Building a successful online video marketing campaign doesn’t happen overnight. But it’s also not as overwhelming as it might seem. There are ways that you can build a video marketing campaign without stressing — you just need to take it step by step. Begin with these popular tips — from there, you can adjust and direct your marketing campaign as needed.
1. Make Use of Every Social Platform Available to You
Let’s say you’ve already got a fantastic video just prepped and ready for launch. Where do you post it? If you want to be a real success, the answer is often “everywhere.” Every social platform you post your video to extends your reach. Whether it’s Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or LinkedIn, you’re going to have a new audience to watch, like, and share.
Each platform has a different type of audience attached to it. LinkedIn tends to be for B2B sales and professionals; Instagram is an excellent opportunity for outreach among younger customers. Often, a comprehensive campaign needs to make use of all of these platforms in order to reach the broadest possible audience — but you also need a firm understanding of the demographics of each platform.
• Facebook – Facebook has made recent changes to their algorithm that demotes advertising and marketing, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t useful. Facebook is now more useful for live video streams and direct communication with consumers who are interested in your brand. Those who follow you will still be able to view your videos on-demand on your page, but they may not see these videos organically on their stream as often.
• Instagram – With a large demographic under the age of 30, Instagram is the best venue for connecting with younger customers. But Instagram has a lot of controls regarding what can be posted, operating as a mobile app. Instagram is best for short videos, updates, and live posting.
• YouTube – YouTube is primarily a third-party hosting platform for video, but it’s also a major social media network. YouTube is best for explainer videos and how to videos; things that people would search for. It’s also an excellent all-around hosting solution for longer videos.
• Twitter – Twitter has strong engagement, but it doesn’t last a long time; engagement on Twitter fades quickly because of the fast pace of the site. Post a lot of videos on Twitter, frequently, in conjunction with other content. Consider boosting your posts to gain followers.
• LinkedIn – LinkedIn is the ideal option for those who want to connect with other professionals and businesses. LinkedIn videos can be longer and more specific, tailored to a specific audience and more in-depth than the other platforms. For consumer sales, however, LinkedIn may not be as effective.
Each platform you use video on for your social media marketing has its own benefits and drawbacks, but you should maintain an active presence on all of the platforms you can.
2. Have a Single, Focused Message
Most people are only going to watch a video for one or two minutes, maximum. Before you even start shooting your video, you need to ask yourself a few questions about the content.
• What is the goal of this video?
• What do I want my audience to do after they watch my video?
• What audience am I speaking to?
These questions are going to guide you during the video creation process. A single, focused goal is absolutely essential to delivering the best packaged message to your audience. If you find yourself meandering, it may be time to split it into a separate video.
3. Take the Time to Interact
At the end of your video, asks your audience a question. When you post your video, inquire if your audience has had any similar experiences, or if they want to know more about a given topic. Interacting with your audience one-on-one is one of the things that video is best for, because it builds a personal and trustworthy relationship.
Online Q&A sessions, whether pre-recorded or live, gives the audience a personal touch that is so frequently missing from online communications. It’s an easy way to build content and address specific questions that your audience may have — questions that may be keeping them from committing or otherwise engaging.
Likewise, when you get comments or inquiries on your videos, take some time to respond in a professional and informative manner. Interacting with your customers in comment threads and through messages is a great way to establish a rapport and encourage them to connect in the future.
4. Think About Your Text
It isn’t all about the video. Remember: videos aren’t naturally searched or indexed. It’s your title and your description that is going to give search engines information to go on. Whether it’s an external engine like Google or Bing or an internal engine, such as YouTube’s own search, you need to use keywords, titles, and other text appropriately to describe the content of your video.
Ideally, you want your “how to” videos and your “explainer” videos to be found easily through search engines, as that will significantly expand your grasp. For business culture videos and internal marketing, this isn’t as important. Over time, your search engine optimization will begin to compound, with every new piece of content you post automatically generating more activity.
5. Brand Everything
Your brand identity, voice, and logo must be on every piece of media that you create. From the intro to the outro, your video has to explain who you are and what you do. Opportunities for branding include:
• Keeping your logo visible on the corner of the screen at all times.
• Encouraging users to continue to follow at the end of the video.
• Displaying your company name and slogan at the beginning and the end of the video.
• Giving your videos a consistent brand identity and tone.
Your branding displays your company’s unique culture. Over time, customers will feel as though they “know” your brand, and that will add to the appeal of your business to them. Trust is everything when it comes to marketing.
6. Keep Creating Content
Don’t put all of your eggs in one basket. It’s impossible to create a single video and “make it” go viral; if you’re able to do that, you already have an incredibly successful, multi-national business. Instead, you need to create large volumes of content consistently. Your content has to be creative and compelling. Eventually, your videos will grow. And you won’t always be able to predict which videos are going to be the most popular.
To have a strong online marketing strategy, you need to be willing to constantly create and curate your videos. Your video marketing relies upon consistent, scheduled deliveries of video content. To ensure that you can create that content, you can vary it:
• Explainer videos that explain the process of something, such as manufacturing an item or customizing a solution.
• How To videos describe how a customer can complete a project themselves, often directly related to the products or services that you sell.
• Q&A videos answer commonly asked questions that your customers have, building up your authority and expertise.
• Brand identity videos explore your company culture and the ways in which your company is different.
A good mix of these videos will help you develop your content archives and reach the largest number of customers possible.
7. Don’t Forget About Your Data
Videos shouldn’t be abandoned once created. Your data and analytics are incredibly valuable. Every platform you use will be able to give you information on who viewed your videos and for how long. The most important metrics are:
• How many people viewed your video rather than bouncing away from it? If they only view a few seconds of the video, they didn’t get the information that they expected.
• How many people followed the links from your video? Make sure all of your links are tracked separately, so you can identify engagement that comes from different platforms.
• How many people committed after following the links? Your website needs to be able to track the actual number of people who have made a purchase after connecting.
• How many people shared the video? Shares are incredibly important, because someone sharing a video to their friends has more social clout than a business sharing a video to everyone.
• How many people commented on the video? As noted, engagement and one-on-one communications with your audience are extremely important for building conversions.
It may seem as though online video marketing is complex, but it’s really a matter of putting the work in. By ensuring that you understand your brand and audience, you can reach out across multiple platforms and connect with potential customers in a unique and compelling way.
Altogether, a variety of videos posted on a number of platforms is going to extend your brand identity and reach. For the most part, marketing operates on a multi-point connection system; the more connections your customers make with your brand, the more likely they are to make a purchase. Though they may not even remember the experience of seeing your brand the first time, it will impact them, building confidence and trust.
Above all, the most important thing with an online video marketing campaign is to be consistent. As long as you are consistent about developing your content, success will eventually follow.
Article by Joe Forte, co-owner and producer at D-Mak Productions, a professional video production company based in Phoenix, Arizona.
