You’ve probably been hearing for a few years now that social video is THE hot way to attract attention to your brand.

Certainly the stats seem to bear this out. Per our friends at Hubspot:

• 81% of businesses use video as a marketing tool — up from 63%, the number reported in our 2017 survey.
• 99% of those who already do use video, say they’ll continue to do so in 2018.
• 65% of those who don’t currently use video, say they plan to start in 2018.

Hubspot also shared these compelling numbers:

• 97% of marketers say video has helped increase user understanding of their product or service.
• 76% say it helped them increase sales.
• 47% say it helped them reduce support queries.
• 76% say it helped them increase traffic.
• 80% of marketers say video has increased dwell time on their website.
• 95% of people have watched an explainer video to learn more about a product or service.
• 81% of people have been convinced to buy a product or service by watching a brand’s video.
• 69% of people have been convinced to buy a piece of software or application by watching a video.
• 85% of people say they’d like to see more video from brands in 2018.

Making videos can be a ton of fun and a terrific creative outlet, but hiring a pro can be really expensive. If you’re a good storyteller at your core, though, an online video-making tool can be all you need to create snappy content.

Animoto and I had a brief fling last year (you can see a couple of videos I made with it here and here) but after that I went through an extended iMovie phase, in part because Animoto didn’t support custom fonts. I do love the endless tinkering I can do with iMovie, but that also ends up being something of a time suck. Animoto is ridiculously easy to use and pleasingly efficient. And that’s why it’s drawn me back — that and its delicious assortment of music clips. Check out the short video I created this weekend for Gutsy Broads:

Do you like it? Want me to make one for you? Hit me up.