Do you want to refresh your social media marketing? Video is a great way to engage your audience, but it can be difficult to determine what options will work for your brand. Let’s break down five valuable options for your consideration.
1. Live videos
If you have a significant following, Facebook Live, YouTube Live, and other streaming services make it easy to connect with your audience. Livestreaming lets you dialogue with your users.
#Livestreaming makes sense if you have a significant following, says @realjoeforte. Click To Tweet
Live videos often are most effective for announcements, behind-the-scenes looks, and product information videos. Regular short video updates can continuously engage your audience, while longer live video sessions can be a way to dig deeper with your followers through Q&A sessions and direct chats.
Tips for successfully adding live videos to your content marketing mix:
- Test your live video setup to make sure all your technology works.
- Lighting and sound are incredibly important. Invest in the right technology.
- Promote your livestreams on your social media accounts well ahead of time.
- Use scheduling tools, such as Facebook’s Premieres, to make your video more visible.
- Livestream at the same time every week – regularly scheduled programming – for your audience.
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2. Tutorial videos
Tutorial videos have mass appeal and are among the most frequently shared on social media. The videos can relate to your products and services or can be broader topics that relate to your audience and industry.
Tutorial videos need to be clear, educational, and entertaining. They need to be long enough to show every step and short enough to be engaging. The most important information needs to appear in the first minute, while the total video shouldn’t be longer than a few minutes.
Absolut created popular tutorial videos for drink recipes using Absolut Vodka. They’re interesting, entertaining, and shareable.
Tips for incorporating tutorial videos in your content marketing mix:
- Ask your followers about what tutorials they would be most interested to watch.
- Remain active in comments and respond to messages throughout the video’s life.
- Make the videos clear and to the point – they’ll be easier to follow.
- Don’t rely too much on tools or techniques your followers aren’t likely to have or understand.
- Have a clear call to action at the end of the tutorial video.
3. Informational videos
Informational videos can cover any topic. Build your content archive with videos on a variety of relevant topics. Make them unique, clever, or insightful. When adding video to your social media, concentrate on content likely to be shared – something valuable to make it worth the viewer’s time.
When adding #video to your #socialmedia, concentrate on content likely to be shared, advises @realjoeforte. Click To Tweet
Informational videos can come off as boring or dry if they aren’t produced correctly. Your content should not only be interesting to the viewer, but should also provoke the viewer to want to share it.
Notarize, an on-demand, remote notary delivery service, created a popular informational video to explain the premise of its application. It explains its app using humor and absurdity.
The same information could have been displayed in a more professional tone, but that likely wouldn’t have appealed to its core demographic – those who don’t have a go-to notary.
Tips for adding informational videos to your content marketing mix:
- Infuse the videos with personality that matches your brand identity.
- Don’t make the videos too long or too detailed.
- Analyze which videos perform the best to inform your future informational videos.
- Invest more time and money in these videos, as they’re likely cornerstones of your content.
- Pay attention to what people say on social media: What do they want more of?
4. Behind-the-scenes videos
Behind-the-scenes videos are a great way to make your company and your team more personable. Highlight day-to-day operations, your offices, your manufacturing processes, and more. Interview employees, talk to the vendors you’re closest to, or speak with your best customers. All of these things are designed to give prospective customers a better idea of how your company works and who you are.
This type of video is designed to build trust and brand identity. When followers interact with brands online, they may not have a firm sense of the brand’s identity. It is difficult to convey the brand personality in just a few characters on a screen. Video really gives the opportunity to dig down into what makes a brand exceptional.
A memorable behind-the-scenes video will grow a relationship between company and customer – and if the video is entertaining or sufficiently informative, it will be shared. Honda Manufacturing takes hundreds of thousands behind the scenes of its car production.
A memorable behind-the-scenes #video can grow a relationship b/n company and customer, says @realjoeforte. Click To Tweet
They are well-produced, informative, and insightful. They also are unexpected because car buyers don’t typically see how their new purchases are manufactured.
Tips for adding behind-the-scenes videos to your content marketing:
- Don’t be afraid to infuse these videos with personality.
- Think about the little things that employees do throughout the day that your customers might find interesting.
- Use behind-the-scenes videos to tell the story of your products, your brand, your people.
- Incorporate customers, vendors, or employees into a behind-the-scenes video.
5. User-generated videos
User-generated content is quickly becoming a fantastic and easy way to engage an audience. You can encourage your users to create videos and incorporate your hashtags into the upload to give them more exposure.
User-generated content is a brilliant way to grow an audience because users are more inclined to share content they create. Viewing the user-generated content also is an excellent way to get a feel for your audience members’ personalities and what they’re interested in.
When requesting user-generated videos, the most important aspect is to directly interact with and acknowledge your audience. Your users make an effort to produce content for you: They need to be properly rewarded. Praise the best content, share all the content, and give attribution to all the users. Encourage users to share content they like (not just their own), and make sure you track your hashtags.
Tips for adding user-generated videos to your content marketing:
- Encourage users to get creative or silly with their content.
- Make sure to properly attribute the content to the creators and thank them.
- Encourage featured users to share the videos with their friends.
- Ask other users to vote on content or to share the content they like the most.
- Consider a giveaway or contest linked to user-generated videos.
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Lights, camera, action
Build the foundation of a strong video campaign step by step. By consistently producing different types of videos, you can bring in an audience from multiple platforms and demographics. A healthy mix of video content on social is essential to making sure your video content campaign continues to grow – and your social media continues to attract followers.
Get lots of information on content marketing through Content Marketing World video on demand.
Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute