4 Reasons Why Video Works

If you're wondering why I'm such a proponent of video, it's because online video is particularly useful in making people remember you, your brand, and your product. In my case, that's books.

Video has been gaining ground as the source for content marketing in business for the last few years.

Video in Business Marketing

Please don't look at video as another over-hyped fad. In a B2B Demand Generation Benchmark Survey undertaken in 2012 and conducted by Software Advice, most of those who responded preferred video over anything else offered by the business for information including white papers, case studies, and even live demos. This trend in business follows the social media trend that's been building over the last few years at YouTube, Vimeo, and other sites.

Why Video

YouTube is the number two search engine in the world. That's pretty amazing when you think about it.

This doesn't mean that we prefer to learn via video rather than by reading but that video has certain advantages over reading for conveying information.

According to Susan Weinschenk, Ph.D. aka The Brain Lady who is a consultant to Amazon, Disney, Walmart and South By Southwest among other companies, there are 4 reasons people are drawn to video.

I hope you will visit The Brain Lady Blog and view her video and read the text about this. Basically, Dr. Weinschenk laid out these 4 reasons for using video:

"#1: The Fusiform Facial area makes us pay attention to faces – this is an actual brain function that hard-wires us to use the human face as a gathering point for information and believability."

The Fusiform Facial area, or FFA, according to Wikipedia, "is a part of the human visual system that, it is speculated, is specialized for facial recognition, although there is some evidence that it also processes categorical information about other objects, in particular familiar ones. It is located in the fusiform gyrus."

"#2: Voice conveys rich information – yes, the simple sound of a human voice speaking to us has an amazing way of converting information into meaningful content."

"#3: Emotions are contagious – here’s a subtle but powerful aspect that we may take for granted. The body language of emotions is appealing and we naturally love to share."

"#4: Movement grabs attention – another trait that runs deep in our collective anthropological DNA is the power of peripheral motion. Since the stone age, we’ve survived by noticing things in motion – looks like we still do!"

By the way, The Brain Lady offers a free newsletter so you'd be wise to subscribe.

Takeaway Truth

Face, voice, emotion, and movement: these are the 4 hallmarks of video. Remember this when you design your next video.

Reminder: Enter To Win Free Video

1. Like any of my videos that I've created on my YouTube channel and Subscribe.

2. Post the video you like to your Facebook or Twitter then leave a comment on this post (or any Friday post--they're always about video--through June 20) with the link to your Facebook or Twitter account so I can click to visit it.

3. This giveaway is open from May 19, 2014, through June 20, 2014. The winner will be chosen at random from all comments and notified on or before June 23. On June 27, the winner's video will be featured on SlingWords.

That's it! I'll draw from all those who have left a comment with the link they posted to Facebook or Twitter (either a comment on this post or on any Friday video post) and award a free video of 30-90 seconds in length. If you know anything about videos for book trailers, etc. you know they're expensive to purchase so this is a great chance to get your own video.

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