The rise of online video

VIEW TRANSCRIPT Hi! As technology continues to improve, more and more people are watching videos online. The popularity of online video—and the increasing quality—means huge opportunities for your business. In this lesson, we’ll discuss how technology has boosted online video consumption, why online video is quickly becoming a go-to marketing tool, and ways you can take advantage of these trends in your marketing efforts. Remember the old days, when you connected to the Internet with a dialup modem? If a friend emailed you a funny cat video, you would probably have time to go make a sandwich before the video would load. Then, while enjoying your sandwich and the cat’s piano solo, the video would sputter... then start...then stop as it continued to load. Back then, the issue with online video was that it required a lot of juice—that is, a fast Internet connection—to work properly. Sending a video, even a low quality one, put a huge strain on the typical Internet connection. So it’s not hard to see why advertising with online video wasn’t popular at the time. Fast forward to today. Video technology has progressed significantly. The cost of Internet connection is much lower and the speed is much faster. New software delivers higher quality videos that use your Internet connection efficiently. These days you can watch video on your computer, tablet, or mobile—at home, at the gym, or on a plane. You can even use the Internet to watch online videos on televisions, thanks to gaming consoles and other devices. Thanks to such easy access, video can now be used for entertainment, education, information and advertising. You can even use video to learn about how to use video, as you’re doing right now! Now that video is a mainstay for the web, it’s a valuable tool for the online marketer. So how can you make the most of it? There are several ways to reach customers through online video. You can create a video and share it on websites like YouTube or Vimeo. Or you can embed your video directly on your own website. Another option is to buy ad space in other people’s videos. You could display a text ad at the bottom of the video, or run a short commercial at the start. Advances in Internet technology have made online video marketing a viable option for loads of businesses, large and small. And experts only expect its influence in marketing to grow. As access to fast Internet connections continues to spread, the popularity of online video will only keep growing—which makes video marketing an ideal way to showcase your business. If you stick with us, we’ll help you create a plan for marketing with online video. We’ll show you how to create and share your videos, and how to advertise on video sharing sites. We’ll also discuss ways that you can measure how well your videos are performing.