A study by video experience platform provider Vidyard has revealed the surprising extent to which the number of videos shared by businesses has increased – up by some 135% year-over-year, driven mainly by user-generated videos within sales teams in high tech firms, financial services, and professional services.
The ‘2021 Video in Business Benchmark’ report’s findings showed that the move to a digital-first business world accelerated the use of video by marketing, sales and customer experience teams, particularly in industries where in-person customer interactions were previously the norm.
In fact, the number of videos published overall more than doubled in 2020 with a significant surge starting in April (when businesses began adapting to remote sales and digital-first marketing strategies).
Of particular note, Financial Services organizations increased their video output by 129% while those in Education increased by more than 200% compared to the previous year.
Key findings from the report, which analyzed data from more than 750,000 videos published by more than 1,500 businesses during 2020, included:
- The total number of videos published increased by 135% year-over-year.
40% of all videos published were produced/uploaded while 60% were user-generated;
- Businesses in High Tech were the most prolific video creators for the fourth consecutive year, averaging 583 new videos per business over the 12-month period.
- The greatest year-over-year acceleration in the use of video came from Financial Services (129% increase) and Education (209% increase).
- Top industries for the creation of user-generated content were High Tech, Financial Services, Professional Services, Entertainment and Education.
- 75% of videos created by companies with less than 200 employees were user-generated, while only 45% of the videos created within organizations with greater than 600 employees were user-generated.
- The average length of all videos analyzed was roughly 6 minutes, representing a 50% increase in average length from the previous year.
Interestingly, 2021 is the first year since the launch of the report series in 2016 that the average video length increased compared to the previous year. While 60.3% of all videos published in 2020 were less than 2 minutes in length (compared to 74% in 2019), 10.5% were more than 20 minutes, a significant jump from just 6% the previous year. This increase in the amount of long-form video content may be the result of a growing number of on-demand webinars and presentation recordings in response to the shift to remote work and online events.
The report has been made available to download from Vidyard at https://www.vidyard.com/business-video-benchmarks/ (free registration required).
