If social media has fundamentally shifted the way we communicate, then the rise of online video has fundamentally shifted the way we digest information. Thanks to social media, mobiles, faster broadband connections and video sharing platforms, video is taking its rightful place at the forefront of business, brand and patient communication.

Video everywhere

It wasn’t so long ago when the only place you were likely to see a company’s video was at an AGM, a sales presentation or maybe running mute on a loop in reception. Now it’s accessible to all – not only on branded websites but also on video hosting sites such as YouTube and web tv channels like ecancer.tv. Doctors.net, which regularly stream video based interviews with experts as a platform for their congress highlights.

Video in the healthcare sector

44% of patient education is now delivered through online video such as YouTube, 25% through webinars, 18% blogs and 9% video chat. (HealthEdAcademy).

There are great examples of blending video and social media in the UK healthcare space, among them HCA – the Healthcare Corporation of America, which operates six leading private hospitals in London, including The Wellington Hospital and The Portland Hospital. The HCA UK homepage offers you a quick video overview of this group: three minutes of reassurance that you’ve come to the right place with the option to share this with a colleague, friend or family member. Further videos highlighting particular services are cross-referenced on YouTube and other video sites. Understanding the value of web video in driving new business has played a big part in driving a sharp increase in referrals for this organisation.

Video SEO

So the first rule of online video has to be: do it well, or don’t do it at all. And just as important: enable people to find it. You could prompt them through a CRM email campaign, internet banners or even conventional advertising, but you’ll certainly need to do some Video Search Engine Optimisation and establish a presence on social media platforms.

Video SEO is evolving fast, and video viewers are getting cleverer, adding the word ‘video’ to their enquiries. Google now crawls across the full range of web media – text, images and video – and sites with video on the homepage are 53% more likely to feature on the first page of Google search results. Dedicated video search engines like Blinkx can also now look for keywords in a spoken interview and other engines will soon recognise faces and shapes on video.

Video is social

As healthcare information continues to grow dramatically across the internet, finding the right information can still present a problem. How do you know what to trust? Who to trust? The rise in shared content through YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter means that this information now comes peer reviewed, which means users trust it more, and if they trust it they’ll go on to share it themselves, building more and more referrals to the content.

Brandcast Health

Brandcast Health have gained considerable experience in this space having developed and maintain the multi-award winning www.ecancermedicalscience.com – which combines ecancerjournal, the online only peer-reviewed publication of the European Institute of Oncology and ecancer.tv, the web tv channel for cancer specialists around the world. With an audience of over 35,000 and more than 16,000 videos viewed per month, ecancer has become the leading cancer communication platform in Europe.

At Brandcast Health, we help our clients use video to promote their brands, engage internal customers, educate healthcare professionals, inform patients and tell their stories. Not only do we develop award-winning video, but we are experts at putting video content exactly where your customers will watch it and share it.