Video as a Rising Social Medium

According to Cisco, video will account for 69% of all consumer traffic by 2017. Both current statistics and trend predictions like this one indicate video’s rapid rise as a social medium. It’s clear that marketers need to include it in their content strategy in order to provide maximum exposure for their businesses.

 

What Does Video Bring to a Content Marketing Strategy?

• Maximized engagement
• Cross-device targeting
• Brand authenticity and communication on a human level
• Cross-promotion with digital marketing initiatives

Even Small- and Medium-Sized Businesses Can Leverage Video Marketing

One of the factors fueling video’s growing popularity is the decrease in production costs. With the advent of video cameras on mobile phones and desktops, wearable cameras like GoPros, and single-camera, documentary-style footage, great videos can be made at a fraction of budgets deemed necessary just 5 years ago.

With a lowered barrier to entry, video isn’t just for enterprise businesses with enterprise budgets. In fact, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg stated that over 1.5 million small businesses posted video on Facebook in the month of September alone in 2015.

When the opportunity for relevant video content presents itself, companies of all sizes should seize it. Here’s an example of how Zer0 to 5ive recently helped a client take advantage of such an opportunity to create a compelling video series.

Carnegie Mellon University: The Spotlight Series

Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Computer Science (CMU SCS) wished to showcase their innovative programs and visionary research to attract the world’s top undergraduates, graduates and faculty. CMU SCS faculty is teaching the next generation of computer scientists, working with industry leaders, developing new forms of AI, and building care-giving robots to best learn how to help people in need. In highlighting these impressive endeavors, the Spotlight Series was born.

 

Tips on How to Promote and Cross-Promote Video Content

After post-production, how can a marketer best promote and cross-promote video content online? Author Andrew Macarthy provides the following tips in his bestseller, 500 Social Media Marketing Tips.

Tips for Facebook

• Because videos auto-play on silent, hook viewers with a striking visual within the first 3 seconds
• Upload SRT caption files with your video to broadcast your message even while muted
• Keep your video to approximately 30 seconds for optimum viewer engagement
• Upload video to Facebook natively, as opposed to sharing it from YouTube, in order to increase reach
• Via the Video tab, organize your videos into playlists, tag people, and add descriptive labels

Tips for YouTube

• Keep your video to approximately 3 minutes for optimum viewer engagement
• Include keywords at the front of your video title and branding at the end
• Tag your video with keywords and keyword phrases in quotations
• Take advantage of YouTube’s interactive cards, the evolution of annotations
• If you have a series of videos, add all of them to a dedicated playlist so they run continuously and indicate the series name in the title of each video

Tips for Cross-Promotion

• Embed video in blog posts
• Embed a YouTube Subscribe channel widget on your website, which is also a way to advertise your video content and YouTube activity
• Tweet about your video with relevant hashtags, making sure to include “Video:” before the title
• Comment on other videos your audience is watching to increase your brand awareness

Now may be a great time for you to start considering video if you haven’t already. The benefits will continue to grow as demand rapidly increases, so why not take the leap now? You can start small and build up to a more robust content plan as your skills improve and as you get feedback from your prospects and customers.