Harnessing Video In Social Media Marketing

Harnessing Video In Social Media Marketing

Are you looking to implement video in your social media marketing?

If you are, then you’ve come to the right place. In this article, we’ll show you tips and strategies you can use to harness the power of video in your social media marketing.

Through creating valuable videos, you can use your social media marketing to grow your brand, expand your audience and attract new customers.

Let’s get started.

What Is Video Marketing?

It can be easy to get caught up in complex definitions to explain video marketing. In reality, it’s rather simple; video marketing is the practice of using videos to promote or market your brand, product, or service.

The types of videos you’ll want to produce can depend on the type of brand you own, the types of products/services you sell and the particular marketing/business goals you have.

Some of the most common types of video content seen in social media marketing include video advertisements, instructional/how-to videos, brand/product updates and releases, customer success stories and case studies.

Each type of video has its strengths and weaknesses and a particular time when it should be used. This can be dependent on the type of customer you’re trying to attract, the objectives for your video and what stage of the buyer’s journey your prospective customers viewing your content find themselves in. Social media agencies will be able to advise and provide detailed information on matching your videos with your business’ specific goals, but keep reading to find out if it’s suitable for your brand.

Why Should You Use Video in Your Social Media Marketing

Video can play a huge role in raising the profile of your brand. With over 3.5 billion people (45% of the world’s population!) people on social media, there’s plenty of opportunities for you to take advantage no matter what industry you’re in.

Back in 2017, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated that video would be the next ‘megatrend‘ and that its impact would be comparable to the impact that mobile had on the advertising industry.

Since 2017, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn have all become ‘video first’ platforms, to reflect the growing demand for video content, proving Mark Zuckerberg’s prediction to be correct.

Research by Google shows that 6 out of 10 people would rather watch online videos than television. While Hubspot found that 78% of people watch online videos every week, 54% watch videos every day.

All of these stats point to the fact that video plays a crucial part in modern marketing campaigns.

What Are the Benefits of Video Marketing?

Now you know some of the stats behind video’s impact in social media marketing let’s take a deeper look at some of the benefits of video.

Video Builds Trust With Your Audience

Video is the most intimate form of content you can create. It’s the perfect medium for you to create a personality for your brand. Video allows you to build trust with your audience in ways that you can’t do with other forms of content.

Video allows you to show your audience insights into what your brand/business has to offer, how your products or services work and how your brand has brought success to existing customers.

Not only does this build trust with your audience, but it also allows potential customers to see if your products are right for them.

According to a 2019 survey by Wyzowl, 79% of the people surveyed said a brand video persuaded them to buy an app or piece of software, which shows the power that video can have in a customer’s decision making.

Videos Boost Social Media Engagement 

Videos can have a huge impact on user engagement with social media posts.

Research by Social Media Today indicates that Tweets with video see 10x the amount of engagement than those without, LinkedIn users are 20x more likely to share a video on the platform than any other type of post! While videos on Instagram generate more engagement than any other type of content on the platform.

With this kind of engagement, it’s no surprise then that further research by Wyzowl indicates that 87% of professional marketers use video as a marketing tool.

If you’ve never used video in your social media posts, consider doing so. You can then monitor the analytics and see if your posts prove more popular when you use video content.

Videos Increase the Likelihood of Customers Buying 

Videos not only help drive engagement on social media but as we’ve already seen videos impact buyer decision making.

A 2018 infographic published by Depositphotos shows that 90% of consumers say videos help them make buying decisions and that four times the number of people prefer to watch a video about a product than read about it.

As well as impacting buyer decision making Implementing video into your marketing can also boost your chances of a front-page Google result by 53 times, and increase conversions by 80 per cent.

Which Platforms Should You Produce Videos For?

It’s all well and good knowing the benefits of producing videos for social media, but how do you know which platform you should prioritize?

The first step to deciding is knowing who your target customers are and where you can find them online. You may already have some idea, but to supplement your knowledge, think about:

Answering these questions and conducting sufficient research into your target market can take time, but it’s worth going through this process to develop a clear idea of who your ideal customers are and where you can find them online.

For further ideas on conducting market research online check out this guide from Inc.com.

After you’ve conducted your market research, you can decide which social media platform to create content for.

To help you choose the right platform for you here are some insights into creating video for Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.

Facebook

With over two billion active users every month, Facebook is the biggest social media site around and is a great place to get started with sharing your videos.

The first step to remember about creating video content on Facebook is to keep your videos short.

Data from Wistia indicates that users are more likely to watch the entirety of a video if it’s shorter. More than 80% of viewers watched a video if it was 30 seconds or shorter, while less than 70% watched a video that was one to two minutes long.

Before you go ahead and create a video, make sure you’re aware of the specs you’re working too. There’s a tonne of different video types you can create on Facebook, and you can check out the specs here.

Alongside specs, it’s good to have an idea of the demographics of the active users on social media platforms. Here’s some interesting facts on the demographics of Facebook’s users:

For further insights into Facebook’s demographics and guidance on finding your audience on Facebook, check out this post from Connectio.

Instagram

According to Instagram’s most recent business insights, there’s been an 80% increase in time spent watching videos on the platform since their business insights were previously published.

Instagram’s business insights also note that 60% of Instagram users report that they’ve discovered new products directly through Instagram! This stat show’s that Instagram’s not only a social platform to keep up with friends and family; there are people ready and waiting to discover new products through the platform.

When creating videos on Instagram, try and keep your videos around 30 seconds in length. A lot of the audience on Instagram view videos while multi-tasking or being on the move, and while Instagram allows videos up to 60 seconds, the 30-second mid-way point is the sweet spot.

If you’re creating live videos, you can make them longer. The maximum video length for an Instagram live video is 60 minutes, and the longer you stream, the more time your audience has to catch and interact with your video.

For specs and guidance on the types of videos, you can create on Instagram check out this guide from Oberlo

LinkedIn

A platform that doesn’t get spoken about as much in video marketing circles in LinkedIn. With LinkedIn being a professional platform rather than a solely social platform, it’s audience is slightly different to those found on Facebook and Instagram.

Despite the audiences being different, creating video content is still a very effective way of growing your brand awareness on the platform, particularly with those people already in your industry.

Around 54% of senior executives share work-related videos on the platform weekly. While 59% of senior executives agree that if both text and video content are available on the same topic, they prefer to consume the video.

Hootsuite found that in just one-year videos posted on LinkedIn generated more than 300 million impressions on the platform!

These stats are particularly impressive considering that users have only been able to upload native videos to LinkedIn since August 2017.

LinkedIn themselves recommend keeping brand awareness videos under 30 seconds, while videos for higher up in the marketing funnel can be extended to around 90 seconds.

For further tips on creating videos on LinkedIn, check out this guide

Video Creation Tips

Now you know some of the different platforms you can create videos on, here are some tips to follow when creating your videos:

Plan Your Video

Having a clear purpose in mind for the video/s your creating will help you keep your videos on point, and avoid them drifting off purpose. Ask yourself questions such as:

If you’re working as part of a team, then it’s a good idea to get everyone together to exchange ideas and make a plan for what you want your video to look like.

For a more comprehensive overview of nailing your video marketing strategy, check out this guide from Citreo.

Make Your Videos Valuable

It should go without saying that the content in your video should be valuable to your audience.

Really try and think about the type of client/customer you want to attract, ask yourself who do you want to work with?

Once you know your audience and what makes them tick, you can craft valuable video content to engage them.

Be Platform Conscious

Part of knowing which kind of customers you want to attract is which platform your customers hang out on.

Is it Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn or another platform?

As we’ve already discussed, before you decide on which platform to create video content for, spend adequate time researching your audience and deciding upon which customers you want your video to attract. This will help you choose the right platform for you and your business.

Creating Videos for Each Stage of the Buyer’s Journey

While it’s good to know tips on how to create videos you should also have in mind which stage of the buyer journey there and what kind of video is suitable for each.

What Is the Buyer’s Journey?

The buyer’s journey is the cycle and thought processes your customers go through when they’re planning to make a purchase.

This journey consists of three stages: awareness, consideration and decision and your video making process can differ depending on which stage your prospective customers are at.

Let’s take a deeper look at all three.

The Awareness Stage

In the awareness stage, the potential buyer is aware they have a problem, but they’re not yet sure of the solution. Videos you create in the awareness stage provide an opportunity for you to present your content as the solution to your audience’s problem.

A video in the awareness stage should educate your potential customers, give them tips on how they can solve their problem or introduce your products/services as a potential solution to their problems.

Types of video suitable for the awareness stage include:

FAQ Videos

You can use FAQ videos to give viewers and prospective customers answers to frequently asked questions about your brand, products or services.

For an FAQ video, you can use just text, a member of your team answering the questions, or a live demo showcasing your product to answer product-specific questions.

Whichever style you choose, your FAQ video should aim to answer to give clear, concise answers to the questions that your customers are asking.

Tutorial Videos

Tutorial videos give you the chance to show your audience your product and explain to them how it works. The primary goal of a tutorial video is to enable the user to accomplish a task successfully, and all elements in the video should be aligned to achieve this goal.

Aim to keep your tutorial videos simple and clear; you don’t want to overwhelm your user with complex instructions or technical jargon unless they’re already familiar with your business, brand, product or industry

Ads

You can use video in advertising as promotional content to introduce your brand or product to your audience and potential customers.

In the awareness phase keep your ads short and focussed on introducing your product to your audience.

For tips on aligning your video ads with your sales funnel, check out this post from Wordstream.

The Consideration Stage

In the consideration stage, your prospect has identified their problem and is actively searching for the solution.

The consideration stage is where you should be showing and convincing the prospect that your product/company/service is the best solution to their problem, rather than just making them aware.

Some good examples of videos to produce for the consideration stage include:

Explainer Videos

Explainer videos should be kept simple and concise. These videos should help to introduce your brand and your products to your prospects.

Try to keep your explainer video relatively short in length (between 60-90 seconds) and keep it’s content simple to understand.

Stick to this simple formula, as recommended by Neil Patel:

Product Videos

Product videos allow you to show your product/service in action. A product video can show your whole product live in action or a certain part of it.

Similar to tutorial videos, try and keep your product videos nice and clear and easy for your audience to understand. If your product has multiple parts you can create a series of videos to show how the different parts operate and how they work together.

For a full guide on creating product videos, check out this blog post from Oberlo.

The Decision Stage

The decision stage is where your prospect will finally be making their purchase decision and hopefully purchasing your product!

This is the time when your prospects are ready to buy, focus your video content on giving the prospective customer the final incentive they need to buy from you.

Examples of videos to use in the decision phase:

About Your Brand Videos

About your brand videos help to showcase the real people behind it, this helps prospects know the brand they’re buying from and instils confidence and trust that you are the right brand to buy from to solve their problem.

Some ideas for brand videos include having your founder or CEO telling the origin story of your business. You could have a ‘meet the team’ page giving an introduction into your employees, particularly if your customers are going to be working closely with your team.

You could also create more product focussed videos explaining the benefits of your brand, products or services to the prospective customer in the decision making phase.

Video Testimonials and Case Studies

Testimonials and case studies are another way to increase your prospects’ confidence that your solution is right for them.

A case study gives you the chance to show your prospects how your products/solution can solve the problem they’re facing.

Most case studies follow a structure of problem/situation, solution, results. Begin your case study video by introducing your customer, give some background information on their business and the problems they were facing/looking to solve.

You can send completed case studies to send to prospective customers who want to know more about the product/service you’re selling and use them to turn a prospective customer into a paying customer.

The Final Word

Using video in your social media marketing is a fantastic way to grow your brand awareness and relationships with your audience. Video content will help to drive engagement to your social media posts and add a new dimension to your social media marketing strategy.

The tips in this guide should give you a good idea of how you can harness video in your social media marketing.

By creating useful, actionable and informative video content, you can educate your existing and prospective customers on what your brand is about, keep them informed on the products and services you offer and ultimately attract new customers and grow your business.