B2B Marketers Are Betting Big on Video in 2023, as Pandemic-Fueled Volume and Viewership Gains Remain

Wistia’s “State of Video” Report Shows Long-Form Videos and Webinars are the Fastest-Growing Segment 

In the face of economic uncertainty, B2B companies will continue to embrace video to reach their customers and prospects, according to a new report from Wistia, with nearly 70 percent of companies planning to create more video content in 2023 than in years past. Despite the prevalence of the 60-second social media video, longer-form content is becoming the fastest-growing B2B video segment.

Wistia’s 2023 State of Video Report was created by analyzing user data from the company’s platform — more than 80 million videos uploaded from 2013-2022 — along with 1,500 responses to an in-depth customer survey. This year’s report shows that while video consumption habits are starting to even out following pandemic-era highs, long-term changes to the ways businesses approach video and consumers engage with content are beginning to emerge.

At the height of the pandemic, businesses quickly adapted to a more virtual world, uploading 44% more videos than originally projected. Despite the unforeseen pandemic spike, overall video creation numbers still defied expectations as the world returned to a more hybrid work environment. Video creation and plays each increased 59%, and minutes of video watched is up a whopping 87% compared to 2019’s pre-pandemic metrics.

“Video views tend to dip during the summer months, so brands should be sure to prioritize content accordingly,” said Dan Mills, vice president of marketing at Wistia. “The beginning of Q2 and Q4 see the most video views, so companies may consider scheduling their biggest video projects to hit within those time frames.”

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While super short-form video (less than one minute) remains the volume leader, videos lasting more than 30 minutes saw explosive growth – over 11,000% – over the past decade, far outpacing the 36% increase for those under 30 minutes. Companies also report these long-form videos are now among the highest performing content they push to their audiences.

“Social media apps like TikTok and Instagram clearly prioritize super short-form videos, and that can be great for consumer creation or highly-specific B2B marketing content,” said Chris Savage, co-founder and CEO of Wistia. “Interestingly though, our customers are citing 30+ minute videos, such as product explainers, webinars and educational videos, as their best-performing content overall. With 69% of businesses stating they expect to make more videos this year than in 2022, it will be incredibly valuable to know where viewers are willing to spend extra time with your brand.”

Engagement rates based on video length remained largely the same year over year, indicating that viewers’ attention spans are more fixed than some may expect. Based on the length of the video, marketers can make reasonable predictions regarding how much content the average viewer will consume and use these benchmarks to assess video performance.

Viewers are most likely to watch an entire video if it’s 60 seconds or less, with videos ranging from one to five minutes also maintaining impressive engagement rates. Views on videos lasting longer than five minutes start to taper slightly, but companies targeting the right viewers with the right content will still find marked success.

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