Over the past two years, video marketing has revolutionized the digital marketing world. This is especially true within social media marketing.
Facebook Live has rejuvenated the historic platform. TikTok has become an overnight phenomenon. And of course, YouTube continues to be a fan-favorite.
Let’s look at the right ways to use video in your social marketing efforts.
Where to Start: Identify Your Intent
Before you begin streaming, take time to identify the intent behind your social media video marketing strategy. This exercise will help you clarify why you’re trying to connect with your audience and the best way to do so.
Some common reasons to use video content when connecting with your audience include:
To Inform
Teach your audience about your product or service and how they can get the best value for their money when using it. Informational videos can also help build brand awareness.
To Build Rapport
Use your content to strike up a conversation, boost engagement, and build trust with your audience.
For Social Proof
User-generated content, reviews, testimonials, and expert insights all act as social proof for your brand, and they also showcase your reliability.
To Convert
Plain and simply: These videos are meant to convert leads into paying customers.
When you build a content calendar or posting strategy, you may choose to use a mix of these various intentions.
Remember the 80:20 rule when finding your marketing mix. 80% of your content should be passive. Meanwhile, 20% should be sales-oriented.
Types of Videos
Once you’ve outlined your intentions, you can start to flesh out how you’ll accomplish your intended goals.
Video marketing is a versatile approach that allows for variability and a more human element as compared to other digital marketing channels. This is one of the primary reasons why video marketing works so well on social media.
Some common types of videos include:
- Tutorials
- Behind-the-scenes looks
- Sneak peeks
- Trending video challenges
- Videos of events
- Webinars
- Live videos
- Personalized messages
- Q&A or AMA sessions
- Time lapses
- Reveals and announcements
When it comes to conveying your message, the options are endless.
Try a few approaches that are aligned with your brand, measure the analytics, and build your strategy around the results.
Plan for Cross-Platform Publishing and Repurposing
One of the beautiful things about video marketing is that it’s great for repurposing. Rather than recreating the wheel for numerous platforms and mediums, create your video content with cross-posting in mind.
For example, cross-posting a video from YouTube to Facebook is pretty straightforward. However, TikTok videos can only be one minute long.
When creating a longer video, incorporate a hook that captures attention and leads users to the longer video on YouTube. This approach can help you make the most of that platform.
Videos often include informative content that can be repurposed into a written format as well. When creating long-form videos, such as tutorials and webinars, optimize them for future editing.
These pieces can be divided into useful clips with a Facebook video maker, as well as transcribed into blog content.
When it comes to creating video content, you have a few seconds to capture the viewer’s attention before they scroll away.
Use those seconds wisely. Edit your videos so they will captivate your audience and work with each platform.
Optimize Videos for SEO
Don’t make the mistake of thinking that SEO is just for written content— it impacts videos as well.
When you publish your video, use a keyword-rich title that falls within 70 characters. Make it punchy and captivating to encourage viewers to click.
While keywords won’t impact some algorithms, they will make you more visible on Google and YouTube.
Create a caption or description that uses keywords and tells a story. Storytelling should be a priority in the description section, as it’s meant to appeal to a human audience. And always avoid keyword stuffing any of these on page elements.
Additionally, add a thumbnail that features a human presence, which can help improve your click thru rates and move your video up the feed.
Use hashtags and tags that connect with your audience, mixing in a blend of high and low ranking tags.
Don’t only use hashtags / tags that have millions of followers. With so many followers, you can expect a lot of people to use these tags. This will make it easy for you to get overshadowed in the feed.
By adding a variety of tags with under 100,000 followers, you increase your odds of reaching someone new.
Finally, consider adding a video transcript or subtitles. In addition to being powerful content repurposing methods, these can also help boost your SEO by providing more text for bots to crawl.
Furthermore, it helps you expand your reach by making your content more accessible, because viewers can enjoy your video in a public setting without having to turn on the sound.
Conclusion
Video marketing is a fantastic way to connect with your audience, showcase brand transparency, and add a human element to your business.
Figure out which methods work for your brand, and then build a successful strategy for your social media video marketing with that knowledge.
All Image Credit: CC 0; Public Domain. Feature image sourced from pexels. Tik Tok image sourced from pixabay.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions stated in this post are that of the author, and Return On Now may or may not agree with any or all of the commentary.
This guest post brought to you courtesy of Return On Now, Professional Austin SEO and PPC Services Company.
Wendy Dressler
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