From the growth of Instagram Stories, to interactive video advertising across social networks, 2018 was a huge year for video. It’s the hottest marketing trend around, leading to higher conversion rates, engagement rates, ROI, trust metrics, and more for brands across the globe.

And it looks like things aren’t slowing down next year, either! We’ve been keeping a close eye on the latest video marketing trends so you know what to look forward to – and what to prepare for – in the coming months. Get your notepad out, double check your video strategy, and get ready for some fun because we’re giving you our 2019 video marketing predictions.

Let’s get started!

Video and SEO already go hand in hand, but in 2019, search engines will put even more emphasis on video when it comes to ranking organic search results. The presence of video already helps boost a site’s search placement, but we predict it will play an even bigger role come the next Google search algorithm update.

Including just the word “video” in your email subject line can increase your open rates by seven percent, but unfortunately, most email providers still don’t offer native video embedding. With the growth of video and the lack of innovation in the world of email providers, we anticipate seeing new functionality when it comes to autoplaying and embedding video within your emails.

Snapchat was the first to launch Stories as a video feature, with Instagram and Facebook following suit late in 2016. It became so popular, in fact, YouTube just announced their own version of Stories for their creator community. As this feature continues to prove its worth, more and more platforms – even some unexpected ones – will test the Stories waters, creating their own, unique versions of the wildly popular temporary video format.

In the last few years, we’ve seen all sorts of different new aspect ratios emerge – beyond the common 16:9, we now have 1:1 (square), 9:16 (full portrait), 2:3 (vertical), 1.9:1 (landscape), and more. In addition to platforms adjusting their video players to accommodate these changing aspect ratios, like YouTube did this year, new ratios will continue to pop up thanks to expanding organic and advertising services offered by social media platforms, and changing trends in mobile and smartphone usage.

This shouldn’t be a surprise. With the rise in popularity of digital video, brands everywhere are increasing their spend and expanding their video marketing departments. Eighty percent of brands boosted their video spending in 2018 and video ad spend specifically saw an increase of 53 percent over the last two years. Interactive video, 360 video, and other video formats are creating higher video expenditures and 2019 is sure to see overall budgets increase pretty dramatically.

Requests from clients show us the growing trend in internal communication videos for brands big and small. Whether it’s training videos, department check-ins and follow-ups, welcome videos, internal teaching videos, video wikis, or more, internal videos that focus on educating and encouraging teams will be the next big trend in video creation. Brands like Starbucks, IBM, and Wal-Mart are already in the game, we know smaller brands and startups are soon to follow.

Technology is already making the transition to clickable, tappable videos easier thanks to platforms like Instagram and LinkedIn. Next up? A growth in the number of shoppable videos you see, where you can click on a product or item shown and buy it directly from the video. Some versions of this already exist – like these highlighted by Adweek – but soon, we’ll see shoppable ads everywhere, from your Facebook feed, to digital billboards, and more.

Do you picture a specific person when you think of Kleenex? Probably not. What about Apple? You likely picture Steve Jobs or Tim Cook. More and more brands are developing human personas that help represent and sell their brand, like the cast of employees over at Wistia or Rand Fishkin over at Moz (now founder of SparkToro.) As video continues its massive takeover, more and more brands will start embracing a human touch, using video to document their founders, employees, and providing a look at life behind the scenes.

Yes, it sounds counterintuitive! Though most smart speakers don’t facilitate it, some do include smart displays, like the Google Assistant, which allow you to watch and search video content. Plus, most voice search commands use informal speech patterns that lend themselves to video results (for instance, voice searching “Alexa, what restaurants are nearby?” versus typing in “restaurants Los Angeles 90019” into a search bar.) Thanks to these natural dialogue patterns, video’s reach is sure to expand into new and unchartered territory.

Short video will continue to reign. Much longer content, like webinars, will continue to be popular, but social will rule micro-moments, making video the go-to for brand communication. Instagram is still trying to find a way to monetize IGTV and, though we anticipate other platforms launching similar long-form video formats, none will hit it big – at least not in 2019.

We’re not talking about literal video quality here, like resolution and definition – new smartphones are equipped with some of the best video recording technology ever made. We’re talking about the overall quality of video content. Because anyone can make a video any time and anywhere, brands will start making less entertaining, less informational videos. They’ll feel pressure to just publish something thanks to the rise in global video traffic, meaning less thought and strategy will be put into their video creation. But this is actually a good thing – it means the more creative, thoughtful, and high-quality video you make, the more it will stand out from the noise.

According to Hubspot, more than 50 percent of consumers actually want to see more videos from brands. Despite the growth of more invasive video advertising, people will continue to watch brand videos, sharing and engaging with their favorite content and organically promoting it themselves.

Consumers engage more with video than any other type of content. That’s why their engagement on product pages, where brands explain the benefits, features, pricing and more of their product, is so important. If your consumers aren’t engaged here, you won’t close that sale. That’s why we expect to see a surge in the number of brand store and product pages that include product videos.

This is another great use for brand product videos. Spend on Amazon advertising is on a meteoric rise, so optimizing Amazon product listing pages will be next on most marketers’ priority lists. Adding video has been shown to increase brand credibility and engage consumers, so as Amazon continues to increase their product offerings for sellers, so will sellers begin finding new and creative ways to incorporate video into their listings.

IBM predicts chatbots may power up to 85 percent of all customer service interactions by the end of 2018. Though chatbots are still in a fairly rudimentary stage, platforms like Facebook Messenger and ChatFuel are helping brands use them creatively and with more ease to answer user questions, communicate deals, troubleshoot errors, and more. Cue video! With video more fully integrated into chatbot technology, brands will not only engage their users, but provide more useful, relevant information to drive brand goals forward.

There are already a ton of great DIY video editing software options available, like iMovie, Resolve, PowerDirector, and more, but with the rise of mobile phone sales and user-generated content comes an increase in demand for mobile-enabled video editing software. A report by QY Research shows the rising growth rate of video editing software from 2018 to 2022, as well as a trend toward lower prices, meaning greater access to editing software and greater market saturation.

Want to get ahead of the trends and start producing amazing video content for your brand? Give us a call! We specialize in the creation of high-quality, affordable video content for brands just like yours – and with over 5,300 videos under our belt, you can bet we help you get results.