Video is a tricky beast to tame. Especially if you have never dipped your toe into the waters where your brand is responsible for visuals, voice and the combination of the two, videography might seem rather intimidating.
However, there is a reason that video marketing is often cited as the single most important tactic on social media today, time and time again. Brand strategist Gary Vaynerchuck explains, “Whether it’s video on Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat or YouTube, the content you need to be thinking about creating and marketing on social for your business is video. Period.” Pretty bold words from ol’ Gary, but the man has a point: Your business could really benefit from video content, almost without exception.
If anything, video’s worth the time and energy purely for the ways it can help your SEO. Embed links on your blog, and you are 53 times more likely to rank on the first page of Google search results. I am not going to head into all of the details about SEO here (this is a good article on video marketing if you are interested), but particularly for bloggers, increasing the “stickiness” of your page via video is just plain common sense. If people leave your site immediately after they click into it, your site’s ranking in search results will be hurt. In 2012, Google introduced a new metric into their algorithm called “dwell time.” The longer the “dwell time,” or the longer users spend on your pages, the more likely it is that your content fits your needs, which Google particularly likes.
So, there is the basic idea that including video on either blogs or social media will make users stay longer and engage more actively.
The same tenet is true for Facebook’s algorithm, that mysterious labyrinth. “Right now, Facebook’s newsfeed algorithm is placing an enormous amount of weight on videos, otherwise known as reach,” continues Vaynerchuk. “When you upload videos natively, instead of linking out, you have a much higher chance of your videos being seen by your community.”
According to a recent study, today’s audiences spend just as much time watching videos as they do on social media. So if you are a company without an in-house cinematographer (i.e. most small to mid-size businesses), how can you successfully incorporate video into both your website and your social media outlets?
There are a few ways to think about this. First, if you have the budget and the desire, you could outsource to a cinematographer or videographer in your area who could produce something of professional quality. However, do not be overwhelmed by this: Remember, the Internet has a short attention span. The video does not need to be movie-length, but you can keep it at an easily digestible length of even 30-to-90 seconds.
Behind-the-scenes or employer branding videos are a wonderful way to start using video for business, especially for businesses looking to establish a company culture, recruit talent or revise the existing image of their brand or industry. Hootsuite, which created a video about coding to attract engineers, explains, “Employer branding allows you to show a more fun or hidden side of your company, regardless of how ‘boring’ it might seem from the outside.” Remember, boring is relative.
Finally, it is hard to argue with the facts: Videos are shared 1200% more often than links and text combined, and visitors who view product videos are 85% more likely to buy a product than those who have not viewed them.
If you have questions about how to integrate video into your existing (or new) social media strategy, leave a comment below — we would be happy to help!
Image credit: CC William Brawley
