How to Use Video in Your Social Media Strategy

Video content drives the internet today. Look around you, and you will discover many businesses are using video to link and form a connection with their audience. Therefore, adding video to your social media marketing efforts is one of the most powerful and efficient ways of attracting attention and reaching your target audience.

Video is even more important to marketers due to its increased growth in social media. Video views and shares across different social media platforms have been on the increase over the years. Today, social media users are utilizing videos more than ever, particularly on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter.

Although video social media is still at a budding stage, its demand is ever increasing. If you were in the dark regarding the rapid rise of videos in social media strategy, check out these numbers that are still rising daily:

• A video Tweet is 6x more likely to be retweeted as matched with a photo tweet.

• Almost 95% of Twitter videos are accessed using mobile devices.

• Facebook saw a 258% rise in views of brand-named videos in 2017.

• Over the last 3 years, branded video content views on YouTube have doubled.

• Facebook live videos get up to 10x more comments than regular videos.

Let us now look at how you can use video in your social media strategy effectively

Post Native Videos

In the past, you could have uploaded a video on YouTube and then shared the link on Twitter or Facebook. Now you can directly upload the videos to sites such as Twitter and Facebook. Native videos perform better in Facebook’s algorithm than non-native videos.

Native videos perform better on Facebook because:

• Native videos play on Facebook’s page, while non-native videos will make users first leave Facebook for them to watch the video.

• Native videos start playing automatically as users scroll down their feeds, while non-native videos have to be manually played.

Upload Short, Value-Oriented Videos

If you want more engagement from your social media videos, you should create short and useful videos. When this is done right, these videos will spread brand awareness, improve your organic reach, and support your business entice the ideal form of attention.

Here are the recommended video time frames that will give you the best results:

• YouTube videos – 2 minutes

• Facebook videos – 1 minute

• Twitter videos – 45 seconds

• Instagram videos – 26 seconds

Short social media videos are ideal for users searching for valuable information, but they do not have enough time to spend on it. These users usually want to consume information on the go; that’s why 80% of social media content is consumed on mobile devices.

Grab Attention Early

The human attention span is 8 seconds. Therefore, you have to grab your viewers’ attention within the first 10 seconds of your video, or they’ll stop watching and move to another video. This will make you be precise and go straight to the point.

For you to capture viewers’ interest, you should use hooks to explain why a viewer should be interested. Place hooks within the second frame of the video, before views get a chance of scrolling away.

Add Subtitles

Nearly 90 % of videos played on social platforms are watched with no sound. This is unsurprising since the majority of people regulate their social media while in public as they wouldn’t like to attract others to what they are viewing. Therefore, make sure your video subtitles are readable.

More essentially, adding subtitles will allow hearing-impaired users to view and receive all the information.

Feature a Call to Action

The use of video in social media strategy is to encourage your targeted audience to act. Therefore, for your video social media strategy to be effective, you should have a clear and strong call to action. To design an effective call, you have to identify the objective you are trying to accomplish.

Facebook makes it easier for brands to feature CTAs to their videos as they know it enables brands to get their audience to act. Facebook provides the following CTA options:

• Shop Now

• Learn More

• Book Now

• Sign Up Now

Use of video in social media strategy is a powerful and inexpensive marketing tool. With this information, you will be able to use videos in your social media strategy for the desired response you want from your audience.

Alex
 

Alex is a small business blogger with a focus on entrepreneurship and growth. With over 5 years of experience covering the startup and small business landscape, Alex has a reputation for being a knowledgeable, approachable and entrepreneurial-minded blogger. He has a keen understanding of the challenges and opportunities facing small business owners, and is able to provide actionable advice and strategies for success. Alex has interviewed successful entrepreneurs, and covered major small business events such as the Small Business Expo and the Inc. 500|5000 conference. He is also a successful entrepreneur himself, having started and grown several small businesses in different industries.