Videos are the future of social media marketing. But, if you still haven’t jumped in on the trend, you are missing out on many potential customers and audiences!
That is due to social media platforms promoting videos as the primary form of entertainment. As a result, videos are now one of the most critical elements in your social media marketing plans.
Having an engaging audience on social media goes a long way as they contribute to new launches, campaigns, and other events that may need physical participation.
Videos not just work as a great source of engagement but also help in being a source of lead generation. According to statistics, over 8 billion videos are watched by people every day on Facebook, which accounts for around 100 million hours of watch time.
If you think that is crazy, then on Snapchat, the numbers go up to 10 billion. So it is not surprising that whichever form of content receives more engagement gets promoted more than the other.
What kind of videos work best?
There are many ways to create amazing videos for social media marketing, thanks to the tools available online. However, to learn why some videos perform better than others, we need to know more about the different kinds of videos that rapidly gain popularity.
To find out what might work best for you, you need to experiment with different video formats.
We share some of the most popular video formats to get you started.
Interviews
There is a popular TV show named ‘21 questions’ where the host brings in celebrities, and they are asked 21 sets of questions related to their personal and professional life.
You can create similar types of videos wherein you can either bring in a celebrity or an expert and get them to answer questions asked by your followers.
This format is also used by our favorite influencers where they ask their fans and followers to drop questions on a story or their Twitter and later create a whole video with the interesting questions.
An informative session, where the answers to the question actually make the viewer aware of something, works a long way.
Behind the scenes
People associate the brand with a picture, and it is essential to put a face behind that brand. Recording a fun video of the team who work hard behind the scenes and build the brand will draw much attention.
It is a convenient way of displaying your company’s culture through social media and automatically making the viewer connect with the brand or business. Going around the office setup and introducing the viewer to the different team members is also enjoyable.
Infographic video
Infographic video is an aesthetic way of playing with graphics and sending across the message or explaining a complicated concept. This is a unique way of storytelling that makes the reader not just dive into what you create but also retain that information for a long time. It is essential in the field of marketing and helps in SEO.
Properly executed infographic videos can play a significant role in your marketing strategy. Visualizing things tends to speed up the rate at which we grasp things. This is very important while explaining a difficult concept.
Just like something informative, viewers tend to engage with the content they relate to. Hence it is essential to include design factors in the graphics that are simple and appealing.
Explainer videos
The main advantage of making explainer videos is that it helps break down complicated concepts into simple information, which viewers are likely to retain for a long time. The other good thing about such videos is that they save a lot of time for your team as you don’t need to keep repeating or teaching the same things to different audiences.
A person looking to know more about your brand might prefer watching a short explainer video than going through long paragraphs of content. The only rule of making an explainer video is not to exceed it for more than 3-4 minutes.
An explainer video that lasts more than that will make you lose your viewer’s attention span. However, it is a convenient and easy way of spreading brand awareness as any engagement organic or paid works well in your favor.
How can you create amazing videos?
Since people prefer consuming videos more than any other form of content, you need to adapt to your consumers’ preferences. To help you out, we have done the necessary research to create super engaging social media videos. These videos will help increase your brand recognition and acceptance.
So here are a few rules that you could use as a guide:
Start with a detailed plan
While planning to make videos for social media channels, it is essential to plan them in detail. You need to know your goals beforehand and the CTA that will be there at the end of the video.
Planning out content involves specific steps like doing thorough research, writing a script ( if the video includes talking ), planning out the events and scenes, the video’s budget, hiring a video editing professional, and the most critical attention-grabbing visuals.
When choosing the best topic to create a video, make sure that it conveys the message that you are trying to portray. If you are just starting off with making videos, then you are open to experimenting but if you have made videos before, observe the insights of the video closely to know what went wrong or what worked for you.
Keep them short
The average attention span of people browsing through social media differs depending on the platform. Therefore, it is essential to keep your videos short and crisp.
Facebook has very different algorithms than Instagram, a 2-minute video might work on Facebook and Youtube, but the same will not reach as much audience on Instagram or Snapchat.
The key to keeping videos short and exciting is to select an exciting theme. Then, if the topic you wish to discuss needs more time, you can make a series of different videos and release them at pre-decided schedules.
To make interesting and engaging short videos, here are a few simple steps that you can follow-
The initial few seconds must be engaging
On average, people tend to lose interest while watching a video within the first eight seconds. In that context, it is essential to make the initial few seconds the most engaging and attractive.
You could start with questions, inspiring statements, or catchy music in context with your agenda. The critical point here is to smartly place your brand’s name, tagline, or logo so that it draws the viewer’s attention.
The viewer must be left curious and get the urge to stay till the end of the video.
Source: marketing campaign by Nike
Include subtitles
While creating a video on social media, remember that the algorithms work in many ways. For example, people who speak a different language may not be able to access them or understand the video.
Keeping that in mind, it is essential to include subtitles in your video. That is because most people consume videos while doing something or on the go, where the possibility of not switching on the sound may not be possible.
Your video should have subtitles to be informative even when it is played without sound or is muffled by outside noise.
Source: Oriflame- beautiful change
Audio is essential
Just like all the other senses that get activated when you watch something interesting, the same goes for your hearing.
The audio that you use, whether background music, voice-over, or someone speaking in front of the camera, must be recorded using an external microphone.
Clean, clear, soothing audio with minimal to no background noise works wonders in grabbing attention. Remember, high quality and good equipment help create the best content.
Source: Marketing campaign by Adidas
Focus on the storyline
Retaining the audience’s attention is an art, and to master that, you need to focus on the storyline of your content.
To keep your viewer hooked till the end of the video, you must work on the script wisely. Nothing more than a compelling storyline that represents your brand. It is essential to convey the brand’s motives and also aim to spark emotions.
This helps create a brand image in the viewers’ minds where they associate the brand with an emotion.
Source: Vicks- Generations of care
How do you make a social video that works wonders? Here are some tips you should know.
1. Create an eye-catching thumbnail
Thumbnail is like the cheat of your video content. A compelling thumbnail can hook people to watch your video without you asking them. An excellent thumbnail should be intriguing. It needs to raise curiosity to your target audience that they have to stop and watch your video.
For example, you can include a screenshot of your video as a thumbnail. Again, use big and colorful fonts to attract attention from the get-go. You may as well use thumbnail makers online to make engaging image shots.
2. Use captions
A study has shown that more than 85% of Facebook users watch videos with the sound off. One major reason is that the video itself is muted as default. So, users need to turn on the audio to listen to it.
This study then urges creators and brands to include subtitles on their video content to help viewers understand the context. Besides, having the caption can help the audience with a hearing problem to experience the video the same way with others. As a result, you can reach out to a broader audience.
3. Check your SEO
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is an important aspect of every online content. Whether it’s articles, images, or videos, having SEO properties will help them get discovered easily.
Before publishing your social videos, you need to input all the SEO properties that matter. For example, add a description to your video, include a relevant tag, and more.
4. Make videos for a specific platform
Every social media platform has different usages. They also have a different audience that doesn’t overlap with one another. So, if you’re going to make a social video, make sure that you create it for the right platform.
Suppose you’re introducing your brand using Facebook. You know that you can’t make the same corporate video content you’ve made for YouTube. Facebook users share a different preference when watching a video.
They tend to resonate well with videos that evoke their emotion, like motivational content. But, unlike YouTube, where you can post entertaining videos, Facebook users won’t intentionally search for the same term on the platform.
Here are top social media platforms you should consider using to see higher engagement and build a better rapport with your audience using videos. You can choose ones that match your target audience, video content, and preferences.
Choose the right platform
All social media platforms have different algorithms for promoting content; hence the crucial part is choosing the right platforms and selecting the suitable duration depending on the same.
It is easier to apply all the rules and make one video for all platforms. Still, you need to analyze each platform and its audience to make videos that suit different platforms in terms of marketing.
Source: Unsplash
YouTube
Many platforms are designed to promote videos solely, and Youtube is one such platform. Many businesses have seen proven results after marketing their videos on YouTube.
Since YouTube has different algorithms compared to other social media platforms, the length of the video should ideally range from 3-6 minutes, depending on the quality of the storyline.
The catch here is that your video must have a strong CTA where the viewer interacts with the video after watching it. That results in a higher ranking in YouTube search results, and the video appears in suggestions of other people.
Snapchat
Snapchat was one of the very first platforms that majorly worked on short video content, which was slowly adapted by other platforms. As a result, the users on this platform are generally not very active on popular platforms like Facebook or Instagram.
Snapchat has over 360 million active users spread around the world. Most of these users are aged 13+. The top audience on this platform are Women, which is evident because of the safety that the platform provides.
That also makes it an excellent platform for marketing and promotion of products and services which are more inclined to women. One main advantage of using Snapchat is that it has little to no competition compared to other social media sites.
Twitter is one of the excellent platforms for marketing videos and exploring your business’s potential. However, it is ranked 3rd on this list because it is a microblogging platform, and videos are not its primary area of expertise.
Regardless, Twitter has some impressive statistics for people waiting to get their business recognized. 79% of the users on this platform love to explore the ‘What’s new’ section where the most recently posted things show up, making your chances to get discovered higher.
53% of the people here love to try out the new products first and put out a review for the others. Compared to other platforms, users here see 26% more advertisements. The organic audience on Twitter is easily accessible with the right type of content out there.
Facebook is the most popular social media platform with over 32 billion views per day. However, Facebook’s organic reach has almost died for content based on text and images.
But the statistics of the reach of videos has been increasing every day. For example, 75% of people on Facebook watch at least a minute-long video daily. Therefore, the cost of promoting videos on Facebook is more beneficial than other forms as it gains more engagement, reaching more people.
The most popular among these platforms in this list is Instagram, where the millennials have slowly shifted and are thriving in terms of content. So the easiest way to put your content out there for the world is through Instagram.
This platform has more than 1 billion active users and has twice as much engagement for video content as any other platform. In addition, there are multiple ways to use the video feature of this platform for advertising.
Starting from the discovery feature, Instagram thrives at changing its algorithms every day to help different content creators get noticed. So get out there and get creative.
Reel feature on Instagram is the most popular at the present moment. This feature selects reels based on specific algorithms and makes them visible on the user’s explore page.
The few advantages of this tool are that a shorter video works wonders. In addition, the feature automatically loops the video, making the views shoot up as someone might repeatedly watch your video.
The more views and engagement, the better will be the reach. For example, more than 200 million people on Instagram visit at least one business profile daily.
LinkedIn is one of the most significant communities of professionals with over 675 million active users worldwide. According to statistics, videos tend to get three times more engagement on LinkedIn than other social media platforms.
As discussed earlier, videos work differently on different platforms. For example, LinkedIn works best when the videos posted are uploaded on the site directly than when it is shared from another site and simply attached here.
This is where planning the marketing videos that best suit the platform is very important. Like any other social media platform, LinkedIn also provides a paid section where your videos are promoted on a pay basis.
This has proven to draw engagement in terms of the audience, given that your content reaches the relevant audience.
Conclusion
The one basic rule about making interesting videos is making something that you, as a viewer, would prefer to watch. What works best for you in that context related to your business is the mantra to a successful video on social media.
Suit yourself by choosing whichever works best for you, do not try to do everything at once, and take away the whole point of simple, interesting videos.
Trying to do everything by yourself might also exhaust you. You could look at hiring a virtual assistant to help you create and edit content.
The entire marketing process through social media is a trial and error method. So make sure you make more of what works the best for you and your brand.
Thanks for giving me the ultimate guide to social media video marketing!