In today’s TikTok-loving, meme-obsessed world, video is establishing itself as a picture-perfect form of marketing.
And it’s hardly surprising when Cisco’s Annual Internet Report suggests that around 80% of all traffic consists of video.
However, to truly utilise the potential of this channel and ensure your key concepts are heard (and seen) by the right audience, you must tap into the power of social media.
In this article, we discuss the importance of video marketing on social media and share a few proven methods to help you maximise results.
Video marketing importance in the age of social media
Nowadays, it takes something special to make you stop scrolling on social media. The market is saturated with businesses more focused on creating noise than offering value.
Nevertheless, with video marketing, there’s hope.
Such a phenomenon highlights how videos can be an excellent way to stand out on social media. After all, deep-down, everyone’s a film fanatic.
Visual storytelling is arguably one of the most powerful forms of marketing. It gives your business a chance to communicate emotions, messages, narratives and useful information in a way that resonates with your audience.
When you master the art of video marketing, you’ll leave a long-lasting and deeper impression on your audience.
It’s like when you go to the cinema. You know you’ve seen something great when you’re still talking about it and recommending it to people days or months afterwards.
This love of visual storytelling has paved the way for video-only social platforms like YouTube. But its meteoric rise isn’t just about entertainment. YouTube is now an incredible hub of information.
It’s because of these reasons that video marketing and social media work so well together. These YouTube videos can be shared on other platforms, including Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, as part of a cross-channel social strategy to maximise engagement.
Creating videos that people see in multiple locations offers unlimited potential to maximise exposure to your brand.
Let’s not underplay this. By increasing the social exposure of video content, you can develop a powerful tool in building brand awareness, sharing entertaining content and educating customers.
Yet, that’s not all. We recently revealed that over 50% of consumers are eager to see video content from businesses.
So, it’s a case of adapting or running the risk of becoming irrelevant in this forward-thinking digital world. The choice is yours.
Video marketing social media stats
Still not convinced? Perhaps, these video marketing social media stats will reiterate its importance:
- Over two-thirds of companies create videos uniquely for social media. (Source: Wyzowl.)
- 85% of US internet users watch online video content every month. (Source: Statista.)
- 93% of brands got a new customer because of a video on social media. (Source: Animoto.)
- 88% of marketers are committed to devoting more money to video campaigns in the future. (Source: Social Media Week.)
How to create the best video marketing on social media
Address the basics of video marketing on social media
Don’t get too carried away after reading the video marketing social media stats. Let’s keep it “reel”. The success of any video marketing campaign comes down to three factors:
1. The relevance of your videos to your target audience
2. The reach of your videos
3. The quality of your videos
To bolster relevancy and create videos that resonate with your audience, first define what that audience looks like and do some customer research. This will help you to uncover:
- How existing customers found your business
- Why they chose your company
- Their biggest industry challenges
Responses to each of the points will all make for great content inspiration.
If you work for a startup business with limited customers to reach out to, free tools like Facebook Audience Insights can point you in the right direction.
To reach your target audience:
- Consider which social channels are right for your business
- Encourage your team to engage with your posts to increase their visibility
- Use targeted video advertising on YouTube
Once you gain a greater understanding of these principles, you’re ready to get creative. Whether you’re looking to create instant viral content or evergreen content, always keep the following four points in mind.
1. Develop interesting teasers
At an early stage of developing video content, it’s good to define the video’s objective. Whether that’s brand awareness, education or entertainment.
The format of your video will depend on this objective.
However, one of the best structures to attract a bigger audience is to:
- Present a problem – i.e. the hook
- Tease the solution/give context
- Share the solution
These teasers can be lifted from the video and shared on other social media platforms to draw people into watching the entire video. This approach encourages more subscriptions while increasing cross-social engagement.
It’s also good to create short, sharp video teasers to promote new webinars, reports and news stories. Just take a look at the example below and check out the engagement.
These teaser clips can be distributed to micro-influencers to gain interest from their audience too.
Finally, in terms of video creation, see how this LinkedIn video uses captions. This technique helps to ensure that the video starts to autoplay as the viewer scrolls down their feed to capture their attention. Sneaky!
2. Bring-In the B-roll
There is no need to create cinematic productions. But there is a need to tell engaging stories and keep people “on the hook”.
Eccentric personalities can do the job, yet sometimes they can be a little “marmite”. B-roll tends to be an even better solution to add extra depth and dimension to your awesome content.
The purpose of a B-roll is to create additional visual stimulation and context to your A-roll, which is your storyline shot.
Examples of a B-roll to use within your videos include:
- Undirected footage
- Stock footage
- Establishing shots
Animation can also help bring your footage to life. For example, we’ve used simple animation to introduce questions to the speaker in the video below.
From this video, you can see the value of B-roll in adding transitions, filling gaps and keeping people on the hook. It adds some eye-catching colour and movement, which immediately engages the viewer. This element ensures your video content stands out on busy social media feeds.
3. Demonstrate the value of your products and services
Reaching new and bigger audiences is great. But for your video marketing campaign to be a success, this growth in viewership must correlate with increased sales conversions. Otherwise, what’s the point?
However, there is a danger in going to “salesy”. It’s a double-edged sword, as you must balance demonstrating the value of your products with creating videos that resonate with your target audience.
The video below from Boden is a great example, as the clothing company links its product selection to an appreciation for all the mums out there.
Videos like this capture a brand’s story and links it to something relatable. They can also help launch campaigns and leverage channels like Twitter as part of a cross-social marketing ploy.
Just remember to measure the impact. Exploring these areas further will provide you with the insights you need to improve your use of video in marketing.
4. Create a video marketing strategy
Sprinkled throughout this article, we’ve made off-the-cuff remarks about the importance of defining your audience, objectives and social media priorities without going into depth.
In fact, most companies that are successful in video marketing and social media have written these out formally as part of a carefully considered video content strategy.
Taking the plunge and writing such a strategy is a big step. A couple of missed steps and the success of your video marketing strategy on social media is in real jeopardy.
There’s a lot more to think about too. For instance, planning the production of the content, knowing how to share it online and establishing a clear method of scheduling and promoting your videos.
Enter Flamingo Marketing Strategies. We’re here to plug the gaps in your video marketing strategy. Over the past few years, we’ve helped many businesses build an engaged social following and increase conversions through quality video marketing.
Our tailor-made strategy planning service is the answer to all your video marketing and social media headaches.
It’s showtime!
Now we’ve shown you some of the best video marketing on social media, it’s time to get your pens, post-its, and notepads out. Let’s start planning an awesome social strategy for your video content.
If you like what you hear (and see) but don’t have the time to implement it, we’re here to guide you through the process.
With our video marketing service, you can sit back, relax and get your popcorn at the ready as your video content campaign skyrockets into the social stratosphere.