Social Media Video Marketing — The Ultimate Guide
By: Carol Sobers
Tags: Video Marketing

Once you’ve created your video, it’s time to send it out into the world. But this isn’t as simple as just logging onto social media and uploading your video. There are a couple more steps involved in social media video marketing.

The beauty of social platforms is that each one offers something different and has its own unique capabilities. The key is to effectively use all these features to optimize your videos.

In this chapter, we’ll cover the unique video characteristics of each platform and how you can make the most of them.

More than 500 million people use Instagram daily. Out of this, 200 million users visit at least one business profile in a day.

So clearly, Instagram is the perfect platform to interact with your audience. It’s also ideal for videos, and they tend to work even better than regular posts on Instagram. ‘ Mention ‘ reports that Instagram videos have the highest engagement and receive 2x as many comments as images.

Ready to post your video on the ‘Gram? Let’s take a look at everything you need to know to make the most of Instagram video marketing.

1. Hashtag

Hashtags categorize content and make it more discoverable. U sers can also ‘follow’ a hashtag . and view your content , even if they don’t follow you ! .

Apart from feed posts, you can also use up to 10 hashtags on your stories. This gives you a chance to be featured in that hashtag’s Stories as well!

Tip: Shrink and cover your Stories hashtags with stickers to make it look cleaner and more aesthetic.

The key thing to remember is to keep your hashtags relevant and specific. In fact, according to this study, posts with 9 hashtags received the most engagement — so don’t add more than that.

2. Loop videos

Micro videos are one of the most effective types of content to tell stories in a short period of time. While great visuals and sound are important, it’s usually how videos seamlessly loop that makes them so mesmerizing.

Instagram loops videos by default, they automatically start from the beginning once the clip has ended. To maximize views, it’s really important to ensure that your video seamlessly transitions from end to beginning.

This way your viewers will watch your video over and over again without even realizing it.

Try using Instagram’s secondary apps to make catchy, loopable videos in an instant. Boomerang is great for creating mini-videos that play ‘forward and backward’, while Hyperlapse makes smooth and stable time lapse videos.

3. Interactive story stickers

Interactive stickers are a simple yet awesome way of boosting your Instagram video marketing campaign and engaging directly with your audience.

They let you collect feedback and responses from your viewers and also increase your Stories’ overall engagement and discoverability.

Location:

The location sticker is great for letting your audience know where you and your business are located. They also increase your Story’s discoverability and viewership.

How?

Anyone who searches for that location on Instagram will be able to see your Story while it’s still available.

Oh, and did we mention? Posts with a tagged location result in 79% higher engagement than those without!

Polls & Emoji Sliders:

Polls and sliders are one of the easiest ways to enhance your Instagram video marketing campaign by interacting with your audience. They can be used to survey your viewers on their preferences, interests, and behaviors.

You can use Polls to ask viewers to choose between two options or sliders to rank something on a scale.

They’re great to crowdsource ideas and collect feedback or to simply engage and entertain your audience.

Question stickers:

Question stickers can be used for two things:

To ask your audience questions

To ask your audience for THEIR questions

For instance, you can ask your audience what kind of content they like and what they want to see from you. Or, you can ask them to submit their own questions for a Stories Q&A. You can even use it to ask to gather questions beforehand for a live stream, an influencer takeover or guest interview!

Countdowns are the perfect way to spice up an announcement regarding product launches, special offers or upcoming events. They build hype and momentum, encouraging your followers to tune back in when the countdown is done.

Countdown:

In short, they’re ideal to promote time-sensitive campaigns and generate interest.

Users can also subscribe to your countdown, which notifies them when the time is up and your countdown is complete. Get your audience to share it with their own followers to increase your reach and engagement!

Gone are the days when customers would struggle to buy a product they saw on social media. With shoppable tags, viewers can easily access product information and link to e-commerce pages — Directly from your Stories!

Shoppable tags:

Shoppable tags provide a much smoother sales process than the traditional “link in caption” approach to promoting products. They let you showcase your products and encourage customers to buy them in creative and fun ways.

Apart from promotional Stories, they can also be used to tag specific products in demos or influencer takeovers, for example!

4. Instagram TV (IGTV)

Unlike regular posts and Stories, IGTV lets you create your own channel and post long-form native vertical videos. It’s perfect for longer video content like tutorials, tours and behind the scenes footage.

And since they’re vertical, you don’t need to worry about professional production, your smartphone is enough!

Instagram lets you share one-minute previews of your channel on your feed, increasing your IGTV’s discoverability and exposure. In addition, you can use the ‘swipe up’ feature on your Stories to promote your IGTV video and increase its viewership.

Make sure the preview you post is engaging and attracts your audience’s attention — make them swipe up!

Also, just like regular posts, ensure that your IGTV videos are easily searchable by including relevant hashtags in the description.

Facebook is the largest social media platform in the world, with over billion monthly users. It offers brands unparalleled opportunities for reaching and interacting with HUGE audiences.

It’s also extremely popular for videos, racking up more than 8 billion video views per day.

1. Go Native

We cannot possibly stress this enough: upload your videos natively to your Facebook page.

Apart from capturing viewers’ attention, native videos get 8x more comments than those posted through Youtube or Vimeo. They also have a 86% higher reach and receive 168% more interaction than videos from third-party sources.

The platform’s algorithm automatically prioritizes native videos, so they’re essential to your Facebook video marketing success.

2. SEO

So native videos = more views, engagement, and interaction!

Just like blog posts, it’s super important to optimize your Facebook videos and make them more search-friendly.

Facebook recommends choosing a descriptive title for your video. Keep strategic keywords in mind to optimize your title and make it easy to find. Add in an appropriate and catchy description to give your viewers context and help them understand what you’re going to convey.

Facebook marketers also recommend adding relevant search ‘tags’ that will help your video surface in search results. Facebook automatically suggests tags based on its autofill feature, so you have a good idea of where to start!

3. Do a 360

It’s become harder than ever to capture your audience’s attention, let alone keep it for the duration of a video. Brands are constantly trying to find fresh new ways to present their content and stand out.

This is where Facebook’s innovative 360° videos come in. These videos can be rotated, panned, and viewed from pretty much any angle. Rather than just watching traditional two-dimensional video content, Facebook 360 creates an immersive and memorable experience for the viewer.

With the rise of virtual reality technology, this is a huge market to tap into. It’s also a great way to diversify your Facebook video marketing campaign and set your brand apart.

All you need is a laptop or smartphone to create 360° videos. They offer amazing opportunities for growth, with a current average of 10X better click-through rates.

The possibilities of 360 videos are virtually endless. From event coverage to interviews, tours and behind the scenes, there’s a lot of room for creativity!

4. Playlists

Just like Youtube, Facebook allows you to group your videos into playlists to make it easier for users to find them. You can give them a title and description and reorder them however you like.

Facebook also lets you decide on a ‘featured video’. This video is displayed or pinned at the top of your videos tab and is also visible on your main timeline. It’s the perfect spot for a company overview or explainer video that’s easily available for your audience.

5. 3-minute minimum

This one’s simple.

Facebook recommends that your videos be at least 3 minutes long. This ensures that your video is optimized for Facebook’s algorithm, and automatically increases its views.

We already covered this when we went over tips for Instagram so we’ll keep it short and sweet.

Hashtags are tools that let you join in on a larger conversation. They can be used for Facebook videos as well, and are a great way to increase your discoverability and engagement.

Although Facebook doesn’t have as many Stories stickers as Instagram, there are some great ones to play around with. Try using the mention stickers to highlight other accounts or the poll sticker to gather feedback and responses from viewers.

7. Loop videos

Unlike Instagram, Facebook automatically loops videos only if they are under 30 seconds long.

So if you’re posting a short video to Facebook, ensure that it seamlessly transitions from end to beginning. Like Instagram looped videos, you’ll find that your viewers will keep watching the video, not realizing they’re rewatching it!

Twitter is yet another platform where videos are flourishing. In fact, videos are the fastest growing advertising option for brands on the platform and Twitter video marketing is steadily gaining traction.

What’s more?

Twitter content with videos have 10x more engagement than those without.

How do you make the most of twitter video marketing? By following these three key Twitter tips.

1. Go Native

Just like Facebook, Twitter’s algorithm prioritizes videos posted natively over external links. Since native videos on Twitter seamlessly autoplay for users scrolling through their feed, they are far more likely to be noticed and watched.

It’s simple — post your videos natively to instantly boost interactions and engagement.

2. Personalized video responses

Unlike Facebook and LinkedIn, Twitter video marketing offers a way to easily connect with your audience through personalized videos.

The best part? All you really need is a smartphone and decent lighting. You can record personalized videos on the go, responding to a customer’s question or thanking them for a positive review.

This is a great way to enhance your customer’s experience and stand out from the competition. It gives your brand a friendly face and lets you connect and interact with your audience on a more personal level!

3. Keep it short n’ sweet

Twitter is known to be a platform where people convey powerful messages in only a few words. With a maximum tweet length of 240 characters, one of the hallmarks of Twitter is its micro-blogging format.

This is something Twitter marketers should keep in mind for videos too.

Twitter caps native video length at 2 minutes and 20 seconds. For optimum results, viewership and engagement, keep your videos short and capture the audience’s attention within the first 3 seconds.

LinkedIn is an excellent networking platform perfect for expanding your brand’s engagement, connections and reach. Just like Facebook and Twitter, LinkedIn native videos perform best.

In fact, they’re 5x more likely than any other type of content to start a conversation among users.

Apart from posting natively, there are some other specific tips to keep in mind when posting videos for your LinkedIn audience.

Use these pointers to make the most out of your LinkedIn video marketing campaign!

1. Know your target audience

LinkedIn was originally designed as a professional networking platform. It’s great for expanding your network, picking up valuable skills and remaining up to date on trends.

Unlike other social platforms, marketing on LinkedIn is a little different. This is because professional and educational videos generally tend to perform better on.

Keep this in mind when you’re planning and executing your LinkedIn video marketing strategy. LinkedIn is the perfect place to share your expert knowledge, provide customer service and attract potential talent.

The bottom line? Save your fun and quirky content for Instagram and Facebook. Stick to sharing more informative content and recruitment videos on LinkedIn.

2. Tagging

Adding hashtags and mentioning other relevant LinkedIn users in your captions is great for increasing your video’s exposure and engagement. It helps your video become more discoverable, so users can search for them easily.

Mentioning and tagging other users can invite businesses, influencers, and key individuals to interact with your content. This increases the chances that your video will be shared, automatically driving up its reach.

3. Write stellar copy

When you share a video, the first things LinkedIn users see are your thumbnail, headline and description copy. You might think that these are secondary and not as important as the video itself. That’s where you’re wrong.

Research shows that 54% of people decide to watch a video based on its headline, and 52% based on its summary. In fact, these two factors are even more important than the video’s image, which stands at only 47%.

The headline and description of your video should captivate your audience and convince them to hit play. Why should they watch your video? How will it benefit them? Let them know through the text accompanying your video!