Value to the Viewer First

Video engagement has been falling year-on-year for the last 4 years, and there's little sign of the trend reversing: last year saw the sharpest drop yet (7%).

At first glance, this might be a weird thing for a video agency to celebrate — but it's great news for firms in heavily-regulated industries looking to use video strategically.

Why?

𝗟𝗶𝗲𝘀, 𝗗𝗮𝗺𝗻𝗲𝗱 𝗟𝗶𝗲𝘀, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗰𝘀

The key lies in marrying this headline statistic with the more general consumption insights for video.

For instance, the general consumption rates of video content continues to grow and this is another trend that shows little sign of reversing.

Put the two together, and it's very easy to see that as more people watch video content (and in turn the supply of that video content increases too), viewers are becoming more discerning about what they're watching.

In a Waiting Room with one book, you're happy to peruse it in detail and you might even start reading it. In a bookshop, you read 30 blurbs and still often leave empty-handed.

Choice sharpens our filters and makes us more picky. The more popular video becomes, the more choosy you can expect consumers of video content to be.

𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗶𝘀 𝗮 𝗴𝗼𝗼𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴

Yes, it means you have more competition.

Yes, it means you have to work harder (and on some platforms, maybe more mechanically than you’d like) to generate good levels of engagement.

But crucially, this trend encourages and incentivises the production of value-orientated video content. And highly-regulated firms, or firms with high compliance barriers, are a haven for high-quality, value-orientated content — it's just compliance concerns, or even a lack of creative spark, often leave them untapped.

Feeds nowadays are littered with so much video content that provides no value. It's easy to blame AI slop, but it was an issue beforehand too.

But create video content that provides value to your target audience, and any concerns over engagement will dissipate.

If your videos aren’t hitting the levels of engagement you’d like, look at the quality of what you’re offering your audience before looking at the algorithm or the time of day you’re posting.

𝗩𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗩𝗶𝗲𝘄𝗲𝗿 𝗙𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁

Beyond engagement, there’s another big upside to creating value-orientated content: stronger ROI.

Video that provides no value to your audience, will provide no value to you. The question at the genesis of any video campaign should not be “how can we ensure value for ourselves” but “how can we provide value to our audience?” Look after the latter, and the former takes care of itself.

Suddenly, video providing value to your audience will provide value to you too.

What does this mean in practice?

If you can, try to teach something, solve a problem or answer a question. There’s a reason why ‘How To’ videos are comfortably top of the engagement rates by video type (77% when under 3 minutes) and that’s because they tick all three of those boxes. The highly-regulated firms that we work with, in sectors spanning healthcare, education and technology, are adorned with fantastic insights that their audience would love to hear.

In lieu of that, make sure you tell a compelling story, and always optimise for the platform you’re posting on — not just adjusting aspect ratios or video lengths, but incorporating the core dynamics of the medium into the video structure and style.

At Bear Video, we help highly-regulated firms earn trust & communicate complex concepts with clarity, whilst avoiding compliance headaches. If anything in this article resonated, feel free to get in touch to discuss.