By Chelsea McClain with Matt Karst
Photos and videos are key elements of a successful association or nonprofit marketing strategy. Both photos and videos have the capability of telling a story much faster than text. They also help to provide an engaging user experience while boosting your ranking through keyword data.
In a 2021 CISCO study, it was found that in 2022, video will account for 82% of all online traffic; Videos are 53x more likely to generate first-page SERP ranking than other SEO tactics; and Eighty-four percent (84%) of consumers polled say they have been convinced to purchase a product after watching a video.
One of the factors in Google’s algorithm is measuring website relevancy, and one of the metrics used is the length of time a user stays on a page. Videos help this by engaging viewers for longer periods of time than they normally spend reading text.
So how do I best use video on my website?
One must-have video is “WHY JOIN?” your association. Also, fill your library with as many video testimonials as possible.
Other uses of videos:
- Splice up webinars, demos, live events, and testimonials into small pieces that can be used for marketing on socials and your association’s website.
- Create library of FAQs and How-To’s for your YouTube channel – make the clips short, give them a theme and personality (ex. Foam University – the guy featured in these videos is an employee – Ex. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9WiXcn7pIs )
- Triggered/Action-Based videos – locate the places in the visitor’s journey where they are abandoning the path and trigger a video, and send an email, etc. to help them to stay on or get back on track.
- Mentorship series. No time to manage a mentorship program or just want to supplement it? Do interviews with a seasoned members over Zoom and record them. Add these to your YouTube channel and advertise them via email, social media, and your website. Show clips from them at your annual conference.
- Behind-the-scenes videos. These are great at events to give attendees a glimpse of everything that goes into the event.
Live video
People spend three times longer watching live video than pre-recorded, try to incorporate Instagram and Facebook Live videos into your content strategy. Before and during conferences is an excellent time to engage your audience with short live intros before keynote speakers and quick “takeaways” interviews after sessions. You could also ask attendees about a popular topic in the industry.
Photos and Graphics
Be strategic about the image you want to portray. Visual connections you leave with your audience are not only how someone sees you, but also how someone remembers you. Google Cloud Vision uses machine learning models to learn pictures and what they contain. By using the right photos, you can create a stronger association between your website and keywords. But, it all starts with the right photos. You can upload photos you want to use in your content strategy to Google Cloud Vision to see which keywords Google already associates with them.
Use keywords in the file names to help add your own keywords to your photos. Work your keywords into your captions and use your own photos rather than stock photos whenever possible. Keep in mind that smart phone photos have the benefit of automatically embedding GPS coordinates into the photos. The right photos can drive a lot of traffic to your website. Spend the time to take, edit, and utilize photos and video in your marketing strategy to bring success to your association.
How you use videos and photos in your marketing strategy for your association will impact where you show up in the search engine results pages. Be sure to follow your metrics as you try different things to increase your ranking.
Always tell your story, and do it as succinctly as possible.
