Video is the marketing juggernaut that continues to grow year over year. There are countless ways to leverage video for branding, to use video for all of your content marketing, and a wide range of experts to follow for tips.

Video continues to dominate every channel, including the latest video release on LinkedIn. If you’re not sold on video content yet, let me share some staggering stats from WordStream that may sway your mind:

  1. More than 500 million hours of video are watched on YouTube every day.

  2. YouTube has over a billion users, almost one-third of total internet users.

  3. More video content is uploaded in thirty days than the major U.S. television networks have created in thirty years.

The shift in traditional media has continued to take shape and evolve. Last year was the first year that online ad spending surpassed traditional media, and it doesn’t show any signs of slowing down. In fact, new technologies, like augmented and virtual reality simply add more fuel to the fire by creating new dimensions that can be powered by digital content.

Here are six tools to get your video content to the next level:

  1. Instagram. Instagram is useful for three reasons: For one, sometimes it’s hard to figure out where to start, or, you’ve started and need new video ideas. Whichever bucket you fall into, Instagram can help. Scroll your feed for inspiration. The second benefit is to find actual video talent. IG works as a videographer’s portfolio, and it’s easy to DM anyone. Lastly, it’s amazing for distribution.

  2. Lumen5. Lumen5 is the publishing world’s best-kept secret. This tool, which is free, or has a $50/month paid version allows anyone to pull an article from online and easily drag and drop to convert it into video. It’s the easiest and most scalable way to create shareable video content.

  3. Flipagram. Flipagram is an amazing tool to help you convert photos into videos. These are perfect for Instagram and Facebook and can easily be done right on your mobile.

  4. YouTube Editor. This is a free tool that fully integrates with YouTube. The tool gives you a myriad of editing capabilities right on your YT video dashboard. You can create transcripts and annotations, which will increase your engagement and help with SEO.

  5. Vidyard. Vidyard is a tool designed specifically for businesses to increase their lead gen and accelerate their sales. Vidyard has a single dashboard that allows users to add videos to landing pages, blog posts, emails and even social media profiles. It also integrates with all of your favorite third party tools.

  6. Shakr. This tool is designed for marketers, businesses and digital agencies. It offers thousands of video designs to choose from to create videos for your marketing and includes easy drag and drop templates. They have designs in all different type of categories including Facebook videos.

Use these video marketing tools to power your video marketing strategy for 2018 and beyond. Test, create, analyze and double down on everything that works.

Call Elkmont Media for all of your digital marketing needs, including: social media, website design, SMS, text message marketing, video, and email marketing.