Indeed, posting video ads on social media platforms is an integral part of a successful and effective digital marketing strategy.
According to a recent survey, 48.76% of people prefer videos on social media. This is the era of socializing after all, where people spend most of their free time watching videos on the Internet. Well, it is merely the beginning.
So, what would be a better way to reach customers than social media itself. All you have to do is to prepare a promotional video for your product, share it on social platforms, and let it reach millions of individuals.
If it catches the attention you desire, your product will become a brand overnight. So, you see? That’s how this ‘Social Media Marketing’ thing works.
In this article, we’ll discuss the impact of video marketing on businesses and tips about using videos for best social marketing -
Impact of Social Media Videos on Businesses
A famous entrepreneur Marsha Collier says-
“Social media marketing increases word-of-mouth mentions, and it’s the best way to gather buzz about a product.”
Video ads change the ‘way of thinking’ of people. The consumers check out the video ads of the product first, and if it catches his attention, then he moves further to purchase it, and even more, he suggests it to his friends.
It has been a few years since video marketing became the paradigm of digital marketing for SMEs. The impact of this virtual reality upon small businesses is massive.
According to a wyzowl report
- 94% of video marketers say video has helped increase user understanding of their product or service.
- 84% of marketers say video has helped them increase traffic to their website.
- 81% of marketers say video has helped them generate leads.
- 80% of marketers say video has increased dwell time on their website.
- 41% of marketers say that video has helped them reduce support calls.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg refers to videos as a ‘Mega-Trend,’ and the recent survey by Animoto proves him right.
Importance of Social Media Marketing
Not a long time ago, before social platforms existed, it was only the big brand companies with heavy pockets that were gaining all the attention, all because of their expensive campaigns, advertisements, and commercials.
The small businesses had to face hundreds of hurdles just to reach the customers. Unlike brands, they couldn’t afford the marketing of their products on a massive level.
But today, thanks to social media marketing, the scenario is entirely different.
Now, your video can be seen in the news feed right alongside the famous brands’ videos. Or even, your video can be found in the ‘suggestions’ as well, for the person who is watching the big brand’s video.
Video Marketing Tips for Social Media
If the video you’ve shared is attractive and compelling enough, it engages more users than any image or text content ever will.
Now that almost every business, small as well as large, is turning towards video marketing, you need to focus upon each factor of the video, such as its size, quality, dimension, and everything else.
Your video should be a perfect blend of transparency, authenticity, inspiration, and interaction. It should leave a long-lasting impression on the viewers.
Here are some essential points you need to remember if you’re planning to make money from social-media video marketing:
Ask the Right Questions
Here is the list of questions you need to ask yourself while preparing for a business promotional video -
- Who is your targeted audience?
- What’s the idea behind it?
- What’s the purpose of this video?
- What kind of response are you expecting from it?
- What’s the story you want to tell?
- Which social platform are you hitting first?
- Are you going to shoot it or make it by tools?
- What’s the message you want to convey through it?
Well, these are just some of the examples. Ask yourself these questions and get answers. Got all the answers? Now, you’ve to set a goal for the video and start working on it accordingly.
Pinpoint Your Audience
The video can be of any form, e.g., inspirational, promotional, educational, entertaining, documentary, story-telling, or so. You have to decide your audience and then shoot it targeting them.
If you take a look at the numbers, you’ll see that there has been a shocking rise in social media users since last year. No matter how small your business is or what niche it belongs to, you should leverage social media video marketing for the growth of your business and reach out to the individuals.
Do you see it? The audience is already there; all you have to do is to attract them towards your video.
Stay Updated with Video Size and Specs
From recent statistics, the millennials’ attention towards videos is growing, primarily on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter.
To get the best response, here are the most recommended time-duration for a video -
Facebook videos: 1 minute
YouTube videos: 2 minutes
Instagram videos: 26 seconds
Twitter videos: 45 seconds
There are some preferred video-speculations for these platforms; you need to be aware of them. As more and more companies are turning to video marketing, it becomes crucial to use the correct video dimension, size, and specs. Even the orientation you’re using, i.e., Landscape or Portrait, is also a vital part of the video, and the speculations are different for them.
Authentic & Value-Oriented Video Content
People find it difficult to believe what they cannot trust. As long as your video shows authenticity and transparency, it will automatically get the viewer’s attention. Nowadays, viewers refuse to watch a dream-come-true and unrealistically perfect videos because they don’t trust it. If the video is real or real enough to imagine, it connects with viewers on a personal level.
To achieve this vision, companies are sharing mobile videos, letting the imperfections be the platform to connect with the customers.
Engaging Video Ideas that Connect Customers
As long as the customer can interact with the video, it keeps them connected. If the content of the video is creative and somehow merges with humankind, the human minds can vibe with it and feel the familiarity.
A video is not just about watching or liking; it’s a lot more than that. If a video can motivate the customer and makes them feel connected to it, it will be an experience for them worth remembering.
Here are some simple tips -
- Try to tell a story in your video, it sells.
- Keep the viewer engaged and have them compelled to visit your page for more.
- Short videos attract more viewers than long ones.
Upload Native Videos on Facebook
Native videos on Facebook are getting more and more popular by each passing day than shared YouTube links. The reason could be that these native videos start playing automatically as you scroll down your feed while the YouTube shared videos require manual playing. Instead of manually pausing the native video, viewers prefer to watch it as long as it’s a short video.
Also, YouTube shared videos require users to leave Facebook and visit an external page while it’s quite easy to watch native videos as they play inside the Facebook environment only.
Call to Action (CTA) Approach
‘Call to Action’ is part of an effective social media marketing strategy. Besides, to get the video watched, it would be beneficial for your business to ask for some action from the viewer's side.
For example -
- A video that ends up with a question, asking an opinion or suggestion from the viewer.
- A video that leads people to provide their contact details.
To help businesses around connect with their targeted audience, Facebook provides several call-to-action options, such as -
- Book Now
- Shop Now
- Learn More
- Sign Up Now
For a better response to your videos, you should start using the ‘call-to-action’ approach. You can simply ask them to follow your page, just keep it relevant to the video topic.
Wrapping Up
It's important to make an effort to include videos in your social media marketing plans. After all, the social network giants, themselves, are leading the crowd, so that alone makes it an evident choice. There are video content and live streaming features that are almost too easy to use!
And making videos is super easy these days, with the availability of video editing software that has built-in solutions for making videos for social media. And you can even opt for professional video makers if your brand demands for sophistication and customization.
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