Regardless of the size or type of business you are in if you still have not considered social media video as a marketing tool you are missing out. By ignoring social media video marketing, you are excluding a large audience from your business services and therefore losing out on considerable profits.
By spending any amount of time on social media nowadays your will see that there are an increasing number of videos surfacing daily, and not only from YouTube. Facebook video has now surpassed YouTube in terms of the number of posts. Along with Facebook video’s increased popularity you now also have Instagram ‘micro video’, Vine and Twitter’s 30 second videos. For this reason it is obvious that you should start using video – but where to start?
If you search around you will discover that there are more and more brands using video to reach their target audience and build a relationship with them. This would not have been possible using traditional content.
Due to the incredibly high saturation of video content it is unlikely that a mediocre video clip will gain any traction. In order to reach a wider audience, you will need to consider whether what you are broadcasting has any value to the user? Is it unique? Helpful? Entertaining? Does it show your audience how to take action, and is it complimentary to your image?
It has become increasingly apparent that social media video production is a vital part of a sustainable, effective and far-reaching content marketing strategy. In the end video content is what drives the internet nowadays and it is not going anywhere soon.
The difference comes when you take yourself out of your position and place yourself in the shoes of your customer. Chances are that if you are not engaged and watching the video to the end, your customers are experiencing the same. By sharing interesting, engaging and unique content you are sure to attract the attention of your users, as well as increasing your fan base due to users sharing your posts.
Although the demand for social media video content is still in its early stages, users are consuming more than ever before particularly on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube. This means the demand is increasing daily.
Even though short form video has become more and more popular, it is still currently overlooked and under-utilised by many businesses. Recent studies show that only 10% of companies admitted to trying it out. This is unfortunate because not only is it easy to use and effective in engaging customers, it is also effective across several platforms, not only Vine and Instagram.
A further common mistake of social media video makers is assuming they must imitate other popular videos. Instead of directly mimicking another company’s content it is far more effective to create your own ideas that may move the customer to think outside the box, or leave their comfort zone, causing them to think and then directing them to the content that is more familiar.
Paul J. Zak wrote a research article for the Harvard Business Review called Why Your Brain Loves Good Storytelling, which explained that great stories stimulate the release of oxytocin, the hormone responsible for social bonding. This is what you should be pursuing with your followers – when you are able to connect with your audience emotionally, they are more likely to respond to everything else.