Modern brands know this reality. As a result, they lean on video trends to create content that today’s consumers want to see the most. Focusing on video formats lets brands attract more customers than competitors that produce videos just for the sake of doing it.

Learn about the following seven video trends for profitable videos that your company can use in your next marketing campaign. Leaning on these trends means fulfilling an existing demand for a specific video format instead of spending hours producing a type of video that viewers no longer want to watch or share.

1. Serialized content

Serialized content is a video format where you discuss one topic over many videos. Google found serialized content to be one of the top YouTube trends of 2021.

With this format, you expand on concepts viewers love instead of guessing what they like. For example, if viewers like a video explaining the benefits of a specific product, create a series of videos breaking down that product and its features in more detail.

After analyzing what millions of viewers watch, Google concluded that people seek content they are familiar with. It’s a time-conscious decision for the viewer. Every minute, brands and creators uploaded over 500 hours of video to YouTube as of 2020. People seek more of the same to avoid watching boring videos and wasting their time.

Google found serialized content to be one of the top YouTube trends of 2021.

 

Serialized content helps you strengthen the bond between you and your audience. When you expand on topics viewers want to know more about, you show them you care about their preferences. They’ll see you value their desires and are not trying to only profit from them. Hence, they’ll be happier to support your initiatives.

YouTube offers the most reach for your serialized videos. To use it, log into YouTube Creator Studio. Then click on the Analytics tab in the left sidebar to find which of your videos people watch most frequently and for the longest time. Look for a video with above-average views, comments, or viewing sessions. Next, ask yourself one question: Can I create a video on a different aspect of this topic? If you can, produce it to increase your odds of publishing a successful video.

2. Live streams

Remote work, lockdowns, and health restrictions reduced the number of interactions people had. Thus, viewers started watching live videos more often to interact with others, even if it was through a screen. According to Think with Google, 85% of people watched a live stream between May 2020 and May 2021.

Spectators could interact with creators while watching these videos. The immersive experience lets people connect more personally with creators as they can ask questions or make suggestions to video makers and get a reply immediately. The bond can make viewers pick your videos over those from companies they only vaguely know.

Live streams also let viewers strengthen their relationships with their social circle. In the same ThinkWithGoogle study, researchers found that 79% of viewers feel a more profound connection to live content when watching YouTube with others. When viewers enjoy the time they spend watching your videos, they are more likely to return for more.

85% of people watched a live stream between May 2020 and May 2021.

 

YouTube live streams are a great place to start as the platform is free and intuitive. To use it, verify your YouTube account to unlock the live stream tool.

The next step is to set up your equipment. Most built-in computer cameras and microphones produce blurry videos and distorted audio. So plug in a high-quality webcam to deliver an enjoyable viewing experience. You also want high-quality audio to go along with the high-quality video. Place your microphone between your sternum and chin for the best audio quality.

Next, click on Go Live in the top right corner of YouTube’s interface. Write a title that describes your live stream’s purpose, add a related thumbnail, and then go live.

3. Hyper-targeted video advertising

A survey of U.S. consumers found that 71% prefer ads based on their interests and shopping habits. Some consumers care even more about hyper-targeted advertising. According to Digital Journal, around 90% of consumers of digital marketing services value ads based on their search patterns.

No one wants to watch an ad presenting a product they have no use for, especially if the ad shows up every time they launch a social app. Irrelevant ads provide an impersonal shopping experience, which frustrates 71% of consumers. These ads also set you up for failure as you can’t sell a product to someone who doesn’t need it.

In contrast, creating targeted video-based ads makes viewers even more likely to watch them. Targeted videos are actually helpful for the viewer rather than nuisances to scroll past. These ads feature problems, data, and solutions relevant to the viewer. Therefore, the viewer will care about the content of the video in hopes they’ll find a solution to a problem they have.

Irrelevant ads provide an impersonal shopping experience, which frustrates 71% of consumers.

 

Consumer data-collecting tools make creating hyper-targeted video ads easy. Social media platforms track how long users look at an ad, and websites record where most visitors stop scrolling. Advertising networks collect or buy this data so you can segment your target audience by specific characteristics like job role, marital status, or income bracket.

You can use this data to target the people facing the exact problems you solve. But there’s a caveat. Use this data to know who to target but not as the entire foundation of your script. According to Harvard Business Review, knowing consumers’ preferences could drop an ad’s performance if it makes consumers concerned about their privacy. It’s okay to show dog leashes to dog owners. But it’s scary if your ad mentions the viewer’s dog’s breed, age, and health problems.

Your video ads shouldn’t mention sensitive information like finances, sex, and health, as that can offend people. Also, don’t infer information about customers and risk weakening the bond between you and them.

4. Visual podcasts

A 2022 study from Google found a rising demand for recorded audio content and multisensory experiences, like visual podcasts. When you record your team producing a podcast, your audience can see a more authentic side of them. The intimacy builds a deeper connection between viewers and brands that regular podcasts cannot create.

Viewers can feel like a part of your team when they see your crew in a laid-back setting. People invested in your success will happily support your projects, whether through sharing your video or buying the product it offers.

Google found a rising demand for recorded audio content and multisensory experiences, like visual podcasts.

 

Your visual podcast’s equipment depends on your podcast’s format. For example, if you record alone, use a front-facing camera and a tripod to capture clear, steady footage. This setup will also work if you are alone in a room but interviewing people over a video conferencing tool.

Set multiple cameras to capture each person’s gestures and reactions for podcasts with more than one host. Make sure to give each speaker a microphone to ensure the audio is free of echoes.

5. Short videos

Platforms specializing in short videos are booming. TikTok hit 1 billion active users in September 2021—a 45% increase since July 2020. Meanwhile, YouTube Shorts hit 15 billion daily views in 2021. These numbers show people value content they can watch in seconds, even if it takes brands less time and budget to create them.

Google found one shared trait among YouTube’s most popular Shorts: they were relatable. In regular-length videos, editors cut anything that sounds unprofessional to maximize the amount of information in the video. The result is a video that looks too put together and, at times, pretentious.

Shorts’ production value is lower than longer videos, often relying on smartphones and minor editing. Viewers perceive these videos as more authentic as if they or their friends could produce them. This informal trait makes brands seem more approachable, making people feel more open to sharing feedback and ideas.

People value content they can watch in seconds, even if it takes brands less time and budget to create them.

 

Brands can use short-form videos to cover subtle parts of their business that viewers want to learn about. For instance, you can record a 30-second video covering an unknown product use case that can improve customers’ lives. Similarly, you can film quick lessons about skills viewers want to learn. The short length makes your videos easy to consume and produce.

6. Shoppable videos

Deloitte found that almost four in 10 Americans have visited the website of a product they saw on social media. Also, 31% bought products using these platforms’ mobile payment options. Take advantage of the rising trend of in-app purchases by creating shoppable videos.

Shoppable videos have tags people can click to learn about a product or buy it. These videos include a “Buy Now” button viewers can tap to reach a landing page and order your product with just a few clicks. The fewer steps involved in buying your product, the more you’ll sell. Viewers are less likely to get distracted if they can quickly buy a product. And fewer steps means it’s less likely they’ll forget about buying your product after watching a video.

Almost four in 10 Americans have visited the website of a product they saw on social media.

 

You can use interactive video software focused on shoppable videos to let people buy products from home. Focus on one or two items so as to not overwhelm viewers with dozens of options.

The small offer also helps you include buttons that solve common objections to buying these products. Let’s say your video promotes a service people often find expensive. In that case, you can add a “Learn about our costs” button to explain your service’s worth.

7. Live video events

At the pandemic’s beginning, many companies faced a challenge: they relied on in-person events, and then they couldn’t host them. Instead of eliminating these events, 70% of U.S. event professionals moved at least portions of their face-to-face events online.

Online events are cheaper to host than in-person ones. You don’t need to hire dozens of staff members, sound systems, lights, or rent a place. For a few hundred dollars a year, you can get video conferencing to host as many webinars and events as you want. These tools come with polls, breakout rooms, booths, and other features to re-create the experience of attending an engaging in-person conference.

70% of the U.S. event professionals moved at least portions of their face-to-face events online.

Live video events are also more flexible than in-person ones. Speakers can present from anywhere as long as they have internet, which gives you access to a global pool of experts. As for attendees, they don’t have to invest in hotels or flights, so it’s easier for them to participate in your event.

Thanks to the tools’ features, you can check your event’s analytics once it is over to find areas for improvement. For example, you can see which speaker held the audience’s attention for the longest time and invite them to a future show. You can also check when people left the event to know which segments to remove from your presentation.

Apply these video trends using Vyond

Companies can use Vyond to apply these video marketing trends or create videos that support them. For example, you can add animations pointing to essential statistics in your presentations, making viewers more likely to see them. You can also include moving graphics for shoppable videos and visual podcasts to stand out from competitors.

Once you understand how animating works, which won’t take long because of Vyond’s intuitive software, you can create entire videos. This process doesn’t require previous animation experience, as our vast number of templates will help you turn ideas into videos in minutes.

Try Vyond for free

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As employees in the age of COVID-19, so many of us are struggling to navigate the challenges of remote work. And while we will return to our regular workplaces eventually, this abrupt transition to remote work will likely spark many organizations to consider the expansion or evolution of their work-from-home policies.

This “new normal” of remote team communication requires an entirely new way of functioning – especially when it comes to talking about sensitive, nuanced issues.

Think about asking for a promotion, needing to raise a performance issue, or talking to your manager about shifting your workday schedule to accommodate kids at home. How does all of this manifest in this remote workplace reality?

Here at Vyond, we recently teamed up with True Global Intelligence and asked 1,000 employees at large enterprises in the U.S. how comfortable they feel speaking up to managers, or “managing up”, the trait that helps us excel in our careers, but that no one ever explicitly teaches.

Our research identified a significant training gap: 42% of employees said they would be interested in receiving training on managing up, but only 28% of employees have received training on this topic. And as a generation, millennials are particularly craving guidance, with 50% expressing a desire for training on managing up.

Speaking with your manager about sensitive topics is hard enough – now, think about doing it over the phone or video chat. In our remote work environment, we’re now tasked with handling these conversations without being able to adequately gauge body language and facial cues to help guide the conversation. Plus, there’s an element of urgency to consider. These important conversations can’t and shouldn’t wait, especially when it comes to issues like performance and pay.

So what can you do now to help employees prepare? To start, consider offering remote training that specifically addresses how employees can navigate these tough talks in a virtual setting.

Managing Up – and Freeing Up Your Calendar

One situation where “managing up” training comes in handy is this: your schedule being overrun with meetings.

Have you ever asked yourself – why couldn’t this meeting have been an email? We may share memes on social media or complain to similarly beleaguered colleagues, but what if we could actually speak up about it to our managers – and ultimately make a difference?

When we asked our survey respondents whether they feel comfortable talking to their superiors about changing the number of meetings on their calendars, we found that two-thirds (65%) of those with no direct reports have not tried to bring this issue up with their boss. Some groups are more likely than others to bring up the topic – for example, we found men are more likely to have successfully tried to change the number of meetings they have (33% of men vs. 21% of women), while women are more likely to not have tried at all (46% of women vs. 36% of men).

What Can Organizations Do About It?

Conversations with superiors, whether about promotions or reducing the number of meetings, are tricky for even the most seasoned employees to tackle. One way for leadership teams and HR to help employees feel prepared is through training. And now that so many of us are working from home, how this training is implemented matters more than ever. Our survey found the most preferred type of training among employees is self-led online training (51%), compared to instructor-led training and one-on-one coaching. This is heartening, as self-led eLearning is a critical component of training and managing a remote team.

Videos are a valuable resource in conducting remote training and can be easily incorporated into your existing learning content. Creating your own videos with a tool like Vyond ensures they are branded for and tailored to your organization. Videos are extremely engaging, accessible, and adaptable and are a great way to arm your employees with the soft skills they need to confidently manage up.

We’ve made a video template in Vyond on how to have difficult conversations with your manager so you can quickly implement your own remote training, customized to your needs. Click here to access the template and for instructions on how to use it.

The transition from working in an office to spending your entire day at home is not an easy one. We encourage you to hang in there and do the best you can in this new remote work environment. Don’t forget to take care of yourself and not just your to-do list. Take time away from your work, incorporate healthy meals and movement if you can, and connect with your loved ones.

We’d love to continue this conversation on social media and hear how you’re adapting to your new remote life, or if you have other ideas for crucial training in this new world order, don’t hesitate to share. You can find us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram.

The post How Employees Can “Manage Up” in Our New Remote Work Environment appeared first on Vyond.

While the industry likes to talk about the newest shiny thing in terms of future trends in the training space, I see two foundational concepts driving success for corporate trainings in 2020 and beyond. And they come down to things that are simple and seemingly obvious, but hard for companies to implement.

Message Before Medium

Employees want to be treated as people, not transactions, and corporate trainings need to be communicated in that fashion. This means that when an employee receives a meeting invite for an ethics training, that session better speak to them as humans as opposed to churning out a running list of “Don’t Do” scenarios.

All the new tech and tools in the world won’t help if you don’t have a solid foundation – an authentic message, personalized specifically for your audience.

Once you have that basis, you can think about the best medium to convey the message and oftentimes, that medium is video. Video trainings can help you focus on the key components of your message, since the goal is to keep things simple, engaging, and understandable. It’s also easy to personalize your message so that the training is relatable and connects to your audience.

Matt Moran, a professional public speaking coach for over 20 years, uses Vyond to help build his online courses. Vyond’s ease of use and storytelling capabilities are only part of his reasons for using Vyond, in addition to combining it with live-action to break up the monotony of speaking to his audience. Matt noticed that his students found animation to be more engaging and made it easier to understand his messages and lessons.

Traveling Trainings

Training methods must evolve with the changing nature of the modern workplace. Many of today’s professionals are frequently on the move or do not conform to a normal 9-to-5 workday. Trainings need to reflect that reality and become more engaging, accessible and adaptable.

Using video allows HR leaders to provide the freedom and flexibility employees need. Workers can learn at any time and in any place, the trainings can be easily updated and it’s quicker than ever to create them.

One example that impressed me was Providence St. Joseph Health’s extensive training revamp to prepare their employees for a complete digital transformation in their workplace. They utilized an app that allowed workers to scan a picture or prompt with their phones, which would start short augmented reality-enhanced scenarios. Employees could choose which trainings they wanted to take where they wanted to take them with these mobile, engaging and quick offerings.

It will be interesting to see how these two trends play out over the year, as companies start to pick up on their importance and take advantage of them. I truly believe that those who are able to successfully implement these trends will see long-term results.

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The following case study showcases how Vyond videos allow Catalina Marketing to engage their employees in ways PowerPoint cannot, all while reducing onboarding time and increasing the productivity of their training team. With animated videos, Catalina Marketing has improved the learning of their 1,350+ employees around the world.

Summary of Success

• 1 hour Time it takes for the Catalina training team to produce some of their videos.
• 67% Reduction in onboarding time for one group of new employees.
• 100% Pass rate for a new training program on traditionally low-engagement topics.

The Challenge

On a boat trip to Catalina Island in 1983, Catalina Marketing’s founders conceived an electronic alternative to the waste of mass-reach coupons: using grocery-store scanners to deliver targeted coupons at checkout. Today, powered by the world’s largest shopper history database, Catalina helps top consumer product goods (CPG) brands deliver the right message to the right audience in the right environment.

The company also wants to deliver the right messages—in the form of training—to its internal audience of more than 1,350 employees spread around the world, and the only way to do that is through eLearning. As Erika Hebert, director of Catalina’s global operations training, explains, “As a company, we can’t do everything face-to-face anymore. We just don’t have the people or the time.”

The challenge was to create entertaining eLearning videos with limited staff, time, and budget. “The alternative was sharing 100-slide PowerPoint decks that employees would never read,” Hebert says.

The Solution

These challenges came to a head in 2014, when Tricia Manning, Catalina’s executive vice president of global operations, approached Hebert about creating interactive training to roll out a new process to about 100 employees in Catalina’s U.S. operations.

“The audiences who needed to understand this new process included employees at every level, from vice presidents to individual contributors,” says Hebert. “Our goal was to get people trained on the new process, on time, with as little rework or retraining as possible.”

Manning suggested using animation to turn the training slides for the project into something easier for employees to digest. While doing her due diligence, Hebert discovered Vyond during a Google search. Vyond’s ease of use sold her on the platform.

“I got the free trial and created an initial sample video,” says Hebert. “When I showed it to one executive, she actually became emotional. I didn’t want to tell her how easy it was. We’ve been [Vyond] fans ever since.”

Vyond’s ease of use also helped new members of the global operations training team get up to speed and become productive quickly. Emily Pfeiffer, who joined Hebert in 2015 as a curriculum development specialist, says she only needed about a day to start feeling comfortable with the software.

“I thought I was going to have to go out and get a lot of assets that [Vyond] didn’t provide, but it has visuals for different business lines,” said Pfeiffer. “That’s a time saver because I don’t have to search for all of these images and themes to get my point across. It’s already built-in.”

The Results

Hebert and her team used Vyond videos to kick off the training for the new process. “[Vyond] was a cool wrapper that helped us get excited about the project,” says Hebert. “It allowed us to meet our go-live date in June 2015 and to meet all of our objectives for educating these employees.”

As an added bonus, Catalina Marketing discovered that onboarding time for new employees who needed to follow the process decreased from six months to 60 days.

Today, Catalina Marketing uses Vyond in conjunction with Articulate, and has embedded Vyond videos within Articulate Storyline 1 and 2 eLearning courses. Because the solution works with video and HTML5, it gives content producers more flexibility in choosing the right delivery vehicle for their work.

“[Vyond’s] key differentiators include camera movement, character customization, multiple video styles, and templates,” says Pfeiffer. “I also like the zoom and transitions that make your videos look more professional than your average free system.”

Catalina Marketing primarily uses the Business Friendly style but has also used the Infographics theme. “We’ve named some of the out-of-the-box characters for people in the company,” explains Hebert. “And we’ve even created characters that look like employees. The personalization makes the training fun for our audience.”

For a group that has a tight budget, Vyond’s pricing works, according to Hebert. “The only other pieces of equipment we had to purchase for Vyond were microphones,” she says. “Other than the subscription price, we’ve only spent another $30 or $40 per trainer on equipment like the microphones.”

Catalina Marketing continues to see success in incorporating Vyond into training programs. For example, one of the company’s big 2015 initiatives was to increase the quality of the data collected from UPC codes. To make what could have been a dry topic more interesting, Hebert and Pfeiffer created an eLearning module that included several Vyond videos. More than 100 employees were required to complete and pass the course—and 100% did, according to Hebert.

The Bottom Line:

In addition to increasing the adoption and acceptance of eLearning, Vyond has also made the training team much more productive. “It honestly takes me less than half a day to make a video,” says Pfeiffer. “Once I have the content that I want, I write a quick script, and then I build the animations and put it all together. Sometimes it only takes me an hour.” Concludes Hebert: “It probably takes us longer to get the content from our subject matter experts than it does for us to produce the videos!”

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Create engaging learning videos

With Vyond, anybody can create compelling content that promotes learning. By giving yourself the power of video, you can teach in a more dynamic, engaging, and fun way. Vyond Studio is designed to empower all kinds of businesses to make media that moves, even if they don’t have any video experts on the team. All you need is a little imagination. Give it a try with a 14-day free trial of Vyond.

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Step One:  Determine your needs by answering these questions

1. What is your message, what material do you need to cover?
2. Who are you targeting?
3. What do you want them to do?
4. Where will my video be played and in what context?
5. How will I measure success?

Step two: Create a content outline or creative brief
It’s important during this phase to make sure everyone involved in creating the video is on the same page before moving forward, and an outline or brief will ensure this is the case. Outline your content in a manner similar to making PowerPoint slides, with just the basic information you want to communicate. Focus on your goals, topic, and takeaways as well as people responsible for each phase of the project and any deadlines. Our friends at Act-On have developed a nice video brief template you can use or reference when building your own.

Step three: Brainstorm plot ideas
Think about what situations could occur in your video to help you bring your main points home, keeping in mind your audience and their frame of reference and experiences. Determine your characters, locations, and props. What’s the name of your main character? What happens to them over the course of the video? How can you use their experience to educate your audience or drive them to action?
As you create your scenario, remember the 3 cornerstones of storytelling:

• Protagonist – the “change agent”
• Antagonist – the “resistor of change”
• Point-of-View character or “witness” – the person changed by the events in the story

Step four: Write your script and develop your storyboard
For your script, remember that there’s a difference between good copywriting and good scriptwriting. Your video script should sound personal. Read it out loud to make sure it sounds and looks like a conversation. Be detailed in what should happen in the video, but keep the dialogue brief. A storyboard is graphic representation of how your video will unfold, shot by shot. Taking a few minutes to storyboard will save you tons of time later. There are several great storyboarding tools out there, but when we make videos, we either sketch out the storyboard with stick figures or type the script into a document and add screenshots from GoAnimate.

Then, bring it all together and create your content in GoAnimate.

Step 5: Add music and sound effects
Sound provides a richer viewing experience, whether it’s the sound associated with a particular action, like opening a can of soda, or a piece of music to set the mood for a scene. When you consider sound, it’s more than just picking a music track. How much attention does the viewer need to pay to the dialogue? You don’t want sound to distract from technical, detailed information, but a good piece of music can underscore more broad concepts. Choose tracks that fit the mood of your story & your target audience, and lastly, make sure you have the rights to your music. Purchase it or make sure it’s in the public domain.

Step 6: Add voice-over (VO)
Adding VO can sometimes be the most difficult part, but it doesn’t have to be! To make things easier on yourself, save this for last since your script could change as you create your content. When you’re ready to add voice over and narration, you have two options: to hire a VO artist or do it yourself. With services like VoiceBunny, Voices123, or BuyVO, you can pick your VO artist online, send off your script and have it back within a few hours. All for just a few hundred dollars. To record yourself, we suggest using a simple USB mic with a popfilter and recording into a free audio program like Audacity so you can adjust levels and remove pauses. Be sure to project your voice, use consistent mic placement and trim the heads and tails of audio clips to remove pauses and clicks.

Now you’re ready to create video like a pro. Check out our help center for more tips and tricks on using GoAnimate.

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