YouTube recently celebrated its 10th birthday. Yes, we have been watching cats and dogs falling off skateboards and little babies biting other peoples’ fingers for a long time now!
Whilst we can all relate to the type of content that YouTube had when it first launched there are far more business related topics now. You only have to look at the success of the TED Talk videos to see the quality of the speakers and content.
Online Video Growth
With CISCO predicting that by 2019 online video will account for 90% of all Internet traffic it makes you wonder why Recruiters aren’t using online video to promote their company and current vacancies?
Far too many companies today still only have traditional text based job adverts and these are the type of adverts that look exactly the same as everyone else’s! This is not what every job seeker wants. Many job seekers would ideally like to watch a video about your company, your jobs and understand why your business is different.
So Why Aren’t Recruiters Making The Most Of Online Video?
The reasons why Recruiters aren’t using online video in recruitment usually comes down to three main areas:
- Don’t have the right equipment
- Too expensive
- Too complicated
Today, literally any business can create their own recruitment videos using the equipment they already have. For example, most smartphones have at a HD quality built-in video camera which can record high quality videos suitable to post online.
To show just how good smart phones have become a broadcast TV advert for the new Bentley Mulsanne (which costs around $300,000) was filmed and produced last year using only an iPhone 5s and edited on an iPad Air!
Compared to professional camcorders smart phones are inexpensive, easy to use and can produce comparable (and in some cases better) results. And as far as video hosting is concerned you can upload and host your videos on YouTube for free and share them across your social media channels.
Stand Out From The Crowd
With it becoming more and more difficult for companies to stand out from the crowd to attract candidates the use of visuals (both images and videos) is clearly the way forward. When was the last time a text only post on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter got your attention?
Reasons For Having A Video
Whether you want to produce your own videos or commission an external partner to create them for you need to be very clear as to why you are using online video and who your target market is. You also need to be clear as to what action you want them to take from watching the video e.g. register with you / telephone you? These are key parts of the whole process because you can produce the best quality video and content in the world but if it doesn’t talk and appeal to your target market then it will be completely wasted.
It Isn’t Too Late To Get Started
Even though YouTube has been around for 10 years there is still time to get started with online video to gain a competitive advantage. As the stat from Cisco shows online video will be practically everywhere by 2019. So its time to act quickly if you want to gain that competitive advantage.
Written By Mike Taylor
Mike helps companies attract targeted candidates through Online Video Marketing & Jobcasts | Founder Of JOBSRadio.co.uk
