How To Use Social Media Video Effectively

It's easy enough to find statistics on how effective video is at increasing conversion rates, stats on the rate of growth of video use on all social media platforms, and the internet as a whole, but do you know how to use social media video effectively?

As with many new things, a lot of people like to dabble a bit. If they succeed they will continue, if they fail, they stop doing it. This is very much the case with social media video whether the video is done personally or by video production companies. The internet is littered with poorly executed social media video. It's as though the world wide web has become a dumping ground for bad video productions. While there is nothing wrong with giving it a go, social media video is a very unforgiving set up. The viewers have no problem ignoring your video or clicking away while watching it, to go see some other more interesting video. There is no sense of obligation or guilt on the part of the viewer to not hurt your feelings. If they are not interested in your video, you feel the cold shoulder of the masses.

So with a clear understanding that nobody owes you any favors in the world of online marketing and that it's a highly competitive market, let's get to how you can improve your chances of having your video seen and having it make a difference.

The two main differences you want from your video marketing online are traffic and SEO.
These are two separate but equally important parts of the effect of video in social media. They both take a long time to build up and both can change your business marketing forever.Let's begin with traffic.
At the end of the day, SEO or Search Engine Optimization is also about traffic. Although it is about being ranked high in a search engine, if that rank doesn't result in traffic, it is pretty meaningless.
It is also important to know that the numbers showing traffic are not the same as traffic. This may be , on the surface, a bit odd. Isn't it all about the numbers? You want to see high numbers on your viewership right? Well not really. The numbers can be a good indication of an increase or decrease in viewership but it does nothing more than that. Unless you are trying to earn money on YouTube from Adsense, the numbers mean little. What you want is clicks on your website or action being taken by the viewer. This is where many video marketing campaigns go off track. The obsession with having the number of views go up can be self defeating .
Firstly, it is important to know that views can be bought. Let that sink in for a second. There are many videos on YouTube and other video platforms with tens of thousands and even hundreds of thousands of views that have barely even been watched by a handful of people. How is this possible? Its very simple. There are a range of services that offer "real" viewers at a super cheap price. The views are simply bought and the numbers show the growth in views. Many of these services include "subscribers" even "likes" and "dislikes" to make it look authentic. Many buyers are so convinced that they simply spend money on growing the number of views. A completely pointless exercise. If those views don't result in any gain for marketing, then what is the point? There needs to be some form of action after watching the video to make the video meaningful to your marketing.
It can be said though that buying your first few views can help with first impressions but it will not help in the long run. Many people will not watch a video with low viewer numbers. Like the people who will only stand in long queues because they think that other people wanting something is a reason for wanting it themselves, so viewers want to see what other viewers want to see. So starting off with a few bought views can't hurt but what matters is what happens after that. Do they actually keep watching your video? Do they interact with your video? Do they come back for more?

These are the things that really matter. It may seem daunting but it can be achieved. The first thing is to not try to be something you are not. Many would argue that being funny or controversial is the answer. As much as this does work in many cases, it may not work for you. It may not even benefit your business, even though the viewers may be flying in. Remember, effective video marketing has results. Measurable results. Also not all videos need to be super high end like those made by video production companies in Johannesburg. They should however not be unprofessional. Quality is still important.

So lets get to the meat and potatoes part of video marketing on social media. Now whether you are using a video production company or you are making them yourself, the same set of ideas apply.
They are Relevance, Targeted and Constancy.

Lets start with relevance. This not only applies to the content of the video but relevance to your business. Having a puppy video may bring in an audience but if you sell industrial equipment you are wasting your time. Your mission is not to provide entertainment. Your mission is to bring in a buying audience. You can be entertaining in the process but the focus is not entertainment. Try to find topics that interest your target market.

This brings us to the targeted part. Being targeted does not mean having a general coverage of a vaguely similar audience. A target is precise. The age, gender, social standing, industry, price bracket etc are critical bits of information about your market that can make or break your targeting of the correct audience. When your videos go out they need to appeal to that audience.

Then consistency comes in. You may have heard consistency thrown around in all fields but in social media marketing, this is hugely important. There are two reasons for this. The first is that it takes time for people to trust you and your message. Secondly it's because the audience you created will fall away if they come back to your channel only to find that your messages have stopped.This is where dabbling in social media can be a killer. All the work can end up with no results and, even worse, the sense of despondency will kill your eagerness to try again. Its better to do an average job consistently than have a random bit of greatness.

So how do you get started with your video marketing? Before you put something out there, it is important to cover some basic topics. Whether you use a corporate video production company or make your own videos with your cell phone, the rules are the same. They are image quality, sound quality and packaging. If you are not going to use a professional video production company then

these are very important. Most video production companies in Johannesburg have got these parts down so its a weight off your mind. If, however, you are doing it on your own then these are very important. It would take more than a few blogs to share that information but the basics would be: use light, more light and then some more light. Don't shoot in dark areas without experience. Make sure your audio is loud and clear. Not too loud that it distorts and not too soft that the audience will struggle to hear it. If you can, use a lavelier, or lapel, microphone to improve your voice recordings.
Make sure the video audio is mixed and leveled correctly. Turning up your speaker volume can create the illusion that your audio is fine. When it goes online you will discover the problem. Make sure its loud and clear compared to other audio like music etc.Also having too much graphics in the video can take away from the personal appeal. Having some basic short graphics like nice clean titles and logos can make the video look more professional but don't over do it.

Now comes the choosing of the idea for your video. This although technically easier, can be the hardest part for most people. The problems is not just finding a good idea, its consistently finding a good idea. Remember its not just a once off. What can help is to find an idea and make it a theme for a bunch of videos. For example if you sell gardening tools, you could do a series on removing unwanted things in the garden. The first episode could be about weeds, the second about bugs, the third about chemicals etc. If you sold on-line products like training programs you could take tiny parts of the training and share them as teasers. If you owned an exhaust and tyre shop you could give out advice on car maintenance tips or insider secrets to keeping car performance at its best.As you can see the topics for the video productions are similar but not exactly like the product in many cases. The idea is to attract people with similar interests to your product/service you are are selling.

This way they don't feel like you are selling to them. They have a sense of knowing your brand, trusting your message and having a sense of reciprocity. They, when they finally need your product or service, would more likely chose yours over your competitor because they feel like they know and trust you. Once you get this right, like the shampoo bottle says "rinse and repeat".
Having an audience that likes what you are doing will bring in bigger and bigger audiences who will grow in trust and liking of your business.
Many video marketers make the mistake of turning their marketing into a money generating video service. This can be a big problem for many marketing campaigns. While it is nice to make a few extra dollars form your videos, the trust can be damaged. The amount of return from the sales through your business as a result of your video marketing can massively outweigh the small gains from money earned form adverts on your video. Even worse is that your competitors can end up advertising on your video. You bring the audience, they get the results. Your video marketing should be to bring in your audience, to direct them eventually to your business. Nothing more, nothing less.

Your videos can also have a big impact on your SEO. This means that your videos can help with your business ranking. While many video production companies can make great videos, what hey might not be experts in is the application of the videos. Many SEO experts will tell you that embedding and back-linking is key to SEO. The embedding is where your marketing videos, on places like YouTube, are embedded into your website. Then your YouTube video can have a back-link to your website. This works well for boosting SEO. It also helps for your audience to be able to find your videos.

The Kind Of Video You Should Be Using For Social Media.

There is so much video being used and so much confusion as to what video to use for social media. Many video production companies are producing tons of high quality video for marketing but are they effective marketing tools on social media? Its time to look at what video should be used and when, with social media marketing.

Before we look at the problems we need firstly to define social media. This basic step is often overlooked and is part of the problem. Firstly not all social media is made equal. Different social media requires different video. You can not post a video to YouTube and think that it is the same as twitter or Facebook. Some social media platforms don't even allow for posting videos. So it is important to know which ones do. There is also a different audience on each platform so its important to know the demographics of your client base and which social media platforms match that audience. It makes no sense to have a huge reach to an audience that has no interest in your product or service.
Many businesses, due to their lack of knowledge about social media, get suckered into the notion that to stay relevant they have to reach out to a young and connected audience. Although the temptation is always there to try to be hip and in touch, if they are not your client demographic or potential buyers, they are not relevant. Be relevant to your actual client base.

Each social media platform also has its own limit on size of video.This means bit rate and quality as well as length of video can be critical. So many companies make one video which they think can simply be plastered on all networks, not knowing that this is impractical. The video production companies in Johannesburg and around the world are only too happy to make these videos but the audiences will also respond differently to the same video on different platforms so the prodcution companies need to create ones that are appropriate.

One of the main causes of incorrect video usage on social media is self indulgence. Way too many companies will spend 3 to 7 minutes talking about themselves as if they are some super star who everyone is interested in. Reality check...You are not and they are not interested. A hard pill to swallow but if you don't break the cycle of self indulgent marketing, your businesses marketing will be feeble at best. The world today is filled with people who are only interested in what benefits them. They will not even watch 30 seconds of a rant about how amazing your company is. Video productions should be 100% about what benefits the client and not your business. The video is not only about getting the message to the client about how your company can benefit them but the video itself must be a benefit. This part is hard for many to comprehend because they never look from the buyers point of view, only from their own. Many corporate video production companies Johannesburg put together fantastic videos that are technically amazing and visually appealing but are of absolutely no benefit to the clients marketing strategy. The client is happy because their ego is stroked with the pretty video and the video production company is happy because they get paid whether the video brings new clients or not.

What video production companies should be doing is pointing out what video is most appropriate for which social media platform and how to use it. A video that provides value to potential clients is what should be used  on YouTube such as a "how to" video or some sort of free advice. This is of great value to the potential client and will draw them in willingly. On platforms that only allow for short small , videos where the viewers attention span is short a video that is either entertaining or provocative and very sharable is what should be used. When a company is putting together their web site a completely different video is needed. There are two types, the one being an "about us" video which goes on the about us page of the website and a "reason why" the client should use the business service or product video should be on the landing page. These can be hosted on YouTube or Vimeo and embedded on the web pages. These videos however will do nothing to bring in a new audience or potential clients but work well to close the deal with a person who has already landed on the website.
To draw in a new audience or potential buyers you need to go where they are.

While it makes sense to use professional corporate video production companies to make your range of videos, it is not their responsibility to know where to use them. That is either yours, or your marketing companies responsibility. There should be a clear communication between your marketing department and the video production companies to ensure the video is appropriate and targeted for the correct audience and social media platform.

For example a simple Happy Easter video can be as short as 5 seconds, to simply target existing clients. Like the video below.

This video will not bring in new clients and will do nothing for social media marketing but can be good for staying in the clients minds for future business.
Some simple inspiring short video clips can also work really well on many platforms. As long as it is short, interesting and sharable, then you stand a good chance of getting some decent exposure but its import to to keep testing to see which ones are responded to best and which ones bring in the most traffic. There is no silver bullet when it comes to video productions and their use on social media but these simple guidelines can make a huge difference to the effectiveness of the video and of the marketing on social media platforms.
When going through a list of production companies in Johannesburg, the production companies in Gauteng should offer you a range of video lengths and formats to be used on a range of social media platforms.

Video marketing for small business

Big companies have clearly seen the benefits of video marketing online and understand how much more affordable and effective it is compared to past expensive broadcast advertising. Small businesses are however less convinced. The sad thing is that online marketing should actually be benefiting small businesses due to its low cost and accessibility. Small businesses though are always tighter with their spend. This is totally understandable because they have less to spend and less ability to take risks. The small companies that do see the enormous benefits have taken up the challenge and seen huge benefits. For many people advertising is seen as a one to one exchange where all the money that is spent must be immediately visible as a return and therefore if no immediate returns are seen it seems to them to be a loss and a waste of time. Many small businesses pour good money after bad into low quality traditional advertising such as print media or phone books. The returns are minimal to say the least but they stick with it because they know it well and are comfortable with it.
When a good video campaign is put together by skilled people in a video production company the returns can be fantastic but because it is new territory for small businesses they often shy away from it.

Video production companies are in many cases also part of the problem because of their inability to distinguish between large and small companies. The expectations and the disposable funds are not the same. Large companies expect the videos to be very high end requiring expensive equipment and expertise while small businesses do not have the same expectations and have much less to spend.
Some might argue that video companies should not differentiate between big and small companies and treat everyone the same. This is a confused and short sighted approach. Any wealthy businessperson may well buy an expensive imported car while a small business owner may be more likely buy a smaller, more affordable car. Does this mean the two people are being treated differently? Clearly not. The same should apply to video productions. Smaller companies should have more affordable video productions available to them. This does not mean they should accept inferior quality but rather a service which best suites their budget.

It has been assumed by many that the only way to get a cheaper video made is by using a student or a new comer to the industry. While this thinking greatly benefits the students and newcomers by the lessons they learn, they are learning their lessons at the clients expense and the expense may be great when loss of business is factored in.
There also many dangers involved with low skilled videographers. Many don't have the basic understanding of copyrights and privacy laws. This lack of knowledge can have very costly results in the form of legal action and danger to individuals. The professional small business should really be looking at professional corporate video production companies to create the video that they need for their online marketing. There are more and more skilled video production companies who are beginning to offer affordable video productions that can greatly benefit small businesses. With many services in a free market, competition drives prices down making it possible for small businesses to take advantage of these services.

There are some important factors to keep in mind though when using these more affordable high quality video production services.

The first and most important thing to keep in mind is that video marketing is not SEO. SEO which means Search Engine Optimisation, is a completely different field. While video can play a major part in the Seo work, it in its self is not SEO. The very skilled SEO experts know that video is an intrinsic part of a good SEO strategy but they also know that video cannot stand alone. If you were to put your fantastic video onto YouTube and just wait and watch if anyone will see it, you are in for a mountain of disappointment.
Videos need to be promoted just like any piece of content. If you created a typed piece of marketing material, you wouldn't assume that it would promote its self.You would know that you need to pay a publisher of some kind to promote it. A print add needs to be printed in a publication that is distributed. The same applies to video.

Different videos have different purposes. An "About us" video is great for your website and YouTube but it can not be used for social media. Videos need to be tailored to each format. There are also different price tags for different types of videos. There is no "one fits all" video. Corporate video production Johannesburg companies are often asked for a quote on a corporate marketing video of a few minutes, as if video is sold by minute like meat is sold per pound or kilogram. This is not the case with video. A video of a person speaking in one place is very different to moving graphics, aerial video footage or even a heavy edit for effect. No video can be quoted as a fixed generic amount.Each video, with its own complexities will have a different price. Many small business owners make the mistake of wanting a TV style advert for their business. The advert on TV often costs hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars or rand to produce. Small businesses don't need these adverts. Also many small video production companies in Johannesburg can produce much more appropriate videos at a lower cost.

Its not a once off. Videos are often seen like websites, where once it is all done nicely it is a "set and forget" situation.This may work for a reasonably long while for websites but it does not work on videos. With social media becoming so pervasive in the marketing of all sizes of business,  it has affected the need for high volumes of content. With video becoming more and more important to social media, video has become a high turn over piece of content. Video productions put together by video production companies in Johannesburg were mostly seen as a low turn over high price type of marketing material. This has changed and video production companies have seen the importance of responding to the demand.The growth in demand for high turn over low price content may eventually over take the high priced video productions. This reluctant acceptance of this change will completely change the playing field of video production and the field of marketing.

 

Video Content For Social Media.

Video being used for social media is not seen in the way that video productions were originally seen. They are however as important as the full blown corporate video production Johannesburg companies provide . Some might say that they are now the most important. The video used though is on a much smaller scale and more of a throw away type of product. Because social media moves so quickly, and the content disposed of so quickly, it can become a very expensive exercise for most small businesses to keep up.
The over-cooking of small videos for social media can be an overkill. It is important to maintain quality but there are ways to reduce the cost of video for social media. There are some important ideas to keep in mind when deciding on the video content but there are no hard and fast rules as the use of video for social media as it is so new and ever-changing. Sticking to hard and fast rules would be a bad idea.
Although the playing field may change wildly and quickly, human behaviour remains the same in most cases. People's attention spans are low to say the least and the flood of information has numbed most people to marketing and advertising. So the idea is to grab their attention and get the message across quickly and memorably in the least irritating way. Worst case scenario you want it not to be an expensive exercise.

Online marketing should really be a much more affordable and effective way of marketing than traditional broadcast media. This means that if a company's online marketing budget begins to look like a broadcast budget, the company would have to rethink their marketing strategy.
Sometimes the content that is to be used is to be as throw away as possible to make sure the campaign can be ongoing. Having one amazing piece of content every blue moon is less effective than reasonably good content on a consistent basis. This type of content is not widely available at good prices because the ones who hold the keys to the equipment and skills to create the content are the same people who provide the high quality, high priced, video content for broadcast and corporate video marketing. They don't want to be seen as companies who create low quality throw away media.

There, however, is a rising market of video production companies in Johannesburg and around the world who are seeing the growth of a huge market for short, low cost, medium quality content. The important part is that it must be video content. Although images and text do play their part, the rise of video content is staggering. Video has all but over taken all other forms of content for social media, however most of it is low quality DIY nonsense. The video production companies who take up the challenge of creating the highly sought after video content will be part of one of the greatest digital media gold rushes ever seen.

To understand what this content is we have to look at people's behaviour. Firstly it must be eye catching to grab people's attention over other less attractive content. It must get the message across quickly because people lose interest very quickly. It must be memorable enough for people to want to share it and it must not look cheap even though it is. Most people are very judgemental when it comes to poor quality marketing. It's for this reason that the quick and cheap route is a tricky one.

The most popular form of social media content was info graphics.They held the lions share of the desirable content landscape for a long while. Short videos have however started to challenge info graphics for the title of "King of social media content". Info graphics are not cheap so the leap to short video is not that far.

The difference though is the source of the content. Most info graphics are put together by graphic designers, while social media video content is mostly put together by corporate video production companies and by a new bread of content providers.Video production companies Pretoria based or around the country can provide the same content as online providers with a local connection. While most types of content can be bought online, sometimes the sense of disconnect with unknown providers overseas can feel awkward. Local providers can often be just a phone call way to communicate about any issues with your content. Also payment and invoices are a lot easier because most online services work in dollars and not local currencies. The invoices are often also not valid for local tax purposes. Corporate video production companies Johannesburg based may be slightly more expensive but because the services are tax deductible and the communication is often better, the extra expense may not be that problematic.

For most small businesses a price range of a few tens of dollars or few hundred Rand per piece of content is about as big as the budget will go. There is a type of content that is fairly affordable but has a sense of quality to it. This type of content is based on basic templates that can be customised to suite each message for each company. The four important parts to any content are attractive, informative, memorable and sharable. This can be easily achieved with a short animated video adapted to have text suitable for the company message.
The formats can vary from 1080P HD to portrait and even square format. The reason is that most social media is consumed on mobile devices. The aspect ratio on PC is good for HD and many mobile devices, if turned on their side can also use the same aspect ratio, but most people hold their phones upright which means a portrait format is better. The format the can work on both portrait and landscape is the square format of equal height and length. While full marketing videos are best kept to the 16 by 9 aspect ratio of 1080p HD, social media is consumed in too much of an unpredictable manner so the square, or 1 by 1, ratio can be more useful.
The square aspect ratio is not as attractive but is highly shareable and easily consumed. These can sometimes be more important. When going through a list of video production companies in Johannesburg, make sure the company can provide a range of services for online marketing.

The variations on the content include simple typography, which is words floating around the screen, animated characters either as actual animation or as white board type of characters.Then there is the logo animation which basically turns a standard logo into an animated logo. The animated logo does not work well on its own but as part of other content. One of the most popular types is using a combination of typography, visual graphics with photographs and ending with a logo animation. This combined with music and even a voice over can be spectacular. They can be more expensive though so having it without music and voice will cut costs and a lot of social media is consumed using mobile devices with the sound off. So it will not have much of an impact to remove the audio all together.

Here are some examples of social media content :

Animated Logo:

Character animation:

Typography:

Graphics with photos and
video and animated logo: