It’s time to face the challenges of another new year, which also means taking a look at some of the most current and effective marketing trends. Video still dominates the digital marketing universe, so it’s essential to find new ways to integrate video content into your strategy. And even with the acceleration of AI, it’s still important to understand the human side too, in order to achieve maximum creativity and effectiveness.
Video giant YouTube remains the second most popular site on the internet, after Google and before Facebook. The social video site TikTok has seen enormous web search growth recently, reaching 800% in the past five years. YouTube Shorts and Instagram Stories show that there is an even greater need for short-form digital content. To find out more, I sat down with digital marketing consultant Jesse Cannon, who shared his thoughts on the trends that are taking shape in 2025.
What’s Trending in Video Marketing in 2025
“Lo-fi” Content
Now that nearly every cell phone has a powerful camera and video recorder onboard, anyone can create content — and sometimes even content that is powerful enough to go viral. Cannon shares: “As cameras in phones have gotten better and better, and microphones that sound professional have hit sub $40 prices, filming in an improvised space and making content that feels honest and user generated has become more acceptable by consumers. Every day, as I scroll and research I see more and more content where someone picks up their phone and uses a cheap microphone to promote something that goes mega viral.”
Captions
It’s important to remember that audio isn’t always on for every user, and that’s where captions can really help. “This is one tactic that is often forgotten but can be used by anyone,” Cannon says. “If you aren’t using captions, you are losing out on how many people are scrolling but trying to not get caught doing so by having audio playing. The data shows that many young users are scrolling while at work and school, trying to not get caught while engaging with captioned and other visual content.”
Keyword-Driven Content
More than ever, marketers have a better ability to truly focus on their audience. Cannon explains: “Now that the algorithm will serve you to people who engage with keywords, it’s easy to start to get on the ‘For You’ page of your best possible audience. Engage with conversation-starting topics using keywords that spark discussion in comments. Think about what your audience often discusses online, or search keywords on [social feed tracking] apps and then spark a discussion in your video.”
Experimental Editing
With the constant proliferation of content, it’s important to set yourself apart — even in short videos. Cannon says: “Standing out from the pack by doing ultra-produced content with tons of keyframes edits — like what Dr. Clips makes for music artists — will always wow audiences. While many people will embrace the fact that low-effort content is going to go viral, zagging can be your key to stand out.” Ultimately, the goal is to produce highly entertaining content that speaks well of your brand, so truly impressing an audience can take something extra.
Adding Engagement Opportunities
Whether it be for actual sales or just brand building, one of the ultimate goals of your video content is to promote engagement. Things like quizzes, polls, and having videos with clickable links will all increase engagement and encourage the audience to keep watching and returning to your videos. Don’t get so involved in the creation of video content that you forget your actual goal is to promote engagement. Also, remember that videos under two minutes typically have a better engagement than those that are longer.
Expanding Platforms
As the world’s fifth largest social media platform, TikTok ads can potentially reach 1.69 billion adults over the age of 18 each month. The recent growth of TikTok has been quite remarkable considering it has now become the 17th largest site on the internet. While some marketers assume that TikTok is just for kids, it would be a mistake to ignore its reach. Note: If the United States does in fact ban TikTok, keep an eye out for rising platforms to take its place, or an increased focus on Instagram Reels.
Artificial Intelligence Tools
The use of AI for helping create content will add an entirely new element of creativity to your campaign. AI can generate ideas, scripts, or create videos and content for you. No AI program is perfect, and it takes some learning and experimentation to generate your ideas effectively, but it’s already growing and making impressive content. Tools like Runway and Synthesia are great new programs that can turn text to video.
Influencer Marketing
Influencers can cover small but very effective niches that are perfect for zeroing in on your marketing plans. Cannon says: “Undoubtedly, influencer marketing had a big comeback this year as it has proven to be one of the most low-effort, effective ways to spend dollars, to see a large audience that influences consumer behavior. While we see many consumer behaviors vary, when a person the consumer is enamored with features a product, that’s something that converts better than any way I have seen to spend a budget.”
He adds, “Influencers also seem to have endless inventory to fill, and in many campaigns I have seen, spreading out the dollars to more users with smaller reach can often be just as effective as spending on one expensive user with 10x the followers.” Regardless of what you’re marketing, influencers remain a crucial part of many campaigns.
What Is the Future of Video Advertising?
Young folks are often financially strapped, yet still have time to spare to consume brand content. And according to Cannon, the future will continue to develop with that in mind: “Journalistic outlets and text-based news are going to wake up to a world where they need to give people with more time than money an option to consume their content in order to broaden their leads. When that happens, 30-second unskippable commercials will become normal, as well as a great way for brands to get a captive audience that is captive to their message. College-educated people who read news sites are still some of the most powerful consumers with large budgets for optimizing their lives, and meeting them where they have interests aligned with your brand will prove to be a way to get brand awareness far better than many other options.”
Key Takeaways
Trying to keep up with an endlessly changing video marketing landscape can be tough, but even small changes in strategy can make an enormous difference. Utilizing AI, adding captions, and tilting your content towards the goal of engagement are just a couple of things you can do to quickly improve your effectiveness. It’s more important than ever to incorporate engaging content into your marketing strategy, but there are also more platforms than ever to help promote your brand, as well as influencers to help you specifically target your audience.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What is video marketing?
Video marketing is the strategy of creating engaging video-based content with the goal of creating awareness and sales. This style of marketing can be used everywhere from social media to corporate websites and other marketing platforms.
What are the types of video marketing?
Video marketing can be broken down into the broad categories of awareness, education, and engagement. Viral videos usually fall under the category of awareness. These are typically attention grabbing videos and things that can be shared on social media. Including something that is thought-provoking can help create a response.
Education videos are made to teach your audience something. These are often instructional and can have a “how to” element to them. While these videos don’t require a huge budget, it’s definitely helpful if they appear professional and match the brand.
Engagement is the last category of video marketing. With engagement, the goal is to initiate some kind of reaction, whether that be a like, share, or comment. It helps if you include some kind of emotional element in order to help generate a reaction.
What are the key metrics to track in video marketing?
When working with video marketing, “shares” is often the name of the game. Cannon elaborates: “Over and over again we see that these apps love to promote what gets shared. If we see a lot of shares on any platform, we also see that video performs far better on ‘Browse’ and ‘For You’ pages. Creating content from a place of thinking about what a user would send to a friend is a framework that will often generate the largest reach for your efforts.” Beginning with “sharability” in mind always leads to better results.
Especially if you’re running a campaign that has a specific call to action button, the number of clicks and click-throughs will also be one of the most important figures to measure. Another metric that is useful to keep track of is watch time. This measures the total amount that people have watched your videos. It includes the number of replays and is a cumulative figure.
Which platforms are best for video marketing in 2025?
As expected, there are a number of options in 2025, depending on the demographic.
Cannon says: “Instagram Reels have largely been underestimated for the shiny new feel of TikTok. Increasingly, LinkedIn videos have an effective reach among a certain demographic.”
One platform that is often forgotten is Reddit, and now with their updated platform, the efficacy has increased as well. Cannon goes on, “Since the revamp of the platform, Reddit ads with video have had a dramatically better CPM performance with conversion rates that exceed expectations in a consumer that is very valuable, as Reddit users are information junkies and often spread their influence to others.”
