For
@Artashes question about someone making it out of the goodness of their heart - I think anyone these days would believe there's some sort of compensation happening. It seems EVERYONE is an influencer of some sort, and everyone is getting a kickback.
Video Testimonials act just like any other written one - but they have their place. When we build sites with testimonial pages, if we have access to video snippets, then we add those in sections too. So maybe a text one on the left half of the page, and a video on the right. Then two more testimonials then flip it and put a video on the left and text on the right. It breaks up the pages nicely.
They can be helpful in general advertising or promotion on YouTube videos, but again, sparingly. a 5 second or 10 second clip is all that's needed. Anything more and people have already tuned out.
I remember I did a video testimonial for "The Planet" datacenter back in the early 2000's. They flew some of their top tier clients to Houston for a roundtable discussion regarding their centers and future, and what we wanted to see as consumers. They also had a video room setup and it was offered to people to use. Some prompts provided by staff to answer questions. Then all those videos went online into their tesimonial page.
Again, not required, but "offered" and "encouraged" as a form of "thank you" for flying me to Houston, providing me a hotel, food and entertainment for 3 days
Do they work? Sure - but they're just another tool.