Top Ten Video Marketing Trends 2024

In 2024, video is integral to marketing efforts for every business at every size — whether you’re a sole proprietorship or creating content for a huge corporation.

"Staying ahead" in video marketing is about more than just knowing which sounds are trending on TikTok: It’s about understanding customer behavior and emerging technologies. In other words, it’s about making sure your marketing content is relevant, effective, and the best use of your time.

So let’s take a look at what the experts have outlined as the top video marketing trends of 2024:

• Vertical Video
• Silent Videos
• Short-Form
• Smartphone Cameras
• Simplified Production
• AI Tools
• User-Generated Content
• Live Streaming
• Live Shopping
• Video SEO

How important is video marketing in 2024?

If you’re wondering whether video marketing is even worth the effort — trust us, it is. The data is clear about video consumption and video efficacy for marketing and sales. Here are some quick stats that show just how important video marketing is in 2024:

The internet is all about video (and that includes your audience)

Video is everywhere. 

It’s completely changed the landscape of social media over the last few years, from the meteoric rise of TikTok to the shift towards short-form video on … basically every other social platform. But video isn’t just social media — It’s also taken over our search engine results, our shopping behaviors, and how we learn. 

Video is the most popular content type online, accounting for over 80% of global internet traffic. There are billions of online video viewers, averaging about 17 hours of online video content watched each week. 

That’s a lot of people watching a lot of videos, and if your videos aren’t included in that traffic … where are you?

More businesses are using video marketing than ever before

Video as a marketing tool has been rising in popularity for years, with no signs of slowing down. According to Wyzowl surveys, over 90% of businesses are using video as a marketing tool in 2023. And of those businesses that aren’t using video yet, the vast majority intend to start (smart). 

Using video for your marketing is super effective

OK so it’s not just about how many people are using video marketing — it’s about why so many people are using video marketing. The reason? It works. Video marketers consistently say video helps their users understand their product or service, not to mention that video increases brand awareness, traffic, leads, and sales. All in all, video marketing offers a consistently high return on investment, which isn’t changing anytime soon.

What are the marketing trends for video in 2024?

Alright, so you’re on board with video marketing. What are the video marketing trends for 2024? Let’s take a look. 

Vertical video

Here’s an unsurprising statistic: Smartphone usage continues to grow worldwide. Statista forecasts that 2024 will see almost 7 billion smartphone mobile network subscriptions globally. Mobile users comprise the majority of general web traffic, video plays, and of course traffic to social media sites. 

More and more websites are designed with the mobile experience in mind, and video is no different. Look at YouTube, for example, the biggest video hosting site in the world. Mobile traffic makes up the vast majority of YouTube’s billions of site visits, and they have been shifting steadily towards vertical video in response. 

Vertical video just makes sense in today’s world, which is why even more video marketers will start prioritizing 9:16 formats in 2024. 

Silent videos

It’s probably not surprising that most people regularly watch videos without sound (we’re talking over 90%). Scrolling TikTok in the doctor’s office, on the bus, or in the break room — it makes sense that sound is becoming less important and captions are becoming more important. 

Aside from ensuring that consumers can get the message even when their sound is off, captions also make marketing videos more effective. That means even if viewers are also listening, captions help the viewer retain the brand message, and boost video completion rates. Captions also improve SEO (which we’ll talk about later) by giving search engines more text to pull from. 

Most importantly, captions are simply more accessible to the hundreds of millions of people globally who are deaf and hard of hearing, which is why more and more video marketers will be optimizing videos for sound-off viewing in 2024.

Short-form video

“Short-form” is a general term for the easily digestible or “snackable” content that is everywhere on social media platforms today. The average U.S. smartphone user spends over five hours on their phone every day (oof) with a huge chunk of that time spent on social media sites. Platforms like TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and even YouTube keep prioritizing short-form videos in their app interfaces and their algorithms, so it’s no surprise that short-form video formats continue to grow in popularity. 

There’s no hard and fast rule about video length, but typically “short-form” refers to videos that are under three minutes. However, many short-form videos are much shorter — in the five to ten-second range, which appeals to our ever-shortening attention spans (currently averaging just over 8 seconds). 

For video marketers in 2024, that means it’s key to grab the viewer’s attention and front-load your most important information. It means including a strong hook and a great call to action. It also means posting regularly, staying ahead of platform-specific trends, and repurposing longer videos and livestreams to maximize your content output. 

The good news is that short-form video has great ROI, and marketers in 2024 will continue to utilize it to boost engagement and lead generation metrics. Thankfully, creating short-form content is generally much easier than creating long-form pieces. Which brings us to our next 2024 video marketing trend …

Smartphone cameras

Even for larger companies who can afford expensive video recording equipment, it’s just not the norm anymore. Traditional production costs too much, takes too much time, and (here’s the clincher) it’s just not worth it. Smartphones are accessible and easy to use, but most importantly, smartphone video quality in 2024 is phenomenal. 

Smartphones are also ideal for creating vertical video, short-form social content, livestreams, and more. That's why more and more video marketers in 2024 will skip the expensive cameras in favor of simple smartphone videos — part of an overall shift towards our next trend: simplified video production.

Simplified production

Even just a few years ago, video creation was an intense investment of time and money. For many marketers, video content required outsourcing to large production companies with access to scriptwriters, pricey equipment, and advanced video editing capabilities. (Not to mention that the end product could take weeks to produce.) 

In 2024, video production is simple, accessible, and fast. In addition to favoring smartphones over high-priced cameras, marketers are opting for more authentic and unscripted content over huge productions. They’re choosing simple lighting setups over studio lights. They’re bringing video production in-house. They’re choosing editing live to cut out lengthy post-production, or they’re using smartphone apps to edit and share videos on just one device. 

More content, less effort, quicker results? Sounds pretty good. 

AI for video

Simplifying video production is also where AI — artificial intelligence — makes its appearance as a video marketing trend. AI was certainly a buzzword in 2023, and these emerging technologies will continue to be part of the conversation surrounding video marketing strategy moving forward. In the last year, many creation platforms have premiered AI features and many new video AI tools have appeared on the scene. 

When it comes to AI tools, video marketers in 2024 are looking for ways to automate processes. That means exploring tools that simplify and streamline the creation process by pulling on vast amounts of data to reduce the amount of time required to research, write scripts, edit content, add captions, and so on. In 2024, marketers will look at AI to help simplify video creation … without creating video that looks and feels inauthentic.

User-generated content

According to Merriam-Webster, the Word of the Year for 2023 was “authentic.” As marketers, authenticity is paramount. Creating content that feels honest, real, and human — even when you’re creating content on behalf of a brand — is vital for connecting with and engaging an audience. 

It’s not always easy to do, and the larger a company gets, the harder it is to convey authenticity in marketing materials. User-generated content is one of the key ways that video marketers will inject their content with authenticity in the next year. 

User-generated content refers to content created by a customer and then used by the brand on their channels. UGC can be created organically and then reposted with permission (and usually compensation), or a company might collaborate with and/or sponsor a brand advocate to produce content on behalf of the brand. Some popular examples of UGC include testimonials, unboxings, tutorials, and product demos. Many companies send out press kits and product samples to creators who are likely to create product demos or tutorials using their products. 

Don’t confuse UGC and influencer partnership content (also popular in 2024). The purpose of UGC is authenticity, social proof, modern-day word of mouth — savvy followers can spot the difference between genuine user-generated content and ads that are intended to look like user-generated content. Delight your customers and allow them to create content that shows the value of your product or service.

Live streaming

Speaking of authentic content, even more video marketers will turn to live streaming in 2024. As mobile devices and internet users increase, live streaming has continued to grow in popularity, making it a huge missed opportunity for brands that aren’t taking advantage of live video content. Across platforms, viewers streamed over 7.5 billion hours of live content in Q3 of 2023, which is why streaming now accounts for 17% of global internet traffic.

Live streaming is consistently prioritized by market leaders and top platforms like Amazon, Apple, Meta, Google, Vimeo, and TikTok. Though numbers differ slightly when experts forecast market value and revenue, one thing is clear: The global live streaming market continues to grow at an estimated compound annual growth rate of 27%. 

Video marketers love live streaming for many reasons. Live streaming tends to feel more authentic than pre-recorded video, which we’ve already discussed is vital for effective video marketing. Because it’s real-time, live streaming tends to capture and hold viewer attention longer than videos-on-demand. Additionally, viewers engage and interact more with live videos than pre-recorded videos — a key metric for video marketers in 2024. 

Live shopping

Speaking of interactivity, live shopping (also known as shoppable video or video commerce) has been on the rise for years, and adoption will continue to increase in the coming year. Amazon Live has been prioritizing shoppable streams for years, which is a big deal considering Amazon’s share of the e-commerce market in the U.S. is nearly 38%.   

While Meta has pulled back on e-commerce tools, YouTube has recently added a Shopping feature, and the TikTok Shop allows users to purchase directly from their TikTok feed. But whether on social media or on their website, many e-commerce companies simply create live shopping streams to give their audiences a more immersive experience.

With regular live shopping events, sellers can connect with customers, tell their brand story, answer questions, and demo products. This experience is similar to shopping in person, which is why conversion rates for live shopping can be up to ten times higher than the average e-commerce conversion rate. 

Growth is steady for video commerce, and it’s only going to continue. Especially for boutiques and retailers, live shopping is a key trend for video marketing in 2024.

Video SEO

In 2024, video marketers will be paying more attention to video SEO than ever before. That means including video on your website and optimizing any video you post for search. And this isn’t just about Google and YouTube — video SEO is important even if you’re only creating video for social media. A recent survey suggests that Gen Z prefers using TikTok as their primary search engine.

Video SEO is vital for good visibility and finding the right audience. That means including the right keywords, of course, but it also means creating engaging content. Just as search engines consider factors like bounce rate and dwell time when ranking web pages, they also consider factors like watch time and engagement metrics when it comes to ranking videos.

What is the future of video marketing?

The landscape of video marketing will continue to evolve as platforms and devices shift, but video is the future of content marketing. It provides unique opportunities to share information and tell stories while connecting and engaging with audiences. And while trends change, the desire by consumers to have more authentic, interactive access to brands isn’t waning.

Video marketing is becoming more casual, more constant, and more experiential. Looking forward, we see video as the ideal medium for marketers to create meaningful, unique, and engaging content that delights their audience.

How can Switcher Studio help me with video marketing?

Looking for a platform that simplifies the business of video? Switcher has you covered, whether you’re creating, sharing, or monetizing content. 

Simplified, smartphone video creation

The Switcher Studio iOS app is simplified video production at its finest. Create branded multicamera streams and videos using just your iOS devices. Whether horizontal or vertical, users can feature unique layouts, add branded graphics, and even invite remote guests. 

Built-in Multistreaming 

Integrate with the biggest social networks and use our built-in Multistreaming feature to reach every audience at once. Display comments, engage with viewers, even sell live. 

Repurpose content 

The Clips creator tool makes it simple for Switcher users to take one piece of content and reach every platform. Take a live stream, clip your favorite moments, change the orientation, add captions, and more. Then share directly to the platform of your choice. 

Embed videos and streams

Want to bring your audience to you? Embed the Switcher Player on your website and create your own video platform. Stream or upload video content, create playlists, sell live with Shopify, even add Gated Content or video Subscription capabilities.

Switcher is an end-to-end video platform, fully integrated from start to finish. Any platform, any format, any goal — Switcher is the easiest way for video marketers to make an impact in 2024. See just how easy it is when you try Switcher Studio free for 14 days!