What’s the story with online video?

Humankind has been telling stories since long before we had the written word. Although, no one can know for sure, Princeton University thinks we used sign language before speech to communicate vital information for adapting to our environment. This information gradually formed the basis of stories that enabled us to learn about ourselves and the world that we inhabit. Stories were told to mark an occasion, set an example, warn about danger, procure food, or explain what seemed inexplicable. People told stories to communicate knowledge and experience in social contexts. Does that sound familiar? Isn’t that exactly how and why people and businesses tell stories? Doesn’t every great experience you’ve had boil down to a story you tell friends and family?

We haven’t changed much, but the tools have. The modern tools for storytelling have evolved to make video the baseline expectation. I’m a big believer in the power of storytelling, and the power of video as the way to tell stories. Video is an easily accessible way for our audiences to hear the stories we tell. In my ongoing search to find ways to better reach my client’s audiences, I found a lot of interesting facts about video. I thought I’d take a moment, to share a quick list of ten things to keep in mind when using video on the web as your story telling medium. They’re in no particular order but I think number one was the most surprising to me.

Ten Video Related Facts You Need to Know to Be a More Effective Storyteller

  1. It’s fifty times easier to get a video to rank on the fist page of Google than other types of content.

Source: Ethos 3   http://bit.ly/1Dd4kgD

  1. 80% of all internet traffic will be video content by 2019. That’s a 67% increase from 2014.

Source: Cisco   http://bit.ly/1ojjtoE

  1. Consumers are 64%-85% more likely to make a purchase after watching a product video.

Source: Ooyala   http://bit.ly/1dX9bfg

  1. If Mobile Video continues to trend at it’s current rate, it will be at least 50% of all online video plays by the end of 2015, and shows no sign of slowing. This means the preferred method of viewing will be mobile devices not TVs or PCs.

Source: Ooyala   http://bit.ly/1M2DoaM

  1. Monthly Youtube viewership is up 50% year over year with about 60% of that audience being from a different country then that of the uploader. This means most of your audience on Youtube is not local to your country.

Source: Google   http://bit.ly/1jJRc8O

  1. Short attention spans rule the day. 45% of internet video viewers will tune out or click away after just one minute. That number grows to 60% after just two minutes.

Source: Business2Community   http://bit.ly/1itMjTJ

  1. 65% of C-Suite executives visit a vendor’s website after viewing their video.

Source: Forbes http://onforb.es/1LaCAwy

  1. Videos have a 41% higher click through rate than their plain text counterparts.

Source: Reel SEO   http://bit.ly/1Gi7rE2

  1. 92% of all Mobile video viewers share videos with friends, family and coworkers.

Source: Invodo   http://bit.ly/1MqfRi1

  1. 70% of people surveyed said that their perception of a brand was “positively altered” after seeing interesting video content.

Source: Axonn   http://bit.ly/1HrOnVP

With these facts in mind, I’m changing the way I tell my stories as well as the stories Four Winds Creative is hired to tell for it’s clients. Mobile was already a strong factor but with it becoming the preferred method to watch video by the end of 2015 we’ll be focusing more on the small screen. What changes will you make in how you use video in your storytelling?

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