How to Choose Ideal Social Media Platforms for Video Marketing Campaigns
In the digital marketing field, video marketing is taking center stage. More and more potential customers rely on this engaging type of content to retain new information about a brand they are interested in. Now that the demand for video is at an all-time high, today’s marketers out there make sure they leave no stone unturned when it comes to producing high-quality marketing videos.
But, video marketing is not all about creating a professional-looking video from scratch. It’s also about how to maximize exposure. The more marketing videos are shared, the more likely your business will get more eyeballs and expand the reach of your target audience. In this case, you know that you should go beyond your website to host your videos.
Social media platforms are potent channels for sharing your marketing videos. With more than 4.3 billion users worldwide, social media are the must-use platforms if you want to appeal to a broader audience and convince more people to get closer to your brand using marketing videos -- and hopefully, make them purchase your products.
The thing is that there are too many social media platforms nowadays. It can be challenging to choose ones that can bring you the video marketing results you hoped for. Therefore, in this article, we’ve listed some essential tips to help you find the ideal platform for your social media video campaigns and how you can create a perfect social media video for each platform.
But, video marketing is not all about creating a professional-looking video from scratch. It’s also about how to maximize exposure. The more marketing videos are shared, the more likely your business will get more eyeballs and expand the reach of your target audience. In this case, you know that you should go beyond your website to host your videos.
Social media platforms are potent channels for sharing your marketing videos. With more than 4.3 billion users worldwide, social media are the must-use platforms if you want to appeal to a broader audience and convince more people to get closer to your brand using marketing videos -- and hopefully, make them purchase your products.
The thing is that there are too many social media platforms nowadays. It can be challenging to choose ones that can bring you the video marketing results you hoped for. Therefore, in this article, we’ve listed some essential tips to help you find the ideal platform for your social media video campaigns and how you can create a perfect social media video for each platform.
Why Use Social Media as a Channel for Your Marketing Videos?
Before we get into the nitty-gritty details, it’s important to understand the reason why you should utilize social media platforms to host your marketing videos.
The short and simple answer, besides it has billions of users, is that the platforms are crowded with impersonal, so-far-away types of content (e.g., text-based thread, static images, etc.). Therefore, creating social media videos will make your brand stand out in the user’s feeds.
If you want a longer answer, these staggering numbers of statistics can show it:
You can say that social media users love videos and rely on the content to keep up with today’s information and trends without having to read bulky text just to get the juicy bits of information.
From those numbers mentioned above, it means that your business has to jump into the social media video bandwagon to stay ahead of the game, strengthen brand identity, give quick customer support, and stay relevant to today’s customer behavior.
Ignoring the power of social media videos means that you are leaving money on the table and allowing your competitors to get you left behind.
The short and simple answer, besides it has billions of users, is that the platforms are crowded with impersonal, so-far-away types of content (e.g., text-based thread, static images, etc.). Therefore, creating social media videos will make your brand stand out in the user’s feeds.
If you want a longer answer, these staggering numbers of statistics can show it:
- Nearly 5 billion videos are watched on Youtube every single day.
- More than 82% of Twitter users watch video content on the platform.
- Over 4 billion video views happen on Facebook every day.
- LinkedIn users are spending 3X more time on videos than static content.
You can say that social media users love videos and rely on the content to keep up with today’s information and trends without having to read bulky text just to get the juicy bits of information.
From those numbers mentioned above, it means that your business has to jump into the social media video bandwagon to stay ahead of the game, strengthen brand identity, give quick customer support, and stay relevant to today’s customer behavior.
Ignoring the power of social media videos means that you are leaving money on the table and allowing your competitors to get you left behind.
How to Choose the Right Social Media Platform for Your Videos?
Now that you understand why social media are such high-performing platforms to host your marketing videos, we will break down some of the best practices to choose the right ones for your business.
There are tons of social media platforms out there -- from Facebook to LinkedIn. And it’s impossible to host your videos on all of these platforms. It would be challenging to keep track of the performance and measure the results.
Therefore, it’s essential to find the right social media platforms that are suitable for your video marketing campaigns. Here are some ways to do it:
#1. Consider the Nature of Your Business
First thing first. You need to understand the nature of your business. Are you a B2B business that uses social media videos to sell products or services to other businesses or a B2C business that focuses on targeting an individual as a customer?
Popular social media like Facebook and Instagram can be a great way to post social media videos and build connections with your customers. They are great for B2C businesses. But, when you’re a B2B business, there’s no social media platform that performs better than LinkedIn.
#2. Understand the Demographics
The next step is to understand the demographics of social media platforms you want to use as a video marketing channel. You need to conduct in-depth research about the majority of users. Find out their ages, interests, behaviors, geographic location, etc.
Make sure the demographics match your target audience profiles. It would make it much easier for you to get their attention since they actually care and are interested in what you offer using videos.
For instance, if you want to aim to reach younger crowds, social media platforms like Instagram or Twitter can be ideal places to post your marketing videos on. Meanwhile, if you want to target older audiences or professionals, no social platform does it better than LinkedIn.
#3. Get to Know Your Goals
Once you get to know the demographics and majority of the user, you need to define your goals for that audience. Ask yourself, “what do I expect from this social media video?”
If you want to reach out to more target audiences with your videos and increase the view rates, most-used social media platforms like YouTube and Facebook are ideal for it.
However, if you want to boost the engagement rate and encourage the viewers to interact with your social media videos, Twitter and Instagram are good places to start.
#4. Define Your Messages and Video Styles
Having a solid understanding of what you are talking about in the social media videos can help you decide which platforms are better. If you convey messages with high-level language that only professionals would understand, it’s better to use B2B social media platforms like LinkedIn.
However, if you convey casual and more friendly messages that are easy to understand for most people, you may consider using other platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and more.
#5. Pay Attention to Your Business and Industry
You also need to pay attention to your business niche and industry so that you can pick the right social media platforms for your marketing videos. Some social media platforms have their own power to bring maximum results for some industries better than others.
Facebook is most suitable for businesses in the fashion, entertainment, health, and news industries. On the other hand, Instagram is a perfect platform for businesses that sell lifestyle and fitness products or services such as travel agencies, cosmetics and beauty brands, food and beverages, etc.
Meanwhile, if your business belongs to industries such as technology, retail, travel, and finance, Twitter helps your social media videos perform the best.
There are tons of social media platforms out there -- from Facebook to LinkedIn. And it’s impossible to host your videos on all of these platforms. It would be challenging to keep track of the performance and measure the results.
Therefore, it’s essential to find the right social media platforms that are suitable for your video marketing campaigns. Here are some ways to do it:
#1. Consider the Nature of Your Business
First thing first. You need to understand the nature of your business. Are you a B2B business that uses social media videos to sell products or services to other businesses or a B2C business that focuses on targeting an individual as a customer?
Popular social media like Facebook and Instagram can be a great way to post social media videos and build connections with your customers. They are great for B2C businesses. But, when you’re a B2B business, there’s no social media platform that performs better than LinkedIn.
#2. Understand the Demographics
The next step is to understand the demographics of social media platforms you want to use as a video marketing channel. You need to conduct in-depth research about the majority of users. Find out their ages, interests, behaviors, geographic location, etc.
Make sure the demographics match your target audience profiles. It would make it much easier for you to get their attention since they actually care and are interested in what you offer using videos.
For instance, if you want to aim to reach younger crowds, social media platforms like Instagram or Twitter can be ideal places to post your marketing videos on. Meanwhile, if you want to target older audiences or professionals, no social platform does it better than LinkedIn.
#3. Get to Know Your Goals
Once you get to know the demographics and majority of the user, you need to define your goals for that audience. Ask yourself, “what do I expect from this social media video?”
If you want to reach out to more target audiences with your videos and increase the view rates, most-used social media platforms like YouTube and Facebook are ideal for it.
However, if you want to boost the engagement rate and encourage the viewers to interact with your social media videos, Twitter and Instagram are good places to start.
#4. Define Your Messages and Video Styles
Having a solid understanding of what you are talking about in the social media videos can help you decide which platforms are better. If you convey messages with high-level language that only professionals would understand, it’s better to use B2B social media platforms like LinkedIn.
However, if you convey casual and more friendly messages that are easy to understand for most people, you may consider using other platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and more.
#5. Pay Attention to Your Business and Industry
You also need to pay attention to your business niche and industry so that you can pick the right social media platforms for your marketing videos. Some social media platforms have their own power to bring maximum results for some industries better than others.
Facebook is most suitable for businesses in the fashion, entertainment, health, and news industries. On the other hand, Instagram is a perfect platform for businesses that sell lifestyle and fitness products or services such as travel agencies, cosmetics and beauty brands, food and beverages, etc.
Meanwhile, if your business belongs to industries such as technology, retail, travel, and finance, Twitter helps your social media videos perform the best.
Best Practices to Create High-Performing Social Media Videos
Choosing the right platforms for your social media videos is crucial for the success of video marketing campaigns. But, you need to remember that the success of your social videos is the quality of the video itself.
Here are some of the quick best practices you should consider doing to make sure you create stunning social media videos.
Research Your Competitors
Make sure you keep up with your competitors. Check out their social media profiles and find out what kind of videos they produce and how often they produce new ones. It's also important to analyze which of their content gets so much attention and interactions.
Once you get a solid grasp on favorable video content, you can find out what makes yours better than theirs.
Learn the Video Guides
Each social media platform has its own rules and specs when it comes to video content. So, you need to pay close attention to the guidelines to make sure that the videos perform well on the platforms you use.
The social media video durations, resolutions, sizes, formats can play such an important role in giving viewers a pleasant viewing experience.
Here is an infographic to help you understand the right video specs for most popular social media platforms:
Be Consistent
There's no such thing as an overnight success when it comes to social media videos. Therefore, you need to be consistent and create new videos regularly to build a solid viewers base.
The more frequently you upload new videos, the more opportunities you will have to catch more viewers' attention and show them that you take your video marketing campaigns seriously.
You can create video series to engage your viewers and build excitement for each new episode. Just like what Kate Spade New York did by featuring Anna Kendrick for their social media video campaign titled #missadventure.
Wrapping Up
Social media platforms are gradually taking over the video marketing field because they proved to be less expensive and more effective as channels for many businesses. That being said, each platform has its particular set of users with its own quirks as to how they interact with video content.
In this case, you need to invest more time and effort in analyzing the characteristics of each social media platform so that you can understand which ones match your business and video messages. When you choose the right platforms, it would be much easier for you to get more qualified viewers who are really interested in your brand and encourage them to make a purchase.
Here are some of the quick best practices you should consider doing to make sure you create stunning social media videos.
Research Your Competitors
Make sure you keep up with your competitors. Check out their social media profiles and find out what kind of videos they produce and how often they produce new ones. It's also important to analyze which of their content gets so much attention and interactions.
Once you get a solid grasp on favorable video content, you can find out what makes yours better than theirs.
Learn the Video Guides
Each social media platform has its own rules and specs when it comes to video content. So, you need to pay close attention to the guidelines to make sure that the videos perform well on the platforms you use.
The social media video durations, resolutions, sizes, formats can play such an important role in giving viewers a pleasant viewing experience.
Here is an infographic to help you understand the right video specs for most popular social media platforms:
Be Consistent
There's no such thing as an overnight success when it comes to social media videos. Therefore, you need to be consistent and create new videos regularly to build a solid viewers base.
The more frequently you upload new videos, the more opportunities you will have to catch more viewers' attention and show them that you take your video marketing campaigns seriously.
You can create video series to engage your viewers and build excitement for each new episode. Just like what Kate Spade New York did by featuring Anna Kendrick for their social media video campaign titled #missadventure.
Wrapping Up
Social media platforms are gradually taking over the video marketing field because they proved to be less expensive and more effective as channels for many businesses. That being said, each platform has its particular set of users with its own quirks as to how they interact with video content.
In this case, you need to invest more time and effort in analyzing the characteristics of each social media platform so that you can understand which ones match your business and video messages. When you choose the right platforms, it would be much easier for you to get more qualified viewers who are really interested in your brand and encourage them to make a purchase.
Author
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Andre Oentoro is the founder of Breadnbeyond, an award-winning explainer video company. He helps businesses increase conversion rates, close more sales, and get positive ROI from explainer videos (in that order).
Twitter: @breadnbeyond Email: andre@breadnbeyond.com LinkedIn: Andre Oentoro |
