Social media is a veritable powerhouse for entrepreneurs and marketers looking to promote their products. By selecting a range of social media platforms, a social media manager has the power to transform a brand, create a brand identity, draft a social media calendar and evaluate the efficacy of a marketing rollout. Capturing local news, and staying afloat with the latest trends is a great way to infuse ingenuity into a social media campaign. Now, with video becoming an essential driver of digital footfalls, crafting a video marketing strategy for social media becomes necessary.

Here, we give you five.

Embrace the Power of Curated Videos

Did you know that YouTube features the maximum number of search queries on its platform, only second to Google?

Go Big on YouTube:

YouTube combines the advantages of a search engine and the power of visual engagement, two tools that could propel your business quickly. Plus, you could draw on trends that feature on YouTube to determine which keywords could potentially optimize your website. Then, link your YouTube base to your own custom video streaming domain. There is an array of excellent platforms in the market today, that plug directly into your website and allow you to stream directly. Streamhash, for example, is a versatile, turnkey technology that provides features at par with YouTube, for a fraction of the cost. What’s more? You get to stream live. By using the customization options and themes on Streamhash, you can make your streaming site your own.

The bottom line? Go big on YouTube!

Explore an Array of Video Initiatives:

There are various approaches you could take to drive engagement on YouTube. Here are some video marketing ideas you could consider:

• Live Streams

Streaming live to your audience builds authenticity, and gives rise to a platform that facilitates communication both ways. We’ve already told you about the advantages of starting your own streaming website. With a platform like Streamhash, you can give your streams your own personal twist.

• How-To Videos

How-To videos are excellent content vehicles, especially if your product is demonstrable. By capturing users’ attention and imaginations, you’re likely to see traction in sales.

• Webinars

Webinars are especially useful if your company caters to a large base of corporate clients. By engaging them on a digital forum and leaving room for a question-and-answer session, you could create key influencers.

• Interviews

Interviews are always an engaging way to draw eyeballs, especially if you interview someone well-known that people would be interested to watch. Seek out about five personalities that could feature in your interviews, and release your episodes in installments, creating a sponsored campaign around each one.

Create Sponsored Promotions on Social Media:

If you’re a frequenter of social media, you’re probably privy to the assortment of advertisements that appear on your news feed. Social media is an excellent market vehicle for brands and is a critical element of a typical promotional mix today.

• Identify Competition on Social Media

The trouble is, with the explosion of companies scurrying to promote their brands on social media platforms, shining through to a customer has become challenging. As a brand, you’re not only vying with rivals in your own space, you’re competing with brands across the board, each desperate to project their offerings.

• Build Your Own Video Domain

Before you take social media head on, make sure that you have a dedicated domain that can support video. This will pave the way for you to make your video campaigns bigger and better in the future. Use a framework like the one provided by Streamhash to get you going. Streamhash, for instance, gets you started in just two days.  

• Conquer Social Media

The most effective method to break through the brand clutter on social media, is to create sponsored content, and what better way to do that than with a video marketing idea? There’s evidence that a video post on Facebook generates about twice the engagement of a plain, vanilla post. By creating excellent video content and refining your targeted audience, your marketing campaign can do wonders. Remember to keep your video crisp and precise, spotlighting your offerings in a quick and clever way.

Send Customised Videos for Followers:

Everybody knows that social media can be a great way to listen to customers, gauge interest levels and feel the pulse of an audience. However, most brands use social media only as a projection tool, to disburse communication in a unidirectional manner.

Make Customers Feel Special:

By using social media to interact with followers on a personal level, you’re not only making them feel special, you’re most likely handing them a torch to spread loyalty amongst their network. You’re making them influencers. But let’s take it a step further. Imagine sending customized videos to your followers, each one tailored for a specific person. You could do this in two ways. Either you could scour social media platforms for key influencers in your space, and send them personalized videos, or you could select key customers that have contributed to your company significantly. If you’re still a small enterprise, perhaps you have the wherewithal to create custom videos for all your followers.

The Example of Dell

Dell has been an iconic brand in the computer space for years, priding itself on quality and price. In the spring of 2016, the company launched a fantastic video marketing strategy on Twitter, sending personalized videos to users who had recommended a Dell product to someone else via the microblogging platform.

Maximize Presence Through Social Media Stories:

As of a few weeks ago, Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat all feature a Stories feature, under which video content that is uploaded features in a band that sits atop followers’ news feeds. These stories disappear after 24 hours, allowing brands to continually reinvent themselves without flooding content onto social media. A study conducted recently revealed that users prefer Stories over conventional social media posts. It’s an ideal time to maximize uploads through the Stories feature. Create concise, captivating videos and remember to include a link at the end to lead users to your website.

Capitalize on User-Generated Video Content:

Using user-generated content has endless advantages. For starters, it is one of the best means for user engagement.

Hold Contests for Innovation

Think of holding an online contest for users to send videos of themselves using your product in the most innovative way. You could even ask them to share it on a social network and tag two friends. Not only will the videos act as reviews, automatically endorsing your brand, but they will impart confidence and faith in prospective customers.

Invite Videos of Unboxing

Confused? Don’t be. Watching others unbox a package can build anticipation in viewers, and it’s an activity that many users enjoy. Ask your customer base to record amusing videos of their children or themselves unboxing your product on arrival, and showcase the excitement on social media.

There are so many ways that you can use video vehicles to inspire customers to get to know you. Even on a small budget, video content can create a big impact!