How to use Video on Social Media

Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Linkedin, and YouTube have come a long way since their inception as has the concept of video on social media. They are no longer solely a place for people to connect with friends, they have become the perfect platform for brands to utilize video marketing.

Video content combined with social media is one of the best platforms for companies to digitally sell their products & services while simultaneously building brand recognition.

If you feel like you are venturing into the unknown when it comes to video marketing, it’s important to come up with a strategic plan to tackle your social media video.

Here is an example of what NOT to do:

‘Company A’ spends $2,000 to create a 2-minute promo video. They post this video to all their social media channels without any specific strategy. They wait a few days for their video to go viral and are disappointed with the minimal views, likes, shares, and comments that occur.

Don’t be like Company A.

Follow these guidelines to strengthen your social media video strategy and convert more followers into customers.

We can’t just be willy nilly posting videos for the fun of it like Company A. Before even beginning production, it’s important to take the time to plan out your social media video strategy. The two biggest things you need to identify are WHY and WHO.

Define Your Goal
WHY are you using video as part of your social media strategy? It can be something as simple as:

• To drive more people to your website
• To showcase your products
• To promote the great work you are doing in the community

By defining your goal first, you can streamline the video marketing process and ensure all future content represents these goals.

Define Your Target Audience
WHO will be engaging with your content or more importantly who do you want to engage? This will come in handy when you are targeting your video ads down the road.

Different demographics resonate better with certain social media platforms. For example, while Facebook caters to almost anyone, it tends to see a higher percentage of mid-aged users while Instagram & TikTok have become the more common platform for younger generations.

Most, if not all social media channels support video and are actually promoting video posts at higher rates.

Identify your top 2-3 performing social media channels and focus your efforts on them, to begin with. Once you have those perfected you can begin to tackle the rest.

The following social media channels all incorporate video:

• Facebook
• YouTube
• Instagram
• Twitter
• LinkedIn

As one of the oldest social platforms, Facebook is where most of your audience is probably comfortable. It’s where we connect with our family and friends and because of that, it’s a place where your videos can have the most ROI thanks to social sharing.

Facebook’s video marketing game is so strong these days that:

• 78% of marketers plan to use Facebook Video in 2019
• Roughly 45% of users watch at least an hour or more of Facebook videos or YouTube videos in a week

Use video on Facebook to:

• Humanize your brand
• Engage with potential customers
• Build positive and ongoing relationships with your audience
• Provide an inside look into your business
• Interact personally with your audience through live video feeds

Types of Video for Facebook:

• Brand Promo Video
• Live Streaming
• Entertainment/Pop Culture videos
• Behind the Scenes
• Q&A’s
• Customer Testimonials
• Success Stories

YouTube is the second largest search engine. No matter the content, language, lengths, or theme all types of videos can thrive on YouTube.

Use video on YouTube to:

• Model your brand as an industry expert & educate viewers
• Showcase how your products & services work
• Find new customers through the Google algorithm
• Transform your company into a media channel

Types of Video for YouTube:

• Brand Promo videos
• Instructional Videos
• Q&A’s
• Product Tutorials
• Customer Testimonials