Anybody who lived through the 1900s witnessed a phenomena that is basically repeating itself post Y2K. In the very early 1900s, newspapers were the primary means of getting the daily news (the written word). Two decades later, radio became prevalent and people were inclined to tune in to get information (the spoken word). People loved listening to the radio because they could multitask other tasks such as housework, exercising or driving a car. Another decade and along came television (the next best thing to being there). Television stole the thunder from both newspapers and radio as a means of delivering and receiving information and it went on to dominate our attention for at least a few decades. Post war baby boomers could aptly be called the television generation. It quickly became the best way to reach a large audience with marketing and branding messages. A lot of people preferred to watch television as opposed to reading, for the simple fact that it was easier and arguably more entertaining.
Then towards the end of the 1900s and early 2000’s we moved into the Internet age and the same type of progression has been taking place ever since. The Internet started primarily with text based information. Soon thereafter, static images were added to the words, then (voice) podcasting came along, but it wasn’t until quite recently that hi-def video with sound became prevalent on the Internet and the reason for that is because of the advances of hardware technology in the areas of resolution, storage and bandwidth. Most recently it seems that we have solved all of those problems and can now enjoy unprecedented, beautiful video productions on our phones virtually anywhere. Not only can we consume those videos but we can also produce them with the same device that we watch them on and that is a huge paradigm shift of power to the average person. In the golden age of television, a single person couldn’t possibly dream of creating their own show or network. Today, a teenager can do that in the basement with a cell phone.
The Advantages of Video
The advantages of video are as follows:
- They are easy to consume, especially on mobile devices, in virtually any location.
- They encourage longer engagement times with your content and brand.
- They help to lasso the incessant scrolling behaviour that most people have on their phones.
- You can do text overlays for people that may have their phone on mute but are still consuming video.
- Video provides another way to get discovered, especially on YouTube, which is the second largest search engine in the world.
- Video dovetails with social media platforms very, very well and is better at getting attention than any other content.