How To Boost Social Media Presence With Video
According to recent statistics, Snapchat and YouTube witnesses close to 15 billion hours of video between them every day, which means video is a powerful tool in the social media realm.
If your marketing strategy for such platforms is not taking advantage of this visual shift, your business is missing out quite a lot on an enormous opportunity to put itself out there.
You may know that the incorporation of video and images best serves as a present-age social media strategy, but what you may not know is how exactly to put this form of media to good use.
It is the latter part that we take under the microscope today, as we shed some light on the road to a successful video marketing strategy across various digital circles.
Engaging video ideas to sway your audience
It’s not just enough to throw videos onto your social media pages and hope that they miraculously become a hit. You need to be familiar with creating engaging content for various social media platforms.
That itself is easier said than done, but here are a few ideas that have continually knocked the attention ball right out of the park in recent times.
Try 360-degree videos
360-degree features are quite literally stretching the dimensions of visual content reality, handing your audience power over whatever it is they are watching.
In such a format, viewers have the power to look around as if they are actually there inside the video with you, which gives them a more active role that diverts away from the passive nature of most videos that are usually a huge turn-off.
By having to move their cursor and interacting with controls to keep up with the onscreen action, you can be sure that the person on the other side of the screen is paying attention to what’s going on and not just daydreaming through the duration.
The viewers feel more involved in the process and will find themselves concentrating a lot on the listening given the positive visual distractions.
Storytelling is a powerful asset
While your primary purpose as a business is to market and sell your product/service, your videos shouldn’t outrightly feel like an advertisement.
They should instead seem like casual storytelling, like friends getting together to talk, thereby camouflaging your agenda so that it focuses more on the story than the sale.
If you’re short on specific plot ideas, consider emotional drama such as tear-jerking reunions like a military man, who’s been away for a really long while, getting to see his unknowing son over an advertised product meal or something along that line.
The point is to create a lingering emotional impact that people can associate with your brand.
Live video works wonders
Live video has risen through the ranks as a powerful social media tool to nudge a dull social campaign into life.
It’s one strategy that has exploded in 2019 from Facebook to LinkedIn. You don’t necessarily need to use live videos for advertisements.
You could implore them to discuss issues other than your business, which viewers are passionate about and can relate to, thereby triggering online engagement.
By tackling the genuine interests of your audience, your brand stands to gain a lot from the spotlight.
Awareness videos around politics and social issues, say a debate regarding whether voting is important, can be very divisive, but that is, in fact, their greatest upside in a social media setting.
A non-partisan approach is often the advised go-to with such issues, as you wouldn’t want to take a stand that would put off a certain section of your audience, ergo prospective clients.
Video tips for Instagram
A predominantly visual social platform, knowing how to work Instagram can swing open several opportunity doors.
Here’s how:
Go beyond what meets the eye
What’s a typical day at the office like when the cameras aren’t on?
These are the kind of questions that bode well with viewers. Those that go behind the scenes, offering glimpses of the business when it’s not smiling for the lens.
This inside look is essential for creating transparency, which viewers really value, and goes a long way in connecting with your audience on a more intimate level.
Make How-To videos
Instagram viewers and people, in general, appreciate practically helpful content, and How-To videos are an excellent option in this regard.
How-To videos work best on YouTube, but can also work in shorter form on Instagram as well.
The video could be geared at solving a cumbersome problem that most people struggle with, or at offering a remedy to something new that hasn’t entirely caught on yet.
Alternatively or in addition to, these DIY videos can also showcase how to use your products, kind of like a visual manual.
Make promotional content
The divide between spamming and tasteful promotion is quite a tricky line, with the common mistake being continually focusing on a product.
Remember, many people on Instagram are casual users, so they tap the app to unwind. Help them kick back with fun videos that cast your item on the fringes of the promotion.
Also, sometimes mix things up with non-promotional content just aimed at causing a few laughs because if you’re always talking about what you’re selling, after a while, people won’t want to hear what you have to say.
Across the board, always ensure a small brand moniker is present on videos as a constant reminder of your business even if the subject matter is unrelated.
Think outside the box
Have you ever seen the 2013 advert by Volvo, which features Jean-Claude Van Damme performing an epic split between two trucks to demonstrate vehicle precision and stability?
This video is a perfect example of the point above it, and you’ll notice how the company purposefully keeps a small brand logo on the corner of the screen to ensure the focus is entirely on JCD’s fantastic act yet the brand still lingers at the edge of your eye.
Well, you don’t have to do something as dramatic, but you need to get creative with your ideas! Create something that’ll make people instantly want to share that incredible video with their networks, or at least want to watch it more than once!
Video pointers for Facebook
One of, if not the, most popular social media platform on the planet, Facebook is an excellent place to build up your video marketing.
You can do that by:
Being inspirational, educational or both
No one loves an inspiring video like Facebook viewers, so be encouraging and motivating. Sales messages amass share percentages nowhere near inspirational content, and that’s because people love an uplifting video that dares them to achieve their goals or dreams.
Educational content is equally well-received, and such videos don’t necessarily have to be about your company/product, they just need to add fuel to the popularity fire so that you turn enough heads for your ads.
Setting up a featured video
The featured Facebook video stands out in your gallery, appearing around the “About” section with a size larger than your typically video previews.
They are the most watched by Facebook followers due to their unmissable uniqueness, which is why you should make the most of yours. Some of the most successful Facebook pages regularly update their featured videos to get fans revved up for an upcoming event, topic, or product, and you should do the same.
You can “Add Featured Videos” via the similarly named button in the “Videos” category.
Using the Facebook CTA
Kind of like the thumbnail for YouTube, Facebook has an almost similar provision on its platform. This call-to-action feature enables you to use your cover image to usher people toward a video you’d like them to see.
That image is usually a description of what the video is all about, and it’s punctuated by a “watch video” prompt at the bottom of the boundary. Many people often use it for brand images and logos only, but including a video here can be a real traffic-magnet for your website.
Embracing Facebook ads
Getting off the mark and building a following from scratch is a herculean task that you can quickly speed along with Facebook ads.
That doesn’t mean that all your videos now have to be about your business because you’re spending money, they should be about those topics around your niche that most people are passionate about. In fact, work on building a presence first with “sponsored” video posts before serving up a pitch to your market base.
It’s prudent to note that the topics you choose to discuss should coincide with a target audience that can easily be turned into customers. For example, if you’re dealing with hair products, you could make videos regarding hair care tips, styling guides, et cetera.
Video marketing success on YouTube
YouTube’s meteoric rise across the social media podium has been evident for all to see, and here are a couple of tips that separate anonymity and celebrity status on the planet’s largest- and most successful- open-air video market:
The thumbnail says it all
How many times have you clicked on a video on YouTube you had absolutely no intention of playing simply because of a curious thumbnail? If you are anything like me, the answer is every god damn time!
A thumbnail can be the difference between views barely into double digits and views brimming into the thousands. To bait your audience into taking the initiative, you need to put the best bit of the video on there as it’s the first thing they see.
You may even choose to create a customized version if you feel you can create a more compelling picture from an outside source.
Be unconventional
Contrary to popular opinion, your YouTube ads don’t need to directly relate to your company, brand, or what it is you’re selling.
If you find that hard to believe, the “Cute Girl Has A Catchy Dance” by Samsung, where a little girl adorably dances to music and is joined by an ever-growing crowd, is a perfect example.
Entertainment is a great way to get brand awareness. Learn from Lego.
The video will have you smiling all the way to the end, softening and setting you up to be receptive to the call-to-action at the end.
The dance and the phone company obviously have nothing in common, but the video serves its purposes. It creates an infectious excitement for the new unveiling, ensuring you are compelled to check out the ad’s URL.
Keywords matter more than you think
Owned by search engine giants Google, keyword usage plays a vital role in terms of visibility of your YouTube videos.
The AdWords Display Planner can help you figure out which words people are heavily looking up so that you mold these search phrases into video tags, descriptions, and titles, to ensure you get a share of the attention.
You might require professional assistance from an SEO agency or an expert videographer to pull this off.
Use the AutoPlay home video to divert clients to your website
When people look up something, that specific video will be their first stop. Once they’ve had their fill, it’s usually the case that many of them stick around to find out what more your channel has to offer, and that’s where a great home video becomes essential.
YouTube allows you to cue a video on your channel’s homepage that immediately starts playing when a viewer lands on it.
From a business perspective, you can use this opportunity to create a brand video and make guests interested in your other services or products.
Social media videos are now every business’ most powerful tool!
Seven years ago, about half of the world’s population spent one-and-a-half hours traversing social media.
Today, those figures have almost doubled! With new and emerging platforms cropping up almost by the day, it helps to keep track of what’s new and hot because that wind regularly changes direction.
At the moment, Snapchat and TikTok seem to be rivaling YouTube for the attention, so you should also look into creating a presence on these sites.
With so much to consider and so many social media options at your fingertips, it can get pretty overwhelming coming up with a video marketing strategy.
You should turn to an SEO company for effective social media management and to a reputable videographer to help you create those killer videos that’ll hopefully plunge you into new horizons of success.
These people have years of experience under their belts, offering first-hand solutions they’ve personally tried and tested.
