Video engagement guide: Metrics and best practices explained

For businesses across nearly every industry, video content continues to dominate in both digital marketing and communication strategies. With video consumption steadily increasing year over year, businesses and content creators alike must make ongoing efforts to build an audience and maximize video engagement.

In the United States, digital video consumption rates have officially surpassed TV viewing time, making online video content an invaluable asset for communicating with consumers. Let’s look at some tried-and-true strategies for boosting video engagement and explore how implementing these best practices can help professionals around the world leverage the power of their multimedia content.

Why invest in video content?

Incorporating video content into your branding strategy can have a wide range of well-documented benefits. Here is a quick overview of some of the ways video content can help businesses take their marketing efforts to the next level:

• Increased information retention: Many viewers report that receiving information via multimedia formats helps them more reliably retain key points from the content. In a crowded market, these increased retention rates play a vital role in boosting brand awareness and recall.
• Enhanced visibility: Brands that regularly post video content tend to enjoy higher search rankings than those that do not. YouTube, for example, prioritizes engaging content and websites with video content are 53 times more likely to rank on the first page of search engine results.
• Higher conversion rates: Research suggests that including video content on landing pages can significantly boost conversion rates. For example, shoppable video content can increase conversion rates by as much as 30% and some sources claim that including video content on a landing page can increase conversions by over 80%.
• Stronger emotional connections: One major benefit of video content over text and images alone is that it allows consumers to develop more personal connections to the brands they follow. Personalized video content like customer testimonials, staff interviews and vlogs can all help audience members feel more connected to their favorite brands and help boost engagement and customer loyalty over time.

Key video engagement metrics you should know

Creating video content is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to effectively implementing multimedia materials into a branding strategy. To maximize the potential benefits of branded video content, it is important for business leaders and content creators to monitor their levels of engagement on an ongoing basis and make periodic adjustments to their strategy to address any areas of weakness. Here are the key engagement metrics you’ll want to familiarize yourself before diving into video content creation:

View count

View count is a basic metric used to indicate the number of times a video has been watched. While it does not measure levels of engagement, per se, it provides insight into a video’s reach and visibility. While viral marketing campaigns typically aim for millions of views, B2B content might focus on targeted reach rather than numbers alone. If a creator or marketing department notices their videos consistently receive relatively low view counts, it might be time to make some changes to their content strategy.

Watch time

Watch time refers to the total amount of time viewers have spent watching a video. This metric is crucial for platform algorithms as YouTube and Facebook prioritize videos with higher watch times. Watch time can be represented either in terms of absolute watch time (the actual amount of time users spend watching your content) or as relative watch time (the amount of time users spend on your content versus on other content of similar lengths).

Engagement rate

Watch time alone is not the most reliable indicator of audience engagement. Instead, engagement rates are more reliably indicated by frequency of user interactions including likes, shares and comments. A higher engagement rate generally indicates stronger audience interest, and videos, profiles and channels that demonstrate high engagement rates are typically favored in search engine results.

Click-Through Rate (CTR)

CTR reflects the percentage of viewers who click on a link within or after watching a video. If a brand’s objective is to turn video views into actual conversions, CTR is a critical metric to keep tabs on in order to determine the effectiveness of their content.

Conversion rate

Finally, conversion rates measure how often viewers actually complete a desired action after or during a content experience. Some videos may include internal links to product pages or may encourage users to sign up for subscriptions or newsletters. A conversion is successful if the viewer completes the action being promoted by the content.

How to boost video engagement

If you’re looking to fully leverage the power of your video content, it’s important that you take steps to maximize engagement at every possible opportunity. The best way to ensure your content is engaging is to invest in creating high-quality materials that will stand out from the crowd while projecting an air of professionalism. Low-quality videos often result in high bounce rates and can give consumers the wrong idea about your brand.

Additionally, compelling storytelling will always prove more engaging and enjoyable for consumers across a wide variety of industries. Whenever possible, it is advisable to structure videos with a clear beginning, middle and end to encourage audience members to invest and connect with the material on a more visceral, emotional level.

For videos that are specifically intended to influence certain behaviors from viewers, a strong call-to-action is key. Whether you’re asking viewers to subscribe, visit an external website or make a purchase, it is important to make sure your CTA is clear, specific and easy to complete if you want to maximize conversions. To that end, consistent branding can also make it easier for viewers to trust and “buy in” to your directives. Similarly, personalizing materials to the specific interests, preferences and geographic regions of your target audience will further enhance the likelihood of conversions.

Some other popular tools for enhancing engagement include incorporating interactive elements like clickable annotations, quizzes or polls that encourage more active participation from viewers. Some creators also like to take advantage of the engagement boost offered by live-streamed content. Livestreams give viewers the opportunity to engage with their favorite accounts in real time and can foster a stronger sense of community among a brand’s target audience.

The role of accessibility in video engagement

With a global disability community consisting of more than 1 billion people, it is vital for content creators to ensure their video materials are accessible and engaging for audience members of all backgrounds and abilities. Inaccessible media not only limits your audience, but it may project problematic narratives about your brand’s commitment to inclusivity.

It is also worth noting that many accessibility features have been linked to higher levels of engagement across the board, which indicates that prioritizing content accessibility can help you more effectively build and leverage your digital audience. Here are a few accessibility features that can help make your content more inclusive and engaging:

Closed captions

Closed captions provide an onscreen textual representation of the speech and audio elements present in a video. In addition to making video content more accessible to individuals who are Deaf or hard of hearing, research has also shown that captioning content can increase watch time and boost engagement overall.

Transcripts

Transcripts are like captions in that they provide readable versions of audio and video content. However, transcripts are typically not synced to a video and can be provided independently as a long-form readout of the content. Posting video transcripts online not only supports viewers with disabilities but also enables search engines to “crawl” the text of a video in order to boost SEO ranking.

Audio description

Audio description is a vital tool for supporting individuals who are blind or have low vision. Audio-described content uses audible narrations of on-screen visual elements to provide more equitable experiences to those who might otherwise have missed important visual details.

Accessible formats

Offering multiple format options, such as sign language interpretation or simplified language versions can also broaden accessibility and engagement. As with all types of digital content, it is important for creators to further optimize their materials to ensure compatibility with assistive devices like screen readers that offer critical support to certain individuals with disabilities.

Rely on Verbit to enhance your video content

When utilized effectively, video content has the potential to revolutionize a brand’s marketing and communication efforts from the bottom-up. There are a wide variety of strategies and solutions available to help creators maximize their levels of engagement and get more mileage out of their content creation efforts.
If you’re interested in learning more about the benefits of engaging video content or if you’d like more information about using accessibility features like captioning and transcription to boost your levels of audience engagement, reach out today to speak to a member of the Verbit team.