Digital Mums have been hosting some amazing digital marketing trainees from We Are Digital over the past 5 weeks and their work experience placement has culminated in them creating some content for us. We are delighted to publish this guest blog post from Ryan Stayte. Over to you Ryan.
What is video content?
Video content is any content format that features or includes video. Common forms of video content include vlogs, animated GIFs, live videos, customer testimonials, streaming, recorded presentations and webinars.
Everyday billions of hours of videos are watched daily, over 4 billion video views occur on Facebook alone and over 1,000,000,000 daily views on YouTube!
Why is video content important?
Video is a very versatile and engaging content format that not only gives us a real-life picture of what is going on, it’s also easy to share across multiple platforms by you, to your other social media or even your own followers can share your content. Consumers like it because it’s easy to digest, entertaining and engaging and is the preferred content compared to graphics. Video is also very accessible to anyone with internet access, both to watch and to produce. While there is certainly a trend towards higher quality video on a professional level, anyone can hop onto their laptop and create their own video.
Where should you be posting your video content?
Videos are booming and if you have just made your first video or are thinking about creating one, first you need to know where you should be posting them! In order from best to lease here is where you should be posting your video content according to most video interaction:
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YouTube
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Tik Tok
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Instagram / Reels / IGTV
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Snapchat
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Facebook
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Twitter
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Pinterest
LinkedIn
Top tips to get started
For your video content to be as effective as possible you need to know your audiences and what they want from you and you need to know how the social media algorithms work. Each social media platform has a specific algorithm that promotes/encourages one video over anothers to appear on people's feeds. Here are some best practices to make sure that your video gets to people's screens:
1. Choose the right platform for your audience
Depending on your business you will be targeting different customers. It's important you choose the social media platforms where your age demographic has the most representation and the more likely your demographic will see your video. While audiences across all age ranges are on all platforms there are some clear trends on the largrest age demographics on each platform, for example.
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Snapchat 18-20
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Tik Tok - 18-24
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Instagram 18-29
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Facebook 25-34
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Pinterest 35 -49
2. Film in the right format
Social media is on the rise, with platforms like Snapchat, Instagram and Tik Tok now becoming the most popular social media platforms, overtaking the current platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube and becoming the most dominant way to use social media.
So why does this matter? Well with these new platforms being introduced, new ways of viewing videos also come along. The current trend to watch videos is in a vertical frame, so, why are vertical videos so popular today?
The rise of Instagram Stories and Reels, a feature similar to the social media platform Snapchat, has become one of the most popular ways for individuals and businesses to express themselves, due to its ease of recording, only needing a mobile device and also the way the video perfectly fits your entire screen, without needing to rotate your phone horizontally which makes it easier to view and less likely for someone to scroll past it.
3. be human
Don’t be afraid to be yourself! When you are watching a video, is it enjoyable or entertaining when the people you are watching talk like robots and just reading off a script? No? So why should your video be like that when you wouldn’t watch it yourself.
People love people not the brand image or over the top professionalism when they are browsing their feeds and see a video. Be funny, be clever, be entertaining, be human! If people see you for you they will be a lot more engaged with your videos and will stay tuned for your message and if they liked it enough they have the ability to share, but if your video just sounds like salesmanship your views, shares and likes will suffer.
4. Create quality videos
When I say quality, I don’t mean you need a Hollywood budget and 4k cameras for your video to be of a high caliber. People are more likely to view your video if it is recorded at a minimum 720p. Luckily modern-day mobile phones usually come equipped with a HD camera, but every audience really appreciates videos in High Definition and it's almost a must. Anything lower and your video will not look eye-catching or appealing, and the bigger the screen the more visible the quality is.
5. Think about your video length
No matter how good your video is on social media, no one will want to watch it if they see the length is too long or just skim it and miss all the key points you want to get across. For each platform, there is a standard time length to follow for the most engagement (Longer view duration,more views, higher likes and shares ) According to studies these are the optimal time limit for each platform and some tips for uploading videos on each one:
YouTube
For optimal engagement, keep your videos around the two-minute mark. As the most popular digital video platform, YouTube lends itself to more in-depth content such as product demos, how-to tutorials, FAQ sessions and video blogs
Twitter is not the most popular platform for video content, but if you decide Twitter is one of the platforms you want to share on, your videos should be no more than 30 seconds in length, since Twitter currently has a 30-second limit for video content, but the shorter you can get it the better.
Your videos should be no more than two minutes in length. Multiple studies have shown that for most videos, engagement tends to fall off after the two-minute mark and interest drops.
Your videos should be no more than 60 seconds in length, as that is the limit for what the platform will support. For the optimal time length, 30 seconds might be an ideal time frame, as Instagram videos that received the most engagement with comments and likes typically averaged about 26 seconds in length.
In conclusion...
If you want to start making an impact on social media you must adapt to the current climate and start moving towards creating video content for your social media. These videos can be anything you want them to be, they can be, tips, tutorials, reels you name it, so long as your social media has them, you will start to see a clear difference in engagement and your awareness.
If you are having any doubts, think of any company and see what video content they are producing and you can see for yourself the difference it has made and see the views/likes/shares they are getting.
Popular well known companies like:
- Asos
- Louis Vuittion
- Sephora
- McDonalds
Are all using Instagram Reels as their source of video content over on social media which is also being shared across all of their platforms increasing their awareness every day! They would not be as big as they are today without video content.
If you want to stay on top of the social media game, start your video content journey today!
