The value of video is clear in 2022. By 2028, experts predict the industry will be worth around $24.4 billion, thanks in large part to the growing demand for immersive, contextual conversations. While the demand for video has been increasing consistently for some time now, the marketplace exploded in the last couple of years, following the arrival of the pandemic.
The rise of remote and hybrid working left companies searching for new ways to establish valuable connections between customers, staff, and co-workers. Video became the natural communication solution for the majority of users, offering a stronger experience than any standard phone call.
If you haven’t begun investing in video conferencing software for 2022 yet, here are some of the top reasons why it’s time to take the plunge.
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Video Creates Productive Communication
Video interactions are automatically more engaging, contextual, and meaningful than audio conferences. In an audio call or instant-messaging chat, it’s easy to disconnect from the other members of the meeting and start multitasking instead. How many times have you responded to emails when listening to a voice call?
With video, you can’t hide off-screen and avoid giving someone your full attention. People are making “virtual eye contact” in video meetings, which drive better levels of engagement. At the same time, you can share more useful, visual content while you speak.
Body language and facial expression can say a lot in a meeting. Plus, many video conferencing tools also allow us to share presentations and screens as we chat. Around 50% of people surveyed by a Forbes study said video conferencing improves “degree of understanding.”
- It Strengthens
Company Culture and Relationships
One of the biggest concerns facing companies in an age of remote and hybrid work, is how they can keep their teams connected when they’re not in the same physical space. Although we can still communicate with our peers remotely, we don’t always make the same personal connections when we’re miles apart.
Video can help to bridge the gap in your conversations, bringing people “face-to-face” in a virtual environment. Microsoft says about 98% of respondents in a study said that video helped them to strengthen relationships inside and outside of their companies.
Video can even be a useful tool for creating relationships between the company and potential shareholders, clients, and investors. Video conferencing software enables the development of live events and webinars for interactions with a wider audience.
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Video Saves Time, Money, and the Planet
Even before video became a must-have for the remote and hybrid workforce, it was a popular tool among a lot of evolving businesses. Logging into a video meeting is a much less expensive process than flying overseas to connect with someone face-to-face.
Video conferencing software can save us significant time and effort when it comes to bringing people together from multiple environments – something which is particularly important for the new age of hybrid work. By reducing our need to travel, video conferencing also protects the environment, by lowering the carbon emissions created by vehicles.
Used correctly, video meetings can even save time for people in the same office environment. It’s much less disruptive for a team member to join a video meeting than for that person to get up and attend a session in a meeting room.
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It Creates a Collaborative Digital Workforce
As the workplace becomes increasingly hybrid, with people distributed across a wide range of environment, video is part of the toolkit we need to empower future staff. Video meetings help team members to maintain human connections regardless of physical location, while also ensuring they can collaborate more effectively in any environment.
The top video conferencing software on the market today gives businesses a lot more than just a video stream. Leading video conferencing tools can help to create a sense of camaraderie in the workforce with “Together mode” sessions or bring people together to work on a project with digital whiteboarding. Most solutions also come with screen and file-sharing tools, as well as the ability to edit and synchronize documents in real-time.
What’s more, because anyone can join a video meeting from anywhere, it’s easier to schedule meetings and ensure they run smoothly when people are participating from different time zones and environments. Anyone can jump into a meeting when they’re travelling on the train or sitting in their hotel room, so no-one gets left out.
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Video Improves Meeting Quality
As mentioned above, video creates a different kind of meeting experience to the standard audio conference. With a video meeting, everyone is aware they’re being observed by other members of the team. This means it’s less likely you’ll see people not paying attention to the announcements in your monthly team conference.
Video conferencing software often comes with calendaring tools and scheduling solutions which make it easy to align teams and set up an agenda in advance. You can even attach digital files and tools a person might need to an invite, so they have everything required for a good meeting straight away. The best meeting tools also have extra solutions to help facilitate understanding.
Some of the most popular video conferencing solutions on the market today come with real-time transcription and translation tools to keep everyone on the same page.
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It Creates Transparent Records
Finally, when your meetings happen in-person, or over audio, it’s difficult to maintain transparent records. Most of the time, you’ll only get a handful of notes from a selection of people, which makes it difficult to follow up with action items or go back and double check what was said later.
Video conferencing software today helps to eliminate this issue. With video tools, you can create consistent and accurate records of everything that happened. This makes it much easier to refer back to the meeting when uncertainties arise. It also ensures you can share the details of every meeting with people who couldn’t attend.
Video isn’t just an option for today’s businesses, it’s an essential tool for productivity.
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