t is no secret that video marketing is an integral part of marketing strategies regardless of industry or size of business.
If your business is not already using video marketing or beginning to use it then you may in fact be considered ‘behind the times’.
Whether you’re hiring a videographer to create your video content, or where it is a case of DIY, there are a number of key factors you need to keep in mind.
Having worked with a variety of businesses, to produce a wide range of videos, we know that there is no one-size-fits-all approach. Learning what type of video is best for your business will come from research into your sector and target audience, as well as trial and error.
However, there are some broad dos and don’ts of video marketing that we feel apply to the majority of businesses.
Do’s:
The well-known saying ‘Short and sweet’ should really be applied:
We have already spoken about this in a number of our blogs, but research has shown that we are very impatient. The average attention span of an audience is now thought to be between 6-10 seconds, which is why getting the length of your video just right is vital.
Cast your mind back to English lessons at school; the shorter the sentence, the more of an impact it will have. Why not apply this to your videos?
The shorter your video, the more impact it will have (but this will only be the case if you have nailed the content you cover in your video).
Tell a compelling story in a compelling way:
With a limited amount of time to grab the attention of your audience, creating a compelling story and telling it in a compelling way is the key to success.
Whatever the type of video you have chosen to create, whether it be a testimonial video or a How-To video, get creative with your storytelling skills. You want to make a video that your audience connects with on a higher level. This could be producing a video that provides the answer to their pressing question, or one that strikes an emotional chord with the viewer.
The Silent Revolution:
Social media platforms are constantly changing, with new features being added virtually every other week, with the aim of creating the best possible experience for the user.
One of these new features has presented a hurdle for video marketing, which businesses can only overcome by joining ‘The Silent Revolution’. The new feature we are talking about is autoplay.
This feature is used on both Facebook and Twitter, and means that when a user scrolls through his/her timeline and sees a video, that content will begin to automatically play while muted. This ultimately means that, unless the viewer directly clicks into the video, the sound of the video will not be heard.
To cater for this, it is important that your business is using subtitles or captions.
Don’ts:
Don’t follow a ‘Copy and Paste’ method:
Gone are the days when a business could ‘copy and paste’ one video they had created to all social media platforms. Developments in social media platforms have resulted in each platform differing in one way or more.
Therefore, it is important that businesses are tailoring their video to suit the platform they will be publishing it on. For example, if a business is posting a video on Facebook, they may want to consider tailoring the video through making it short and through adding subtitles, to combat the autoplay feature.
Don’t forget to personalise:
As we have mentioned above, there is not a one-size-fits all approach to video marketing on social media platforms. Each platform offers different features and each platform will have a different type of audience.
For example, the type of audience that a LinkedIn video will receive will be very different to the type of audience that a Twitter video will receive. The one platform is very professional and business-based, whereas the other is much more informal and is predominately used by millennials.
Through tailoring your videos to suit each platform and the audience that platform has, the higher the chances are of your video being successful.
Here are a couple of examples how we do video at One Minute Wonders with DHD Solutions and SwiftACI…..