According to Zenith’s Online Video Forecasts 2019, an average person spends 100 minutes a day watching videos. Businesses need to take note of this if they plan to develop their video marketing strategy on different social media platforms.
The good news is that there are many ways to create successful social media videos for businesses. Here’s an effective 7-step guide from video production company, Dream Engine.
Table of Contents
1. Set your goals
Before you start creating video content, identify what do you want to accomplish. List down a few goals so that you don’t get overwhelmed. For example, one goal can be to create brand awareness.
For some business owners, they create lots of how-to videos to educate customers on how to use the products they’re selling. By setting your goals, you can establish clear calls to action in your video content strategy.
2. Handpick your social media platforms
Every social media platform has its own way of creating videos. For instance, Facebook offers live videos, while newer ones like TikTok and Snapchat rely heavily on a single format.
If your business hasn’t created video posts on any platform, try to start with the ones where you’ve already established an audience. Another important consideration when picking a platform is to understand what they offer and the type of videos that can be displayed. This is crucial as this can affect your social media marketing strategy if you plan to repurpose your videos later on. It’s best to pick social media platforms that work well with each other.
3. Determine the type of video
People spending more time on most social media platforms brought about the creation of many types of videos. This doesn’t mean where the videos are placed, but the type of video that works best for your overall social media strategy.
Keep in mind that not all videos are the same, what’s most important is to choose the type that supports your goals. Here are a few samples and their benefits:
- Educational – These relay information and create brand awareness for new customers.
- Entertaining – These can be unexpected pranks, cute puppies, or even jokes which serve solely to entertain the audience.
- Interviews – These usually come with a guest speaker and are a great way to introduce an audience to a new influencer.
- Testimonials – These contain customer testimonials or highlights to help create social proof for your business.
4. Plan the video production
Before you start creating videos, plan the content production to save time and money. You need to establish how your social media video will be created and filmed. You can either hire an agency like Dream Engine to avoid stress or do it yourself with a team of experts from your organization.
Remember that if you plan to do everything in-house, you’ll have to consider a lot of things. This includes but is not limited to:
- Gather needed video recording equipment and props
- Write and edit scripts
- Create a storyboard
- Plan the shoot
- Coordinate with the right people to include in your video
- Identify appropriate locations where you’ll film
- Check if all the music that will be included is licensed
5. Allocate time for post-production
Even if you’re just doing short videos, you should still allow time for post-production. This is important if your videos are going to be used for ads or any other that requires heavy editing.
Post-production doesn’t only involve cutting scenes, it also includes important additions like closed captions, call-to-actions, and text overlays. The more polished you want your videos to look for your social media users, the more time you need.
Know what you’re getting yourself into before filming. Formal videos on YouTube will require a lot of work than a basic Facebook live stream.
6. Publish and promote videos
Once you’ve completed the video and feel confident about it, you can publish and start promoting. Just because you’ve published your video on Facebook and YouTube doesn’t mean it’s a one-and-done.
You can actually divide your videos and upload them to other various social media platforms over a month-long period. For example, on Twitter, you can promote as many times as you like. On the other hand, for live streams, you’ll have to promote often so that many people will join once you start the stream.
One filming session can produce many videos. You can use different clips for promotion, or splice them together to create another video that can help increase audience engagement.
7. Track metrics
The last step is to analyze the results of your video’s performance. You won’t be able to identify if it’s a success without looking at the statistics. How many times did your audience watch videos? How many likes, shares, and comments did you get?
With just a few clicks, each platform gives you a set of metrics that you can use. Upon analyzing the metrics, it should match the goals you set at the start. So if your goal was brand awareness, your CTA should include a link for viewers to learn more about your business. This means the matching metric should show an increase in link clicks.
You’re all set! We hope this 7-step guide to creating successful social media videos gives you great results in your marketing efforts.