Finding attention in today’s content-saturated world has become a real challenge. Globally, we need to be more patient. Businesses constantly search for new, more effective ways to communicate with their audience. Video content marketing has become an absolute tool for drawing attention, communicating messages, and engaging with the audience. Combine that with social media’s reach and targeting power, and you’ll find a business tool that enables you to communicate with the audience and resonate more deeply.
The Rise of Video Marketing
Video marketing has become famous for several reasons. Firstly, technological advances have made it much easier to design and share a video with many people. With the high resolution of the most recent smartphones, people can directly make a video from their phones. Essential editing software also makes creating a quality video with a little budget much more accessible.
Although video creation has mushroomed, consumption has also surged significantly. This is evident when studying the growth of social media users. People now engage with what they see more than before, and they consume more content. Research has also shown that video content is more shared than images and text, which makes a more significant impact on a company and brands.
Leveraging Social Media Platforms
Video proliferates on social media owing to its large user base and robust targeting capabilities. Also, most social media platforms intentionally give video greater prominence, and the format itself can convey information more succinctly and powerfully than text or Instagram itself coveys in text.
In contrast, video offers lesser detail and nuance than Instagram would allow but greater detail and nuance than a gif alone. Each social media platform has unique features and demographics, making it ideal for marketing to specific population segments.
Here are a few best ways to use different social media outlets for your video marketing efforts.
- YouTube: YouTube, the second-largest search engine after Google, is the perfect new way for your business to show buyers you know what you are talking about, offer value-added entertainment, and drive traffic to your site. Bring your business to YouTube by creating a branded channel where you can host and organise options to display your ads to other users while watching videos relevant to your product or service.
- Facebook: Facebook is the largest social media channel in terms of its user base (its 2.8 billion monthly active users show no signs of slowing down anytime soon), and its autoplay feature causes videos to start playing. In contrast, users scroll past in their newsfeeds. Facebook’s advertising platform also allows it to target viewers based on their demographics, interests, and behaviours so companies and brands can easily reach the right people.
- Instagram: On a very visual platform like Instagram, with video-first user experiences on feed, in Instagram Stories, or in IGTV, brands can get creative about how they tell a story with a video to share with their community. Additionally, Instagram supports the use of hashtags, geotags, mention functionality, and other tools that help socialise video content or tap into larger communities around a brand.
- Twitter: Twitter’s fast-moving news flow encourages posting shorter, punchier videos than other platforms. These videos can expose your eyeballs in seconds—so brief and snappy they are. Videos can be hosted natively within Twitter or shared with embedded links (for example, YouTube and Vimeo). Using trending hashtags encourages users to get into the live ‘moment’ to interact with an audience. Buzz feeds are encouraged, and conversation is amplified.
- LinkedIn: Professionals see LinkedIn as a valuable channel for B2B video marketing. Companies can share videos about thought leadership, products and the company on LinkedIn to position themselves as thought leaders and strategic partners with industry experts. LinkedIn enables us to target people who make decisions at the businesses and companies in our target industries.
Best Practices for Effective Video Marketing
While the proliferation of video when surfing social media presents great opportunities, how do we stand out from the crowd? These are some best practice guidelines to help you exploit the increasing use of video when surfing the net to the maximum advantage.
Know Your Audience
Research and understand your audience: what are their preferences, interests and pain points? Understanding these can guide the content you share via video to resonate with your audience. Analyse existing audience research and demographics, or conduct research on the preferences of your target audience: which platform do they flock to for munching on information? What kind of videos do they like to watch? What was the feedback they had for a previous video you shared?
Tell a Compelling Story
Successful video marketing is not just a promotional effort; it is compelling storytelling. Whether you’re sharing your brand’s story, real customers’ stories, or demonstrating the powerful change your products or services create in people’s lives, emotional narratives will always attract attention and redirect efforts.
Keep it Concise and Engaging.
People have short attention spans, particularly online, when most hop from one link to the next. This goes especially for social media – keep your videos short and to the point. In the first few seconds of the video, grab your audience immediately and feature interesting visual elements such as animations, graphics and music to keep their attention throughout the entire video.
Optimise for Mobile Viewing
With mobile usage leading the pack, your video should be optimised for a mobile viewing experience, with a horizontal or square aspect ratio, so it’s easy on the eye while viewing on a mobile device. Also, as an increasing number of users are watching videos on mute, it’s crucial to caption your videos and take advantage of subtitles.
Encourage Interaction and Sharing
Encourage likes, comments and sharing, pose questions, solicit feedback, or run contests and giveaways. Use user-created content, such as photos or testimonials, to increase the sense of community and authenticity around your brand.
Measuring Success and Iterating
To check whether your video marketing is getting a good return on your investment, you need to measure metrics – views, engagement rate, click-through rate, and conversion rate – and look at your performance data. Use A/B testing and experiments to improve your videos, iterating sequentially based on what works and sticking with that.
Conclusion
As the world becomes more digital and visual, video marketing has become crucial for businesses to connect with their audience, increase engagement, and meet their marketing goals. By using the reach and targeting of social media, businesses can also stand out from their competitors. By leveraging the best practices, metrics and iterations in today’s digital world, companies can bring their messages to life with video and forge meaningful connections with their customers in today’s digital world.
