The 4 Hottest Video Marketing Trends of 2021

Video marketing has won over everyone in the digital world. From 15 second promotional clips on Tik Tok to 30-minute-long sponsored YouTube videos, video content is the most popular form of media among consumers. Better yet, with accessibility to quality software and equipment, developing the content you need in order to grow online has never been easier. The possibilities are virtually endless. 

Whether you’re opening a business or starting a YouTube channel, crafting high-quality, unique videos is bound to help your exposure skyrocket. And with new trends always coming and going in this constantly evolving medium, you need to always be creative and unique when promoting your brand.

With that being said, we’ve compiled a list of the 4 most exciting video marketing trends we’re expecting to see in 2021. 

1. Live Streaming Video Content

Something changed in 2020. With the pandemic forcing many of us to stay at home, the desire for real and raw human interaction was something a lot of people yearned for. That’s why live streaming soared: Facebook live saw a 50% increase in viewership while Instagram saw a 70% increase in viewings. This all happened in 2020. We’re expecting that the popularity of live streaming will continue to rise even in 2021.  

From someone cooking in real-time for their Facebook or Instagram audience, to Twitch streamers showing off their gameplay to thousands of people, live streaming has become a popular pastime for many people. Even big-name musical artists took to live streaming and started holding virtual concerts!

One of the benefits of live streaming is that it gives you, the streamer, a chance to interact directly with your viewers and fans. This makes it a lot more personable and makes for an excellent marketing strategy, since it allows you to address your audience directly, get feedback, answer questions and, perhaps most importantly, turn the spotlight away from the cold, corporate image and onto the human behind it.

Another thing to consider is that past streams can easily be edited down into shorter clips and videos, making for a great source of future video content. Flixier makes this process easy and seamless. If you want to learn more about editing your past live streams into YouTube videos, feel free to read more about it here.

2. Intricate Edits and Video Animation

The popularity of video content is not the only thing that’s on the rise in 2021. As video watch time soars, so do the standards for video production. 

Gone are the days of 720p videos filmed with your laptop camera. Nowadays, 1080p has become the new norm and even the smallest amateur channels on YouTube try to have good lightning, color grading, stylish editing and captivating motion graphics and background music. If you want people to watch your videos, you simply cannot slack on production quality, especially if you want to build up your brand image.   

Luckily, the tools available to create and edit videos have kept up with the ever increasing standards. Phone cameras are now better than ever before, microphones are cheaper and easier to set up and with the advent of online video editing software, you can easily edit clips on your trusty old laptop rather than break the bank for thousand dollar workstations. 

Flixier, for example, provides a simple yet advanced video editing interface so you can tailor each frame to your desire. With over 40 transitions and ready-to-use animations and motion graphics, you have all the options you need to develop a captivating video

Better yet, our servers handle all the hard rendering and exporting work for you, meaning the editing software always runs fast and efficiently, allowing you to create full videos in a matter of minutes! And it all runs in the browser and offers collaborative editing features, so if you’re part of a video editing team, you can all edit the same clip together regardless of distance or which platform you’re using. 

At the end of the day, the truth is you need every bit of help you can get to keep time and financial costs low while maintaining a high standard of quality for your promotional video content. Flixier helps you do just that! 

3. YouTube Sponsorships

As YouTube ads get wilder and wilder, companies are starting to move away from the platform’s built in Ads system (which inserts provided video ads at various points before and throughout someone’s video). Regular ads are something consumers dread. They can easily be ignored, skipped and there’s entire apps and browser extensions dedicated to blocking them out entirely. 

That’s why more and more companies are starting to use sponsored segments as a YouTube marketing tool instead. Rather than interrupting the clip with a random ad, a sponsored segment means doing a deal with the YouTuber themselves and asking them to say a few words about your product during their video.

Even though it might be a little more expensive, this has a number of advantages over traditional ads:

• You can have the content creator write his own copy for the sponsored segment in order to ensure that it fits in with their style and the rest of the video. This makes the audience associate your brand with their favorite online personalities, making them more likely to remember it favorably.
• People are less likely to skip sponsored segments, since there’s no skip button like with regular ads. Plus, they might simply enjoy listening to their favorite YouTuber talk, even if it’s just to present a product.
• You have more control over the audiences you target and the people you associate with. Regular ads let you choose a demographic, but your ads and brand could end up plastered across videos that promote values your company doesn’t agree with, essentially exposing you to a demographic that you never wanted to attract in the first place. Since sponsored segments require an agreement between the company and the content creator, you get to do your own research and make sure that their audience is who you want purchasing your products and that their videos promote values that align with yours.

While this trend started years ago with podcasts and isn’t something entirely new or revolutionary, it continued to grow and spread on video sharing platforms as well throughout 2020, with brands such as Ray-Con or the infamous Raid: Shadow Legends becoming ubiquitous on the YouTube platform.  

A staple of television and radio broadcasting, it appears that sponsored segments have taken over the internet as well and they’re only going to grow more and more popular throughout 2021. 

4. Shoppable Experiences

When Instagram came out with the shoppable experience on their images, consumers were stoked. People could now seamlessly purchase items that interested them straight from a photo, without having to waste time trawling through Google search results trying to find it. The photo they found on social media would link directly to the shop selling the product, allowing potential customers to get what they needed with the click of a button. 

In 2021, we’re looking forward to seeing the shoppable experience translated over to video! A shoppable video experience allows viewers to click on a button in the video and be directed straight to the website that sells said product. It shortens the customer’s journey and leaves your viewers satisfied with their purchase. 

It’s all about making your customer’s life easier and finding ways to do that for them. It also adds a forward-thinking aspect to your personal brand or business. In 2021, we’re expecting to see shoppable videos take charge in the ecommerce world. 

Closing Words

There’s no denying the power of video marketing. 2020 introduced and popularized things such as 360-degree videos, better live streaming experiences and more. As video marketing becomes more popular, new tools and software will be added to the industry as well. But for now you can expect to see these video marketing trends to take over in 2021.