On the last Wednesday before Christmas, I spent the evening discussing 2018 growth trends with some super smart folk over at Academy Xi.
Joining me on stage was Onur from the disruptive banking startup WildCard, Xingyi the International Growth Lead at newly anointed unicorn, Canva and Academy Xi’s very own Head of Growth, David Quan.
There was a stellar turn-out, with everyone looking to get a jump start on some inspiration for driving sustainable growth in 2018.
Discussion points included voice search & mobile first SEO, influencer marketing, chat bots and the continued importance of video.
Whilst video marketing is nothing new, it’s notable how important it’s becoming at all stages of the funnel.
With mobile video advertising expected to grow by a whopping 49% in 2018 and the increased importance of video in SEO, it’s worth diving into the topic first-up and highlighting some of the most relevant tools from Recomazing.
"How to..." was the Top Search Query of 2017
It was a general consensus amongst the group that it’s getting harder to convince Google you have great content when you really don’t.
The best way to ensure you’re producing the kind of comprehensive content that Google looks for is to consider the intent behind the query and match your content to the problem in the most efficient way.
So if someone is looking to solve a specific problem, think about the medium that best helps them solve that problem.
A quick look at 2017 search trends shows us that queries starting with “How to” dominated the top search queries.
Some of the top terms were "how to make solar eclipse glasses", "how to buy Bitcoin and 'how to make a fidget spinner'.
Taking a look at the top results for these “How-to” queries shows us that they are often either Google’s Featured Snippets, or... videos.
Whilst you can’t mark a page as a featured snippet, you can produce relevant video content that matches your prospects’ queries.
So in 2018, expect to see more explainer videos in search results.
Think short, punchy video showing people to how to do something, usually 1-3 mins long, and often double-time.
How will you help your audience solve "how-to" problems with video in 2018?
Once you’ve got a some great ideas to test, you’ll need the tools to get some killer video content off the great.
So here are some of the top video tools and services recommended by the Recomazing community to help you dominate video in 2018.
WISTIA
Dmitry Daragilev from JustReachOut.com sums it up nicely:
"Plain and simple if you are a startup and want to market your video content you should be using Wistia. I have recommended them thousands of times. Wistia is built to help businesses market their video content. After you upload your video you can control virtually every aspect of your video. You can change the thumbnails, the call to action which appears before, after or anywhere in the middle of the video. You can.. (read more)."
BITEABLE
From Carl Gough, Founder and CEO at meetmagic:
"I made the video on my website ready in 10 minutes using Bitable. The output is so professional, I am often asked who is the production company I hired to produce the video. People are always shocked when they hear I used this video making software."
SHAKR
Ian Higginbottom, Business Improvement Coach, Executive Coach atReflecting Power:
"I tried this software on a whim and have now made several Facebook ad videos that look pretty good and are getting attention. Shakr provides designed video templates that include music to which one adds one's own photos or video clips."
LUKE'S LENSE
Elisa-Marie Dumas, Partner Development & Corporate Innovation at Investible:
"Luke is the master of storytelling. He is also a one stop shop when it comes to producing exceptional content - He's the director, producer and editor wrapped up in one."