You don’t have to be in the creative industry to realise just how important video content has become. More and more brands are turning to video to execute their advertising and brand messages as the chosen way to reach new and existing audiences. Some even argue that video is the single most important strategy in content marketing, and the statistics certainly support this;
- It is predicted that by 2021, 78% of all mobile traffic will be video
- 79% of consumers would rather watch a video to learn about a product or service than read text on a page
- A third of online activity is now spent watching video
- Social video generates 1200% more shares than text and image content combined
What is Social Video Marketing?
Social video is any video content that you create and share through social networks. The videos could be posts, ads, stories, cover videos or profile videos. However, wherever you post the video, its purpose is to encourage your audience to engage with your business and to remember it.
There are lots of different ways to create that engagement through video; about us videos, video testimonials, tutorial videos, recorded presentations, product demonstrations, event videos and customer case studies are just a few of the ways to apply video to your content marketing strategy.
Know your audience, your strategy, and fit the video to the platform
The social media landscape and the habits of its users are ever-changing, making it impossible to predict its future. The way people and brands use social media is also ever-changing, and with the volume of competition in the social media space, popular platforms are shifting their focus to emphasise more personal connections, and making advertisers work harder to make connections through engaging content like videos.
When creating and posting videos, it’s critical to know your target audience and different social platforms have different audiences with different priorities. For example, longer content might work well on YouTube, but not on Facebook where shorter content often performs better.
Current trends show Facebook is getting more daily minutes watched than YouTube and Snapchat’s daily views are now in the billions. Instagram stories is the fastest growing platform and around a third of the most viewed stories are from businesses, making it a great opportunity for showcasing video content.
One video doesn’t fit all
Businesses can no longer post one video across all social platforms; different videos should be created for different platforms. Consumers are going to different social platforms for different reasons, and the behaviour is different on each. For example, Facebook audiences tend to be on the go, on mobile, scrolling to discover, with no audio and little time. Whereas YouTube audiences are more likely to be searching for specific information, have the audio on and be ready to watch longer videos.
Video consumption is not expected to slow down however, it’s not enough to create videos with no clear objectives, brands consider the most appropriate videos for their audiences.
Be creative
The quality of creative will undoubtedly have a significant impact on delivery, especially on Facebook and Instagram, no matter how good the targeting strategy is, strong creative will bring much better returns. On average, people check their phones up to 80 times per day and the speed at which they do this is just one reason that eye-catching content is a must.
Social video is leveling the playing field when it comes to marketing, it is no longer just the brands with the big budgets and expensive ad campaigns gaining the most attention, today any business' video can sit alongside the big players on social media.
At bd2 we recognise the importance of good quality content, and video certainly offers us plenty of new ways for our clients to put their messages out there and get great results back.
Contact our in-house Videographer, David@bd2.co.uk to discuss further.