If it is true that a picture paints a thousand words, how many words = a video? More than you might think. Response to video is split; some people would rather read and hate the intrusiveness of a video. Others love them and love how quickly an idea can come across. Another consideration is how much Google loves them. Because Google owns YouTube and takes video seriously, your business’ SEO can be taken to a new level with some well tagged and well developed video shorts.
How about Facebook? When you post a status on Facebook it is not shown to all your fans. Facebook watchers have guessed that an average is 17% of your fans see your posts. But what about a status with video? Facebook knows that its users enjoy video, so adding a short clip to a post can make a difference in how many of your followers Facebook shows the post to. Your post visibility may be doubled just by linking it to video footage. One place where video is critical is on crowdsourcing platforms like Kickstarter. Your appeal to prospective funders is increased quite a bit with video supporting your project and studies have shown that people believe they know you better if they have seen you present yourself in video. Be careful, that can work both ways. I have watched videos of people speaking about their industry and come away with a lower opinion of them than I had before I saw the video.
So bottom line, if you have a business do you really need a video in order to enjoy Social Media success? Need? Maybe not. But would it help? Absolutely; and it is not that expensive to accomplish. There are video services out there like Animoto that can help turn still camera shots into video footage and they even supply background music and effects. On your Windows PC you have a video editor that you can use to combine still, video footage and then add a voice over. It may take a little practice but you can create something pretty nice with just a little effort and an idea of what you want to present.