Or am I just wayyy behind the times? (Seems more likely)
Do you video?
I recently posed this question to the #WritingCommunity hashtag on Twitter but only received one real response. However, that’s a very popular hashtag so it’s easy for individual tweets to get buried in the stream.
My question is: do you think videos are the new way to reach readers?
Well let’s look at the statistics from WyzOwl:
The Benefits Of Video
96% of people say they’ve watched an explainer video to learn more about a product or service.
79% of people say a brand’s video has convinced them to buy a piece of software or app.
68% of people say they’d most prefer to learn about a new product or service by watching a short video. This makes video more popular as a learning tool than text-based articles (15%), infographics (4%) presentations and pitches (4%) ebooks and manuals (3%).
Personally, I tried to make a video a couple of years ago and posted it up on YouTube but I’m just maybe too shy for the attention or something because I never did it again.
So, for the sake of those who have not tried using videos yet, I’m going to take one for the team. Starting this weekend, I’m just going to go for it. Having recently lost nearly 60lbs may also help with my self confidence…maybe? (I hope so)
I’m not sure if i’m going to do the whole YouTube thing but it seems Instagram has been kicking butt with videos and here are the stats for that:
Instagram Video
51% of video marketers have used Instagram video as a channel. (Up from 41% in 2018.)
Out of those, 88% say it’s been successful for them. (Up from 87% in 2018.)
67% plan to use it in 2019.
Well, I guess I’m going to be one of them. The reason for me to take this plunge is that with all of the algorithms that have changed in the past year on social media, my visibility via popular literary hashtags, both on Twitter and Instagram, has been severely hit. Everything is pay to play now and since I’m an indie writer, and my name is Bartlett and not Rowling or King, I cannot afford the expense of marketing on a grand scale.
I’ll be starting out this journey with my trusty iPhone, although I did buy a decent camera last year with a microphone. Unfortunately, I have no clue how to use it.
I’ll need to enlist my son to assist me with this. Thank goodness for Millennials.
I’ll be sure to log my success or failures and if you’d like to follow this experiment, here’s my Instagram and Twitter:
https://www.instagram.com/author_p.s.bartlett/
So…here we go folks! Lights, camera, action!
Author P.S. Bartlett 