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The Nielsen Company has released some interesting figures that shows online video viewing has increased 53.2% over the past quarter. Video has come a long way in the past 5 years, the quality is a far cry from the grainy and painfully slow clips of the early days and it seems that consumers are getting into the habit of consuming video through the web.

So what is it that is driving this growth?

As we all know content is king and with 20 hours of video being uploaded into YouTube every minute there is plenty to choose from, this growing catalogue along with the simplified creation process and consumer demand has seen online video consumption skyrocket.

What does this mean for your business?

Well it means that your prospects, customers and staff are getting used to the idea of watching video online presenting you with an opportunity to utilise this medium to promote, inform and educate through video on your site.

Videos online are presented in two different forms: Videos stored on your website and served through a built in media player and embedded video from sources like YouTube. The main difference is when you serve video through your own website you are not promoting another company (like YouTube) and retain complete control over the content, length and presentation of the video. This represents the professional approach and is ideal for companies with a keen focus on their brand image. Depending on your website platform you may not have the option of serving video directly from the website, or if you do you might not want to pay for the associated bandwidth costs which can get expensive depending on how popular your videos are.

Embedded video allows for you to paste a HTML snippet directly into your page and display a YouTube hosted video through your site. This way YouTube will pick up the bandwidth bill and as Yi-Wyn Yen writes paying for gen Y’s addiction to online video is getting expensive,  it is estimated that their bandwidth bill is over 1.5 million (AUD) per day.

Adding video to your site is a great way to;

•    Effectively communicate with prospects
•    Educate customers on how to use a product or service
•    Communicate a message easily and effectively
•    Train staff and partners
•    Increase engagement levels
•    Decrease bounce rate

Video is an important part of effective online communication, ensure that you factor this powerful tool into your website development.