What is a Viral Video in a B2B Environment?
Before starting any video project with a corporate client, we ask a couple of core questions:
– What message will your video send?
– Who is your video’s audience?
– What do you want your video to accomplish?
A Successful Company Video is a Video that Produces Results
Some clients that are new to using video in a business-to-business (B2B) environment have a harder time answering these questions at first glance. Their understanding of ‘successful’ video may be limited to Super Bowl commercials and one-off viral marketing videos, such as Dove’s “Like A Girl” campaign.
https://youtu.be/XjJQBjWYDTs
But when it comes to B2B video, successful does not mean viral. A successful B2B video is one that reaches the right audience with the right message at the right time – and achieves your goal of attracting investors, hiring the best recruits, or redefining your company’s culture.
A “Viral” Video Engages a Wide & Diverse Audience
Videos that go viral have some element that is attractive to the masses – it elicits a common emotion, stuns us with something extraordinary, or it hooks us in with humor. The vitality of a video is measured in the number of people that have viewed it—the wider the audience, the better.
But when it comes to business video, only a small number of people actually need to see it. Corporate videos make a specific audience do, think, feel, say, buy, or buy into.
The more tailored your video’s message is, the greater theimpact it will have on its audience.
How B2B Video Differs from B2C Video
B2B videos are designed differently than B2C videos. Regarding corporate video production for a B2C environment, in today’s oversaturated video space, advertisers need to hook the attention of potential customers within the first few seconds. This is because the video’s audience is a much wider pool, and they’re hoping to appeal to a wider audience with specific style and content strategies. It’s about casting a wide net: more exposure equals more views, which (hopefully) equals more business.
On the other hand, B2B videos often have a more engaged audience to start with. Employees, investors, clients and potential talent all have skin in the game, to some extent. In turn, the creative strategy for these corporate videos depends on the temperament of the audience – are they an expert on the subject or uninformed? Are they hostile or sympathetic?
These videos can contain more details of the story and feature more voices from the company. B2B videos, to be effective, need to focus more so on who your company is, rather than simply what you do. In a B2B environment, the audience likely already knows what market sector your company is a part of; what they really want to know is why you’re different from your competitors and why they as a viewer should care. Read our blog on how long corporate video should be for advice on how the length and format of your video affects its efficacy.
Corporate Video Strategy for Engaging B2B vs Public Audiences
Many times, our clients request two versions of a video: one for current investors, and one for marketing to the general public. With skillful writing and editing, one video can accomplish both. It may not reach true ‘viral’ status, but it will make an impact on your selected external groups, like potential hires and current investors.
Our client Northwood Investors hired Tribe to create videos about their new property acquisitions across the US and UK. The initial task was to showcase these properties to investors as part of an Investors Day event. However, Tribe saw a way to give the videos a longer life. Each of the property acquisition videos were recut for a public B2B audience, where they now live on the company’s website.
We believe that corporate video can be multi-purpose and serve more than one audience. When it comes to B2B and B2C, you should work with a video production company that understands the right way to motivate, engage and inspire an audience—because success is far more than just clicks.