Blog Post By: Madysen Leroy, Baer Performance Marketing Intern
By 2020, online videos will account for more than 80% of all consumer traffic. In order to stand out from the competition, it’s important to use effective video marketing techniques on your social media channels. Here are three very important aspects to keep in mind when creating video content:
Recommended Video Lengths
Research shows that you have less than eight seconds to generate an interest with your audience, and that viewership drops significantly around the two-minute mark, so it’s important to keep videos at an appropriate length. Many marketers and social media platforms agree that videos see the best reach and engagement when between 15 and 120 seconds. Commercials work well with 15- to 30-second clips, while tutorials and testimonials are more effective when 50- to 90-seconds long. With shorter videos, consumers are less likely to pause the video and are able to pay attention to the entire clip without losing interest.
Ideas for Video Content
Your videos should be something your consumers want to know or are interested in. For instance, if your business has a blog, you could repurpose a top-performing blog post into a short recap video. Another idea could be a look back on popular Tweets or Facebook posts your company posted throughout the past month or year (think ‘YouTube Rewind’). Of course, tutorials, how-to videos, customer/employee testimonials and videos showcasing your brand are always great choices for sharing on social media. Videos that show how a company relates to its employees and community are especially successful!
Advice on Uploading Videos
Each social media platform has different audiences, which means that being effective varies from platform to platform. YouTube is specifically a video platform, so uploading videos there is simple and less stressful. The main tip for uploading on YouTube is to use tags and be mindful of any copyright violations.
With Facebook, it’s best to engage with your audience within the first six-seconds and to create subtitles. On Facebook, more than 80% of people watch videos while on mute, so having captions depicting what’s being said is crucial. Also, instead of posting a link to a YouTube video, upload the video directly to Facebook. This will put your video higher in the Newsfeed and be viewed more.
When posting videos to Instagram, use layouts that are aesthetically pleasing and artsy, but don’t distract from being able to watch or hear the content. Instagram is particularly popular with younger generations, such as Millennials and Gen-Z, so it is also important that you stay on message while keeping your content relatable. Plus, videos on Instagram feature a distinct shape and size compared to other platforms, so be sure your videos can be posted without having to cut out anything.
Both Twitter and LinkedIn are similar to Facebook with how you should upload videos, such as featuring captions and having shorter lengths. Though, Twitter and Facebook do well with ‘live’ video feeds compared to only having the option to upload a video after the fact on LinkedIn. Videos about certain products or services are easily tagged on LinkedIn with hashtags and regular tags, however.
Conclusion
Posting effective videos on social media is easy if you understand your customers’ needs and interests. As you post videos, be sure to take a look at what has been doing well and what hasn’t— don’t be afraid to make changes! What is your favorite social media platform to watch videos? Let us know on the BPM Facebook page. Also, be sure to check out BPM’s YouTube channel!
Sources
https://blog.markgrowth.com/how-to-create-engaging-videos-for-social-media-e3fdc1c26ee1
https://buffer.com/library/social-media-videos
https://www.yumyumvideos.com/short-vs-long-videos-explainer-video-length-wp/
