A video marketing strategy fit for social media

If you haven’t thought about video for your marketing strategy yet, now is a good time. Especially for social media! Try to find someone who isn’t on social media, and who doesn’t watch at least one video a day. Impossible, don’t you think? If you don’t know where to start, we’ve got some ideas to inspire you and some practical tips that you can use to improve your marketing strategy.

The attention of a goldfish

The attention span of humans has been compared to that of a goldfish, whose average duration is 9 seconds. Today, it isn’t easy to capture people’s attention. Our phones are constantly buzzing with various types of alerts, many of them unsolicited and so similar to each other that we tend to ignore them altogether or quickly scroll through them (and not really reading them at all). It’s no wonder that our attention spans have gradually decreased!

What is certain is that video is becoming the undisputed king on social networks. If we want our audience to have their eyes on us, we need to keep some basic concepts in mind.

Video is a versatile and engaging tool that has acquired significant value for video marketers. Depending on the stage of the customer journey that the marketer is targeting, video could employ different themes. These include:

1. Awareness: in the first step of the journey, offer a short story and the most important information about the product you intend to introduce to your audience. In this case, it is best to keep the length short and make the content accessible and engaging. Here, the video should be clear, concise, and dynamic. Inserting a CTA in the final part will allow the user to access more detailed information.
2. Consideration: here, the user is considering whether or not to buy the product, comparing it to others offered by your competitors. In this case, provide testimonials or demos that help differentiate your product or service so that it stands out from similar offerings that he may have seen. This type of video can be longer because more details lead to a more informed choice.
3. Decision: in the last phase of the customer journey, the user clearly expresses the preference for your brand and the intention to purchase the product or service offered. Here, you can opt for a video on how to use your product or service in the best way and demonstrate the benefits that it guarantees.

The length of the video also varies depending on the social network where it will be used. The general rule is, you need a good reason to make a long video. So, keep it short! Generally speaking, taking into consideration the general decrease in attention that we mentioned earlier, Hubspot recommends:

• Facebook: 1 minute. Users like short videos that they can quickly watch, like and share
• Instagram: 30 seconds. The human brain processes images 60,000 times faster than text. Keeping the video short helps our brains process the message better and reduces churn.
• YouTube: 2 minutes. Usually, a user goes to Youtube when he wants more in-depth knowledge about a product or because he or she just wants to watch videos about the brand they like. In this case, Youtube is an ideal platform for creating longer content.
• Twitter: 45 seconds. According to Hubspot, users are accustomed to short updates, such as a 140-character tweet. As in the case of Instagram, it is best to keep the video short for this platform.

Different points of view, but a common solution: video

Different social networks have different audiences with different priorities, so if you have longer content with audio, it would be better to use YouTube, as opposed to Facebook which should be used when the content is shorter and without audio.

Anyone who does video marketing and intends to promote their business on social media knows (or should know) that it is not enough to publish regularly, but also to make sure that the content published is relevant to the target audience.

According to a survey conducted by Hubspot, the type of content also varies by age. For example, Millennials prefer video and social content, as opposed to Gen X and boomers who prefer more news articles, research reports, and email content. The key is to find the right balance between the two. The survey confirms a preference for video format in all age groups. In fact, younger consumers prefer to see more content on social media, but they also use social media as a channel for product research. This does not mean abandoning email, blogs, or websites in your communication strategy. The main channel of information is still the brand’s website, for all age groups. Social platforms are key to gaining brand awareness in consumers, while the company’s website is still an important source of information.

How to do video marketing on social media

Posting on social media increases site traffic. Search engine optimization is very important for getting a higher page ranking and getting traffic to your website. It is an indirect benefit of being on social media. In fact, Social Media Examiner states that over 58% of marketers who use social media improve their search engine rankings. Using the right keywords and working on SEO allows you to rank in the top positions, obtaining a considerable competitive advantage for your business.

Video helps customers not only gain trust in companies, they are also able to inform themselves about the company or their product through an interactive medium. Eighty-eight per cent of marketers are satisfied with the return on investment (ROI) of their social media video marketing efforts.

Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram are the three best platforms for video marketing. Specifically, Instagram is the fastest growing platform for driving video shopping. Nearly nine in ten marketers (88%) say they want to use video marketing on YouTube.

On Facebook, on the other hand, 76% of video marketers plan to share their business through a video. The video feature has recently appeared on LinkedIn (2017), but in 2020, two thirds (66%) of marketers say they use it for their business.

What should we consider when choosing to use video marketing on social media? Here are the factors on which to base your actions.

1. Interactivity: create easily shareable videos that prompt the person watching it to take action. Through the adoption of tools made available by digital innovation, interactivity is also a way to obtain information on customers. How? An example would be to insert questions into the video using calls to action. In this way, viewers answer questions about themselves; this data is used to subsequently create tailored sales communications, making lead conversion more likely.
2. Emotion: generating emotion is one of the most effective methods for persuading and moving your audience. Inspiring emotions or teaching your audience something new are both characteristics that make it more likely for your content to be liked or shared. This is the case with #LikeAGirl, a video made for Always, an American underwear company. The boys in the film are asked to run, fight, or throw an object “like a girl”. The same request is then made to younger children. The results showed that little girls do what they are asked, while adolescents and children begin to make faces and make fun of themselves as if the expression “like a girl” had taken on a negative connotation for them. In the video, there is a strong theme of equal opportunities and equality between men and women. The video went viral and has been shared thousands of times on social media.
3. SEO optimization: adapt the video to the algorithms of each social network based on how they work. For example, Twitter prioritizes breaking news and updates, as opposed to Facebook where the topics and timeframes are more varied. In this case, there is a greater chance that the user will take action while viewing the video. Google Analytics is useful for understanding more about how your video performs, who watches them, and when. This is also a great way to learn where your videos are performing best and where they are being shared.
4. Personalization: we live in a world overflowing with content that we have learned to select. One of the biggest enemies of video marketing is “dropouts.” Many users stop watching videos after just a few moments, so the first 30 seconds are key to capturing your viewer’s attention. In the case of Facebook, 85% of videos are watched without audio (renderforest.com). Start by creating a storyboard of your idea to make sure that your point can be understood in the first part of the video, through the use of short phrases and images. The use of data available on your audience is essential to generate an impact in the few seconds available to the video. So, don’t start with a generic introduction!
5. More empathy: to better understand this concept, let’s look at an example. In the world of cosmetic advertising, “Dove” is a prominent player. The company decided not to produce self-referencing videos, instead of creating the”Choose Beautiful” video campaign that focuses on the benefits of high self-esteem and the belief in one’s inner beauty in a world marked by unrealistic beauty standards. From here we can certainly include storytelling, which has also invaded the business world, at all levels, where it is important to both tell and listen to customers. Customers are no longer interested in seeing and sharing a static ad, so be creative. Start by transforming the user into the protagonist of your video. To generate an emotional impact, the user must feel that the video is talking about him and his preferences and needs. Generating content to be heard means listening to the people we are addressing because the purpose of the video must be about more than just attracting attention. Communication is no longer one-way, it no longer serves only to reach customers: it also serves to establish a dialog with them.

“The average person watches over an hour and a half of online video content a day, with about 15% averaging over three hours.” (business2community.com)

Video has become an integral part of our daily habits. They can be about streaming services chosen for entertainment, videos that people watch to orient themselves in their purchasing choices, or training/education videos to learn something new. What is certain is that video is an important pillar of your marketing strategy, and video marketers must not underestimate it, but to master it.

Babelee

Copywriters, video creators, digital marketers and developers: this is who we are! Young, passionate, geeky and very keen on media and technology. Fancy to meet the team? Contact us or submit your cv, we love talented people.