How to use Video Marketing in your Social Media Campaigns

Created July 28, 2020

From the creation of Youtube over 11 years ago it’s clear that video is a big part of being online and over the last few years many business owners are slowly incorporating video into their marketing campaigns.

More and more businesses are using video to generate more leads for their business and in this article we will look at some tips for getting the most out of the content you create by using social media.

Video Marketing Tip 1 – Define the Purpose

You shouldn’t be making videos for the sake of it, as video production can be time consuming and expensive. Therefore every video that you create should have a purpose.

The purpose of the video could be to get people familiar with your brand, it could be to highlight a problem that they didn’t know existed, it could be to directly advertise your product and finally, it could be used to generate more fans for your social pages which nurtured can turn into sales down the line.

When you know the purpose of your video you can then work back from that and generate the content that is going to have the best effect and drive your business to your goal.

When you have a purpose you can then look for others in your industry and see what is working for them, and what content gaps there may be that you could fill.

Video Marketing Tip 2 – Define the Platforms you are going to Use.

You could argue that if you are creating videos why not use them on all platforms and for some businesses this may work. However, your target market more than likely won’t be on all of the platforms so you will need to find out where they hang out most and then focus on those platforms.

A younger market, for example, may hang around on Youtube and TikTok but not so much on Instagram or Snapchat. The reverse can be then said for a marketing campaign targetting older teenagers.

Finding out your demographic and where they hang out is going to result in your videos getting more views, more shares, and overall building your brand awareness.

Video marketing tip 3 – Make the most out of the resources you have.

Some businesses may have a photographer, a videographer, and an editing team but for most of us that won’t be the case and we will need to use all of the resources that we have and make the most out of them.

Thankfully you don’t need a professional camera to get started and some amazing results can be achieved by using your iPhone and cinematic lookup tables which can make your videos look professionally edited for a few bucks.

If you are shooting your video on a phone then to improve on the quality you can buy a cheap microphone that can be attached to your clothing and some small lighting rigs. These items can be found anywhere online and can make a huge difference in the quality of your final product. They are also much cheaper than investing in professional camera equipment if you can’t afford it right now.

Video Marketing Tip 4 – Include a call to action

As we discussed above your video should have a purpose. What we didn’t mention above is that your video should also tell your audience what they should do next.

For example, if you are producing a video to gain more followers at the end of the video your “call to action” should be to request that the user follows your account for more content.

If your goal is sales then you could produce a video explaining some of the benefits of your product and how it could help the user save time and money. At the end of that video you could request the user to book a free demo of your product so you can start your sales process.

Video marketing tip 5 – Experiment with your videos

You won’t know what works with your audience until you test your marketing. Some audiences would prefer longer in-depth videos while others would prefer short and snappy videos.

Experiment with the content you produce, the style of it, the length and anything else you can think of which could have a positive effect on your engagement levels.

The more engagement certain types of content creates the more of that content you should be producing. This once again goes back to your target market and the platforms they are using.

Generally, Youtube videos can be anything from a few minutes up to 30 while Snapchat stories are usually less than 30 seconds. Once again you will need to see what works with your audience but knowing different platforms have different length restrictions can help with your content creation process.

Video marketing tip 6 – Use live video

Social platforms such as Facebook and LinkedIn are now incorporating “live videos” into their networks. The reason why you should be using the live features is that these companies are pushing them to be successful, therefore if you take advantage of this you can drive additional traffic to your website.

Facebook Live and LinkedIn Live alerts all of your followers that you are “live” and because of this you get more eyeballs on the product or service that you offer. Now, this may not always be the case, when the live features have been around longer, maybe these platforms will take the emphasis away from them, so it’s worth taking advantage of the situation while you can.

Conclusion

If you are not using video in your social media marketing campaigns you are missing out on followers, engagement and in the long term sales. For local businesses, you can also stand out and generate more leads for your business because there is a high chance that the competition isn’t doing this. Video marketing takes a lot of effort but by using the tips above you can implement it into your business with ease.