Do you know where your audience views your content? Are you reaching them in the right platform and at the right time? Do you understand how to utilize subtitles and text within the different social media accounts? How about in newsletters? There are tactics that exist to instantly help make you and your team successful in using and sharing videos with your audience.
Which Platform is Right for My Audience?
Short answer to this question: Just ask your audience where they would prefer to consume videos. Yes, it is that simple.
Before starting any kind of content marketing campaign, video or otherwise, you need to make sure you talk to your audience. This is something most companies overlook or assume that they know where to reach them.
The founder of Content Marketing Institute, Joe Pulizzi, said in his book Content, Inc. regarding brands talking to their audiences:
“This is such low-hanging fruit that I almost didn’t include it as a strategy. Asking your customers or potential readers seems like such a simple thing to do, but sadly it’s rarely done.”
The best and easiest way to execute on asking your audience where they consume video content is to run an online survey. You can email this and post it on all of your social media accounts with incentives for it to be completed. Giving away a prize for those that fill out the survey is a small price to pay to get the video strategy right the first time around.
Three pertinent questions to include are:
- Where do you prefer to consume video content? (list accounts, website, newsletters, etc.)
- How do you view video content (phone, desktop, tablet)
- What time of day do you prefer to watch videos?
Utilizing Your Video Tactics Correctly
Now that you know where your audience prefers to consume video content, let’s look at the different ways you should utilize those tactics and best practices to do so.
Newsletters
Your audience loves the weekly or bi-weekly newsletters you have put together. Adding videos to them will really take them to the next level. However, be warned – adding a video directly to the HTML can create problems. Not all email accounts can support viewing videos or handle the size of a video file when sent to an inbox, which can result in bounce backs or landing into the dreaded SPAM folder.
Here are some tips to work around those issues:
- The easiest way to have video in your newsletter is taking an image from the video and overlaying a “play” button on top of that image. Then, as people click on the image it will take them to a hosting site such as YouTube or Vimeo. This is very easy to execute with solid results.
- Animated GIFs are another great way to link back to a video. The movements grab attention and engages with the reader.
Make sure to add the word “video” in the email subject line. Using the word “video” in email subject lines boosts open rates 19%, click-through rates by 65%, and reduces unsubscribes by 26%
Social Media – Facebook and LinkedIn
Whether your audience is loving Facebook or LinkedIn, the following tips and tricks to utilizing video on these platforms are a must to follow. If you do not incorporate one of the following, it often results in poor performance:
- Get to the point immediately. People are scrolling on their phones faster than ever, so the need to get to the point of the video is higher than ever.
- Keep the videos under 90 seconds. There is a huge drop off on watching a video past 90 seconds.
- Caption your content. 85% of video viewers leave the sound off. That’s huge.
- Don’t be square – go vertical. Vertical video is the way to go due to the amount of people that consume content on their phones.
- End with a call to action (CTA). This should be a part of all advertisements, regardless of whether they are video or written format. Do not leave your audience hanging. Here are some great social media tips for adding CTAs.
Bonus Tip: Research hashtags. This is where a social media manager comes into play. Understanding what hashtags are popular based on the topic and context of the video will help gain impressions without having to purchase a boost. Be warned, always make sure that the content is relevant to the target audience. Social media can be an unforgiving space to play in.
Creating videos for your audience is an extremely effective way to engage with them. Making sure that the promotion strategy for these videos is thought out is crucial. Take the time and invest in the research to determine when to best engage with your audience. Developing a strategy for all of your content will pay off with better engagement numbers and stronger relationships with your audience.
