Go Viral – How Video will Change the Social Media Marketing Game

To attract attention and buyers, you need to market your brands, products and services. But here’s the thing: standing out is hard to do especially in a crowded marketplace where your larger competitors have a large slice of the action. And that’s why video is the marketing tool that every brand should be seriously considering. But how do you get video to stand out on social media?

In many ways, social media has levelled the playing field by allowing all brands, irrespective of size, to muscle their way in on the action. Your social media marketing strategy should form part of your marketing strategy but like all tools, how you use video is important.

#1 Vertical video

Remember at one time how video should have been filmed in portrait? Not anymore! When filming, vertical video is best because it takes up a lot less space on people mobile feeds.

What to film?

It’s hard to know what followers will be interested in but try not to make videos look too forced or staged;

• Behind the scenes – from filming commercials to how your products are made or packaged, behind the scenes shorts are brilliant for stoking interest in your brand.
• Showcase – this is where you could get your staff or customers to give reviews of your products or services. Get it right, and they can be both informative and funny.
• Flashmobs – a flashmob is a group of hired professional dancers and singers who suddenly burst into song, surprising everyone around them. As well as using snippets of your video, you could ask your followers to share theirs with you too. User-generated content is hot news in terms of social media.

Here’s the best bit – ad hoc video as well as other ‘quickly made and quickly shared’ video from brands doesn’t have to be polished and shiny in quality either. In fact, it seems that the grainier it is and the more obviously less-staged it is, the better it goes down with followers.

#2 Micro-moments

From PPC adverts to tweets and captions, every marketing activity needs to work hard. It needs to contribute to brand voice and your overall marketing message, as well as reaching out and connecting with customers.

And yet, it doesn’t always have to be coiffured and staged, as we’ve seen in the previous point. Micro-moments, therefore, are just as powerful as a two-minute video that shows how your products are made.

Micro-videos of 10 to 30 seconds in length shared across your social media platforms several times are just as powerful, if not more so than longer vids. The secret is not just in the content but how and where it is shared, and how often. And don’t forget to attach a hashtag to it.

#3 Quick reactions

We live in a world where there is little time delay between something happening and it being shared around the globe. You just have to look at some of the atrocities that have struck in recent months to understand this.

On a positive note, when there is a news item to which you can react – choose the light-hearted stuff only! – you could create a micro-moment that pokes fun at your brand, for example, in light of the news item. There are many reasons why poking fun at yourself can be a savvy marketing ploy but take care with it and take care with links to news items too.

Get it right and videos on your social media feeds could be a win-win every time.

To attract attention and buyers, you need to market your brands, products and services. But here’s the thing: standing out is hard to do especially in a crowded marketplace where your larger competitors have a large slice of the action. And that’s why video is the marketing tool that every brand should be seriously considering. But how do you get video to stand out on social media?

In many ways, social media has levelled the playing field by allowing all brands, irrespective of size, to muscle their way in on the action. Your social media marketing strategy should form part of your marketing strategy but like all tools, how you use video is important.

#1 Vertical video

Remember at one time how video should have been filmed in portrait? Not anymore! When filming, vertical video is best because it takes up a lot less space on people mobile feeds.

What to film?

It’s hard to know what followers will be interested in but try not to make videos look too forced or staged;

• Behind the scenes – from filming commercials to how your products are made or packaged, behind the scenes shorts are brilliant for stoking interest in your brand.
• Showcase – this is where you could get your staff or customers to give reviews of your products or services. Get it right, and they can be both informative and funny.
• Flashmobs – a flashmob is a group of hired professional dancers and singers who suddenly burst into song, surprising everyone around them. As well as using snippets of your video, you could ask your followers to share theirs with you too. User-generated content is hot news in terms of social media.

Here’s the best bit – ad hoc video as well as other ‘quickly made and quickly shared’ video from brands doesn’t have to be polished and shiny in quality either. In fact, it seems that the grainier it is and the more obviously less-staged it is, the better it goes down with followers.

#2 Micro-moments

From PPC adverts to tweets and captions, every marketing activity needs to work hard. It needs to contribute to brand voice and your overall marketing message, as well as reaching out and connecting with customers.

And yet, it doesn’t always have to be coiffured and staged, as we’ve seen in the previous point. Micro-moments, therefore, are just as powerful as a two-minute video that shows how your products are made.

Micro-videos of 10 to 30 seconds in length shared across your social media platforms several times are just as powerful, if not more so than longer vids. The secret is not just in the content but how and where it is shared, and how often. And don’t forget to attach a hashtag to it.

#3 Quick reactions

We live in a world where there is little time delay between something happening and it being shared around the globe. You just have to look at some of the atrocities that have struck in recent months to understand this.

On a positive note, when there is a news item to which you can react – choose the light-hearted stuff only! – you could create a micro-moment that pokes fun at your brand, for example, in light of the news item. There are many reasons why poking fun at yourself can be a savvy marketing ploy but take care with it and take care with links to news items too.

Get it right and videos on your social media feeds could be a win-win every time.