If you’ve always wanted to indulge in video marketing as the new medium of choice for online advertising, the time has come.

According to James McQuivey, a researcher with Forrester Research, the value of a one-minute video is comparable to 1.8 million words.

Because video plays such an important and unique role in our understanding and retaining of concepts, digital marketers get the opportunity to connect with the target audience on an emotional level, and particularly so to capture leads.

Here are some trends you should be paying attention to by now.

Social Media

Today, companies big and small are turning to some of the most popular social media platforms out there to share their video messages — and they have good reason to do so.

We’ve seen how Facebook is going head-on with Google owned YouTube with its roll-out of video ads, and the latest being Live Video thrown into the mix.

Social apps like Vine with its 6 seconds videos probably prompted Instagram to come up with the 15-seconds video capability as well. Recently, YouTube announced the launch of its 6-seconds unskippable Bumper ads.

With the advancement of mobile devices, the introduction of augmented reality (AR) to the masses, and virtual reality (VR) gears just about going mainstream — there’s going to be more of these in the near future.

YouTube

Probably the second-largest search engine, after Google — YouTube has certainly come a long way from its humble beginnings.

Brands big and small, are taking to the online video-streaming platform to tell their stories and share their messages with eager consumers.

YouTube attracts up to 1 billion unique visitors each month. The site is also part of the reason consumers like easy-to-process, short, digestible clips, rather than long, drawn-out video content.

And think about it: YouTube has only been around since 2007, yet today is a major player in the evolution of video marketing.

Mobile

So, where is this all taking place? Many experts would argue the bulk of consumer video consumption takes place on mobile devices.

When consumers are searching for an answer to something, the first thing they typically do is reach for their smartphone.

Statistics has shown that almost half of all global viewership on YouTube originated from a mobile device. These same users are also more likely to watch and share video content from brands, more so than their peers watching from desktops or TVs, according to Google.