Is Social Media Video Marketing Important?
As technology continues to advance, there’s never been a better time to incorporate video into your digital marketing and social media strategies.
The marketing world is becoming more and more reliant on digital output (particularly since the onset of the pandemic) and chances are you’ve already explored the wonderful world of Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram to promote your brand.
However, it’s important to stay one step ahead of the game in digital and social media marketing, and video marketing via social media is a powerful weapon to add to your arsenal.
This article will look at the importance of video marketing, why you need to be using it, and how to go about planning the ideal type of content for your audience.
What is Social Media Video Marketing?
Social media video marketing does what it says on the tin: it’s a marketing strategy that utilises video as a way to market a brand, product, or services by way of social media. It can keep viewers engaged in a simple, entertaining, and profitable way.
However, it’s important to remember that video marketing and social media digital marketing are not quite the same thing. A corporate video on your website will differ from a video on social media because the latter is exclusively designed for social media, and will be adapted to suit the platform it’s being published on.
Companies are turning to social media video marketing because it leads to a wider, more focused audience – more so than with any other type of advertising.
What Social Media Platforms Can You Use?
For B2B companies, the most effective platforms are LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
B2C companies often branch out onto Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, and Pinterest – however these may be platforms to watch for B2Bs too, as the amount of B2Bs using them is on the uptick.
It’s important to keep the following in mind when planning the content for your social media video marketing: keep it short and sweet.
Potential clients and consumers browsing social media digest a lot of mental information, so your content has to grab their attention quickly and hold it. Stick to the recommended time limits for your content:
As one of the leading social media platforms, Facebook remains a popular favourite among businesses creating ad campaigns because it is free to maintain a business account, and the cost of boosted/sponsored posts are minimal. Facebook boasts a whopping one billion users worldwide, and any business worth its salt will fully understand the power that the platform holds.
There is ample advice at the touch of a mouse on how to utilise Facebook as a successful marketing tool, but the basic structure for a good Facebook video campaign includes:
- Sticking to a lower time-limit. Ideally no shorter than fifteen seconds and no longer than ninety.
- Get to the point. You need to grab your audience’s attention within the first five seconds of your video content.
- Use a good thumbnail. This is very important.
- Always caption your content.
- Measure your metrics to plan for future content.
- Always include a call-to-action.
YouTube
Company YouTube channels are becoming progressively popular as web-browsers become increasingly more prone to watching content, as opposed to reading it.
This doesn’t automatically guarantee viewers though. It’s important to understand social media demographics in order to maximise your marketing strategy’s potential by making sure it is reaching the right people – bear in mind that while YouTube is a popular platform, not everyone uses it, so do not be lulled by the ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to your video marketing. Research is important!
You can make the most of YouTube by sticking to the following when planning your video content:
- Create eye-catching but honest titles. Avoid the clickbait approach!
- Engage with your audience. It’s called social media for a reason.
- Don’t forsake your SEO methods.
- Always keep up with what’s trending.
On the go-to platform for B2Bs, LinkedIn video ads aim to help grow your business by increasing brand awareness, as well as strengthening your relationship with members of your professional network.
You can create an ad campaign for videos that will meet all of your marketing criteria as well as providing metrics to prove your video’s ROI.
Tips on how to creatsuccessful LinkedIn videos include:
- Remember that silence is golden. Yes, many viewers will watch a video muted, so it is important to make the content understandable without relying on sound. A good practice to include is the use of LinkedIn’s closed-captioning feature.
- Include essential information within the first five to ten seconds of the video.
- Don’t forget your call-to-action!
- Use the word ‘video’ in promotions, as it will increase the click-through rate.
Twitter’s limit on text characters (280) can sometimes make it difficult to fully and effectively convey a message – especially when using it as a marketing tool. This is where social media video marketing is a blessing.
Twitter videos are six-times more likely to be retweeted than a standard text/image-only tweet, and Twitter is an ever popular resource because of its speedy way of communicative brand messaging.
Micro-blogging is effective for busy online consumers because it is quick and easy to browse products/services, as well as communicate a question or problem with the brand directly. It is also mobile-friendly, which will benefit your social media video marketing because 93% of Twitter videos are viewed via mobile devices.
Ways of utilising video marketing on Twitter include:
- Familiarisation: Be sure to learn the basics of the platform in order to fully benefit from it.
- Open your video with the product/service, so that the video’s purpose is obvious to the viewer immediately.
- Remind the viewer that you’re human! There is a 40% increase in overall consumer response to videos that demonstrate positive human interaction.
- Promote your videos to reach a wider audience.
What Makes a Successful Social Media Video Strategy?
Once you’re familiar with your platforms and their ideal video formatting, then comes the hard part: creating killer content.
Social media video marketing is an art form in itself. The good news is that if you get it right it’s absolutely worth the time and effort put it. By 2022, it’s expected that video marketing will make up 82% of all consumer web traffic – fifteen times what it was five years ago.
Creating a great social media video is a little more challenging than just whipping up a well-written blog post and peppering it with SEO phrases; but the basis is the same.
Where to Begin
A good way to begin brainstorming the ideal video content is to look at your social media metrics and see which posts/blogs hit the higher numbers (and why) and go from there.
The ‘most-shared’ posts hold the answers. What makes your audience not only read but share your content? Once you know what your audience is most likely to engage with, you will have a solid foundation for a successful video.
As with every other type of marketing format, it is important to keep an eye on what your competitors are doing. Look at their videos. What works? What doesn’t? Use that to stabilise your own video narrative.
Top Tips
- Whether you’re marketing a brand, service, or product, it is important that you design your content so that the primary goal is for your audience to share it. This allows for the wonders of the web to do half of the job for you.
- Be emotive. People aren’t going to share videos that are bland or have no substance. Engage with your audience by creating video content that they can empathise with. Once you’ve got them on an emotional level, go in for the kill with a strong CTA.
- Familiarise yourself with algorithms and how they work. When using SEO, the algorithm is your lifeline.
- Always remember: short ‘n’ sweet!
- Don’t sell a product or service. Instead, sell what it is about the product or service that will benefit the audience.
- Use storyboards to visualise how you want your video to look.
Types of Videos
There are numerous types of videos you can create, which include:
- Video ads
- Explainers
- Presentations
- Interviews
- Vlogs/ live videos
- Testimonials
Which one you choose to go with depends entirely on your budget, video marketing expertise (if you’re not in a position to hire a marketing team to create it for you), and the message you wish to convey.
Always remember-the attention span of a web surfer is usually rather short, so make sure your content delivers its desired message in the space it takes for them to click off and view something else. Time is of the essence!
How to Plan Your Social Media Video Strategy
Always keep the following in mind:
- Make your videos mobile-friendly (and easy to understand without sound, i.e.: using closed captions.)
- Incorporate SEO words and phrases.
- Know your audience. Humour can be a number one way of converting a ‘watch’ into a ‘like’ or a ‘share’, but make sure the humour is appropriate for what you’re selling and who you’re selling it to.
- Include your company’s USP.
- Include a powerful, non-salesy call-to-action.
- Keep track of your productivity results (your metrics) and use that as a foundation on video planning for the future.
Video marketing may seem all well and good for B2C businesses, but where do B2Bs come into it? How can they profit from this lucrative marketing tool?
The answer is that it works on exactly the same level, just with the end goal being brand awareness or lead generation, instead of predominantly selling products or services.
Social media video marketing is taking the B2B world by storm, and there are stats to back it up. Video is a powerful visual tool that will help you attract, retain, and convert new business prospects/clients.
Videos are also a good way to showcase testimonials and case studies.
How Your B2B Will Benefit From Using Social Media Video Marketing
The benefits are plentiful, and include:
- Improving search rankings. You may notice every time you punch something into Google, at the top of the page there is almost always video content… this free exposure is beneficial to your company’s ranking – but don’t just rely on the video format to provide this. Your SEO tactics play an integral role too.
- Increased lead generation. Adding a video to your website landing page or product/service pages increases the amount of time a visitor will spend on your page. A powerful CTA will enable them to sign up easily.
- Aiding ABM (account-based marketing). If you’re targeting specific ABM prospects, well-tailored video content will encourage lead acquisition. Be mindful that if your video is part of an email pitch, it needs to stand out amongst all of the other pitches a company may receive in a day!
B2B Video Content Tips
As mentioned, it is important that your audience understands that behind your brand is a face (or faces) belonging to real human beings! A way to make your video content appealing is to share who you are, and let viewers see ‘behind the scenes’.
You can do this by sharing your experiences, giving a virtual tour of your premises, or a relevant focus on your employees’ roles.
Empathy is a key feature in successful marketing. Always have your audience’s wants and needs at the forefront of your mind.
While budget can often be a constraint within marketing strategies, it’s important to remember that quality is far more important than quantity. Your video content needs to be sharp, professional, well-lit, and well-edited. No one will engage with a video (regardless of how good the actual content is) if the quality of the video looks amateur or lazy.
Why You Need a Successful B2B social Media Strategy in General
As of the beginning of 2021, 70% of B2B marketers are using video content on social media. What is the likelihood that your competitor/s is among that percentage? Can you afford to risk not keeping up with them?
The bottom line is that social media video marketing delivers a better ROI than most other B2B marketing techniques (and there are ways to prove your video ROI success rate).
70% of buyers, researchers, and consumers alike prefer watching video content because it’s quick and easy, and it spoon-feeds them what they need to know in an entertaining manner (if it doesn’t do those two things, then the strategy has failed.)
There is also the prospect of going viral, which is at the heart of every video marketer’s best dream – or, indeed, worst nightmare!
One viral video can make or break a company, which is why it’s imperative that your content is well-thought out and can in no way be considered offensive – or have the potential to be taken the wrong way!
Social media video trends are important to keep note of. Remarkably, a funny/endearing cat video can go a long way!
Guiding Thoughts for Your Social Media Video Marketing
Social media video marketing is no longer a luxury, but a necessity. And you don’t need to have a team consisting of Martin Scorsese, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Hans Zimmer to create ground-breaking content. You can still produce fantastic videos, even on a shoestring budget.
Your success will be measured by the following:
- Always sticking to your tone.
- Choosing the right platform/s.
- Keeping track of your social media performance data.
- Telling your audience exactly what you want to say, while simultaneously telling them what they want to hear.
- Planning and fine tuning your strategy in accordance with your budget.
- Incorporating your SEO words and phrases.
- Never taking your eyes off of your competitors!
Expert Help With Your Social Media Strategy
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