Why You Should Use Online Video for Social Media Marketing.

Using online video in your digital marketing is essential these days. If you are in content marketing, social media marketing or digital marketing, using online video to market your brand and promote your business to your customers is ideal. People watch online videos all the time. YouTube is the second largest online search engine after Google. Facebook have embraced video so much that they have just launched Facebook Live Video which allows us to live stream video directly to our Facebook pages. From 6 second Vines to 15 second Instagram videos and more, we have a whole world of video content and the means to create it, under our feet.

So why should we be using video in our own online marketing?

Humans love video for a number of reasons – from watching moving images to recognising other human faces, there are plenty of reasons why we are drawn to watching video content. It can be an extremely effective way to reach your customer, especially if your customer spends a lot of time online. According to a survey published on RTE.ie an astounding 60% of people in the Republic of Ireland in May 2015 had a Facebook account and of those over 70% of users were on Facebook every single day. Now just think of your own Facebook use if you have an account yourself, how much of your news feed is taken up by video content? It’s probably quite a lot.

If an article contains an image, we are more likely to click on it; if an article contains a video, we are even more likely to click on it. Images and video content increase the click through rate and get people onto your page. This is not new information, but how you use this in your own online marketing is where you get to be creative while also promoting your business through an effective and highly shareable medium.

There are many ways you can use online video in your own social media or online marketing.

You should always start with your research by finding out where your ideal client is, what platforms do they use, what social media channels do they like and what kind of ‘stuff’ are they sharing themselves. These questions will help you narrow your focus so that you can use online video to reach the maximum number of your customers or potential customers. When you have an idea of who your customer is and what they want, you will be better equipped to incorporate video into your online marketing campaign.

There are short, simple videos that you can shoot yourself with your smart phone for the likes of use on Instagram, Twitter or Snapchat which favour short clips between 6 and 15 seconds. Then there is Facebook Live which you can use if you have a live event or product launch that you want to stream directly to your Facebook followers. You should make sure your video is good quality, that means clear sound and a high quality image. If this means hiring a professional videographer than you will need to factor the cost into your budget.

Video on Facebook should be treated the same as a mini-television advert – just look at other pages who successfully use video to promote their businesses and see the difference between a professional looking video and a amateur video shot with a phone. Instagram and Snapchat are designed for mobile use so your DIY phone footage is acceptable on those platforms, however Facebook now has so much video content that we have to treat it as we would treat our own websites. Keep your video short: try not to go over 2 minutes, as people tend to get bored or they just won’t watch the video at all when they see the timecode.

If you are going to create video content for your website or Facebook then take the time and invest in a professional. What you are doing is creating the equivalent of a TV advert but instead of screening on TV at a certain time, you can share it through social media to reach your hundreds or thousands of followers without time constraints and for a significantly lower price than you would pay for a TV advert. The best way to make the most out of your money is to have done your research, have a clear idea of what you want the video to do for your business and for your customer and also to share it effectively online.

Once you have a nice video you also need to know how to share it through the various social media platforms, how to make it optimised for search engines such as YouTube and Google, and how to incorporate it into your Facebook ad campaigns. I will be writing in more detail about sharing your video online in my next blog.

How do you use online video in your social media marketing? Are there any areas you want to know more about? Leave a comment below, I would love to hear your thoughts.

Thanks for reading!

Check out some examples of video content used in social media marketing:

Connacht Hotel ‘What’s Your Favourite Thing About Galway?’

NUIGalway ‘Get The Edge’

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ta6aNy23nXw]

Supervalu Ireland Facebook Videos

https://www.facebook.com/SuperValuIreland/videos

Other Links:

RTE Survey on Social Media Use in Ireland http://www.rte.ie/news/business/2015/0603/705609-facebook-social-media/