Social media is the place to be for every business. If you own a business, you must be constantly thinking about how you can get the most out of your social media marketing. The potential customers are out there, you just need to create content that will reach them. But how? There’s a surplus of content on social media; how will you make sure yours gets to the right audience?
The answer is video. 93% of marketers gain a new customer from posting a video on social media. Video content also gets 12 times more shares than images and text combined. Suffice to say video is dominating social media. One of the easiest, most efficient ways to get your own video content out there is through animated videos.
Animated Videos are Great for Social
More and more people are looking for engaging, informative and visual content on the internet. Our sense of sight is our most dominant sense, that’s why visual information is easier to grasp and engages people much more quickly. 73% of consumers worldwide prefer seeing entertaining videos on social media. More often than not, animated videos are creative and entertaining. They invoke a sense of curiosity and nostalgia in the viewer. Animated explainer videos cut through the traffic of live-action talking head videos or documentary style narratives. They catch the viewer’s attention and then simplify complex topics. Engaging, informative and visual!
Not to mention, live videos may end up costing too much to be posted regularly for social media marketing. Not every video gets the same amount of impressions, so the high cost of hiring actors, crew and equipment may not be feasible every time. Animated explainer videos can achieve the same purpose as a fraction of the cost and can be used for any type of subject matter, be it products, infographics or announcements.
Optimize Social Media Videos
There are a few ways in which videos need to be tweaked to optimize them for social media. On social media, people mostly come across videos while scrolling through their feeds. Their attention is harder to hold than someone coming to your website to look at your explainer video voluntarily.
An Attention-Grabbing Title
People watch 2 billion videos on Twitter per day. Tweets with video get 10x the engagement. To get these results on your socials, the video title needs to be appealing to warrant a stop and click. Similarly, the shorter the video is, the more likely the person is to interrupt their scrolling to watch all of it.
But, video titles can be tricky. Sometimes, a catchy title for a video for an ad may get a positive response. It will be remembered. At the same time, a misleading title could add to a sense of betrayal and a sense of frustration for having watched a two minute video about something you didn’t really want to watch. What do you do, then? To avoid such grave errors, here are some guidelines you could follow:
- Don’t become irrelevant in trying to be different, or you’ll miss out on your actual target audience. What makes a title different? It’s when the message hits home. Find out the problems your audience faces that you can solve. Western Union’s “Send Money App To Cash” worked quite well.
- Don’t be misleading just to get more clicks. If a video is titled “This shampoo changed my life,” there’s going to be a sense of betrayal.
- Don’t try too hard to create a unique title. Just let it be original. Boch Global’s title, “The Internet Of Things Presents Live Like a Bosch” was an extremely successful campaign. It’s got an element of mystery, it’s quirky and it’s not misleading.
Don’t Go Unheard
Over 100 million hours of video are watched on Facebook every day. Engagement is highest on Facebook posts with videos at 13.9%. Social media users, when checking their accounts in public places, at work or for short intervals, tend to leave the video sound off. 85% of Facebook videos are watched without sound. Hence, it is very important to include subtitles, or your message may be lost. It is also advisable to include multiple language subtitles if there is a lot of talking in your videos to include non-native speakers and increase accessibility.
Relevant CTAs
64% of consumers will make a purchase after watching brand videos on social platforms. This makes it very important to direct the viewer from the video using a relevant call-to-action, otherwise they might just continue scrolling and forget all about it. No purchase will be made if the viewer doesn’t know where to make it. You can also prompt them to share the video or check out your brand’s socials, you can even direct them to your website if that suits your end goal.
Social media is the place to connect with an audience like never before and if you want to do so, video content is the way to go. If you feel like your social media marketing strategy is missing that edge, get in touch with us to put your mind at ease!