Video is the new language of Business
Years ago we put a lot of emphasis on teaching ‘foreign’ and ‘romance’ languages in our public schools. French, Spanish, German even Russian. These were considered to be the langauges of both culture, science and commerce. Times have certainly changed.
The world has become considerably more open to other cultures and languages. We now recognize that more people in world speak Chinese, Hindi and Arabic than these classic European languages as shown in the following chart.
Source: Statista
The barriers of international commerce have melted away.
English has become the de facto universal language of business. But it’s not the only language of importance.
Obviously it’s necessary to conduct commerce in many languages. However, it is important to note there are other means of communication that are quickly becoming dominent, especially amongst millennials and younger generations.
Visual Language vs Written Language
The old adage that a picture is worth a thousand words is fast becoming a business reality.
Two new visual languages are supplanting the need for verbal or even writing skills. – Emojis and Video.
What both of these have in common is the ability to express complex human emotions and interactions in a simple and straightforward manner. When it comes to Emojis – they are our modern day hieroglyphics.
Entire conversations are conducted without uttering or writing a single word. No need for English, Spanish, Chinese, Arabic. And most importantly in terms of language adoption – Emojis are universal.
Video is the New Language of Business
But perhaps the most potent new language for business to take heed of is the language of video. With the ubiquity of smart phones and the shortening of attention spans, younger generations have learned to ‘speak’ with images in a manner that is both engaging and concise.
The growth of Snapchat, Instagram, Musical.ly and other social media apps has provided the canvas upon which entire video and visual conversations are taking place. It’s obvious that video and imagery is the preferred method of social communication amongst the population under the age of 30.
On a Video Marketing 2.0 podcast episode, Sourabh Kothari, head of Rich Media Marketing at Cisco described video as “the best media for building relationships” and when it comes to business marketing “Video is a language that influences behaviors’.
This is an essential lesson for businesses of all types and sizes to grasp. Video is everywhere. It’s universal and it’s not going away anytime soon.
So, it’s never too late to learn a new language. Why not start with Video?