prospects, but now video has taken over.

Video marketing is an excellent method to connect consumers with the information they need about your products, such as how to use them, how to put them together, or how to build a routine.

The visual nature of videos makes it easier to communicate concepts to your customers and can act as a proactive customer support channel. In fact, in that Wyzowl survey, 70% of marketers said they created explainer and how-to videos.

It’s also the preferred medium for customers to learn about your brand — 96% of people said they had watched a how-to video to learn more about a product or service. Additionally, 89% of people said watching a video convinced them to buy a product or service.

Educational videos can take on many forms, from quick hits of information to long-form explainer videos.

Here’s an example of a short TikTok from skincare brand Neutrogena busting myths about skin hydration, using simple text and a voice layover.

@neutrogena_us True or false? #skinscience #trueorfalse #skintok #neutrogenahydroboost #neutrogena ♬ Funk Hip Hop Music(814197) - Pavel

And here’s an example of a long-form educational video from DTC bidet brand Tushy that explains how to install their product.

Either way, the end result is connecting customers with information that helps them make the most of each brand’s products.

5. Behind the scenes

The new era of video marketing is less about polish and poise, and more about offering something genuine to your viewers. You might call this the “TikTok Effect.” Authenticity is the number one currency on the social media platform, and that has leaked into video content all over the internet.

One way to show off the authentic side of your brand is with behind-the-scenes video marketing. In this video marketing trend, you take customers into the inner workings of your brand, showcasing the people, processes, and values that define your business.

The value piece is very important here. Studies have shown that Gen Z in particular really cares about buying from brands whose values align with their own. According to Snapchat, 63% of Gen Z favors brands that have fair labor policies and treat their employees well. As well, 63% prefer brands that promote inclusive workplaces, and 62% prefer brands that have sustainable manufacturing processes.

If those values matter to you too, behind-the-scenes videos are a great way to show that. These can be shared as organic posts on your social media channels, or even part of a larger paid video marketing campaign.

There are a few ways you can incorporate this trend. Dental care brand Hismile, for example, often shoots its social media videos in its warehouse. The TikTok below is a straight-forward sell, but it also offers a glimpse into where their employees work.

@hismile The future is looking BRIGHT ✨😬 #fresh #tasty #fun ♬ original sound - hismile

You can also produce more in-depth, long-form videos looking at, for example, the launch of a product. This YouTube video from ColourPop Cosmetics tells the story of the brand’s collaboration with Disney, and how they worked with Disney designers to create it.

6. SEO for videos

Finally, the last video marketing trend is the emerging importance of video in SEO, or search engine optimization.

Video marketers have been aware of the importance of solid video SEO practices on YouTube videos for the past few years, but those principles are increasingly being applied to social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok. Search engine results pages, like on Google, now show TikToks, but Google can only find your content if you’re writing descriptions and using tags with SEO in mind.

This is also an important practice because for younger generations, TikTok is the new Google. You may be surprised to hear 51% of Gen Z start their searches on TikTok because they prefer answers to be in video format.

Search optimized videos are only going to become more prevalent, so don’t get left behind.

4 B2B video marketing trends

Next, we’ll look at video marketing trends that have popped up in the B2B space.

1. LinkedIn videos

As a B2B business, you already know the power of LinkedIn. You should also know that engagement on the network is growing.

LinkedIn reported a 22% growth in user sessions in 2022. LinkedIn also boasts over 930 million members. It’s also equipped to handle native video, whether short or long.

Whether you’re trying to attract new clients, introduce a new product, share a webinar, or find new employees, video is a great marketing tool on LinkedIn and companies are posting more video than ever to the platform. You can even stream live videos on LinkedIn and post them as featured videos on your profile after the event.

For example, Salesforce live streamed Dreamforce 2023, their annual event.

2. AI video

One of the most talked-about video marketing trends is AI. The rise of artificial intelligence has made it easier than ever to create video content with ease.

In that Wyzowl study, 41% of brands that only started with video marketing in 2022 said it was because videos had become easier to make in-house. AI automates many processes that make video creation difficult, from editing clips to even using an AI avatar as a video host.

For busy video marketers, AI tools simplify video creation. Kapwing has AI-powered tools to edit clips and audio, remove background noise, generate video scripts, and create subtitles.

What’s especially exciting is that AI can be used to make complete marketing videos from scratch. Kapwing’s AI video generator can create a video from a single text prompt, pulling in facts, text, audio, images, b-roll, and transitions. The videos can be used as-is, or further edited and refined, or you can resize the video to use on different platforms.

3. Going live with webinars

You have oodles of information you need to communicate to clients and written content isn’t always the best way to get it done. Remember the stat that 80% of people would rather watch videos from a brand than read a blog post? The same is true in the B2B world. A video can communicate concepts much more easily than text.

That’s why webinars have become one of the top video marketing trends among B2B companies. A webinar is a virtual event, usually with several guests, that is live streamed and then most often archived so pre recorded videos can be watched again.

For example, you might host a webinar with some of your clients, demonstrating the value you provided to a new target audience. Or you might host a webinar with several members of your team to provide business updates or showcase new products.

Webinars can be as simple as hosting and recording a Zoom session and uploading the video, or you could use dedicated webinar tools like Wistia, Hubilo, or Zoho.

Here’s an example of an e-commerce webinar from Google that features talking heads along with slides for added visuals:

4. B2B becomes like DTC

Finally, the last B2B video marketing trend to take note of is the ways B2B is increasingly looking like DTC.

This has been a trend across marketing more generally. Traditionally, DTC brands have been able to take more risks with their branding, with punchier voices or more humor. But that’s changing.

B2B brands are taking notes from methods that have worked for DTC brands. In video marketing, that looks like B2B brands now looking to create social media videos for platforms like TikTok, hosting livestreams, using UGC, and even working with influencers. These videos can either be posted organically or put into video advertising.

So if you’re a B2B brand, don’t ignore those DTC video marketing trends — they apply to your B2B video marketing strategy, too.

Video marketing trend predictions for 2024

We know what video marketing trends are hot now, but what does the future look like? We have three major predictions.

First is that AI is going to get even more powerful — not only in how videos are created, but in how they’re distributed. One of the most exciting prospects for AI is the ability to personalize video content for specific audiences. We’re already seeing this with ad placements, but it’s only going to get more powerful. AI will unlock the ability to determine what messaging will most motivate a customer or client, then actually create a video with that messaging.

The next trend we predict we’ll see in the future is greater accessibility to create virtual reality and augmented reality interactive video experiences. VR is an immersive experience that takes you inside a new world, like with using an Oculus virtual reality headset. Augmented reality takes a digital experience and places it in a user’s world, like previewing how a new sofa will look in your own space. Either way, you’re creating interactive videos that take the experience beyond simply watching something on a screen.

The technology exists for both AI personalization as well as AR and VR experiences, what we think will change is their adoption rate and the ease at which a non-expert can use them.

Finally, expect shoppable videos to become the norm in the US. Live stream shopping has already blown up in parts of Asia, and it’s now primed to take over the West with TikTok Shop. All in all, expect to see more interactive video in the future.

Keep an eye out for these marketing trends as you plan your strategy into 2024.

Video marketers must stay current to succeed

When YouTube launched in 2005, it marked the beginning of a shift to the internet being a video-first experience. Technology has only moved at a rapid pace since then, bringing us livestreaming and short-form video. All of that has to be taken into consideration in your video marketing strategy.

Video marketing trends will continue to change and evolve as viewing habits change as new apps and tools become available.

As a video marketer, staying on top of these video marketing trends will benefit your ROI and make sure the right audience is watching videos with your message.

Additional Resources:

These Are the YouTube Stats You Need to Know

Lauren Strapagiel — Wed, 04 Oct 2023 20:25:00 GMT

YouTube has come a long way since 2005. That was the year the very first YouTube video was uploaded, titled "Me at the zoo,” a 19-second video of co-founder Jawed Karim at the San Diego Zoo.

It took only a month for another video to reach one million views for the first time. Less than a year later, Google acquired YouTube for a cool $1.65 billion in stock. YouTube would go on to expand its offerings with YouTube Music, YouTube Kids, and, more recently, YouTube Shorts in January 2022.

Now, YouTube is one of the most-visited websites in the entire world and it’s basically become synonymous with online video. It’s become a place where videos go viral, where creators base their entire careers, and where musicians and movie producers release premiere new content.

YouTube is the biggest name in online video, both as a destination for those looking for something to watch, and for creators looking to make some money.

We’ll dive into the most important stats about who uses YouTube, how people make money on the platform, and also the internal stats creators should be paying attention to.

General YouTube stats to know

Let’s start with some general stats about YouTube — how people use it, how people make money, and how Shorts come into play.

YouTube usage statistics

Snapshot of website rankings from October 4, 2023

YouTube is the second-most visited website in the world, which means there’s a lot of content and a lot of viewers watching it. In fact, in 2022 YouTube surpassed Netflix for the first time as the No. 1 streaming service in the U.S.

Here, we’ll take a closer look at those YouTube video stats.

How many YouTube videos are there?

This number is constantly changing, as an estimated 3.7 million videos are uploaded to YouTube every day — that’s more 150,000 every hour. From that, we can estimate there are more than 800 million videos on YouTube.b

What’s the average number of YouTube subscribers?

There are over 51 million channels on YouTube now but subscriber numbers for each of those channels vary widely. Subscriber numbers are also constantly in flux, so it’s hard to pin down an average.

However, according to this research, it takes the average account 254 days to reach 1,000 subscribers.

How many daily active users does YouTube have?

YouTube sees more than 122 million active daily users, according to data. In the US, 62% of YouTube users visit the site every single day.

On a monthly basis, YouTube has two billion active users.

Which countries use YouTube the most?

The best numbers we have are YouTube’s own stats on the potential advertising reach for various countries, which we can assume closely correlates to the number of active users.

The top 10 are:

India: 467 million users
US: 246 million users
Brazil: 140 million users
Indonesia: 139 million users
Mexico: 81.8 million users
Japan: 78.4 million users
Pakistan: 71.7 million users
Germany: 70.9 million users
Vietnam: 63 million users
Turkey: 57.9 million users

What country has the highest percentage of YouTube users?

This is looking at how many people in a country use YouTube as a percentage of the population. Essentially, the penetration rate.

The top 10 list looks very different here:

Netherlands: 94.9%
South Korea: 94%
New Zealand: 93.8%
Sweden: 93.7%
United Arab Emirates: 93.2%
United Kingdom: 92.1%
Denmark: 91.9%
Switzerland: 91.8%
Canada: 91.7%
Spain: 91.6%

For context, about 72% of the population in the US uses YouTube. India ranks well below that, with 32.8% of the population watching YouTube videos.

Revenue and YouTube ad statistics

Let’s talk about money! A lot of money gets spent on ads on YouTube, some of which Google keeps, and some of which supports the careers of content creators.

How much does YouTube pay on average?

Payouts from YouTube vary wildly, from people making a few bucks to people making thousands upon thousands of dollars every month. It all comes down to how many views your videos get.

It’s also important to note that in order to earn a portion of ad revenue sharing, creators must be part of the YouTube Partner Program. To be eligible, creators must meet a minimum threshold of subscribers and views, as well as comply with all YouTube guidelines and policies.

The average payout from YouTube in the US in 2022 for those in the Partner Program was $1,154 per week, according to Yahoo Finance. (Remember, these averages can be pretty skewed by the outlying top earners driving the mean way up.)

Of course the Partner Program isn’t the only way to earn money as a YouTuber — check out other methods here.

How much does YouTube pay per 1,000 views?

Again, according to Yahoo, the average payout for YouTube Partners is $0.18 per 1,000 views. The number will vary depending on how much it costs to run the ads on a particular video. Ads for more popular verticals, like personal finance, will typically cost more to run, making those ad placements more lucrative for the creator.

Each view typically costs an advertiser between $0.10 and $0.30. YouTube takes 45% of the revenue for itself, and passes the other 55% to the content creator.

What is YouTube’s global ad revenue?

For 2023, YouTube’s ad revenue is estimated to be a whopping $30.4 billion.

What is the potential reach of YouTube ads?

YouTube has 2.51 billion active users worldwide, meaning it has the biggest potential reach for advertisers of any social media platform. For context, that’s almost half the world’s total internet users!

Stats about YouTube creators

Now we’ll get into statistics about YouTubers themselves, including who’s raking in the money and views, and how many channels are at different tiers of subscribers.

Who is the highest paid YouTuber?

The highest earner on YouTube is MrBeast, who brought in an estimated $54 million in 2021, according to Forbes.

Here’s their full top 10:

MrBeast: $54 million
Jake Paul: $45 million
Markiplier: $38 million
Rhett & Link: $30 million
Unspeakable: $28.5 million
Like Nastya: $28 million
Ryan Kaji (Ryan’s World): $27 million
Dude Perfect: $20 million
Logan Paul: $18 million
Preston: $16 million

Which YouTuber has the most subscribers?

While MrBeast is the individual with the most subscribers, the overall channel with the most subscribers is actually T-Series, an Indian music label, with 243 million subscribers.

Here’s the top 10 most-subscribed to channels, as of May 2023:

T-Series: 243 million
MrBeast: 160 million
Cocomelon: 160 million
Sony Entertainment Television India: 157 million
Kids Diana Show: 112 million
PewDiePie 111 million
Like Nastya: 106 million
Vlad and Niki: 97.8 million
Zee Music Company: 95.5 million
WWE: 95.3 million

How many YouTube channels have 1 million+ subscribers?

YouTube doesn’t release official numbers about how many channels reach the 1 million subscriber milestone, but we can figure out a number based on publicly available data.

We estimate that there are 41,900 YouTube channels with over 1 million subscribers in 2023.

How many YouTube channels have 100,000+ subscribers?

In 2023, around 388,500 YouTubers have over 100k subscribers. That’s 21% more channels than in 2022.

How many YouTube channels have 10,000+ subscribers?

A2,900,000 YouTubers have over 10k subscribers in 2023. That’s nearly six times more channels than those who've crossed the 100,000 milestone.

YouTube Shorts stats

Finally, we’ll look at YouTube Shorts — the platform's answer to short, vertical video.

How many Shorts are on YouTube?

In 2022, 213 million shorts had been posted by 12 million channels.

How many daily active users are watching YouTube Shorts?

In February 2023, YouTube reported Shorts had surpassed 50 billion daily views.

How many people are watching YouTube on mobile?

YouTube Shorts are optimized for a mobile viewing experience, especially on the YouTube app, and more than 70% of YouTube watch time takes place on mobile devices.

Expert Tip: Make your short-form, vertical video content go further by repurposing it for multiple channels. One way to jumpstart your YouTube Shorts strategy is to upload Instagram Reels to YouTube. You can also repurpose YouTube videos for TikTok.

Bonus YouTube Video Stats

Here’s some miscellaneous YouTube statistics.

What is the most viewed YouTube video?

You may not be surprised to learn that the most viewed YouTube videos are music videos. At the top is the Baby Shark Dance video with more than 12 billion views since being published in June 2016.

The second most-viewed video is the music video for “Despacito” by Luis Fonsi.

What is the gender breakdown of YouTube users?

In the US, slightly more women than men use YouTube. The exact breakdown is 51.4% female and 48.6% male.

What age groups watch YouTube?

YouTube’s audience skews younger — 77% of internet users age 15 to 35 watch YouTube.

What do people search for on YouTube?

These are the top 10 YouTube searches worldwide, according to Semrush:

Minecraft
TikTok
Comedy
Tik Tok
ASMR
Fortnite
Musica
BTS
Pubg
Free fire

Your YouTube Statistics

Now let’s talk about your personal stats on YouTube— the analytics that tell you exactly how many views, subscribers, and interactions you get on the platform.

How to see your own YouTube channel statistics

The quickest way to view your stats is by going to the Channel Analytics section of YouTube Studio.

Here, you can see your views over time, your watch time, and your subscriber growth. You’ll also find stats for your YouTube Shorts and lives. Plus, you can find stats on your viewer demographics, such as age, gender, location, and other channels they watch.

The YouTube channel statistics you should follow

Views: How many views your videos get. Important on its own to be sure, but other stats like the ones below will provide more context.
Watch time: YouTube’s algorithm prioritizes channels with a high watch time, so you want viewers to spend as much time as possible with your video content.
Audience retention: This tells you if viewers are watching your video content all the way from start to finish.
Impressions and click throughs: This shows how many people saw a thumbnail for one of your videos and actually clicked through.
Audience demographics: Are you reaching the ages, genders, and locations that you want? This can tell you if you’re hitting your target audience, or maybe attracting a surprising new segment.
Subscribers: Look at both your subscriber growth over time, but also what percentage of your viewers are subscribed or not. If you’re getting a lot of unsubscribed viewers, encourage them to click that button.
Traffic sources: This will tell you how viewers are finding you, such as from the homepage or being recommended from another video.

Follow stats and grow your YouTube videos

Understanding how YouTube works means knowing the larger stats that impact the platform, as well as your own internal analytics. Combine that knowledge to push your strategy forward and grow your channel.

YouTube stats FAQ

How do I see YouTube stats?

To see the stats for your own channel, open YouTube Studio and click the Channel Analytics tab.

What is the most liked video on YouTube stats?

Music videos are some of the top videos on YouTube. "Despacito" by Luis Fonsi featuring Daddy Yankee is the most-liked video on YouTube.

How do I see my monthly views on YouTube?

To see the stats for your own channel, open YouTube Studio and click the Channel Analytics tab. You can then change the date range.

Can you view YouTube channel stats?

Yes! To see the stats for your own channel, open YouTube Studio and click the Channel Analytics tab.

How do I see other YouTube channel stats?

You can’t view detailed stats for other channels, but when you open an individual video you can view the video’s views, likes, and the channel’s subscriber count.

Additional Resources:

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