Do you want to rule the world of social media with your video marketing strategy? There was a time when social media was mostly used by common people for socializing with friends, colleagues, etc. With the widened reach of the internet over the years, marketers are increasingly relying on social media for executing their social media strategies. Brands are capitalizing on social media sites because of their gigantic user base. Surprising as it may seem, a whopping 92% of marketers regard video content as a crucial aspect of marketing strategies.
Such staggering statistics indicate that videos can work wonders for turbocharging the growth of brands across industries. With the technology around us undergoing constant evolution, marketing strategies need to be revamped from time to time. The good news is that marketers don’t need to come up with a big budget to get started with social media video marketing. Regardless of what your business does, video marketing can make it possible for you to engage with your social media followers on a whole different level.
You can always leverage a tool to cut the length of your social media marketing videos as and when required. If you are new to the world of social media and want to reap the benefits of video marketing, you are in the right place. This blog will acquaint you with all the steps involved in the creation of a foolproof video marketing strategy. But before getting to the crux of the matter, we will shed light on the importance and benefits of social media video marketing.
Why is video marketing important in today’s age?
We live in an era where people prefer being glued to their smartphone screens. The credit for the increasing consumption of video goes to the rising reliance on technology. The easy availability of the internet has played a pivotal role in promoting social media use. As a result, the world’s obsession with video content has increased manifold. Since videos are watched by people of all age groups, their inclusion in your marketing strategy can prove beneficial in the long run. It must also be noted that text and pictures have not yet lost their relevance in the marketing scene.
However, traditional marketing materials don’t have the potential to go viral like video content. In the true sense, video marketing refers to the marketing of products and services to online audiences through well-curated video content. There is a widespread misconception that video marketing is only leveraged by large-sized businesses. But the truth is that businesses of all sizes rely on video marketing at one point or another. With a robust video marketing strategy, you can market your brand to a much larger audience in less time.
How to create the best video marketing strategy?
Since people are watching videos more than ever, you can easily grow your business on social media with quality visual content. If you want to succeed with minimal effort, you must have a well-thought-out marketing plan in place. Contrary to popular belief, you don’t need a professional degree to implement a video marketing strategy on social platforms. A little bit of creativity and dedication can allow you to run a successful video marketing campaign.
Here is a rundown of 7 easy steps to help you create the best video marketing strategy for social media platforms.
1. Understand your target audience and set your marketing goals
Brands globally agree that the creation of marketing content should always be aimed at catering to the needs of your target audience. Knowing your audience inside out can allow you to develop content that truly resonates with your viewers. The easiest way to learn about your audiences is to analyse their online behaviour. You can study the online activity of your audiences by keeping a check on their interactions on the social media pages of your competitors. A video marketing strategy that is solely guided by audience mindset tends to produce excellent results.
Hence, you must put in extra effort for understanding viewer preferences. Moreover, you must be clear about the goals that are crucial to your brand’s success. Figure out what you want to achieve with your video marketing campaign and create a roadmap for the fulfilment of your goals. Once you have sufficient insights on audience preferences, you will be better equipped to align your video marketing strategy with long-term business goals.
2. Determine the right type of content for your campaign
Before moving any further with your video marketing journey, you must sit back and determine what kind of videos you are going to make for your target audience. There are various video types you can choose from based on the requirements of your marketing campaign. Product-based videos are ideal for showcasing products that have been launched recently. On the other hand, explainer videos can come in handy for explaining the functioning of your brand’s products and services.
You can boost your business’s reliability by sharing interviews of customers who have had a positive experience with your brand in the past. If you want to get interactive with your followers, you can create a live marketing video for different social media channels. In case you are planning to launch a brand new product or service in the coming time, you can create a buzz about the same by releasing a catchy video advertisement.
Your choice of content will eventually depend on the ultimate purpose of your marketing strategy. Determining the best type of video content for your campaign will be much easier if you have a clear picture of your brand objectives in mind.
3. Use a web-based video editor
Once you have decided what type of videos you are going to make, the next step is to employ a web-based video editing solution. Since online video making tools are fully based on the cloud, you can easily do away with the hassle of downloading software on your laptop. You should consider opting for an editing tool that features a user-friendly design along with a wide range of intuitive features.
With a modern web-based video editor at your service, you can make classy marketing videos within minutes. The online editor will provide you with instant access to more than 5000+ social media video marketing templates. You can select a video template that corresponds to your marketing theme. What’s even better is that you can customise the template with custom fonts, texts, etc.
Online video editing solutions give you the golden opportunity to enrich your videos with remarkable tracks and sound effects. You can explore the video maker’s in-house media library to find relevant audio files for your marketing videos. Just see to it you pep up your videos with uplifting soundtracks to create a positive impression on the minds of viewers.
4. Decide the right length for your social media videos
With the world becoming used to instant gratification, it is no wonder why the attention spans of people are declining. The biggest mistake that social media marketers make is that they end up making excessively long marketing videos. Long videos not only bore viewers but also cause engagement levels to fall sharply. If you want to ensure uninterrupted engagement, make it a point to grab the attention of viewers right after the video starts.
Moreover, it is extremely important that you stick to the video length guidelines set by different social media platforms. 1-minute long marketing videos are perfect for platforms like Facebook. For Instagram and Twitter, you should make videos having durations of 30 seconds and 45 seconds, respectively. You need not install heavy software on your desktop for shortening videos. You can use an online video trimmer to trim the length of your social media marketing videos.
5. Spruce up your marketing videos with powerful CTAs
Without a doubt, the prime purpose of marketing videos is to encourage people to invest in the offerings of your brand. At a time when social media is already brimming with loads of marketing videos, you must unleash your creative juices to be successful with your marketing plan. You can easily add a touch of persuasion to your content by including powerful call-to-actions (CTAs) in your videos.
CTAs are aimed at impelling viewers to take a specific action that will benefit your brand in some way or the other. You must use emotionally powerful language while crafting CTAs to boost your chances of drawing positive responses from people. Above all, it is vital that you craft video CTAs that are short and to the point.
6. Distribute your content on different social media platforms
After you are done polishing social media marketing content, you must prepare to show the world what you have created. However, sharing your videos on just a few social media sites will not do any good to your brand. For maximum reach, you must distribute your marketing videos on all social media platforms where you are active. Bear in mind that sharing your content online is only half the task.
You must interact with your audience by appropriately responding to their comments in a timely manner. Providing timely responses on social media is a great way of letting your fans know that you value their opinions. Proper communication with social media followers can help retain engagement and also boost your overall follower count.
7. Measure your campaign’s success
We all know that video marketing has become imperative for attaining success. A deep understanding of marketing analytics can equip you with the needed knowledge to create better video content. In fact, regularly measuring your campaign’s performance is a surefire way to make improvements to your marketing plan. Don’t rest once you are done sharing engaging marketing videos on leading social media platforms. You must take out time and measure the performance of your campaign for identifying optimization opportunities to enhance your videos.
What are the major benefits of social media video marketing?
With millions of users in different corners of the world, social media is one of the best places where you can spread the word about your brand. If you are a social media marketer, you must be aware of the competition prevailing online. This is where video marketing can help you stand out on social media platforms like Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram. Without more ado, let us delve into the 3 key advantages of social media video marketing.
1. Uplifts brand presence
It goes without saying that a strong brand presence is key to acquiring lucrative customers. Potential customers are more likely to approach brands that have a robust presence online. Very few marketing professionals are aware that video marketing possesses the potential to supercharge brand presence. Social media marketing videos can improve engagement levels, which can, in turn, strengthen your brand presence online.
With high quality marketing videos, you can quickly take your brand to the next level even if you have just entered the industry. Simply put, video marketing improves brand presence by boosting your content visibility on popular search engines like Google and Yahoo. When coupled with SEO best practices, your video marketing strategy can give an instant boost to your brand presence.
2. Improves trust with viewers
Another major advantage of social media videos is that they can improve your brand’s credibility to a great extent. Building a strong relationship with viewers is crucial for the growth of all businesses. A well-crafted video marketing strategy can help you improve trust with audiences. Since videos are an excellent medium of communication, they can effectively convey your brand value to customers.
Effective communication can pave the way for an improved bond with customers that can ultimately translate to more sales. You can also collaborate with illustrious influencers in your industry to boost the trust factor of your brand among people.
3. Higher number of social shares
It is a known fact that marketing videos have increased in popularity lately. It is because of the high number of shares that marketing videos get. Now that almost everyone uses a smartphone, sharing content across social media has become easier than ever. Thanks to their worldwide appeal, videos get shared a lot more than all other forms of content online. Thus, the more a video gets shared, the better your chances are of growing on social media.
A careful analysis of your video’s performance will enable you to make the most out of your marketing efforts. There are various metrics you can track to measure your campaign’s success. Start by analysing the view count to get a clear picture of how many times your videos have been watched online. The view count metric will instantly give you a deep insight into your content’s overall reach. Besides tracking the view count, you should keep an eye on other metrics like click-through rate, total number of online shares, comments and likes, interactions, etc.
With all this insightful data at your disposal, you can make the necessary tweaks to your videos to ensure the best possible outcomes in the future. You can harness the insights to create content that better suits the preferences of your audience. You can further personalise your content by considering demographic details like age, gender, geographic location, etc., of your potential viewers. Facebook Analytics and Instagram Insights are two mainstream tools using which you can extract performance-related information from your campaigns. Moreover, there are numerous other free analytics tools available online that can come to your rescue at any time.
Takeaway
There is no denying that growing internet adoption has brought about a major increase in the number of social media users worldwide. Since the internet population is expected to rise to 5.3 billion in the coming year, social media marketers have a remarkable opportunity at hand. While many marketing tools are available out there, nothing can beat video content in terms of mass appeal and virality. A well-planned video marketing strategy can take your business to remarkable heights a lot faster than you expect.
However, a lot of effort, time and dedication go into crafting a strong marketing plan. Strategies that are crafted without knowledge of the latest technology advances fail to yield the desired results. This is why marketers must stay up-to-date with the newest tech trends to maintain an edge over competitors. The nicest part is that you do not have to break your bank to invest in any top-end video making equipment.
You can now make scroll-stopping marketing videos for social media from the comfort of your couch. You just need a laptop and internet connection to start off your video marketing journey on social media. No matter what social media platforms you are targeting, it is highly suggested that you keep all your videos short and crisp. Also, make sure you keep the aforementioned points in mind while harnessing the power of video marketing to build your brand presence online.