How To Share Compelling Video Storytelling In Your Social Media Marketing

The single most important strategy in today’s content marketing world is using video.

Whether it’s video on Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat or YouTube, the content you need to be thinking about creating and marketing on social media for your business is video. Period!

No matter what you’re selling, no matter what your company does, if you don’t have a video marketing strategy for the biggest video platforms, you are going to lose out. And in case you haven’t noticed, the platforms for distributing video content online have shifted drastically over the last 18 months.

Facebook is getting more daily minutes watched than YouTube, Snapchat’s daily views are now in the billions, and video on Twitter has taken listening and one-to-one branding to a whole new level.

Here are some more shocking video marketing stats…

Now, maybe I’ve scared you a bit, but don’t worry because I’m here to make sure you understand the landscape of all of the biggest, most important social platforms right now. By the end of this article, you’ll have the information you need to dominate at video marketing. I promise.

Social media marketing along with making videos is easy due the flexibility of both components. All you need to know is the right way to use them.

What is a social media video?

The term “social media” covers a lot of territory. Each social network has a unique audience, social videos need to be optimized for different channels.

A video that works on Facebook may need a serious editing before it can work on Instagram. And you might have to take an entirely different approach for a video on Snapchat or Twitter.

If it’s pre-recorded, social videos need to be shareable. You’re not just optimizing for the channel, but for shareability as well. Different things make content shareable, from the emotions it induces, to the traditional story structures it uses.

Live social videos need to be about authenticity and real-time engagement. They should feel like a conversation between you and the viewer.

Many people confuse social media-videos with viral videos, but there is a key difference.

Watch this video of Gary Vaynerchuk as he talks about the power of social media marketing.

The effect of video on each social media platform

Almost all the social media platforms leverage the power of video and now it’s a well known fact that each of these platforms work differently with video.

To master in video marketing and social media strategies, it is very important for you to know the nuts and bolts of each site individually.

YouTube is a library of video content

Let’s get started at the top with the obvious grand daddy of online video “YouTube.” Yes it is huge, with 300 hours worth of video content being pushed to YouTube every minute.

YouTube is valuable for business, for growing brands, and for reaching new audiences. So, it is clear that over the years, YouTube will continue to be a video content giant for businesses and personal brands.

But the problem with YouTube is that it’s in a downward trend compared to Facebook’s 4 billion daily video streams; a number that’s only going to continue to grow with time.

Due to its sheer size, there’s a ton of competition amongst videos on YouTube and all fighting to be seen. When you have a platform with over a billion users, all wanting the same thing (exposure), it’s going to get noisy. And that’s been figured out.

In short, marketers have ruined it. Because of that, it’s much harder to break through the noise which makes hosting your content on the platform much less valuable.

Additionally, YouTube doesn’t have the capabilities of some other growing video platforms, and so far, they haven’t shown signs of catching up.

“So, what exactly are those capabilities other platforms have?” you might ask.

Well, here’s the big one: data. Data, data, data. And the leader in that domain is, without a doubt, Facebook.

Image Source: Skyword

Facebook video content is all-in-one

Facebook content is smart, shareable, and personal. Facebook video for my brand has become the best way to reach my fans on a large scale.

Couple that with their new video ad products for sales and direct response marketing, and the fact that they’re the greatest data company of all time for marketers, and you have some serious reasons to spend some big money on Facebook video ads, and video content.

Just give it a thought. If you’re creating video content for YouTube, and not putting those videos onto Facebook as well, your brand or business is losing distribution on a powerful platform.

Image Source: Warren Knight

And I don’t mean cross channel promotion by simply pasting a link to YouTube on your Facebook page as a status update. I mean uploading the video natively to Facebook, so that it lives in your Facebook page’s video content.

Why? Because right now,Facebook’s Newsfeed algorithm is placing an enormous amount of weight on videos, otherwise known as “reach.”

When you upload videos natively, instead of linking out, you have a much higher chance of your video being seen by your community (and new fans, too). Google and Facebook are competitors, so if you think Facebook wants to have YouTube links perform well in their Newsfeed algorithm, you better think again.

Image Source: Skyword

Facebook Vs. YouTube

YouTube should honestly be concerned; Facebook is already on its way to becoming a massive competitor when it comes to video marketing and content distribution. They are sitting on an enormous amount of targetable consumer data. It creates the ultimate marketing machine.

For example, let’s say you upload a video natively, like I talked about before, about “the best places to eat ice cream outdoors in your town.” You could then spend money on a sponsored video to directly market your brand’s video to people who:

• love ice cream
• live in your area
• have kids.

Automatically, you’re reaching the audience who is the most interested and most profitable to your business.

But while Facebook should be an enormous priority, don’t ignore the other social channels that might be more in tune with your brand. There are a ton of other social channels to be creating video content for that offer what marketers love — reach and attention.

Image Source: PostRocket

Let’s go into a couple of the big ones.

Video on Twitter is for engagement

Twitter’s new video product, which was released late January of this year,  has changed the way people use content on this platform.

Video on Twitter is truly “social” and the best way to use Twitter video is by connecting and engaging, rather than just pushing.

As Twitter has grown in size, it’s become a listening platform. Six years ago, I could send a tweet and get more engagement on it than I do now. I had less of an audience, but the audience was paying closer attention. It was more serious. Now the amount of information and users on that platform have become so intense that it’s hard to have that same engagement. It’s diffcult to get anyone’s attention.

That’s why the game, the real way to win with Twitter video, is through engagement — using it as a “pull” rather than a “push.”

The truth is, people respond to the effort. With Twitter’s new video feature, they’ve been able to take that feeling to the next level.

All you have to do is get in there and engage. Reply to a tweet using the camera option, select video, and start talking. It takes me nine to twelve seconds to make a video and reply, but those extra seconds hold a lot of meaning.

Not to mention it’s more personal, visual, and we are living in a world where the visual is often regarded as a better engagement than the written.

Image Source: CashSherpa

Video on Snapchat is all about the attention

Snapchat marketing is huge right now. More than 60% of U.S. 13 to 34 year-old smartphone users are Snapchatters.

They now have more than two billion video views a day, and there are a few interesting things about Snapchat regarding their platform and how it works.

Snapchat gets your undivided attention because of the individual stories available. It’s also one of the only platforms in which you can draw creative on top of the video, creating opportunities for some awesome Snapchat exclusive artists like Shonduras.

Most importantly, videos have a maximum life of twenty four hours or less if the users choose to make it so. A video can last as little as a second. The urgency to see something before it disappears can be a huge factor.

I had a very successful start on the platform by advising Snapchat users to screenshot the snap before it disappeared and post it to Twitter to get a reply from me. People respond to that kind of urgency.

Image Source: MediaKix

The hype of Snapchat marketing

Now, marketers are getting really serious about Snapchat as a platform to reach an enormous number of people due to some key changes Snapchat has made.

Earlier this year, Snapchat launched the Discover section of the app. It’s a feature that allows users to receive content provided by media companies. Current participants include National Geographic, Vice, ESPN, and more. Eleven participants in all. It’s a very serious play on the company’s part because it puts it in a very aggressive place with the overall user interface of the app. It completely changes how the app is both perceived and used.

I might also mention that Snapchat is now basically handing brands the 13 to 34 year-old demographic through  the use of their Discover feature. Brands can have ads pre-roll before the content.

And while you may not be able to afford the pre-roll program that they have, just the mere fact that these big brands and media companies have signed on should tell you something. Teens and young adults use Snapchat all day and night. It’s one of their main forms of communication, and because of that, you need to care about it and learn to talk to them on on the platform.

Convinced?

Image Source: 451heat.com

Video on Instagram is a #NewMarketingTrend

Instagram was bought by Facebook on April, 9, 2012. At the time, Instagram had only 30 million users and introduced advertising for selected brands in October 2013, but didn’t open up for all marketers until September 2015.

48.8% of brands are on Instagram and by 2017, it is predicted to rise to 70.7%.

Video ads offer the same visually, immersive quality as photo ads on Instagram – with the power of sight, sound and motion. And now, you can share videos up to 60 seconds long and in landscape format. When Instagram first introduced videos, more than 5 million were shared within the first 24 hours!

So, if your brand is not on Instagram yet, it’s time that you revise your Instagram marketing plan.

Image Source: Incredible Marketing

Wrap

If you are not using video in your social media marketing yet, you should be. A third of all online activity is spent watching videos and with 90% of users saying that they found product videos helpful while making an online purchase decision, you want to make sure your hat is in the social video ring.

These statistics can help you build a strong marketing plan with the perfect video distribution strategy for each platform.

Guest Author: Mehroz Khan is an Entrepreneur and Co-founder at Videoexplainers-Video production company. He is a blogger, strategist, social media marketing specialist and growth strategist. His expertise includes marketing and video production. He regularly writes on Videoexplainers where he talks about explainer video, its various business advantages (increased website conversions, high sales, qualified leads, and facilitating customers’ understanding level) and the massive video impact on customers. Follow Mehroz on Twitter: @mehrozanwer, connect with him on LinkedIn: Mehroz Khan or email him at mehroz@videoexplainers.com.

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