Content owners across the world are well versed with the fact that the value of their video rests upon how the viewers find, watch, and take an action on a particular video. These are the basic steps that define ‘viewer experience’. It holds true at all levels, be it marketing or services, training of employees, or corporate communications.

The mandate is to create customized viewing experiences that are high on interaction and not exception. A whole new genus of applications that are video-enabled are being driven by such viewer experiences which result in better engagement, higher viewing time and, in essence, serve the business intent of the video owner.

Viewer experience can be separated into four core elements that delight, engross, and above all, urge the viewer to act.

Search and discoverability within the video

Aiding users in the exploration and navigation of a video are essential toward gaining a ‘lean-in’ experience of a user. In such a viewing experience, there is active engagement of the viewer and timeline control of his experience. This is attained by active search for key terms inside the timeline, and not just by rewinding or fast-forwarding.

Content that is specific

With the growing volume and complexity of content, managing the association of two strings of content in a quick span of time becomes an uphill task. Automatic association between a video and relevant content can be accomplished through in-depth knowledge of the metadata surrounding a video and also within it. This result in increased relevance of the content that is associated which in turn increases the amount of time that is spent on your site and your content.

Sharing socially with ease 

Video has always been a medium that is sharable, but when the content is long, which is often the case in business-based video (such as a product launch), timeline-based sharing has generally been the norm. Therefore, when a particular video with longer content is shared, it is accompanied with a note such as ‘Start at 2:21’. However, sharing a video snippet can become an easy point-and-click operation once the video’s time-coded metadata is unlocked, thereby supporting your video content in snowballing through a social platform.

Calls to action that can reciprocate

Any video must be inclusive of a call to action in order to serve a business goal. It is a familiar term for all marketers who provide contact information or download option for a particular white paper once the viewer has watched the video, which is effectively a follow-up action. This holds true for all internal video usages even though it may have different goals. Be it corporate communications, training, or any other internal interaction, a viewer is expected to take some action after watching a video. Creation of dynamic calls to action that take viewers to the subsequent relevant action is possible by leveraging the video’s metadata. Content owners can track and analyze this to identify the most convincing calls to action and stimulate desirable behavior of the viewer.

The manner in which trends in user experience have evolved the engagement and interactions with apps and web, focusing on viewer experience can similarly revolutionize the way in which video is utilized by viewers and delivered by businesses.