All marketers and CMOs must understand how to use video and images to build connected brands. These visual assets are essential for brands in many industries such as retail or travel, but many other brands, particularly business-to-business and service-oriented companies, have struggled to determine if a visual asset strategy is right for them. However, it is rare that a business doesn’t need visual assets in some ways.

1. Content Marketing Using Video and Images
All marketers and CMOs must understand how to use video and images to build connected brands.
These visual assets are essential for brands in many industries such as retail or travel, but many
other brands, particularly business-to-business and service-oriented companies, have struggled to
determine if a visual asset strategy is right for them. However, it is rare that a business doesn’t need
visual assets in some ways.
Video and images are especially essential when any real-time content or search and social strategy
is involved. These are some main considerations that you should keep in mind when you employ
video and visual assets.
The Real-Time Elements of Video
Video, whether it’s recorded or live, provides one of the best and most active social and search
functions on the web. YouTube is one of the biggest social destinations on the Internet, but it is also
the second biggest search engine. Here are some considerations that you should keep in mind about
using video for your content marketing:
Videos are compelling
Videos are one of the most compelling real-time assets for breaking news stories and topical events.
Like television, live online video is one of the best and most engaging forms of content on the real-
time Web, and in today’s world it is being shared in real-time.
Social users broadcast and upload videos from everywhere using mobile devices.
Once videos go live, commenting systems and other feedback mechanisms recognize them. This
requires the creator or the people running your social media management group to engage in a
timely manner.
Compelling and engaging video can immediately create feedback and social signals, and reward
you with an upward velocity chain almost immediately. Sharing and feedback will usually be
directly proportional to the interest, entertainment and information levels of the content.
The Interdependent Search and Social Elements of Video
In addition to being a real-time asset, videos trigger a reaction in search and social spaces as well. A
few of the main interdependent elements of search and social when you distribute your video
content are:

2. • Videos can be optimized, just like any other webpage or text article.
• Social signals for video help increase your visibility in search engine results, and within the
search and discovery result streams of social networks.
• Some communities and social networks have been built strictly around video assets
(YouTube for example). Be sure to make sure your content distribution strategy includes
them. Because YouTube is owned by Google, it takes a very algorithmic approach to social
distribution regarding assets and how it makes videos more visible.
• Videos can also be shared and embedded in social networks. This creates additional social.
signals
• Video profiles and pages will also provide second-tier search engine landing page visibility
(SELP), because videos can be embedded into blogs, forums and social networks. These
pages will get picked up by search engines and will drive more traffic and exposure to your
business.
The Search and Social Elements of Images
Like video, images also serve as the sole focus of vertical search engines, as well as being the
nucleus of several key social networks. It is possible for you to optimize images, like web pages, to
get extended visibility by both search engines and social networks. Also, images require both digital
asset optimization as well as engagement optimization that increase the social signals that search
engines look for. Some of the main search and social elements from images include the following:
Entire social communities are built around image assets and image distribution and sharing (Flickr,
Instagram, etc.), and these communities should be targets for social engagement.
Image sites can also quickly index in engines like Google and Bing, and they will appear in the top
web search results, depending on the velocity of query interest and the relation of the image to the
topic.
Images can also refer a substantial amount of search traffic to your site and they represent one of the
most popular search verticals.
Image visibility on your main web search results page will provide you with a more captivating
listing where you can grab more visibility over text-only results.
Social interaction around an image or image channel will increase your visibility within that
channel, or in search results (number of comments, views, and so on). It will also push into
popularity streams, keyword streams, etc.
In summary, if you are not creating strategies around visual assets, as both a real-time and
integrated search and social manner, you should be doing so. Video and images are today’s prime
digital marketing strategies. Now is the time to take a close look at how they can dramatically
improve your business situation.