Did you know that your competitors are already using video in their content strategies? According a recent study from Wyzowl, 86% of brands already use video in their marketing strategies.
This type of content is a great way to reach a younger demographic (people between the ages of 18 and 33) and to quickly create a direct, emotional connection with users. So, let's take a look at what video marketing is, the latest trends in this sector, and how you can use it in your social media strategy.
Video marketing is a digital marketing tool. It involves using videos to market your product or services online, increase brand awareness and audience engagement, and also reach new audiences with your message. Basically, it's about adding videos to your content marketing strategy.
Another concept to keep in mind is social video: a kind of video designed especially to be promoted and shared on social media.
The goal is to create shareable video content, that is optimized for each social network your brand is present on. Creating high quality video content can require a significant investment of resources, but it is worth it, or you can also use free stock videos to help you with this process.
Video marketing statistics clearly show that audiovisual content has a positive impact on sales and ROI:
If we look at some predictions for the next few years, we can see that video will not stop growing:
Mobile devices play a major role in this trend. People are increasingly willing to consume video on their smartphones, so it is crucial to optimize your videos for mobile devices. Also, video content is no longer restricted to one network. It has diversified and is now shared via many different channels like Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, to name a few.
When it comes to planning your video marketing strategy, the first question is which network or networks should you focus your video creation and promotion on? To help you out, here is some interesting data about the most popular social networks for video.
Since its launch in 2005, YouTube has become the world-wide go-to platform for high-quality videos on pretty much any subject there is. Their statistics are simply overwhelming.
At this point, most people are quite familiar with TikTok. This social network launched in China in 2016 and has since gone on to enter 150 markets around the globe.
This platform allows users to post short videos up to three minutes in length and has gained popularity for things like dances, lip-syncs, comedy, and really any other topic a users wants to post about.
The network has over 689 million active monthly users, the app has been downloaded over 2 billion times, and users spend an average of 52 minutes a day on this app so there are ample opportunities for video marketing.
Facebook is also a popular platform for video. Facebook reaches people of all age groups, but their largest demographic is people from 25 to 35 years old (30% of its active users). The most popular videos are between 21 and 44 seconds long.
Facebook's desktop video ads app offers the following options:
Facebook also offers several recommendations to create an attractive video that captivates viewers.
This network offers various opportunities for video marketing thanks to GIFs, its integration with Periscope and Vine, and its native videos.
Twitter First View gives immediate visibility, which greatly increases the probability of engagement. Making your video the first tweet users will see is limited to 24 hours, in other words, the same brand cannot buy the same space for two consecutive days. Thanks two these two characteristics, First View is an ideal way to launch ads that are time sensitive and promote events like releases, launches, limited offers, etc. thus multiplying their viral potential.
Twitter is widely used on mobile devices, and can contain a variety of video lengths, from half a second to 140 seconds.
Although this social network is known for photography, there are, of course, multiple options for video too! Instagram has IGTV and Instagram Reels.
Instagram Reels was created in 2020 and allows users to make short videos which they can edit and add effects to. On the other hand, IGTV allows people to make much longer videos of up to 60 minutes.
This network has videos that only last for a matter of seconds, so if you really want to win over your audience, be quick!
Snapchat has 238 million daily active users as of 2020. According to Hootsuite, its biggest markets are the United States, India, France, and the United Kingdom, in that order. 84% of its users are 34 or younger and over 60% are female.
Now that you know why it is so important and beneficial for your brand to get involved in video marketing, let's look at some tips that will help your video marketing strategy be as successful as possible on social media.
Include an in-video Call-to-Action (CTA). This is a request to your viewers to take a particular action after watching the video. Effective CTAs use phrases like ‘download now’ so that the message is clear.