the blog

Social Media-Video Marketing A Match Made in Heaven

Social media is a powerful tool. It’s one of the few places where small and medium-sized businesses can compete with larger competitors on a relatively equal playing field. Social media is also a great place to concentrate your video marketing efforts.

By creating awesome video marketing content and sharing it on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube; you can reach a large audience, build brand awareness, and develop your online presence.

Of course, you already know that. What you want to know is “where do I start?” Getting your foot in the door with social media videos can be intimidating. The good news is: it doesn’t have to be.

Whether you’re trying to kick off a new social media video campaign or your current efforts seem to be falling flat: consider these twelve tactics for success and you’ll see your social media videos gain traction in no time.

1. Go where your customers are

One problem you may be running into is that you aren’t targeting the right channel. It may seem like Facebook is the only game in town when it comes to social media. However, there’s also Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, and more.

In some industries, there are even small-scale social media networks that don’t generate as much widespread traffic but are more niche-oriented. That being said, Facebook is still the most popular social media channel by a wide margin. Instagram is second.

Consider your target customer and where they may spend their time. If you’re a B2B company then LinkedIn is a great place to focus. For a more visual brand, Instagram is key. Truthfully, you can find success on any platform and a truly effective strategy would be to cross-promote your content on multiple channels.

YouTube, while not a “social media” platform in the traditional sense, is a great place to host your videos for easy sharing to other sites. At the very least, consider YouTube and Facebook to be your must-have accounts.

2. Capture attention early

Your video is not a movie. Not yet anyway. The truth is that on social media you only have a few seconds to grab attention before the viewers move on. After all, there’s important cat photos and baby pictures to see!

You want to start your video off in a way that will make the viewer want to stick around. One tried and true method is to ask a question. For example, let’s say your company makes the warmest, comfiest socks around. You may start your video off with a simple question:

“Are you tired of cold feet?”

As a warm, comfy sock mocker, the people who see that and nod “yes” to themselves are your target customer. And since they just nodded and said “yes” to themselves: they’re more likely to stick around and see what you have to offer.

3. Yes, short And sweet

The most successful social media videos are short and sweet. For Facebook, that means a minute or less. You may be tempted to go longer. After all, you’ve got all this space you may as well use it, right? Wrong.

Facebook supports video content and supports it well but it’s not “the place” for video. If you want to create an hour-long presentation: post it to YouTube. After 1 minute, Facebook views tend to drop off.

Your goal is to convey important information and move your audience to the next step in your funnel; usually towards your website or app. Consider how most people browse on Facebook: scroll, scroll, scroll.

You want them to pause and watch your video and they’re not going to do that once they see it’s 20-minutes long. What’s more, they’re less likely to share it.

4. Don’t skimp on quality

For every amateur video shot on an iPhone that’s gone viral there’s 10,000 that didn’t make it. Amateur video is fine when you’re shooting a quick video of your nephew’s soccer game and sharing it with family. When it’s for your business? You want to up the production values a bit more.

Thankfully, creating high-quality, professional-grade videos is easier than you might think. The quality of your social media videos says a lot about your business. Remember: every piece of content you put out there is an extension of your brand so make sure you’re putting your best foot forward.

5. Don’t forget to call!

Regardless of the focus of your video, don’t forget to include a strong call to action at the end. The call to action (or CTA) is an instruction to your audience on how to take the next step. You don’t want to leave this part out. If your audience has made it this far, you want them to keep going!

Your call to action should be a clear call to take a further action. This is typically something like “buy now,” “click here for more info,” or something similar. Whatever it is you want people to do next if they’ve made it this far: tell them!