Why Your Web Video Needs to be Mobile Ready

Mobile ready web video to drive sales…

Web video production is a vital part of many companies’ marketing strategies. Web videos can convey vital product information easily and entertainingly. Videos are also much more likely to be shared by viewers than text pieces are by readers, meaning that companies with video demonstrations are more easily able to take advantage of network effects.

When creating a video, however, it’s important to take not only those viewers watching on their home internet connections but also those watching on mobile devices into account. More and more people watch online videos on their smartphones or tablets, and producing a video in a format these users can’t watch means leaving them out of the audience.

Recent years have seen a dramatic increase in mobile web video watching in the UK, as more and more consumers have access to mobile devices and fast mobile internet. According to a recent survey, 63% of mobile device users in the vital 18-44 demographic watched videos on their smartphones or tablets. A survey in early 2013 saw a 14% increase in the number of online videos viewed from the previous year with the number of mobile video users more than tripling.

With this striking increase in mobile video viewing, web video production needs to take the needs of mobile users into consideration. This means thinking about connection speeds, file formats and screen size.

Some video hosting services already take mobile viewers into account. For instance, videos hosted on YouTube can be quickly mobilised by selecting an option in the Syndication menu. For companies handling web video production in-house, making a mobile-friendly video means choosing the right file format. The most common mobile video formats are MPEG-4 – also a common format for web video – 3GP, and Flash Lite. These fomats encourage small file sizes that download quickly to mobile phones.

Video production needs to take more than just file format into account when creating a video for mobile users. Some elements that will work well on a laptop screen won’t be as helpful for mobile users. Text may be too small to easily read, for instance, and mobile sound performance can lack the clarity of desktop speakers. Testing a new video on mobile devices as well as personal computers is a vital part of the production process.

For advice an help on any aspect of web video production then talk to our friendly team on 01527 910050 or use our contact form.

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