Consumer vs B2B video content – what’s the difference?

5 things I’ve noticed about.. Consumer vs B2B video content

Before joining Bouche I worked with social video for consumer brands, driving engagement for content creators across all the major social platforms, with watchtime and viewer retention being the key goals.

Here are five differences I’ve noticed between consumer and b2b content and what I (with the naive confidence of someone in their mid 20s) corporate video could learn from the lustprinzip (google it!) world of social media.

 

1. Social media never takes attention for granted

As most platforms serve their content through a scrolling “For you” page,  social videos have to earn every viewer, and cannot take an audience for granted.  Corporate video has the luxury of not having to hook people in straight away, and can assume an inherent viewer retention without having to “bait” the audience.

But often corporate content is significantly less engaging than social media, so for more impact it should put a greater emphasis on hooking their audience and working harder to keep their attention.

 

2. Social media has a clear, emotional purpose

Most social videos have a clear emotional goal: to make you laugh, cry or get angry.

To cut through the noise and stop the scroll, successful social content needs to have a simple message and emotional tone that can be communicated almost instantly. Videos that play on this are more likely to win and keep viewers.

Corporate videos are traditionally more restrained- calmly explaining the benefits of a particular product or service without a strong emotional slant or appeal. But businesses shouldn’t be afraid to represent their products and services through a diversity of feelings. By exploring a wider range of emotions and themes, they’ll stand a better chance of being more memorable to more people.

 

 

3. Social media has to start from scratch

Social content has to build up the viewer’s expectations, whilst established businesses can benefit from their brand equity – the sum of the audience’s previous knowledge, interactions and emotion with a company. Businesses could take advantage of this by focusing on what makes them different in the eyes of their customers.

4. B2B brands are a lot more risk averse

If you spend five minutes on any social platform, you will quickly see that people aren’t afraid to embarrass themselves or appear weird, and won’t let ‘dignity’ get in the way of viral success.

This approach is obviously fairly incompatible many organisations’ carefully curated brand image and reputation. This is understandable, but there is a certain amount of creative experimentation and brilliance that businesses could learn from the social platforms.  Businesses can and should be bold and experimental with how they try to communicate their messages to their clients if they want to stand out.

5. The gap is closing

No business, whether it’s consumer or b2b really wants safe and sterile videos and it’s interesting to see how corporate video is increasingly influenced by music, brand and social content.

So the best content, consumer or corporate , should aim for the same goal: to tell a compelling story in new, interesting ways that will stick in the minds of  their audience. We should not be afraid of new trends and technology,  but embrace new and interesting methods to make the best content possible.

 

Casius Stone, Junior Producer