In the ever-changing world of social media, video content is growing to be very popular and engaging. More than ever, brands and businesses are utilizing a variety of video content across social media platforms and getting significant results.
According to Buffer, people are watching more than 100 million hours of video content on Facebook, YouTube is generating 4,950,00,00 video views per day, and time spent watching Instagram videos is up by 80% year after year!
If you’re in charge of your business’ marketing, it’s imperative to develop a plan for effectively integrating video content into your digital marketing plan.
Here are nine tips to help you get started creating engaging content that converts!
1. Create value
According to Vidyard, a video platform that helps businesses create engaging video content, your videos should aim to do one of three things: entertain, inspire, or educate. If it’s not doing any of these things, it’s time to rethink your content.
2. Know your audience
Before you start planning your video content, it is essential to know your target audience. Who is this video for? What value do you hope to bring to this viewer? A third, big question you need to ask is,” Why would this person share your content?”
Create a persona of your ideal customer. Analyze trends on social media. What common characteristics do your followers have in common? Visit their profiles and see what kind of content they share. See if you can understand what types of problems they need to solve.
These valuable insights will help you tailor your content to your target audience.
3. Have a script
Unless you’re comfortable on camera or an expert at “ad-libbing,” it’s a good idea to have an outline addressing what you want to say before you record, a script. Every shot, visual, and corresponding talking point should be mapped out on paper before you begin.
A script will help you be more efficient with planning and enable you to create higher-quality content that does not feel thrown together. Further, a script will help keep you stay on track, avoid rambling, and reduce the number of takes.
4. Start with the good stuff
You have 5-10 seconds to grab your viewer’s attention and entice them to finish watching your video. Lead with your most powerful, engaging content and create a powerful “hook.”
A hook is whatever strategy you employ to get your viewers’ attention and keep it. Here are a couple of suggestions for hooking your audience and keep them engaged.
- Promise a solution for an audience problem. Think of this as a teaser. An example of this could be opening your video with the following hook, “Interested in meal prepping, but don’t have the time? I’ll show you how you can get a week’s worth of cooking done in under one hour.”
- Be controversial. Start by promising to refute a widely accepted take to pique your viewers’ curiosity. Here’s an example: “To be successful on social media, you need to post every day, right? What if I told you that’s completely wrong?”
5. Optimize your videos for each platform
Social media video content is not one-size-fits-all. What works on Instagram may not translate effectively on Twitter.
For example, videos that do well on Facebook are fun, emotional, and highly shareable. YouTube, on the other hand, is essentially a search engine. Videos that do well on this platform help people to discover new things. On Twitter, personal, short, witty content performs better.
Researching and understanding the differences between the various platforms will enable you to tailor your video content to each one and maximize your potential reach.
6. Know your dimensions
Each social media platform requires different dimensions. Make sure to resize your videos accordingly. Sprout Social has a great tool to help you quickly find the dimension requirements for each platform.
7. Make it mobile-friendly
Social media users prefer video content over text and image content, and a large percentage of them are watching videos on their mobile devices. Your videos should be easily viewable from a mobile phone.
Additionally, keep in mind that the videos are often viewed with the sound off. Including subtitles and captions to your videos helps make them more mobile-friendly.
8. Get the right equipment
At a minimum, you need to have an iPhone 5 or higher (or comparable Android phone), a tripod for your camera phone, and a lavalier microphone to ensure proper visual and sound quality when you record. Additionally, it’s worth investing in lighting equipment, even if it’s just a ring light to start.
The right equipment will ensure that your video is of professional quality.
9. Learn how to edit
To create video content that can compete with the big dogs, you’ll need to have a basic understanding of video editing. You can use free tools like iMovie or Windows Movie Maker to achieve this.
Creating video content can be overwhelming at first, but with these nine tips, you’ll be able to produce quality and compelling video content for social media.
To learn more about how we can help you optimize your digital marketing strategy with engaging video content, contact us.