B2B Marketing Blog - TopRank®

B2B Marketing views, news and interviews.

Where Do Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn Stand With B2B Video?

Nick Nelson
Nick Nelson
Social Media, Video

Social Media Video Trends for B2B

Modern B2B marketers understand that the key to an effective digital content strategy is meeting customers where they’re at, and giving them what they want.

With this in mind, the appeal of social media videos only makes sense. We know that billions of people are on social networks, and we know (or at least research leads us to believe) they want video.

Then again, certain developments may cause us to question what we think we know. How meaningful is it, really, if X% of users are watching X% of a video while scrolling through their feeds? And how can we be confident this data is even accurate, after the whole inflated metrics fiasco?


Where Do Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn Stand With B2B Video?

Twitter Has Renewed its Live Video Push & Here’s What You Need to Know

Nick Nelson
Nick Nelson
Social Media, Twitter, Video

Once a pioneer in bringing live video to the social media world, Twitter fell behind the likes of Facebook, LinkedIn, and others as this format rose to mainstream prominence. However, the platform’s recent move to make live video more easily discoverable shows Twitter is recommitting to video.

But the question is: Can Twitter recapture the magnetic energy of live video?

When I attended Jane Weedon’s keynote speech at Content Marketing World last month, I was deeply struck by this remark from Twitch’s Director of Business Development:

“Authentic and real-time video can be better than immaculately produced when it comes to engaging an audience.”

Her company’s model serves as proof of this assertion. Twitch welcomed more than 15 million daily visitors last year, and continues to see explosive growth, largely because of this dynamic.


Twitter Has Renewed its Live Video Push & Here’s What You Need to Know

How to Select the Right Type of Video for Your B2B Marketing Goals

Types of B2B Video & When to Use Them

Mugatu is onto something …

Video Marketing is So Hot Meme

According Content Marketing Institute’s 2018 B2B Content Marketing Report, 72% of B2B marketers use pre-produced video content, 17% use video live-streams, and 4% create documentaries or short films. Combined, this makes video one of the hottest types of content among B2B marketers.

And it’s not without results, either. Video marketing boasts some impressive stats, including:

  • Marketers who use video grow revenue 49% faster than non-video users. – Aberdeen Group
  • Video drives a 157% increase in organic traffic from SERPs. – Brightcove
  • Embedding videos in landing pages can increase conversion rates by 80%. – Eyeview Digital
  • Social video generates 1,200% more shares than text and images combined – Brightcove

How to Select the Right Type of Video for Your B2B Marketing Goals

Camera Shy: 7 Tips for First-Time Video Marketers

Video Marketing Tips for First-Timers

Video isn’t for the faint of heart. You need to feel confident enough to put yourself, and your brand, out there. But it’s a medium that a lot of marketers are exploring as it holds a lot of potential.

In fact, Cisco’s Visual Networking Index predicts that 82% of all internet traffic will be video by 2021. Video is a main source of content consumption, including everything from the news to YouTube tutorials. And as marketers looking to demonstrate thought leadership and credibility, video presents a unique opportunity to get in front of and educate your target audience. However, 64% of marketers agree that video is the hardest type of content to produce, turning many people away from embracing video.  


Camera Shy: 7 Tips for First-Time Video Marketers

Report: What Marketers Need to Know About the ‘State of Video Marketing’

Caitlin Burgess
Caitlin Burgess
Content Marketing, Video

These days, there’s little doubt among marketers that video content is an incredibly powerful content marketing tool. After all, humans are visual creatures by nature, so it stands to reason that video often satisfies our content appetite. In fact, according to a Think With Google study, 50% of internet users said they’ve looked for videos related to a product or service before visiting a store.

But as more brands and marketers jump on the video content marketing bandwagon, it’s more important than ever to examine your strategy to ensure you’re getting the most out of your efforts. And a great starting point is to get the lay of the current video marketing land and emerging trends.  


Report: What Marketers Need to Know About the ‘State of Video Marketing’

How 7 Brands Connect With Audiences Through Long-Form Video Content

Anne Leuman
Anne Leuman
Content Marketing, Video

Content comes in many forms, including social media messages, blog posts, video, and more. But video is largely ignored with only 30% of B2B marketers believing video will be critical to their content marketing success.

Considering video accounts for 74% of all internet traffic your brand cannot ignore video marketing. With audience’s having an average attention span of only eight seconds it’s one of the best ways to hold attention and increase audience engagement. This is especially true for long-form video—videos that are roughly 10 minutes in length or longer. In fact, audiences engage in more long-form videos accounting for 63% off all time spent watching videos across devices. Long-form video is a proven and effective way of capturing and engaging audiences, but where do you begin?


How 7 Brands Connect With Audiences Through Long-Form Video Content

LinkedIn Native Video: What Works, What Doesn’t, What Marketers Need to Know

Joshua Nite
Joshua Nite
B2B Marketing, Video

Video content is eating the internet. It started with video-specific platforms like YouTube and Vimeo. Then Twitter and Facebook added support for live and pre-recorded video. Now these insatiable moving pictures are becoming serious business: LinkedIn now supports native video.

What would compel a buttoned-down, professional networking site like LinkedIn to embrace video? Simply put, people—even businesspeople—want to watch. Fifty-nine percent of executives say that if text and video are available on the same topic, they’re more likely to choose video.

There’s no denying that marketers should embrace video content as a general rule. If your audience wants video, it’s wise for your brand to be the one supplying it. But why publish natively on LinkedIn?

Here are the upsides, downsides, and what-you-need-to-know-sides.


LinkedIn Native Video: What Works, What Doesn’t, What Marketers Need to Know

12 Questions You Need to Answer if You Want to Launch a Video Content Strategy

There’s no question that video is an increasingly important digital marketing tactic. Humans are visual creatures by nature and, when done right, video allows brands to tell their story and create meaningful, emotional connections with their audience.

For California-based Jordan Vineyard and Winery, video content has become a central piece of their marketing strategy. Lisa Mattson, Director of Marketing & Communications, shared how they’re winning at video during her Content Marketing World session “How Jordan Winery Crushed Content Marketing With a Video-Centered Strategy.”

For a little background, Jordan Vineyard and Winery has been around since the early 1970s, and until Mattson came on board, they’re marketing strategy hadn’t changed in more than 40 years.


12 Questions You Need to Answer if You Want to Launch a Video Content Strategy

Stop the Marketing Killjoy: 5 Ways You’re Turning off Audiences with Bad Video

It might only be 1pm in the afternoon, but it’s five o’clock somewhere – a perfect time for a great dry martini.

Research “how to make the perfect dry martini”, and you’ll get over 1,560,000 results. Ask a content marketer “how to tell a good story”, and you’ll get about the same quality of results — except when you ask the fabulous Tim Washer. Like the perfect dry martini, Tim’s strategy for how to tell a good story is simple, neat, and well…perfect.

In his session at Content Marketing World, Tim not only shared how improv can help your B2B marketing, but he shared the five ways you can kill the joy in your videos.

What are his simple rules of how to stop the marketing killjoy?


Stop the Marketing Killjoy: 5 Ways You’re Turning off Audiences with Bad Video

Tips for Making Video Content that Earns Attention from Andrew Davis #CMWorld

The inimitable Andrew Davis is the best-selling author of Town, Inc. and an in-demand marketing speaker. After his presentation at Content Marketing World 2017, I can see why.

He made me feel stupid. And I’m incredibly grateful.

The best presentations make you feel stupid in retrospect. Of course! It’s so obvious that this is the way to do it! Why haven’t we been doing it this way the whole time? Feeling stupid after-the-fact means you just got smarter.

You see, video content marketing has gone from the next big thing to the current big thing. Brands that pump out a ton of text-based content are now flooding the attention marketplace with video. And just as we had to learn how to make content work for marketing, we’re all still figuring out how to make effective marketing video.


Tips for Making Video Content that Earns Attention from Andrew Davis #CMWorld

Behind the Marketing Curtain: An Interview With Comedian, Marketer Tim Washer

Caitlin Burgess
Caitlin Burgess
Content Marketing, Video

As we marketers long to make meaningful connections with our audience, we often look deep into our figurative crystal balls in hopes of finding a way to lay an irresistible field of content that will trap their attention. Unfortunately, we can end up putting our audience to sleep—leaving the door open for more colorful characters to swoop in and carry them away.

So, how can we take to the sky and get our audience to surrender to our content? By crafting a  narrative that has empathy, humility and wit. And there’s certainly no better person to look to for inspiration than comedic treasure Tim Washer, Creative Director of Marketing for the Service Provider Division for Cisco.


Behind the Marketing Curtain: An Interview With Comedian, Marketer Tim Washer

10 B2C Brands Crushing it with Instagram Video Content in 2017

The writing on the wall became very apparent last year: 2017 would be the year of video. In almost every marketing predictions post for 2017, video was highlighted as an area that marketers need to incorporate in order to remain competitive.

Video offers a great format for telling your story (or more importantly, the story of your customers) and connecting with your target audience. In 2016, eMarketer found that over 60% of brands planned on investing more in video in the next 12 months.

That means, competition for audience eyes will only get more competitive as brands begin to figure out what video mix works best for their marketing. Unfortunately, finding the right style and type of video for your brand can often be the toughest step.


10 B2C Brands Crushing it with Instagram Video Content in 2017