A Breakdown of Social Media Video Marketing
We are all familiar with the power and influence of social media. The consuming nature of social for its users has led marketers to flock to these channels in search of their next prospect, lead, or customer. Specifically, social media video marketing has taken on a new shape in the last half-decade, filling the timelines of people with an endless stream of video content.
By using these channels effectively, marketers can take a few simple steps to optimize social video with a full-funnel mindset.
Using Social Media Video Marketing for Brand Awareness
Social media is great for brand awareness. It’s a place where you can find new people that might be interested in the services or products you provide. However, it’s important to remember how these networks work.
We found in our State of Online Video report that, on average, Facebook users only watch 6 seconds of a video, significantly down from 20 seconds in 2017. While on YouTube, the average user watches 1:14 minutes of a video.
These channels are great for sharing your message in a quick snippet, but not ideal for moving prospects down the funnel to engage and learn from your message.
In order to achieve your desired results through these channels, it’s important to treat them how users treat them. There is so much noise and distraction on these increasingly crowded channels, that high impressions with low engagement should be expected. Each channel has their advantages when it comes to the brand awareness phase of the buyer's journey or marketing funnel:
Facebook has emerged as a global leader in video content, tallying 8 billion views on their platform every single day. 80% of marketers in our State of Video Marketing report said that they use Facebook for sharing video content. Similar to YouTube, Facebook is a top-of-the-funnel platform, where marketers lack control over the overall user experience that their audience has on the platform. But the reach is too important for marketers to ignore.
Key Takeaway: The average person on Facebook watches 0:06 seconds of a video, making it vitally important to create video content that captures the attention of someone in a matter of seconds. With billions of people on Facebook, marketers can’t afford to not use it as a core channel, but it’s important to adjust for the realities of ever-cluttered Facebook feeds.
Tip: Use Facebook to capture the attention but always remember to link to a landing or webpage where you can control the user experience.
YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world, trailing only their parent company Google. It’s a necessary network for marketers building the top-of-the-funnel pipeline that will result in increased engagement and brand awareness. Unsurprisingly, we found that 86% of marketers said they use YouTube in their video marketing strategy.
Key Takeaway: Similar to Facebook, YouTube is a channel that marketers must be utilizing. But it’s not a place where your audience can be easily tracked or converted. By using YouTube for SEO, it’s a great top of the funnel channel for finding new users. The distractions of other content on YouTube, however, prevent the engagement that many marketers seek.
Tip: By having a video hub on your own website, it will allow you to show more and more content that will move your prospect down the funnel. We’ve even seen brands publish videos to their own website, and months later put it on YouTube, thus, incentivizing engagement on their own website.
Twitter video has long been a part of Twitter engagement. With 82% of Twitter users watching video, and 93% of that coming from mobile, Twitter has built a platform that almost demands video content that can be consumed quickly. Our research found, across a variety of industries, that only 45% of marketers are sharing video content to Twitter.
Key Takeaway: Twitter is the ultimate platform for scrolling. With a 280 character limit, it was built to be quick snippets of information, and video should be no different than text.
Tip: Use the opportunity to link to more meaningful information to engage your audience on a deeper level than the surface-level nature of Twitter.
LinkedIn video is a relatively new product for brands to explore. Brands used to be constrained to using YouTube to share their video campaigns and content on the social network. However, in 2018, LinkedIn launched a video product similar to the other platforms. Especially for B2B brands, LinkedIn video can be a game changer for marketers looking to expand their audience.
Key Takeaway: For B2B companies and recruiting, LinkedIn remains king. According to Foundation Inc, "LinkedIn makes up more than 50% of all social traffic to B2B websites & blogs.”
Tip: It can’t be stressed enough that marketers need to test, test, and test some more which video content performs best. In an initial test of this platform, I found that video exponentially increased the reach of LinkedIn posts.
Instagram has become one of the most engaging channels for consumers in the world. But is video really that impactful on Instagram? According to Sprout Social: “What’s interesting about Instagram Video is while consumption has increased 40%, photos generate 36% more likes than videos.” On Instagram, video is growing, but photos are still in high demand. And our research found that only 45% of marketers are using Instagram Video to reach their audience.
Key Takeaway: Like LinkedIn, Instagram might be most specific for a certain type of business or audience. eCommerce and B2C companies overwhelmingly use Instagram to engage their audience. But we’ve seen examples of B2B companies excelling with Instagram to recruit and even generate leads.
Tip: Test out driving signups to a webinar or longer video content through Instagram stories or links in the bio of your profile.
The Best Examples Social Media Video Marketing in 2018
Social media marketing campaigns often times feature video across various channels. Below we break down 3 recent social media campaigns that benefited from the use of video. With each one, you can see the tactics marketers used to move their audience down the funnel by using social media channels as a top-of-the-funnel, brand awareness tactic. Whether it’s short clips that point to a website with more video or a CTA embedded in the post, these are some of the top examples in 2018 of marketers using video on social to move their audience towards a conversion or purchase (note: these are both B2B and B2C companies that are using these tactics).
Salesforce
Salesforce is a SaaS giant with a lot of stories to tell. In this example from their LinkedIn, they use a short video clip to share their support for an initiative in San Francisco. As a company, this is a larger mission that is best told through video. While they link to an article on the New York Times and not their website, this is still a great example of using short clips on social to intrigue, and ultimately, tell a bigger story about your brand.
Of course, this post isn’t meant to drive leads or increase conversions, it’s something bigger than that: positioning Salesforce as a company that goes beyond just their software.
GoPro
GoPro has it pretty good when it comes to video marketing because of their built in network of contributors that buy their cameras. But that doesn’t mean they can’t follow best practices when it comes to sharing video on their social channels. In their campaign to find the best shots from their HERO7 camera, they are giving away $1 million to people that are selected after submitting video clips they produced.
By using video on their social channels to promote to a more down the funnel promotion, GoPro employs all the best practices
While it can be said that many of these brands have massive audiences that allow them easily succeed on social; it must be noted that they employ the best practices for using social as a top-of-the-funnel tactic and continually pushing their audience to engage further.