Hey everybody and welcome to #trending in video, the latest blog endeavor by us over here at Best Made Videos®. This is the blog where we keep you up to date on all the fun and exciting videography trends and video production news around the world and advise you and how to relate it to your own video production company or your own video content creation strategy. Today we are looking at a couple of articles. The first one is from businesstocommunity.com the second is diyphotography.net and the third is from our friends over at Digital Trends. The first article we are looking today from businesstocommunity.com is talking about three digital marketing trends to watch for in 2020 and digital marketing could be anything from video creation to other video components to put onto social media channels and other websites.
The author notes that in 2020 we are going to observe new video marketing trends along with some current trends that are still effective. The current trends that we are going to continue focusing on are chat bots, which are automatic personalized help. 2020 breathed new life into those chat bots, making them more compelling and popular than they were in previous years. And those are things that you can put on your website to help answer automated questions that your consumers might have. The second current video trend in marketing that we are keeping an eye on is voice search and it notes as more people use digital assistants such as Alexa or Siri, SEO is becoming increasingly focused on voice search with keywords being based upon how people speak and not necessarily how they type into the keyboard. And this goes into past advice that we've had in terms of transcribing your videos to not only give captions for people to be able to read along with while they watch the video, but also transcribing those videos to give content to your website or other platforms you're going to post on.
The third topic they note of current video trends that are still effective is video marketing in general. It's talking about how posting videos is becoming easier and easier and every year there are more successful and ambitious videos created by brands and period all over the internet and this again goes along with things we've been talking about recently in our blog about brands and other digital marketing agencies using videos and leveraging videos to reach a broader audience on the internet.
The three new trends that this article from businesstocommunity.com are talking about today. The first is shoppable posts. It notes for a long time businesses sought to attract their subscribers on social networks to join them in their online store. Now they don't necessarily need to do that anymore. You are able to post videos and other photos on social media networks and your consumers are able to buy products directly on there without necessarily going to your website.
The article notes that you do not necessarily even need to leave the site or application anymore. There are social media sites where you can place orders directly on the platform. Instagram checkout is one of the new examples of that. They launched back in 2019 and have quickly attracted more attention and traffic. The article quotes that at least 54% of people on social media networks use them to monitor the products they want to buy and that involves as well as price shopping, keeping up to date on the latest videos and photos that are being posted about the products they are looking at.
The goal of the video marketers is to reduce the amount of action required by the consumer to purchase. Therefore, selling directly on the various social media networks is going to reduce the likelihood of an unfinished purchase. You don't even necessarily need to be an e-commerce brand to take advantage of this new trend. If you sell products, even several small units, you can get much higher profits by conducting transactions through social media sites, through the use of videos and photos. If you have a store on Shopify, you only need to link your account to Instagram and you can establish that funnel to get people to purchase your products as well. You can also go to Pinterest, which was one of the first channels offering the opportunity to place orders directly on the social media site.
The second digital video marketing trend that this article is talking about today is personal correspondence. To become more personalized for customers, brands are transferring the conversation in person. Direct messaging as a means of optimizing customer experiences and assisting in sales has become one of the most relevant trends this article notes in digital video marketing in 2020. By using video messaging apps like what's up and Facebook messenger or through private messages on social networks like Twitter and Instagram, brands are using those to build closer ties with their customers. These sites are providing the convenience of text messaging combined with the overall urgency of a phone call. Moreover, everything is already in the environment in which the user is familiar and comfortable with. Brands do believe that personal correspondence with their clients is effective for building new and establishing existing relationships and whether it's working through complaints or accepting orders or even just communicating, personal correspondence is going to be a great way to interact with your clients moving forward.
The third trend that goes along with posting more up to date trending videos is simply corresponding with the new generation Z in their own language. In 2020 marketers are welcoming the latest consumer group, generation Z, those that were born immediately after the turn of the century who are already 18 years old and they are entering the labor market and starting to earn wages. It's reported that generation Z makes up 40% of all consumers in 2020. Marketing to generation Z means a sharp turn in styling the content that you are posting online. That includes doing more videos and video content strategies and focusing on making sure those videos are up to date and trending with the things that people want to see in their video marketing. The youngest market according to this article is also the most bizarre with flavors that might seem odd if you're used to marketing digitally and focusing on boomers or generation Z.
The article notes that if generation Z is one of the top markets you are trying to reach with your video content, some short lists of values to be aware of are authenticity, confidentiality, diversity, and a sense of humor. And those are all great things to incorporate into your video creation strategy. Authenticity first and foremost, generation Z grew up online in an era of misinformation, so they are very susceptible to authenticity and they smell inauthenticity a mile away, so you want to avoid overly advertising in your videos and choose transparency instead. The second important value to be aware of is confidentiality. The concern for privacy is high among generation Z, so you need to respect their data diversity. The third most important value to be aware, of the generation Z values, diversity in the videos and images that they see, they want to make sure they see themselves represented in the videos that you are posting. And so it's important to make sure that you incorporate as much diversity as you can in the videos that you are creating. Number four is that sense of humor, and that also goes in line with your video content strategy, making sure that you're not too serious in advertising but that you're using your video platform as a way to communicate with your brand and having a good sense of humor is a way to do that. This article notes that marketers have noticed a similarity between generation Z and millennials but as generation Z matures over the next few years, you should expect to see more significant differences.
The article concludes asking if you are ready for digital video marketing in 2020. They note that in the upcoming 2020 and beyond, digital marketing trends will be more humane and more mechanical. The general trend of digital video marketing is moving towards more personal relationships with targeted niches, but the means to build these relationships are going to rely on automation and new technologies. The heart of digital video marketing remains the same that you want to give people what they want and where they want to find it. Technology in 2020 is going to open up more paths for that.
The second article we are looking at today is talking about 360 degree cameras and this was a couple of different articles that I stumbled upon lately talking about people stuck in quarantine and finding new ways to create video content. That goes along with already established video content creators and also people that are trying to express themselves in quarantine. This article from diyphotography.net is talking about the best consumer 360 degree video cameras you can buy right now. 360 degree cameras according to the article have come a long way in the last couple of years. What are the top consumer picks when it comes to 360 degree cameras right now? Daniel, the 360 degree camera guy is going to show us the top five 360 degree video cameras so you can buy it right now. He's pointing out the good, the bad and the okay for each of these cameras. The article notes, they're probably not surprising to you. There isn't necessarily a single best video camera that's going to be used, but each has its own advantages and disadvantages.
The first is from Insta 360 and that is a 360 degree video camera that we have used as well at Best Made Videos®. The brand itself is established, but this new camera is one of the newest on the block. The One R was released earlier this year and it's the first modular 360 degree video and action camera as well as a 4k linear video module. There's a 5K 360 degree video module and basically this is going to allow you to manipulate the video camera and build on to the stock camera that is sold and personalize it to your own needs. This camera supports H.265 encoding. It's waterproof to the depths of five meters, and it has the best editing software for 360 degree video. It's also the first 360 degree video camera from Insta 360 to have its own display which shows you what you're shooting as well as providing an interactive touch screen for the video camera.
The second 360 degree video camera we're looking at is from GoPro and it is the GoPro Max. Tt is also a waterproof video camera to the depths of around five meters without any kind of external housing. It offers 5.7 K video up to 30 frames per second and it is the best video quality that this author has seen in the 360 degree camera priced under a thousand dollars. There are no interchangeable modules with this video camera and the body of the video camera is much larger, but that means it has a much larger LCD screen allowing you to see more of the video that are capturing. It also has high video stabilization in the camera.
The third 360 degree video camera we're looking at today is from Ricoh, and it is the Theta Z1 priced just under a thousand dollars. It has a huge video sensor of one inch in width which is underneath each of its video lenses. The increased video sensor size allows it to perform much better in low light and produce high quality stills and raw video in the video. However, it only shoots up to 4k video. You can see in the video provided in the article that the quality of the stills is very good and if you're doing any kind of architectural or virtual video tour work, especially for paying clients, this is probably the best camera for your money. They even offer a light room plugin that lets you automatically stitch and process your images together.
The QOOCAM 8K is going to be your highest resolution 360 degree video camera. It produces eight K video footage with 10 bit color. It has a smaller video sensor with a touch screen and it is half the price of the previously mentioned Theta Z1.
The final 360 degree video camera we're talking about is the Insta 360 One X, which was discontinued with the release of their new video camera, but you still might be able to get it online. The author expects that there will be quite a lot of unsold stock of this video camera if you look hard enough and it's going to be supported by all of the latest technology out there and the latest upgrades that are going to be available for the newer One R.
The benefits of having the 360 video camera are being able to show more of your surroundings, whether you're out and about or inside. It provides a unique video perspective and lots of video uploading sites including YouTube are updating their software so that you can upload videos seamlessly and your consumers and audiences are able to view those videos either on their phones or on a desktop computer.
The third and final article we're looking at today is from Digital Trends and it's talking about how to use almost any video camera as a webcam and this is certainly important now with everybody working from home and video telecommunicating lately. The article notes that cameras, even those in phones brag about megapixels and lens specifications, but laptops, they don't really brag about the lenses and video that they produce. There's a reason that computer companies don't say much about the video webcams that come built in to their laptops. Most of these video cameras are low quality with tiny video sensors and cheap lenses and while they work for basic video teleconferencing they aren't very impressive and they certainly leave us wanting something more.
The article notes that while you could buy just a standalone video webcam that connects over USB, to really take your video production values up a notch, you can also opt for a DSLR or a mirrorless video camera as well. You're going to need a few workarounds to get this type of camera to be recognized as a video webcam, but the trouble is worth it for higher resolution and much better low light performance and cinematic video background blur. The article notes to accomplish this, you are going to need some specific hardware or software to get your video, camera and computer to play nice together, but fortunately with the right tools, using your DSLR or mirrorless video camera as a web cam is a pretty straightforward procedure.
The hardware solution for this, they note that most computers can not natively read the video that's coming from a camera's HDMI output. If your computer has an HTDI port, it's likely an output and is not an input for other video signals. While cameras have USB ports, they generally do not send a clean video signal through them. You're going to need a device that converts your camera's HDMI feed to a USB output. Your computer is going to think it's connected to a webcam and the beauty of this setup is that you can generally use any HDMI stores as the input from the video camera to the computer. The output can be used however you'd like from video teleconferencing to live streaming or video recording. The quality of the video that your computer receives is limited by the device. Even if you have a video camera that can shoot four K video, the USB adapter may only support 1080P output. Given the most live streams and video conferencing is going to be reduced to 1080P or 720P. This probably isn't a huge concern. The article notes that you can even buy a four input HDMI video switcher and use that as a way to input the video to your computer from your mirrorless video camera.
The software solution, the article notes that some software programs can grab the video feed from a camera that's plugged directly into the USB port without bothering with an HDMI cable at all. These software solutions are a little less universal than video cards. Canon has a beta program to plug and play a video camera as a webcam, but it only works for Canon video cameras. Sparco cam is a windows program that's going to allow you to use your Canon and Nikon video cameras to work as webcams without any special hardware. There are some free hacks to also get your video camera to work as a webcam without a capture card, although the setup isn't as seamless, you're going to need to get your video chat program to use your camera besides using your built in webcam. Your camera's also not going to provide audio, so you're going to need to use your camera's built in mic or an external mic.
It seems to me after browsing through this article that your best bet is going to be to get a video capture card and that's going to let you as previously mentioned, take the video signal from your camera, run it through an HDMI cable and into your computer. You can use a video switcher to connect multiple cameras or a single DSLR video camera is going to be your best bet to increase the video quality and get out of having to use your computers video webcam.
These were some interesting articles that we look today in the #trending in video blog. I hope you found some useful video tips and other exciting tidbits in the world of video production. Be sure to check back later this week for another blog post from us over here at Best Made Videos®. Thanks again and have a good day.