How To Use Social Video Marketing To Boost Your Business

We all know that the activities of product research, review, sharing, buying is increasingly moving online. A business looking to survive in today’s tough competition in the global marketplace will have to continuously innovate and modify its marketing and selling strategies to emerge a winner. In 2020 B2B online sales are projected to reach $12 trillion worldwide with $1.13 trillion in US alone. Retail eCommerce selling (B2C) on the other hand is projected to reach over $4 trillion by 2020. It is needless to mention that mobile phone and smart devices will be a key driver in this growth pattern.

There are innumerable good marketing strategies businesses can use to capture consumer attention and display what they want to know. Distributing product information and marketing through visuals tops the list. The currently adopted visual marketing mode is social video marketing-using video as a medium for storytelling. Social video marketing includes explainer videos of 2-3 minutes duration or longer videos to about 5-6 minutes. By analyzing what you do best you could add more buzz around your brand or product by engaging in social video marketing.

Some classic examples of companies who utilized intelligence in this space are Toms Shoes with their ‘giving the needy’ mission, Edeka – the German supermarket store which used empathy and connecting human relationships in storytelling and Purina pet feed whose video campaigns with a different entertaining story line based on a puppy. India is at the 12th position in the global consumer market and has sectors like FMCG, automobiles, insurance, food & beverages, mobile phone makers, biscuit manufacturers, cab aggregators and what not capitalizing the power of digital media marketing. Brands like Fevicol from Pidilite Industries, Tata Sky’s DTH service, Baja Allianz Life Insurance are only a few of the names off the domestic brands list who used online videos for marketing. These brands expanded the scope of creativity and imagination much to their benefit.

There is no doubt that online videos are created to reach a vast majority of customers-new, potential or existing. Only then there will be conversions, expanded sales and customer retention. Now arises, the question as to how online videos used for social video marketing of your product can be audience savvy? First focus on the content. It goes without saying that it is important to understand who your consumers are and what they want and like to watch. Do they want videos to be instructional, humorous, or provide more information about products and services? Consider the example of bio-pharma industry.

In the US alone, 73% of consumers prefer watching online videos or explainer videos first before making a buying decision. 77% appreciate bio-pharma companies as they feel these companies spend time and money on explainer videos. 96% consumers believe online videos help them make an apt purchase decision. 58% consumers trust those bio-pharma companies who have online videos relevant to their product of choice. Hence the key deciding factor that helps in engaging the audience is the relevant content. 83% prefer explainer videos with high quality images, giving a 360 degree view of the product which are informative, entertaining and talk about the benefits of the product.

Cash in on the emotional impact that a video can make by carrying a single message per video sample in a professional language voice, color and even matching music and font. Let it have an impressive thumbnail image with a human face and carry feel of happiness and contentment. It helps your product’s explainer video build a positive rapport and association with every individual who views it.

Promoting your offers in the introductory segment along with the usefulness of the product, an eye catching story line and a motivation for call-to-action navigation that triggers further enquiry or purchase at the end of the video should be the structure. These aids in consumers liking your online video very much that they share your video within their friends circle increasing your reach.

It is very important that they are posted at the right places where the prospective consumer population is looking for them. With the online consumer accessing all channels of information it is crucial to interlink sharing the explainer video or online video across blogs, social media platforms like Facebook, Google+, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Twitter (for smaller size videos), and video sharing communities like YouTube, Vimeo, Vine etc.

Here are some common features of an online video that will help business reap better benefits while used in social video marketing:

Analyze video length supported on each social media platform and sharing community to tailor creative content accordingly. YouTube supports longest, followed by Facebook (120 minutes), shorter ones like Instagram and Vine (15 and 6 seconds each). Short, condensed simple ‘how-to’ explainer videos are a great idea for product promotion and will attract viewer attention quicker. Make sure your logo features on your content in a non interrupting portion of the viewer’s frame.

Utilize autoplay feature as viewers generally tend to skip videos if there is a buffering time to play. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter allows autoplay feature so the user is not distracted or scroll down to the next feed. If your story carries quality content and is captivating s/he may get hooked to it as long as it plays or till they want to move on. However, you may still remember that people may opt to turn off auto play feature on Facebook or Twitter especially if accessing via mobile due to data usage. You can at least work to capitalize desktop viewers.

Live video broadcasting helps to know the pulse of viewers when video goes live when it is posted on some platforms (on Facebook with features use Facebook Live, Snapchat, Blab or Periscope) or use video streaming service providing websites for a particular product related event like a launch. When it happens on social media platforms, users can key in response comments instantly and you can respond to questions as well. It generates a sense of excitement among the viewers, your promotions clubbed along the live streaming can help boost sales. Even recorded videos with updates of events will help.

Addition of subtitles and mute sound feature is another way not to lose prospective target audience who may be on the move or with hearing disabilities. People may want to watch videos without keeping volumes high. Businesses should leave no leaf unturned to use this opportunity of establishing a connect between such customers even then. It can be done easily with a video editing tool or uploading SRT files to your video on Facebook. 85% of Facebook users play video without sound. Your video will have higher viewership if it makes sense even when played without sound.

Add to search engine and social media platform optimization by using appropriate filenames and descriptions for video that act like keywords or key phrases. Add latest trending relevant hashtags on Twitter and Instagram so that it will enable users to find you or your product from your content posted. These measures will help to boost search results on all platforms.

Run ad campaigns on your business’s videos shares other ads for viewing with your customers. No matter if they are paid or otherwise.

Track video analytics with respect to customer behavior who watch your online videos be it on any social media marketing channel. This will help how to plan future strategies of production and promotion.

While engaging in cross channel promotion a uniform message and theme image have to be followed though strategies of promoting your videos will be different on each type of social media platforms. This is due to the fact that the type of audience will be different on the respective medium. Some differences may exist on each platform:

YouTube Promotion: There are many sides to promotion on YouTube. Firstly, you may be also targeting an audience who are not your subscribers. Then it is necessary to enable your channel in a browse view mode. Add a video as a trailer through channel trailer button. As you add more videos like tutorials, interviews, funny videos, product reviews or announcements your subscribers or potential viewers may also increase. The clickable comments that might turn into a call-to-action is a striking feature of sharing YouTube videos on social media which none of other video types have. If you do not have many videos to add, you can build a subscriber base by adding curated videos like those of others-thought leaders, industry personalities who are popularize your product domain.

Promotion by sharing from Vine and Instagram: If Vine provided a 6 second looping facility which prompted creating fast creative videos that can be shared on social medial platforms like Twitter where tweets pour in by the second, Instagram provides a 15 second non-looping service with better editing facilities and higher share ability across platforms Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Flickr, etc. These sites enable uploading short videos shot by mobile cameras. Behind the scene production stories can be used to create a connection with the users and inspire them.

Marketing video on Facebook: There is too much feed coming in per user account nowadays that people prefer directly uploaded videos than traversing to linked videos like redirection to YouTube or a website. Use the ‘Add Featured Video’ option to list a feature a video among the uploaded videos. A point to remember is that it should be illustrative of your business/product. A video on user accounts ads side bar is incentive enough for the customer to take a peek if it comes with auto play.

Video on Twitter: Uploading your video helps people watch it and tweet immediately. It could either be embedded from Embed video button or from Vine or Instagram. The vice-versa is also an effective means of enhancing marketing. Link your video on Facebook or YouTube to the tweet on Twitter by Twitter Cards so that it actually populates the actual video on Twitter itself.