But you don't have to be a 12-year-old to appreciate the importance of video. Video as an information platform is an incredibly valuable tool. While the often-quoted retention statistic that people remember only 10 percent of what they read, only 30 percent of what they hear, only 50 percent of what they see, but 90 percent of what they see, hear and read, is apocryphal, life's experiences tell us that there is some basis of truth to the idea.

Couple that concept with the fact that YouTube is the fastest-growing search engine, and you can understand why more businesses are leveraging video to communicate with customers and prospects.

In total, YouTube viewing amounts to around 2.9 billion hours in a month. And those stats are just for the main YouTube website; they don't incorporate embedded videos or videos watched on mobile devices.

Social media-related YouTube stats are just as impressive. YouTube says that on average there are more than 400 tweets per minute containing a YouTube link. Meanwhile, over on Facebook, more than 150 years' worth of YouTube videos are watched each day.

Many insurance agents are in that group of business owners who understand that prospects expect to find agents through multimedia and that their prospective employees expect to have access to such platforms.

A recent IVANS survey of agents showed that 43 percent of the respondents said “customers shopping around more for quotes” was their most threatening issue; 19 percent said “increased Internet sales on carrier websites” was a real concern, too.

Related: Read Gilman's “Social Media ABCs”.

We shouldn't be surprised by the rising use of the Internet by consumers in general; people research online prior to making purchases. But it doesn't eliminate the desire by a lot of consumers to work with a professional holding the knowledge and expertise of an independent agent. What agents should take to heart is the growing expectation by consumers that the Internet is where they can find not only insurance information but agents, as well.

According to the IVANS survey, it is disheartening that 38 percent of agents do not engage in social media and have no plans to do so, and only 14 percent are currently using it to provide enhanced customer service. If you're not on the Web, how will your potential clients find you? A Yellow Page ad just doesn't cut it anymore.

As IVANS President and CEO Claire DeNicola said, “Consumers remain hungry for being able to access data anytime, anywhere, and emerging technologies, such as social networking and mobile applications, have only increased their expectations and made customer service more transparent. To stay ahead, carriers and agents must leverage technologies that enable them to communicate effectively with one another, or the customer will pass them by.”

The survey, which was conducted electronically from April 29 to May 5 and represents the responses from 515 independent agents from across the U.S., discovered that the use of Real Time upload and commercial download have increased significantly in the 2 years since the prior study was completed. Real Time has gone from 36 percent in 2009 to 52 percent currently. Commercial lines download increased more than 25 percent to 59 percent from the earlier figure of 42 percent.

Much of the increases, the survey found, are due to agents recognizing the heightening expectation from consumers for quicker service and faster quotes. Those very same consumers expect agility, convenience and speed in all communications with the companies they choose to do business with. Like my son, consumers looking for information on insurance more often are electing to surf the Web for insight and, if given a choice between reading a document or watching a video, the video will get the first click.

The challenge agents find with having an online video presence is twofold. First, content always seems to be among the most difficult things to come by for agents, despite having a wealth of knowledge from which most consumers would welcome learning. Fortunately, more carriers are offering their agents access to packaged content that's easily used within the agency's website and social media networks. Several solution providers are doing similarly with the added bonus of managing, for a fee, the posting and positioning of that content to maximize the exposure.

The second challenge is for those agents concerned about how to properly brand and seamlessly integrate the content within their regular marketing plans. If you're like a lot of do-it-yourselfers, you'll shoot a short informational video—on completing a home inventory or what to do during a natural disaster—and then upload it to your YouTube, Vimeo, Google Videos or Yahoo Videos account, among numerous others options. You then post a link to the video on your website (maybe), tweet about it (maybe) and, if you do enough videos on a regular basis, maybe you've created a video channel that clients and prospects can visit.

What's common among a lot of these options is that generally public hosting sites don't give you control over the environment in which your video is running. Once you've uploaded your video, they own it. The advertising around it may or may not be relevant; or worse yet, it may be an ad from your competitor. In other words, your branding is diluted by the conduit through which your the message is delivered.

What if there was a way to not only customize your delivery environment for your videos but also use them in conjunction with slide presentations or as live broadcasts? Such a platform is a video-based marketing engine called ComF5 that allows you to create video or audio emails and develop robust video marketing plans with tracking and auto response mechanisms to ensure follow up is done upon certain reactions to the marketing message.

Related: Read the article “Collaborate with Chatter.com” by Rick Gilman.

There is a lead capture capability that allows you to set up an automatic follow-up email campaign ahead of time and automate the process of acquiring customers. Keep your customers in the loop with permission-based email marketing and video webinars and webcasts. There's nothing like a personalized video message from you to show your clients that personal touch.

Of course, there is mobile marketing that allows you to build a texting campaign into your existing strategy. ComF5 is just one possible solution that provides a comprehensive, integrated platform that leverages video into your marketing plans; there are others.

My point is this: First, if you don't start using multimedia content to educate and communicate to your market, your competition will or more likely, already is. Second, if you are among those agents who are using video on a regular basis, now may be the time to consider how well you've integrated this communications tool into your marketing efforts.

With the technology tools available to us today, such integration isn't a matter of how but rather when.