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In recent years, video has become the dominant form of online communication.
At the same time, social media platforms such as TikTok and YouTube are used daily by millions of people.
Even online advertising follows this trend.
So, the time has come for brands to make the change and place social media video marketing at the heart of their strategy.
If you’re new to the world of video marketing on social media, we’ve got your back. In this guide, you'll learn all about:
- What social media video marketing is
- Types of videos for social media marketing
- How to create a successful social media video marketing strategy
- Why social media video marketing matters
And there’s a bonus section for those who read until the end.
Let's get started!
What is Social Media Video Marketing?
Social media video marketing is part of a generalized marketing strategy through which brands communicate with the audience via video content on social media and the platforms that this audience uses.
Video is one of the most effective forms of content to reach a broader audience. Online videos have an audience reach of almost 93% worldwide.
The goal of a video marketing campaign on social media is to communicate the appropriate message in a more genuine way to effectively engage a target audience.
As a content type, video is promoted and shared on social media more than other types.
But, depending on your product, marketing goals, and target audience, your video marketing strategy might take different forms (or, more accurately, formats).
Let’s explore the most common video types you can include in your content marketing plans.
8 Different Types of Video for Social Media Marketing
Do you want to incorporate video marketing on social media, but don't know what best suits your needs?
No worries.
Below you’ll find a list of video content types and what you can achieve by using them.
Video type #1: Product demo videos
One way to create awareness around your product or service is to show people how they can use it to achieve different objectives. And that can be achieved through product walkthroughs.
One way to create great product demo videos is through customer research.
Once you understand what your audience wants to achieve when using your product, you can address that need in your video.
Video type #2: Q&A videos
The best way to satisfy a customer is by creating content that answers their most frequently asked questions.
Social networks are amazing channels to connect with your audience and find out what they’re looking for. After gathering your viewers’ inquiries, answer them in Q&A videos.
Doing so in real-time over a live video streaming session (e.g., on Facebook Live, at the end of webinars, etc.) can take user interaction even further.
Video type #3: Tutorials/explainer videos
How-to videos or tutorials are an amazing way to explain more about your products or services to your audience.
In fact, 96% of people turn to educational videos for that very reason.
So it's an opportunity for brands to create content that they know their users enjoy browsing.
Video type #4: Customer testimonials
Testimonials increase the credibility of a brand and confirm to a potential buyer that he’s making the right choice.
A survey revealed that customer testimonials and good reviews have the most influence on ecommerce purchases by a rate of 30%.
Customer testimonials in a video format can be a surprising way to gain many new customers.
Video type #5: Behind-the-scenes videos
If your goal is to connect more directly with your audience and give them a glimpse into what the company does, behind-the-scenes videos are ideal.
They showcase how the company creates a new product, along with the brand's culture and values.
You can also show parts of your daily working life, thereby creating deeper relationships with your social media audience.
Video type #6: Promotional videos
Care is needed here. While promotional videos can be very effective during sales periods, special offers secured for your audience can be off-putting if they are too salesy.
A survey showed that 52% of participants skipped advertisements. So, make sure your promotional videos are personalized, real, and tell a relevant story.
Use this type of video content when it's really worth it.
Video type #7: Event videos
Event videos are an amazing way to create connections with new people with shared interests.
These videos act as an open invitation for users interested in getting to know a company better. It’s a PR process that can bring brands to the fore.
Also, through online events, you can allow users to watch, by registering with their email.
Finally, you can repurpose event content to create short-form videos for social media.
Video type #8: UGC
User-generated content (UGC) videos are important to brands.
It's content generated by users themselves that showcases their experience with brands.
This type of content helps potential customers to make purchasing decisions.
If brands combine UGC videos with influencer marketing on social media they will have numerous benefits, from increasing brand awareness to creating brand loyalty and trust.
And since you now know the video types to consider for your campaign, the following section is all about how to create a successful marketing strategy from scratch.
6 Steps for a Successful Social Media Video Marketing Strategy
Before you jump into creating content for social media, you’ll need to create a detailed plan that will define your options and organize the processes.
If you want your video marketing campaign to succeed, it's better to rely on strategy than luck.
That's why in this section, you’ll learn how to create a successful strategy that will pay off.
1. Set goals
What better place to start?
The goals in digital marketing are presented as key performance indicators (KPIs).
These goals depend on what brands want to achieve and the approach they choose to follow.
That approach depends on where consumers are in the marketing funnel of your business.
In more detail, the stages in a typical marketing funnel can be:
- Awareness: Reach new potential customers
- Consideration: Generate demand based on your audience’s needs
- Decision: Drive potential customers to convert
- Adoption: Educate customers and provide them with value
- Advocacy: Inspire and create a community
These stages largely define the brand's video marketing strategy.
It’ll be necessary to invest enough time at this point to create a functional and goal-oriented plan.
2. Pick your social media platforms
Choosing the right social channel for your video marketing campaigns is important.
The reason is that you want to reach an audience that’s interested in the solution you offer and which finds value in your products or services.
And it seems that video is the most helpful form of content when shopping online.
Also, the social media platforms you choose for your video marketing campaign will largely determine the style of your videos.
While these platforms share a lot in common in terms of video format requirements, there are many features where they differ:
- Duration of the videos: TikTok supports videos up to 3 minutes long while YouTube videos can be longer than 15 minutes.
- The aesthetics: Instagram videos are more professional looking while TikTok content is more spontaneous and playful.
- The ability to use music: TikTok allows you to use music for free, unlike YouTube.
- Augmented reality (AR) features: Snapchat supports video with a wide range of AR options.
- Engage with industry leaders: A tweet scheduler can greatly streamline your social media management by allowing you to plan and schedule tweets in advance, ensuring consistent and timely content delivery.
And more!
3. Create different types of videos
As we saw in the previous section, there are many different kinds of videos, all serving different purposes.
So you can use more than one type of video to suit your goals and audience. Also, you create different content depending on the platform you’ve chosen.
For example, you can publish a short video to invite your viewers to an event through Instagram Reels, while you host the entire event as a live stream on your brand’s YouTube automation channel. And then you can upload short snippets of the event on TikTok.
The key here is to repurpose your content and recycle it across your channels to ensure greater reach.
There are no limits here. Video production just needs imagination.
4. Come up with a video content plan and calendar
The plan will help you organize your ideas and the content of each video that will be produced from the beginning to the end of your campaign.
It’s a tool that will help determine the stage you’re at and the actions that need to be taken.
A calendar can help keep all the steps needed to run your campaign consistent. It’s something that is defined mainly at the beginning and saves you time throughout your social media video marketing strategy.
Clearly, there are content planners on the social media platforms themselves, but you can also use external task management or calendar tools, especially if you also have external partners.
5. Schedule and promote your videos
Here, we’re dealing with the organization of publications and their promotion on channels.
If you have a lot of content, it can be time-consuming to upload it manually.
The good thing is that most social media platforms have the ability to schedule your content and thus your video campaign can be easily put on autopilot.
Finally, promotion is an important factor in the success of your content.
Define all the actions you plan to take to promote your video marketing campaign on social media channels from the beginning. Plan ahead in terms of:
- Working with influencers
- Leveraging video ads
- Sharing content on multiple channels at the same time
6. Analyze and adjust
The final stage, where the progress of our campaign is judged.
At this stage, we observe the progress of our video marketing strategy based on the KPIs we defined in the targeting stage.
Some metrics we may be interested in are:
- Engagement rates: Engagement is one of the most important factors for organic growth of your videos. It refers to your audience’s comments, likes, and shares.
- Conversion rate: It measures the percentage of people your campaign convinced to make a purchase or perform any other action that turns a potential client into a customer.
- Click-through rate: This metric measures the extent to which your audience engages with your content and takes action.
- Video view count: This one defines the number of people who watched your campaign.
- Follower/subscriber growth: It showcases how attractive your content was to your audience and if they found it valuable enough to become followers.
- Average view duration: It’s the average attention span of your audience. This metric can help you understand where to put your call to action (CTA), if you need a better hook, etc.
Most social platforms provide details for each post; even their native ad management tools have their own tracking systems.
Your campaign statistics need to be observed from the beginning to make corrections and adjustments based on your users' behavior.
Now that you know how to make your social media video marketing strategy successful, it's time to create your toolbox.
Best Tools For Video Marketing on Social Media
Tools are an essential ally for creating video content.
In the past, video production required paid tools that were complex to use.
Nowadays, there are many options out there that make the whole process easier and less expensive.
So there are no excuses to not use video marketing in your brand's distribution channels.
Let's look in more detail at various tools that a brand can use before launching its video marketing campaigns.
Insense
Insense is a collaboration platform where brands can find creators to work with for their digital marketing campaigns.
Partnerships with influencers can benefit the distribution of the video marketing campaign and help connect viewers with brands.
The way a brand can find content creators on Insense is by:
- Creating a brief that defines the profile of the creators needed for a specific project.
- Browsing the creator marketplace, where you can search for creators based on demographics, niche, engagement rates, and more.
Our platform’s network has more than 35,000 creators who you can work with and get high-quality videos for your social media.
Contact us to learn more!
Lumen5
Lumen5 is an online video creator that allows you to generate a short video in minutes.
This tool transforms content into a text video and you can choose the fonts and colors that match your branding.
Also, the online platform has a library of photos, music, and GIFs that you can add to your video.
The good thing is that it comes with a free plan with an extensive template. Although, there are some limitations regarding video quality and the uploaded videos.
Movavi
Movavi is a video suite with tools that enable you to edit, add drag-and-drop effects, and create professional-looking videos.
They also provide an online video editor to make the process more effective.
It’s a great tool in terms of features and interface since amateurs can use it to edit and optimize high-quality videos.
Soapbox
Soapbox by Wistia is a Google Chrome extension that allows you to generate videos from scratch.
With this tool, you can record, edit, and share videos on your social media platforms.
You have to install the extension to begin your content creation process.
Soapbox supports high-quality videos up to 4K, while also giving you the ability to track the performance of your videos.
Typito
Typito is a web-based video maker with a drag-and-drop library that makes it easy to use.
The tool supports social media video formats and through 500+ free templates helps you create videos.
It employs an interesting feature, widely used in social media video marketing, in that it automatically generates captions and syncs them to your video.
Animoto
Animoto is an all-in-one tool for video marketing campaign creation.
It has an easy drag-and-drop platform that’s accessible to everyone. You can create even longer videos through the platform’s library and export them in high quality.
As you can see, video marketing tools are more accessible than ever. So, select those that fit you perfectly!
Now it’s time to learn more about the social media marketing benefits for major brands.
Why Social Media Video Marketing Matters: 4 Major Benefits
Every day people watch 1 billion hours of video content on YouTube alone.
This shows that video marketing is at its peak.
So, if for some reason, you’re still not convinced of the value of social media video marketing, this section will give you what you’re looking for — the reasons it’s worth investing in and the benefits your brand can enjoy.
✅ Delivering diverse and engaging content to your audience
Videos are a very creative and dynamic type of content.
You can take advantage of many different options when creating a video for social media, depending on the goal you want to achieve.
As we saw in a previous section, there are many types of videos that can help your content reach the right audience, from tutorials to UGC videos.
The more forms of content you use, the better, when it comes to capturing the attention of diverse viewers.
✅ Producing content that’s sharable and relatable
The more relevant content is to your audience's wants or needs, the easier it’ll be for them to connect with your brand and recommend you to others.
Also, producing video content for social media enables brands to distribute their content on those platforms where their audience is found.
This is one way to increase your brand awareness and attract more potential customers.
✅ Keeping in touch with your target audience
Building a community is one of the most effective ways to create brand advocates.
Videos are a more interactive and direct way to communicate. They also create a greater connection between people.
This connection with viewers can elevate a brand.
But it's important to motivate users in each video to contact you and to create opportunities for discussion in the comments.
✅ Maximizing brand awareness through attention-grabbing clips
Thanks to their bold graphics and music, videos are an amazing way to draw attention to your brand.
Especially if you manage to take advantage of certain trends, you can make your content reach even more people.
Do you want to know a secret?
Try to be original.
In this way, your content will stand out from that of your competitors and will impress the viewers.
Bonus: “Secret Sauce” that Will Skyrocket Your Social Media Video Marketing in 2023
For those of you who’ve stayed, we left the best part ‘til the end.
Video marketing is booming right now, and we don't think it’ll lose its appeal in 2023 or anytime soon.
If you recognize the video marketing trends for social media, your content will skyrocket.
Let's find out more about creating relevant videos.
Video marketing trends
With the rise of video marketing on social media, new trends have been revealed based on the use of viewer preferences.
These trends demonstrate a change in consumer behavior.
Therefore, brands that want to take advantage of video marketing should consider the following trends:
- UGC takes precedence
- Omnichannel and multiplatform presence
- Social eCommerce on the rise
- Ιnteractive artificial reality (AR) content
- Virtual events' rise in popularity
- Enhanced audience targeting
If you take advantage of these trends, you’ll create a social media video marketing campaign that will satisfy social media users and show that your brand is relevant to new developments.
Finally, trends are a great way for your content to benefit from a platform's algorithm and get much more exposure.
Video marketing tips
At this point, we’ll avoid the usual takeaways to give you essential tips on how to get an edge over competitors.
- Make videos valuable and pain point-oriented: Viewers have learned to pick out the content that offers them value and follow it.
Recognize your audience's problems and what they want to achieve, and identify ways you can help them.
That way, your content will really respond to their needs.
- Hook them in the first few seconds: The average attention span of a user is eight seconds.
So, if you want to have successful video content, those first seconds will determine the attraction and engagement of your viewers.
There are many ways to grab viewers' attention, such as asking a question or starting with a joke or a quote.
- Tell a story: Storytelling is one of the most effective ways to gain the interest of your viewers and create a connection with them.
As far as social media video marketing is concerned, the rules are the same.
Create a story that your audience can relate to. Also, keep the main message of the video clear and short.
This way, you’ll create an emotional connection with your audience on social media.
- Use a call-to-action: The content you create on social media should serve a purpose.
So, when you create social media video campaigns, make sure to motivate the audience to take action.
This action relates to the goal you’ve set, such as signing up for an email list, getting in touch, or clicking on a link that points to a landing page.
This journey comes to an end. Let's wrap it up!
Over to You
There you have it!
Video marketing is the future, and brands can take advantage of this trend.
You’ve learned how to create and execute a winning video marketing strategy on social media.
All you need is to find the right collaborators to contribute to the creation and distribution process.
Feel free to book a demo with Insense, and our team members will guide you through the whole process step-by-step.
