Using Video as a Tool for Social Media Marketing

I'd like to share with you a great article I read recently titled:

"26 Ways To Use Video For Your Social Media Marketing"  

This article shows you how to capture your audience.  You discover "26 ways to use video to improve your social media marketing".  The clue is in the heading!  

Click here to read article in full/

I found the following 5 items to be key items for me, I hope you find them of benefit to you:

1. 

Video lengths.

No one wants to make a social media video and find out afterwards that it is too long.  The below list should be useful to you:

• Facebook: 120 minutes
• Twitter: It recommends keeping videos under 30 seconds
• Instagram: 60 seconds
• Snapchat: 10 seconds
• Vine: 6 seconds.

2.

Grab your audience's attention early.

To do this, you have 10 seconds!  If you haven't caught their attention by then, sadly you have missed the boat.  It is so important for you to get to the point with your video as quickly and concisely as possible.  Keep it simple.  There should be one point to every video and one point only.  Include your logo (instant recognition).  Once you have their attention, you're half way there.

3.

Optimize for Search.

Adding keywords or a key phrase is a definite plus and this goes for just about everything you post on social media.  Think "Headlines and Descriptions" on your video using keywords and/or phrases to help users find you.  Don't forget, the right headline with the right keywords will not only find you and make viewers curious but it will also increase your rankings in the sites search engines. Another way of boosting search results is by adding the relevant "hashtags" on Twitter and Instagram.

4.

Sound.

Be it with or without sound, your video needs to be visually interesting.  To help you to achieve an audience without sound use contrasting, bright colours, use captions instantly once the video starts.  If you are using sound for your video, needless to say the sound quality needs to be good.  Make sure your video has little if not any background noise.  The last thing you want is someone losing interest in your video because the sound quality is not up to scratch.  

5.

Track engagement, views and clicks.

This is not just important, it is essential.  It enables you to see how your video is performing (needless to say if it is not performing well then you need to change your contents!).  Your goal here
is to achieve lots of shares, clicks and engagement.  Facebook, Twitter and YouTube  provide this. 

A third of all online activity is spent watching videos, so get rolling .....