It’s no secret that video content is on the rise. And any brand that’s not creating video and promoting it on social media is missing out on a huge opportunity.
Therefore, if you have not had the chance to incorporate video into your social media marketing, let me tell you why and how you should get it started, and today!
Since we have many social media platforms out there, I will narrow my discussion to the 3 major ones: Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
WHY USE VIDEO IN SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING
Simply because
- Developing video content is a great way to communicate your brand’s story, reinforce your value proposition, engage with audiences, and interact with customers and prospects.
- Videos are a great marketing tool, and social media networks are making it easier than ever to incorporate them into your marketing strategy.
- Video is becoming a trend in marketing. It is the easiest way to let viewers know about your products and services.
- It is popular; your customers are watching and sharing tons of social video.
- Major social media platforms allow you to natively share videos.
- Customers trust videos more than blocks of text.
- According to Brightcove, Social Video generates 1200% more shares than text and images combined.
- One final reason is that your competitors are using video, so in order to stay competitive, you need to stand out and adapt to evolving trends or else you risk falling behind and losing the interest of your target audiences.
HOW TO USE VIDEO IN SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING
Here are some tips to help you make the most of your social media video marketing:
1- Go Native:
If you want your social videos to reach as many audiences as possible, upload them directly to the chosen platform where you will be sharing. This ensures auto-play when followers scroll through their feeds, giving you the best chance of catching their attention.
Also, all of the major social platforms have been tweaking their algorithms to ensure that native video content is prioritized over just about anything else. So videos uploaded natively onto the platform perform way better than links to YouTube or similar video platforms.
2- This is the age of soundless video for Social Media Marketing:
Given recent developments on social media platforms, removing the sound from your video-or at least making it non-essential to convey your message- is becoming essential.
3- Because each social network has a unique audience, social videos need to be optimized for different channels.
A video that works on Facebook may need a serious edit before it can work on Instagram. And you might have to take an entirely different approach to video on Twitter.
4- Ask people to share your videos:
We’re all keenly aware of how powerful social media is. In fact, you likely start and end your day on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter. That’s why you need to ensure your video can be easily shared on these platforms. Ask your friends, colleagues, industry connections and relatives. Of course asking the contacts who are likely closely connected to your target market is the strategic place to start, but you never know who is connected to who, and a share can go a long way so don’t limit the people you ask.
5- Social Video has to be short, sweet, and to the point
all while being super shareable. As per length of videos on major social media platforms, Twitter requires that all videos be under two minutes and twenty seconds (which is up from its previous 30 second maximum). Your Instagram video must be between 3 and 60 seconds long, and the maximum length for video on Facebook is 45 minutes.
6- Feature a video on your Facebook Page:
6- Feature a video on your Facebook Page: Facebook allows you to feature a video in the “Videos” tab of your Page, which would auto-play. This can be a great way to showcase your best video to those who are interested in watching your videos.
7- Have a playlist:
Just like in a YouTube channel, you can group your Facebook videos into playlists to make it easier for viewer to find videos they want to see. After all, it can be quite frustrating to search through many videos on your page just to find a particular type of video. That’s why playlists can be such a life saver.
Conclusion
Social media is always changing, but one of the biggest shifts right now is that all social media channels are taking a more video-first approach to their platforms.
That being said, video marketing is gaining serious influence in social media, so if you are still on the fence about video marketing, this post should have changed your mind.