The best thing you can do to grow your small business is to create a video campaign for the new year. Now’s the time to start planning it to determine how you are going to implement it and what you need to do. Recently, I watched a webinar from IgniteVisibility on video marketing techniques and ideas that was not only very helpful, but had a bevy of information on what types of videos work best with each social media network. Furthermore, they explained what worked best for different target audiences. I’ve embedded the video at the bottom. First check out the key talking points that I found most valuable…
Some Online Video Stats
- 55% of Google searches return at least 1 video.
- 8 out of 10 of the videos listed are on YouTube.
- Social videos get shared 1,200% more times than ordinary posts. Yes, that’s correct.
What Works in Video Marketing
On the video, they first showed examples of video marketing that’s working. They count the views. Obviously, the more views a video gets, the more it will come up in organic algorithm suggestions.
Restaurants and Food Service
- Close-up of mouth-watering food prep, 5-10 seconds, works best. Definitely, under 30 seconds max.
- Of course, they must be high-quality.
- Fun, creative and appealing. The viewer should be thinking, “That’s making me hungry!”
Retail
- The shopping experience
- Cute kids
- Short, sweet, and to the point
- Product demos
What Works for Which Social Media Networks
Horizontal videos work best for…
- YouTube
- Embedding in blog articles
Vertical videos work best for…
- Instagram Reels
- Stories on Facebook, Instagram, and new YouTube shorts
- TikTok
- Snapchat (is anyone still using Snapchat?)
- Entertainment
- Inspirational
- Emotionally appealing
- Long-form
- Without sound — just using captions or text
Fun, emotional videos with sound. Besides that, use relevant hashtags.
- Reels – <15 seconds
- IGTV – <3 minutes – short, explainer videos or product demos. Also, wow-factor.
- Stories – 5 seconds
- News, hot topics
- Animated gifs
- Interviews
- Shorts
- LinkedIn video posts are 20x more likely to be shared!
- Educational
- Rally or praise others
- Q & A videos
- Team building
- Relevant hashtags
YouTube
Clearly, YouTube is still the 2nd largest search engine next to its parent, Google. Also, the 2nd largest social media network next to Facebook.
- Post on YouTube and get ranked on Google in seconds!
- Educational videos…
- “How to” is the most-search-for phase
- “Best way to…”
- “Product Review”
- Long-form
- Problem-solving
- Discovery
- Evergreen content — In other words, YouTube videos have a very long “shelf-life”. Therefore, try not to “date” your videos seasonally, if you can.
Google My Business
Google now allows business to post videos directly to their Google My Business page! That means that they get indexed instantly in the search engine. However, I do recommend reviewing their Content Policy. Here are their video guidelines:
Make sure your videos meet the following requirements:
- Duration: Up to 30 seconds long
- File size: Up to 100 MB
- Resolution: 720p or higher
Video Marketing Tips
- First and foremost, know your target audience well! What do they like? What do they watch? Which network do they prefer? On what do they watch it? (Phone, tablet, computer, HDTV?)
- Research
- Competition – what are they doing?
- Consumer interest
- Opportunity – low-hanging fruit
- Consistent brand equity — all videos should have the same look and branding with a watermark or logo.
- Have movement in the 1st 2 seconds
- State the benefits in the 1st 15 seconds
- Consider the niche and theme tag words
- Consider the video requirements for each channel — aspect ratios, size of file, content, etc. For instance, you can put a video as your Facebook cover graphic, but the dimensions are narrower than the standard YouTube horizontal video. File size and video length also must be considered. Unfortunately, each platform has its own preferred guidelines and requirements. It’s best to go over them first before you try to upload content that’s too long or too big of a file.
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Determine if you’ll need professional equipment and a studio set up.
How Often Should You Create and Post a Video?
Yes, videos take more time to produce if you want to do them right. Nevertheless, they work! You can’t deny that. For a successful video marketing strategy, they recommend…
- 1, long-form, horizontal video a week (When I heard that, I thought, “Yeah, right!” See, even I find it hard to find the time, even to blog! Yet, I do it because it works!) Post these to YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn and your blog.
- 2-4 vertical shorts for social media – TikTok, Instagram, Stories, YouTube Shorts
All in all, you need to get comfortable doing videos. If you don’t feel that you’re a good on-camera person, get a friend to help you. Writing the script may also be challenging. If you don’t have the budget to hire someone, your local public library may offer writing classes. You have to weigh your time, budget, and quality of your content to decide whether to attempt it on your own, or outsource the project. If you you try to do it yourself, will the quality be there? Also, how long will it take you to do it. Consider, how much is your time worth?
For instance, I needed new intro and exit splashes for my training videos. I know I CAN do them. However, it probably would take me days to do them, when I could hire a pro to do them for me and I can focus on something else. Likewise, same with editing existing videos to make them shorter commercials. (My go-to video team is Financial Potion Video Production.)
Video Content Marketing In 2022 Webinar