Millennials and Gen Z consume a lot of content. Among the many forms of content available, video continues to lead, and it doesn’t show signs of slowing down anytime soon. If your small business’ target market consists of these two age groups, you’ll want to take notes.

Video has become an integral part of many small business’ content strategies in recent years because of the way users consume content, shop, and conduct research. Video is fun to watch, easy for users to digest, and engaging. It also helps users visualize themselves using a product or completing a task.

While there are many reasons to utilize video, integrating video into your small business’ content strategy can seem intimidating. Here are a few things you should know about video that may help you get started.

1. Your video strategy doesn’t have to include all video platforms, just the right ones. Depending on your target audience, you’ll want to be on the social platforms they’re on and utilizing their preferred formats. For example, for a clothing retailer that targets women aged 20-30 years old, it may make sense for you to utilize Reels to create a video of your employees modeling the new fall line. It may not make sense to post that video on YouTube because people do tend to shop and buy directly through Instagram.
2. Video is often part of the research process in the decision to buy or learn something new. Forget how-to manuals. When Millennials and Gen Z want to learn a new skill or research a purchase, they often turn to YouTube. Especially if your product involves a considered purchase process, regularly creating educational videos on YouTube makes a lot of sense. Think about how people buy cars now. They used to visit five dealerships prior to making a purchase. Now they only visit two. That’s largely in part to the vast availability of video tours and reviews on YouTube.
3. Users don’t expect your video content to be professionally made. Anyone with a smartphone and an internet connection can make a video suitable for marketing their small business. Look closely at the videos your favorite brands put out on social media. Chances are that many of them are created on smartphones. You’ll want to do some up-front research to get some easy tips and tricks to optimize your videos. This video can help.
4. Millennials and Gen Z find it fun to watch videos from their favorite brands. When Google asked users to rank the reasons why they watch videos, survey participants said they primarily watch videos in order to, "relax and unwind." What does this mean for your small business? You don’t always need to be directly selling them something in your videos. Videos can simply be fun and entertaining. This is a great way to stay top-of-mind among your audience.
5. Length isn’t an issue. The average Gen Z person has an online attention span of eight seconds. That's four seconds shorter than the attention span of millennials. Although attention spans are short for general online surfing, long-form videos that pique their interest can keep their attention. That means that if your video grabs their attention, chances are they’ll continue watching it.

Incorporating video into your video strategy isn’t as daunting as you might think. As long as you know your target audience and create content they enjoy, your videos will be a hit!