GSO4SCHOOL Summer School 2020
In the world of science if you don’t communicate your work, it is believed that you may as well have stayed at home! Nowadays, scientific research does not stay in the lab, but tries to find its way towards the public.
One of the main objectives of academic research is to have an impact on society and its development. And this is what makes scientific research successful, and dissemination and communication of scientific research is the key element for success.
By 2017, video will account for 69% of all consumer internet traffic, according to Cisco. Video-on-demand traffic alone will have almost trebled. With online video quickly becoming a key means for people to satisfy their information and entertainment needs, small businesses that fail to include it in their internet marketing strategies will do so at their peril.
Video is the future of content marketing. According to the Guardian, various studies show more than half of companies are already making use of the medium – a figure that’s predicted to rise as more and more realise the possibilities. Nielsen claims 64% of marketers expect video to dominate their strategies in the near future.
Why use video for dissemination?
- Online video sharing technologies offer promising new ways for disseminating breakthroughs to wider audiences.
- Videos make the latest research easily accessible to the wider public and easier to share via social media.
- Research videos streamed via online channels like Youtube allow rapid feedback on research findings and reach a much wider audience, compared with the current handful of readers of academic journals.
- Delivering academic research via online video also promotes exchanges between researchers and the public.
- Using video as a means of disseminating research allows knowledge and ideas to be presented in an intriguing way.
- In teaching, videos provide academics with new opportunities to attract students’ interest in research. While for students, video offers innovative and intriguing ways of studying and presenting reports, including theses.
- A video which disseminates the key points of your research and your findings in an intriguing, simple and efficient way, is a handy means of communication and promotion of your work and can be a part of a press kit, or a presentation in a conference at any time.
- Online videos’ potential reach is peerless. YouTube receives more than one billion unique visitors every month – that’s more than any other channel, apart from Facebook.
As we read in the Guardian’s article, the success stories of videos that have gone viral are legend. A recent campaign from Volkswagen, for example, saw a trio of its videos viewed a combined 155 million times.
Engage viewers and they will share the video with others. They will spend longer on your website and more time interacting with your brand. If a picture paints 1,000 words then one minute of video is worth 1.8 million, so say Forrester’s researchers.
Always consider the audience you are trying to reach and ensure the video is relevant to them. If it’s not the most appropriate means of getting your message across, you are probably wasting your time.
Do not neglect social media and be sure to promote across multiple channels. If you want to fully realise video’s potential, you must make it easy for users to find and share it. Don’t neglect mobile either. Ooyala has claimed a tenth of all video plays happen on mobiles and tablets, and it’s an increasingly important segment, with mobile phones holding 41% more share of video consumption at the end of June 2013 than at the start of that year.
Finally, be creative, not only with the videos themselves but in the campaign strategy you build around them.
Have a glimpse on Science View’s videos in our Youtube Channel!
Related posts
