Remember banner ads? Well, they're still out there, of course, but they were the big thing at one point. They did really well. Yeah, that was a long time ago and people are pretty much blind to banner ads now - although ads done really well still work.
We've seen Facebook change a lot, too. They push out updates to how things look and work and people complain but then they get used to it. Facebook pushed out video that automatically plays on people's news feeds (with no audio playing by default, thank God) and there was some uproar about that. The thing is, since that change was done, it seems that videos now get more attention than regular posts with photos/pictures.
Here's a good article that explains these findings:
Reversal Of Facebook: Photo Posts Now Drive Lowest Organic Reach (marketingland.com)
Photo posts on Facebook brand pages now have the lowest average organic reach, Socialbakers data shows. The average video post is seen more than twice as often.
Looking at more than 670,000 posts by 4,445 brand pages (not including celebrity, entertainment or media pages) between October 2014 and February 2015, Socialbakers found that video posts had organic reach of 8.71%, meaning an average of nearly nine fans out of 100 see such posts. The reach was only 3.73% for photo posts, well below the results for text-only statuses (5.77%) and link posts (5.29%).
Only 9 out of 100? Wow, that's low. It goes on:
Although drastic, the flip-flop shouldn’t come as a complete surprise. Facebook has been making a huge video push since last June. In November, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that in five years most Facebook content would be video and last month he announced that videos were getting more than 3 billion views a day on the platform.
What is getting attention on Facebook is video and this pertains to your own website as well.
The next step has started and it's video. You're starting to see videos load in the background on websites and all kinds of places. The amount of bandwidth available is increasing and computer processor and memory speeds are really good as well. These factors, along with newer Web technology (HTML5, CSS3, JQuery, etc.), have made it easier to have video on your website and have it actually work well.
Video works. You get to make more of a connection with your audience. People get to see you, see what you're like and then form more of a bond with you and your company instead of just reading text and looking at pictures. If you think about it, text and pictures are kind of like the "black and white" version of the Web. Today, you need to combine text, images and video to have the best user experience for your prospective customers.
At the very least, get one video on your website - maybe on your home page or About Us page to at least show people more about what your company is about or who the people are that work there. Doing that is a start.
Next, consider adding a more professionally produced video to your website. A video that's done well is worth it. It matches the quality of the products and services you provide. It's why you choose Webstix in the first place - you want your website done professionally. It's why I take my car to the shop for an oil change instead of doing it myself - sure, I can do it but it'll take me longer and I might mess something up. I leave that to the pros.
We have an Emmy Award winning team ready to help you with a video for your website. Contact Webstix today to find out more about pricing and the best ways to implement video on your website in order to convert more website traffic into customers.
-Tony
