Digital Marketing - Study Notes:
What is social video marketing?
Social video marketing is primarily used to increase audience engagement through social activity around a given video. It involves incorporating videos into marketing campaigns for the purpose of promoting a company, brand, product, or service through social networks.
Benefits of video marketing
Social video marketing offers a number of benefits:
- It is great for storytelling and brand building. Videos are an engaging medium because they enable you to tell a sophisticated story in a short amount of time. Using images, text, and sounds, you can add layers to your story.
- Video is emotional and creates a human connection with customers. You can use ‘real people’ to tell stories about your products or services that will connect with people on a personal level.
- Social video marketing has a high customer reach in comparison to traditional marketing mediums. When people like a video, they usually share it, increasing the reach further.
- Videos can rank higher in some social algorithms. This can increase the visibility of your content.
- Also, social video can help your content rank higher in Google search results. This can increase the discoverability of your content.
- You can use social video to improve email open and clickthrough rates.
- Customer retention is higher for information that is both seen and heard. This makes video a highly effective medium for retaining customers.
- Although professionally shot videos can be very expensive, video can actually be accessible for every brand. You can shoot a good-quality video using just a smartphone, for example.
Common misconceptions about video marketing
Here are five common misconceptions about social video:
- It’s expensive. Video content doesn’t have to be expensive to work well. Online viewers are used to seeing content that is made off-the-cuff, and that isn’t over-produced.
- It’s all about the views. Views are one of many factors that are important for social video. Engagement and having repeat viewers are also important.
- Only YouTube is important. Although YouTube is a major player, over the last couple of years Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok have all come into play when it comes to social video.
- Once your video is published, you’re done. Not really. You need to keep your audience coming back. That means more content needs to be uploaded on a regular basis. You need to keep engaging with your audience, to keep them entertained and informed.
- All video has to be professionally shot. Having your videos professionally shot will give your content an appealing polish. However, given the quality of most end-user cameras and phones today, almost anyone can shoot a video of acceptable quality. Indeed, if your video has a quirky, amateurish feel to it, this can lend it an air of authenticity that a glossier video might lack.
Alison Battisby
Alison is a Social Media Consultant with Avocado Social, she is a Facebook and Instagram accredited social media expert and founded Avocado Social in 2014 having worked in the social media industry since 2008. Alison has worked with a wide range of brands including Estee Lauder, Tesco, and Pringles. Alison has traveled the world training companies including the BBC, Etsy, Canon, and Cambridge University Press. She offers social media strategy, training, and consultancy at Avocado Social across platforms including Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn and TikTok.
