So much of our time online is spent on social media, and if all the statistics are to be believed, billions of hours of that time are spent watching video. Facebook reported that 500 million people were watching over 100 million hours of video content on their platform each day. YouTube tops over a billion hours a day. Add in Instagram Stories and it’s almost like we replaced TV time with the internet only to turn the internet back into TV 2.0.
With that much video being consumed on social media, it really is irresponsible as marketers to not have a social video aspect in our digital marketing strategies. Even still, questions remain: What type of video content should you use on social? What social platforms should you prioritize? What should your social video goals be?
In this article, we’re reviewing the top ways to drive your video advertising and distribution strategy with social video, as well as reviewing best practices for each platform. Let’s dive in!
Why Social Video?
Besides the obvious reason of having access to billions of eyeballs, there are loads of other benefits to using video on social media to accomplish your marketing goals. Take the following.
- Forty-six percent of users take action after viewing a social video. (Wordstream)
- After watching branded social videos, 64 percent of viewers end up buying. (Tubular Insights)
- Ninety-two percent of mobile viewers share social videos with others. (Invodo)
- Enjoying a social video increases the intent to purchase by 97 percent and increases your company’s brand association by 139 percent. (Unruly)
- Social videos are shared 1200 percent more than text and images combined. (SmallBiz Trends)
How to Start Using Social Video
First step: pick a goal!
Before we go into the specifics on platforms or content types, let’s get your first objective out of the way: picking a goal for your social video.
While the overall business goal for your social media accounts is to drive more sales and increase your business’ public profile, it’s often easy to get caught up in the hustle of maximizing likes and followers to get ahead. But that’s not actually the right metric to track your social video success.
Instead, you want to pick a goal and select a few metrics that best help you track that goal. For example:
- Looking to attract? Pay attention to post reach and click-through rate to gauge how many visitors you’re attracting with your social video content.
- Trying to engage? Watch your engagement rate, which is your video content’s total interactions divided by total impressions reached, and video view duration to gauge how long your video is being watched.
- Aiming to nurture? Monitor your video shares to assess how valuable your customers find your social video content, and track traffic sources of purchase conversions to discover which videos drove a viewer to become a customer.
- Goal to delight? Check the comments on your social videos to gauge customer satisfaction levels.
Now for the fun part – five social video strategies you can implement right now!
1. Attract Middle-Aged Audiences with Facebook Video for More Shares
Videos on Facebook typically have a lifespan of two weeks, and that’s driven primarily by oversharers. Yes, while your aunt Debbie’s oversharing might be annoying in real life, her gossip-loving nature is perfect for sharing content online. But in all seriousness, because middle-aged users make up a majority of Facebook’s most active sharers, they’re a good demo to go after with your social video content. If they see and connect with your video, there’s a higher likelihood they’ll actually share it with their friends – unlike those too cool millennials who’ll keep scrolling by if they’re not immediately hooked.
That doesn’t mean young people have abandoned the platform – 76 percent of teenagers still use the platform and 68 percent of all U.S. adults report being Facebook users, according to a 2018 survey by the Pew Research Center.
Try to create videos with emotional resonance, like a brand, industry, or testimonial video to increase the likelihood of users sharing your content. Videos on Facebook live so long because of their emotional value. Viewers are impacted, and share accordingly.
2. Engage Millennial Followers on Instagram with Daily Story Updates
In addition to posting videos on your company or client’s Instagram feed, you should definitely take advantage of Instagram Stories feature. These videos are not meant to be high quality, like a traditional video post. Instead, this video format lends itself best to livestreams, behind the scenes, and day-in-the-life video styles.
Since Instagram users are already in Stories watching their friends’ content, make sure the videos you create are on-brand, but feel user generated, like insider-style content that doesn’t feel too promotional.
3. Create Recurring Video Series and Playlists to Nurture Your YouTube Audience
If there’s one thing that separates the successful YouTube channels from the rest, it’s consistency. YouTubers who, day in and day out, rain or shine, keep posting videos end up with the larger followings. This is why your company should consider starting a video series for your YouTube channel. This video content can be set up and used like a blog, where every week at a certain time, users will know to tune in (or check back for the link later) for a new episode.
The best type of social videos to create for this type of series would be either a weekly how-to explainer series that dives into different aspects of your product or service every week, an educational or industry style series based on different issues facing your industry, or a tips and tricks style video where you share insider secrets about how best to use your product or service to maximize value.
It doesn’t have to be week to week though – you can still create a how-to, DIY, or tips and tricks series on your own time and at your own pace, and tie them together with a YouTube Playlist so followers and customers can easily access them quickly in an auto-playing format.
4. Use LinkedIn Video to Attract, Nurture Leads, and Recruit
Everyone knows LinkedIn as the “I need a job” network. It’s all about connecting with professionals you work with, went to school with, or want to work for. LinkedIn video works great for breaking up the monotony of the feed, and can be useful for both attracting and nurturing leads, as well as attracting and nurturing new hires.
For example, instead of a regular old status update, try a video update that features a product demo video. Or post an event video that highlights a recent event your company hosted, or a speaking engagement your CEO attended. You can even host a live webinar on a subject in your industry to connect with fellow leads and potential hires.
One great way to use LinkedIn video is for repurposing blogs into video talks. A simple blog can be used as a script or broken down into a few quick talking points, and you can turn evergreen content even greener by turning it into an easier to digest, more shareable piece of social video content.
Social Video Is Perfect with the Right Strategy
There’s plenty more ideas where these came from. If you’re looking for a video partner to help you maximize your video content implementation, reach out! Our team of creative producers can talk to you and help map out a video content strategy that will fit perfectly into your larger social marketing plan.
* This article was originally published here