Social Media Video Marketing Strategy: 2024 Trends & Benefits
Social Media Video Marketing Strategy: 2024 Trends & Benefits
Video is one of today’s most powerful promotional tools. Learn how the latest social media video marketing benefits and trends can help your business.
By: Roy Rasmussen
Video marketing has become one of the most effective strategies to generate digital publicity and promote sales. But why does it work so well? What are the latest trends in video marketing? And how can you leverage video to promote your business?
Let’s start by clarifying just what video marketing is:
What Is Video Marketing?
Video marketing is the use of visual recordings or live broadcasts to promote and sell products and services.
Popular types of video media
YouTube videos
Social media videos shared on platforms such as Facebook
Short-form videos such as TikTok and Instagram Reels
Livestreamed video feeds
Webinars
TV ads shared via digital technology
Slideshows
Animated videos
Popular video formats
Videos designed for video marketing typically follow a number of standard formats, including:
Demonstrations of products or services
How-to instructions
Consumer or customer service tips
Telling of brand stories
Customer case studies
Sharing of live or recorded events
Interviews with experts or thought leaders
Entertaining videos combining humor or interesting facts with brand awareness
Contest invitations or results
Celebrations of events such as holidays and company anniversaries
Repurposing of content from other media such as podcasts
Video marketing benefits
Video marketing serves marketing, sales, and support functions such as:
Reaching audiences on social media
Building brand awareness
Increasing audience engagement
Making marketing messages entertaining
Encouraging shares on social media
Generating leads
Educating target markets about product and service features and benefits
Showcasing the value of products and services
Demonstrating products and services in action
Dramatizing usage of products and services
Answering sales objections
Extending sales offers
Providing pre-emptive customer self-service tips
Video production methods:
Scripting and editing footage
Recording and sharing unedited footage
Streaming live footage
Turning still images into slideshows
Creating animated videos
Playing live or recorded audio over still or moving background images
What do you need in order to produce a video?
Equipment: The method used to produce marketing videos determines what type of equipment is needed. Depending on the method used, video creators may use a smartphone camera, a video camera, a camcorder, or other means.
Additionally, most videos will require a script ,voice over and editing
Support softwares: Supporting software tools may include video editing software, slideshow apps, and animation software.
If you don't have your own in-house video resources, the fastest way to get a video into production may be to connect with a professional who already has access to the required equipment and software. For example, Fiverr's marketplace lets you find voice actors to produce quality voice over for your video and video editors.
Why Video Marketing Is So Powerful?
The recent surge in video marketing spending reflects the benefits brands see from investing in videos. Digital video advertising grew 49% in 2021 and is on track to increase another 26% in 2022, reaching a total of $49.2 billion, according to a report by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) trade group. Why is video so appealing to advertisers? Here are ten of the top reasons:
1. Video Reaches Wider Audiences
One of the biggest benefits of video is that it enables you to reach wider audiences. Streaming video audiences now exceed the size of cable TV audiences, according to recent data from media analytics company Nielsen.
According to Fiverr Spring 2022 Small Business Needs Index report, Searches inside Fiverr for "promotional video ads" has increased by 453%.
Following four months of record growth, the size of streaming audiences surpassed cable for the first time in July 2022, with viewers consuming an average of 190.9 billion minutes of streamed content per week. This represented 34.8% of total television consumption, ahead of cable at 34.4% and broadcast at 21.6%. Prime Video, Netflix, Hulu, and YouTube all captured record shares in July.
These are large audiences, and they represent only a portion of the market for videos. Through video marketing, brands can reach audiences comparable to the size of traditional TV audiences.
2. Video Attracts Mobile Users
One reason video commands such large audiences is that it attracts mobile users. By November 2021, video accounted for 69% of mobile traffic, according to a report by telecommunications provider Ericsson.
By 2027, this is projected to grow to 79%. This makes video the primary driver of mobile usage. Smartphone users are watching video in many forms, including movies, TV, sports broadcasts, short video formats such as TikTok, and social media videos.
3. Video Reaches Connected TV Audiences
Another growing audience accessible through video marketing is connected TV viewers. The connected TV viewing audience now accounts for 36% of total TV viewing time, according to IAB’s report. Advertiser spending on connected TV grew 57% in 2021 to reach $15.2 billion.
In 2022, this is projected to grow another 39% to reach $21.2 billion. Advertisers like connected TV because it allows them access to types of data not available through traditional TV and delivers better sales results. Additionally, it provides more transparency about where ads are being run and avoids reliance on third-party cookies.
4. Video Encourages Audience Engagement
Higher engagement is another big benefit of video marketing. For example, video ads drive higher engagement on Facebook than other types of content, according to 60% of marketers surveyed by data analytics provider Databox.
Video includes a couple of features that encourage audience engagement. For one thing, videos often require viewers to click to see them, which promotes audience participation.
Beyond this, videos can engage audiences through content that holds viewer attention. A video that makes viewers laugh, tells an interesting story, or shares a surprising fact encourages audience engagement.
5. Video Promotes Social Sharing
The engaging nature of video makes viewers want to share videos with their friends and followers on social media. Videos posted on social media get 1,200% more shares than posts with texts and images combined, according to Joshua Moroles of Alamo Digital Agency.
6. Video Can Help With SEO Performance
Video marketing can significantly improve your SEO performance. Adding video to existing content can increase search engine results. Video includes a number of features that can improve your brand’s search engine optimization performance.
You can include keywords in videos just as you can in other types of content. This allows Google and the internal search engines of platforms such as YouTube to index your videos by keyword. In Google, video results appear in their own dedicated tab, which can help you compete with text-based content.
Video results often appear with thumbnails. An eye-catching thumbnail increases the odds of a video attracting clicks, pushing your search rankings up. Videos may gain additional SEO traction from referrals, shares, and comments.
7. Video Lets You Tap into Trends
Video provides marketers with an effective way to leverage the popularity of trending topics. When users search on hot topics, if you have a video posted that ties that topic into your brand, you benefit from the publicity.
Tapping into trends can be especially powerful on platforms that prioritize trending topics. For instance, TikTok’s algorithm displays results that use the same song or sound as the video currently being viewed, so if a song is trending, you can gain views by including it in your video. Using trending hashtags can help you get views on platforms such as TikTok and Twitter.
8. Video Personalizes Your Brand
Videos help marketers communicate with customers in a more personal way by putting a face on your brand. Whereas other forms of content may lack a personal touch, video lets customers see who’s talking to them.
This can make customers feel a more personal connection to your company. If the personalities who appear in your videos are humorous or entertaining, it also can serve to promote engagement and brand loyalty.
9. Video Dramatizes Your Products and Services
Seeing is believing, and one of the unique advantages of video is that it lets customers see your products and services in action. You can use video to document case studies or depict simulations that show off what you sell.
For example, a video can show what types of common problems lead customers to turn to your brand. A company selling a kitchen product might begin a video by showing a consumer frustrated over how hard it is to prepare a meal using conventional equipment, setting the stage for offering the product as an innovative solution.
Videos likewise serve to showcase product features and benefits and to pre-empt common sales objections. A video effectively can deliver an entire sales presentation in a dramatic package.
10. Videos Provide Social Proof
Another way video helps marketers is by providing a powerful form of social proof. In contrast to testimonial formats which rely on text alone, videos allow viewers to see and hear your actual customers describing their experience with your product or service.
For example, this promotional animated video was designed to promote the advantages of a productivity app. Made by blisstrovideos.
Endorsements from celebrities, thought leaders, and other famous personalities carry more impact when delivered on video. Video brings social proof of your products and services to life in a format that is easy to share online.
Videos on Social Media Marketing Platforms
Let’s look at the most popular platforms:
YouTube
Need help setting up your youtube video marketing strategy? All your Youtube channel needs in one place.
YouTube is one of the oldest video marketing platforms and remains the most popular. Owned by Google, YouTube benefits from Google’s search engine dominance, making it an attractive platform for marketers. Marketers use YouTube to:
Publish original video content
Run ads on videos that are being viewed by your target audience
Partner with influencers to promote brands
These applications make YouTube a primary tool for video marketing. Marketers use YouTube to promote brands through formats such as:
How-to videos
Question-and-answer sessions
Whiteboard presentations
Lists, and product reviews
YouTube marketing videos tend to be only a few minutes long, though the length can vary depending on the purpose of the video. For instance, entertaining videos intended to build brand awareness may be less than a minute, while informative videos explaining products may run up to ten minutes or more.
LinkedIn Video
LinkedIn supports its own native video format. LinkedIn native videos play automatically within the platform, which increases views and engagement.
Native videos can be posted on profile pages, shared to homepages or groups or pages, or broadcast live to profiles, pages, or events. Videos can be uploaded after being previously created or they can be created within LinkedIn itself.
Profile videos can be up to 30 seconds long. Videos shared on homepages, groups, or pages can be up to 10 minutes long when uploaded from the LinkedIn mobile app or 15 minutes when uploaded from desktops.
In addition to supporting native videos, LinkedIn allows you to post a video ad up to 30 minutes long or to link to an embedded video hosted on an external site. Embedded videos do not play automatically on LinkedIn, unlike native videos.
Instagram
Need help setting up your Instagram video marketing strategy? All your Instagram needs in one place.
Instagram currently supports several different video formats. Most video content now appears in a native format called Reels, which allows you to record and edit short videos up to 90 seconds long using Instagram’s Camera feature. You can add voiceovers, music, or effects.
In addition to Reels, Instagram also supports other formats, including:
Stories, which disappear after twenty-four hours unless added as highlights
Live broadcasts, which can be saved for archiving
Videos, which can be recorded within Instagram or uploaded
Video ads
Since July 2022, most Instagram videos only can be shared as Reels.
Facebook Video
According to Fiverr Fall 2022 Business Trends Index reports, businesses are increasingly interested in leveraging Meta's social platforms as a core part of their social media strategy, with 175% more Fiverr users searching for the term "Facebook video ads"
Facebook supports a number of video options, including:
Video uploads, which can be added to posts as native videos
Stories, which can be viewed for up to twenty-four hours
Live videos up to eight hours long
Video ads
For video uploads, Facebook recommends MP4 or MOV formats, though a number of other formats are supported.
Webinars
Webinars are online events that can be broadcast live or recorded. They usually are delivered via software apps that support one or more presenters and up to thousands of participants. Presenters can broadcast themselves or share screen views with audiences. Audiences can participate by typing questions or speaking over audio or video. Leading webinar platforms include Zoho Meeting, ON24, Hubilo, and GoTo Webinar.
TikTok
TikTok’s platform is oriented toward short videos which feature music. The platform supports a number of video options, including:
Brand takeover ads, which pop up on user screens when they open the TikTok app and run up to five seconds
In-feed ads, which appear between other videos and run up to fifteen seconds
TopView ads, which appear in a user’s first in-feed ads after three seconds and run up to sixty seconds
Branded Hashtag Challenge ads, which invite users to record themselves participating in a challenge and upload the result with a specified hashtag
Branded Effects ads, which are videos enhanced by augmented reality filters
TikTok supports MP4 and MOV formats.
Twitter Video
Twitter supports several different methods of sharing videos, including:
Recording videos using the Twitter app
Importing videos from the Twitter iPhone or iPad app
Uploading videos to Twitter’s website
Creating live videos using the Twitter app
Recorded and uploaded videos can run up to two minutes and twenty seconds. Twitter recommends using the MP4 format, although MOV also is supported.
Video Marketing Trends
As video marketing has grown more popular, certain tactics have become standard, while others have changed as new formats have emerged. Keeping up with the latest video marketing trends can help you know which methods are effective today. Here are ten of the latest video marketing trends:
1. Short-form Videos
As social media has become a primary channel for sharing videos, videos have been getting shorter in a couple of ways. First of all, the average length of videos is growing shorter. Platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok favor videos that are seconds rather than minutes long. This shorter playing time appeals to audiences’ short attention spans and attraction to quick, attention-getting entertainment.
The average amount of time videos are available for viewing also has grown shorter. This reflects the rise of story videos which disappear after twenty-four hours, popular on platforms such as Facebook and Instagram.
Some platforms such as Snapchat support videos that are available for even shorter times. For marketers, an advantage of videos being available for a limited time is that it adds a sense of urgency, encouraging clicks.
A simple way to leverage this trend is to take existing footage from longer videos you already have and repurpose excerpts from them as short-form content. Fiverr video editors can help you repurpose your videos into short-form versions.
2. Vertical Format Videos
The physical appearance of videos has been moving towards a vertical portrait orientation suitable for viewing on smartphones. This departs from the horizontal landscape orientation characteristic of movie, TV, and desktop screens. Snapchat, Instagram, and TikTok have helped promote the trend toward vertical videos. A portrait orientation places more emphasis on the subject’s face, which can give marketing videos a personal touch.
The ideal way to produce vertical format videos is to shoot them in the right orientation in the first place. However, if you have existing horizontal videos, one of Fiverr's video editors may be able to help you reorient them for vertical format.
3. Vlogging
As the name implies, video blogging or vlogging is the video equivalent of blogging. Just as blogging is one of the most popular content forms for text-based marketing, vlogging has become a leading form of video marketing. Vlogging puts a face and a voice to your content and keeps content creators in touch with audiences on an ongoing basis. This builds rapport and brand loyalty while making content easier to digest for those who prefer video to reading.
Some people may feel self-conscious about vlogging. In this case, consider hiring one of Fiverr's spokesperson video specialists to produce your vlog content for you.
4. Live Videos
Smartphone cameras make it easy to record live videos, which has made live streaming a popular marketing tool. Live videos can be shot with no planning or minimal planning. They also allow brands to broadcast live events. This can give audiences a sense of being there with your representative in real-time.
What if you're not sure how to shoot live video? No worries, this is easily outsourced. For instance, Fiverr gives you access to filmed video production services to help you.
5. Unedited Video Content
The growth of live videos has promoted a trend toward unedited content. This parallels the rise of reality TV and shares some of the marketing advantages of that format. Unedited content reduces the amount of time and resources spent on editing while conveying a sense of realism that feels authentic to audiences.
6. User-generated Video Content
Need some UGC content?
Comments
Post a Comment