The Definitive Guide to Business Video Types

Video is one of the most effective media channels for business. It has a variety of use cases spanning all areas of business, including marketing, sales, public relations, HR, and others. Strategic use of video is correlated with better business results across many industries, most prominently in sectors such as ecommerce, retail, real estate,fitness, cosmetics, and gaming.

Business video comes in a variety of types, each specialized for a different purpose. Understanding these types will help you develop a video strategy in line with your business goals. To this end, we present our guide on the 12 most commonly used business video types.

1. Social Media Advertising Video

One of the most common use-cases for business video is social media advertising. All major social media platforms, including Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, support video-based ads. By utilizing this feature, businesses stand to gain impressions, shares, conversions, and even sales. Different social media networks have different rules for uploading video content, so make sure to check what these are before starting to develop video. 

2. Branding Video

Video is an excellent branding tool. Unlike text or images, video offers a more immersive, information-rich way of presenting your brand to the public. Consequently, the purpose of a branding video is to highlight your company’s culture, its values, and its goals. This means you have a greater degree of freedom when making branding videos compared to other business video types. As long the video itself is crisp, well-shot, and doesn’t drag for too long, you can get away with any type of content, including stock footage, animation, interviews, etc.

3. Employee Training Video

Employee training videos have a long history dating back to the 80s and the explosion of VHS video. The main benefits of training videos over live training seminars are re-usability, cost-effectiveness, and consistency. Once you’re done recording a video on a given topic, for example, on proper cyber-security procedures, you can share it over company channels, included in your onboarding package for new employees, or host it for reference in your company’s knowledge base.

4. Stakeholder Video

This type of video is a bit less common than others, but it is a very effective tool for communication with stakeholders in your company. Content-wise, stakeholder videos aim to represent how existing and future business activity leads to the creation of value for stakeholders. An obvious example would be a video detailing how an ongoing video marketing campaign has increased leads twofold, leading to a 25% increase in sales. To put it simply, stakeholder videos are all about visualizing the bottom line of business.

5. Public Relations Video

In contrast to branding videos, which are more generic in nature, public relations videos usually deal with concrete, real-world issues and their relation to your business. PR videos are more effective if they feature C-Suite personnel, as this is a way of showing that management and owners care enough about the issue in question to weigh in personally on the matter. PR video content also requires consistency – sending conflicting messages through PR is a great way to cause confusion in public and damage your authority.

6. Video Documentary

An oddball among business video types, documentary videos are meant to provide a historical, fact-based account of your company’s past. Documentaries can be a useful onboarding tool, but they can also work for branding, PR, and even marketing. In terms of content, business documentaries usually feature interviews with employees, management, and stakeholders, tours of production facilities, snapshots of everyday activities, and highlights from the company’s history.

7. Tutorial Video

Tutorial videos are one of the most common types of video content on the web. Their goal is to teach viewers certain topics or practical activities in a step-by-step manner. In a business context, tutorial videos often teach viewers how to use product and services, as well as how to troubleshoot issues associated with these products and services. In terms of production, tutorial videos benefit from high production values, fixed camera angles, a neutral tone, and subtle audio.

8. Q&A Video

Most people respond better to content they can relate to their everyday experience. The Q&A video format is a way to leverage this principle for a variety of business goals. Recorded Q&A sessions with employees are an excellent way to teach job seekers and recruits about your company without relying on lengthy info-dumps. Similarly, Q&A videos with customers are great for highlighting the human face of your enterprise.

9. Event Video

If your company often participates in business events such as trade shows, panels, industry gatherings, etc., it can be worthwhile to record footage on the ground and create some event videos. These videos can be both educational and entertaining, as they provide a glimpse into how your company works in practice when confronted with other companies in a public space. For some businesses, for example those operating in the video game industry, event videos are often the highlight of all PR, branding, and marketing efforts for the year. 

10. Video Podcast

One of the more casual business video types, video podcasts make for a great passive viewing experience. They require little investment to produce, and they make for an excellent addition to your video content repertoire on social media. In terms of topics, your podcast can cover current news, industry trends, breakthrough technologies, or basically any topic even remotely related to your business sector. As for guests, look for experts, innovators, thought leaders, and even social media influencers in your field.

11. Viral Video

Viral videos are one of the most powerful marketing tools available to businesses, but they are notoriously hard to do right. Part of the issue lies in the fact that there are no fixed rules for creating a viral video. With that being said, viral videos often include unintentional comedy, loose editing, and at least one signature moment that everyone remembers. Experimenting with existing business video formats by questioning their basic assumptions and working from there, are good rules of thumb for making viral video. 

12. Though Leadership Video

Thought leadership is the business equivalent of philosophy. Thought leaders often make sweeping predictions about business as a whole, and the direction it’s going in the foreseeable future. If these predictions become validated by real world events, your business will become the center of media attention, at least briefly. The trick is to use this opportunity to generate interest in your brand, obtain new customers and clients, and cement your position in the market.

Conclusion

There you have it, 12 video types you can leverage to make your business more successful. As is always the case with content recommendations, it’s best to take these video types as generalizations rather than clearly defined archetypes. The point is to work in a certain direction and see what works and what doesn’t, and then customize until you make videos that are right for your business.