Why Video Influencer Marketing will be a successful strategy in 2020 - The Social Media Hat

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In 2019, video marketing witnessed massive developments, whether it was the rise of platforms like TikTok or the rapid growth in YouTube usage. TikTok grew to 500 million monthly active users in a span of just three years, while YouTube crossed 2 billion monthly active users.  

People also use Stories on Facebook and Instagram frequently. Nearly 500 million people watch Instagram Stories daily.

According to research, 72% of consumers stated that they would prefer watching a video rather than reading text to find out more about a product or service. Additionally, 54% of consumers want to see more videos from brands and companies they support. 

By 2022, video is likely to account for 79% of the total mobile internet traffic. Thus, it makes sense to make video influencer marketing an important part of your marketing strategy. 

Here is why video influencer marketing will be a successful marketing strategy in 2020.

Instagram Television (IGTV) is one of the most useful features for influencers today, and this is going to gain a lot more traction in 2020.

Instagram has over a billion active monthly users, of which around half of them are active daily. This platform has gained success over the last few years because of the efforts it has put into offering useful new features like Stories and IGTV.

While Instagram videos shared through posts and Stories are limited to short videos, IGTV is a mature solution for sharing long-form content and engaging users.

IGTV videos give influencers the chance to explain things in detail and have longer conversations with their followers. This is something that wasn’t previously possible on Instagram. 

It’s an especially good place to create how-to videos for products, which can take a lot of time to explain. Influencers can also create longer, more detailed reviews through IGTV. 

Launched in 2017, this platform’s popularity shot up after its merger with Musical.ly. It is the most popular social media mobile app in the U.S. as of Sep 2019, with an average session length of 10.85 minutes. In the U.S., a user opens the app nearly eight times a day.

TikTok allows its users to create videos with a creative touch and share them globally. Brands can find the right influencers for promotional activities there, while also focusing on making the best use of several advertising campaign options.

With the rapid increase in the monthly active users of this video platform, you can expect a high engagement rate from your influencer marketing campaigns. 

Brands are becoming increasingly aware of the various metrics they need to track to measure the success of their influencer marketing campaigns. This makes it essential for influencers to perform exceedingly well in their campaigns. 

Nearly 97% of marketers using videos say that videos help them improve how well consumers understand their products. Additionally, 83% of consumers consider sharing videos that they like with their friends. This can help improve the engagement rates of influencers’ posts.

Videos can also help you improve the average click rate of your email campaigns. Many ecommerce brands used videos to double achieve a 8.98% click rate of their promotional emails. You can also use influencer-created videos to boost user engagement.

Using influence calculators, brands can find out the effectiveness of influencers and choose whether or not to work with them. To make sure that brands will want to partner with them, influencers need to have high engagement rates and large followings. 

For this, videos can be extremely helpful. This makes videos one of the best forms of content for marketing in 2020. 

AI-powered tools like Animoto and Magisto helped creators spruce up their video production, editing, and marketing game in 2019. The coming year will only be an extension of the same. 

With advanced capabilities and continuous improvement, tools like these will help more users create videos with ease. 

This will make it easier for influencers to create videos that their audiences want to see. And, best of all, it won’t be a time-consuming task like it used to be. As a result, they will be more inclined to create videos for your influencer marketing campaigns. 

Additionally, the professional-looking videos will catch the attention of viewers and many of them may end up engaging with the videos. Some of them may even end up purchasing from your brand, thus increasing your sales. 

Nearly 85% of all internet users in the US watched videos on their devices in 2018. Additionally, over 100 million Instagram users watch or create a live video every day. These videos typically get higher engagement than regular videos because viewers can interact with the video in real-time. 

This makes live videos one of the best ways of running your influencer marketing campaigns. You can ask influencers to review your products or services on live video, have a Q&A session with them, or even have them cover your product launch. Alternatively, you can have them go live from your social media accounts and ask your audience to interact with them. 

For instance, Cosmopolitan partnered with Lauren Conrad to promote their brand. They went live with her from their Facebook account and encouraged their audience to ask her questions. This video got over 200k views and over 177 shares. 

Modern technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), 360-degree videos, etc. will significantly influence audiences in 2020. They may change the way audiences consume videos as well.

You can use various forms of videos to run different types of influencer marketing campaigns. The best part is that you can use AI to co-create stories that have the potential to resonate with your target audience.

Leveraging technologies such as AI, machine learning, natural language processing (NLP), and big data can also pave the way for new forms of interaction. This can, in turn, help drive the growth of video influencer marketing.

According to Statista, Facebook has around 2.5 billion monthly active users. This makes it a great platform for brands and marketers to reach their target audiences via video influencer marketing.

When it comes to videos on Facebook, you have three options to influence users — videos, Facebook Live, and Stories. 

The platform itself is promoting videos now as well. It has come up with a dedicated section for videos called “Facebook Watch.” There, you can discover the latest videos from all of the people and pages you’re following. 

By uploading relevant promotional videos on Facebook, influencers can help you reach your target audience. And with features like Facebook Watch, people will be more likely to spot the videos created by influencers. 

Facebook also allows you to post Stories just like on Instagram. Whenever users or brands upload a photo or status, they get the option to share the same in the form of a Story. 

This makes it easy to create Stories, and if the influencer’s videos go unnoticed in the News Feeds of users, they’ll still be visible in Stories. As a result, there’ll be a greater probability of their followers noticing the video. 

As mentioned above, influencers can also go live on Facebook through Facebook Live. These videos appear in the News Feed of their followers, and this can help generate higher engagement. 

There are endless such opportunities that Facebook can provide to brands for their video influencer marketing campaigns.

With the ever-growing popularity of videos, it seems like 2020 will be the year when brands will look to invest in video influencer marketing. Social media platforms like TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram have all started adapting videos due to their high engagement rates.

Advancements in technology will also have a major role to play. AR and VR are likely to impact the video marketing domain in 2020. Live videos may be further leveraged by brands partnering with influencers to increase the engagement on their sponsored content. 

Have you tried video influencer marketing yet? Do you have any insights or tips to add? Please share your thoughts in the comments.