In an era when people spend more time watching YouTube than TV, it’s becoming increasingly more important to use videos in your marketing. Marketers must continue to seek new and effective ways of connecting with their audiences, and the internet is full of opportunities.

In the world of advertising, there’s one tenet that’s true no matter what form of marketing campaign you’re running or which social platform you‘re campaigning on: content is crucial for each and every part of it.

If you’re looking to science for answers to how you can increase your engagement, though, neuroscience may have just the right strategy for you. This strategy involves getting your customers to look past the primary content of your video and focus instead on the visual stimuli your video provides.

Try including faces in your videos as an organic marketing strategy. Here are the top reasons for creating business videos with human faces on them.

It’s Backed By Science

Marketers can learn a lot from the latest studies on the brain science behind face perception and recognition. If you’re a marketer and you’re looking for science-backed ways of growing your business on YouTube, then you should consider including faces in your videos.

Another way of building your YouTube channel, using another scientific strategy based on social proof, is by buying YouTube Views. A massive number of views will generate more social proof, improving your reputation online and drawing in more organic viewers. In short, these fake views will encourage users to watch your videos. This strategy is very effective when paired with a strong content marketing campaign — particularly when it involves faces, as we’ll explain.

Different companies will find it more or less difficult to work faces into their videos. For some, like, Above Average’s parody of Dove’s own marketing tactics, it’s a natural fit.

Our Brains Respond to Faces

From even before we are born, our brains are programmed to respond to faces. By the time we are four months old our ability to recognize faces nearly matches that of an adult. Facial perception, in fact, develops at a much more rapid pace than object recognition of other types.

Even while the rest of our visual system lags as a baby, our neurons are already responding to faces in the same way adults’ neurons do. In fact, we even associate faces with rewards and prefer them to objects. The effect of seeing mommy’s face is very different from seeing the baby mobile, and it’s obvious which one the baby prefers.

As adults we learn to recognize practically everything we look at, but our ability to distinguish faces remains very strong. So, when it comes to your ad videos, if you must choose between showing an object alone or including a face of someone talking about your product, choose the latter.

Image credit: ReachKeep

As we grow old, we retain this predisposition to focus on and look at faces. A study headed by Rodrigo Quian Quiroga of the University of Leicester confirms this.

This study led to the discovery of “concept cells,” jokingly referred to as “Jennifer Aniston neurons,” so named because those neurons responded only to pictures of Jennifer Aniston, and only to her face. Those brain cells didn’t fire when shown pictures of other people, or of Jen’s whole body; just her face.

Image credit: US Weekly

Indeed, our brains love faces, which may be the reason why we tend to see faces even in inanimate objects.

We See Faces In Objects

Have you ever wondered why we seem to see faces in everything? When we see two similar shapes together we see them as eyes, and at once we search for something that will resemble a nose or a mouth.

We see faces on indentations in stone, patterns on walls, or practically any surface for that matter. We see them in clouds and in color pattern formations everywhere. Our brain perceives them as very face-like but it also tells us that they’re not real faces of humans. Psychology calls this phenomenon pareidolia.

Now that is a happy house. Image credit: HUFFPOST

Since we have a relatively powerful section of our brain devoted to recognizing and processing faces, we’re prone to see faces in anything that looks remotely like them. Our brains are literally hardwired to see faces, and they’re “trying” to do it all the time.

You don’t want to mess with this pole. Image credit: am21

Not only are we hardwired to notice faces as quickly and as often as possible, we can also see the emotions in those faces at lightning speed. It’s not so much that our mind is playing a trick on us — it has the best of intentions!

You can use this knowledge to your advantage immediately. Want your business videos to create a human connection with your viewers? Put more faces in them.

We Trust Familiar Faces

When you’re ready to use human faces in your videos, consider using the most familiar faces possible. Otherwise, you’ll need to build up trust and recognition in a new face (i.e. a new person).

Image credit: Generation Granny

We already know how consumers trust their friends and families the most when making purchase decisions. This may have something to do with familiarity.

Indeed, we trust familiar faces in ads, which is why ads with well-known celebrities and other popular personalities are very effective. People see these famous figures almost as if they’re intimate friends.

On top of that, a study by Anne Lange and Rainer Höger reveals that we look at brands in basically the same way we look at faces. That means you can adapt a lot of this face-recognition science to your branding.

What their study proves is that our brains are built to favor familiar brands even when we try to be rational with our purchases. While this isn’t exactly peachy news, especially if you’re just starting and haven’t become “familiar” to anyone yet, you can use the findings of the study to your advantage.

How about associating your brand with a familiar face? You can also feature people whose faces invite trust. It will be to your advantage if you consider having one face for your brand and sticking to it because you’ll build up brand awareness more efficiently.

Your viewers will grow familiar with that face and that will, hopefully, keep your brand in their minds. When you’ve grown so popular that your popularity transcends that of your brand’s face, then you can always include other people.

Another way you can build your credibility quickly on YouTube is by growing your subscribers or views directly. Consider buying YouTube Subscribers or Views. A very high count of Subscribers and Views can make you look like an authority, and will attract real people to your channel. If they like what they see, they’ll subscribe themselves.

Having lots of views will help you rank high on YouTube, too, and can make your videos more visible on Google as well. High views means high visibility, which means even higher views.

Face The Competition Head On!

A video marketing campaign that appeals to innate human tendencies rather than logical rationalizations is a brilliant marketing strategy. Attach a face to your brand to create a strong connection with your viewers: a connection so strong that their minds skip over the message and just trust the messenger.

The face of your brand could be you or someone else. The important thing is to have a face. YouTube’s popularity is rising, not just for users but also for creators. If you want to stand out in the crowd, your business videos must capture your viewers’ attention and keep it.

Make sure your videos have human faces, and invest in your success by purchasing YouTube Views or Subscribers. Give it an all-out effort using the latest wisdom on human psychology, and you’ll see that at the end of the day it will all be worth it.

Image credit: Pinterest