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Good Health Content Means Video, Just Ask the People
By Matthew Dillingham | April 6, 2008
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Many hospitals still do not understand the importance of video. You can see that by the reams and reams of health content and testimonials they put on their sites. In most cases visitors who come to a hospital’s web site is not looking for a long, drawn out explanation of the greatest technologies, or that they are a smoke free campus. They are there to go real, personal information that is relevant and informative. What is a better way to do that than video? Nothing really.
People are experiencing video on about every site that they go to now, and it has become an expected feature on most consumer driven sites. Here are some stats to back this up:
- Over 9.2 billion video streams were initiated in the month of September in the US – comScore 2007
- 75% of all Americans during that month watched video online.
- Average video viewer watched 68 videos per month; three hours per month
What is the most interesting about this research, is what people do after they watch the video. According to research done by The Kelsey Group, more than half of the people watching video online “ said they engage in some sort of response activity, such as visiting a website, going to a physical location or making a purchase.”
This is a lot of people watching a lot of video. Why would you think they would not want to watch video on your hospital’s site, if they are going everywhere else to watch video? Patient testimonials, doctors talking about research, community interaction all are powerful video sources.
Besides people, Google likes video as well. Especially if it is well tagged, and surrounded by relevant content. We are starting to see more and more searches come up with video results mixed in with the typical results scene when someone searches. Actually, we have helped one of our clients with that very thing. When typing in their organization’s name, their website comes up first followed by a video about that organization. Very powerful.
Hospital’s are in the people business, so it is time to start giving people what they want.
Topics: Health Content, Search Engine Optimization, video |
April 11th, 2008 at 8:04 pm
Great post, Matthew. As the CEO of VideoBloom, a leading online video solutions provider, I concur with you that the medical sector has lots to gain from the presence enabled by online video. Our clients in the medical industry love online video and use it for a wide range activities, from product demos and patient testimonials to new program pitches…