Video Marketing Trends for 2016

1. Do or Die for video. In one form or another, video content will become a primary marketing consideration for all businesses. Whether it's their own web content, video on Facebook or Twitter, Periscope, Vine, Livestream, Instagram or YouTube, 2016 will be the year brands wake up and embrace the tools and start delivering content.

2. Quality Content. Creative, well-produced content will be at the forefront. People expect great quality content now and brands realize poorly produced content will to more harm to their reputation than it will good. The bar has been raised, people will no longer tolerate poor production quality and uninteresting or unhelpful content, and we'll continue to see highly creative videos and content for businesses.

3. Targeting. People who start producing quality videos this year will realize just how important a laser-focused video can be. No longer can you produce video content that intends to reach a broad audience. People will produce more specialized, focused video dealing with individual subjects as opposed to broad ones. In this process, they'll also realize that producing specialized videos will actually give them more opportunities to rank those videos in search engines. Which, after all, is one of the main reasons they should be producing video.

4. Sever The Cord. Cord cutting, there's been rumbling about this for years. TV, cable...you no longer need it. The content is already out there and you can get it all for free (if you have the technology and know where to look). People consume content differently today. No longer do they sit in their living rooms in the evenings to watch programming. People are mobile, on the move, devouring content in bits and pieces from wherever they want, not sitting on the couch watching the evening news.

5. Digital Effectiveness. Advertisers are pulling their money away from TV/radio and placing that spend on digital. Brands now realize they can place content on websites and apps that people they want to reach are already watching. The data and analytics provided by digital is like night and day compared to what they get with traditional advertising. 

6. OTT Devices. Brands will experiment with over-the-top devices and the power that these devices may hold. They can produce and deliver their own content, essentially becoming their own media outlet centers. Controlling the production and distribution, they can deliver audio, video and other media over the Internet without the involvement or expense of a TV system operator. 

7. VR/AR, virtual reality/augmented reality. Millions of headsets are predicted to be sold this year (Google Cardboard, Oculus Rift). 360 camera technology is already being used in business applications as well as news networks to deliver content in a new way. As this format evolves, how will storytellers and advertisers embrace it?

8. Live Streaming. Businesses will embrace live video whether using Periscope, Meerkat or Livestream. All offer new ways for business communication in-the-moment action. Like a traditional control room for TV, some applications give you control of multiple cameras, graphic overlays, audio and pre-produced segments. 

What are other predictions you see coming in the New Year?