We love video
Did you know that 80% of internet traffic is now video-based?
5 billion videos are watched on YouTube every day.
100 million hours of video are watched on Facebook each day.
85% of videos are watched without sound on Facebook.
If you love looking at the data, check out the full article on Renderforest.
What happens once you have created your video?
In the last 3 years, I have created about 80 videos for small businesses and organisations. Whilst the process for all of them has involved discussion, planning, filming, editing and fine-tuning before the video is ready to be published online, what happens after that has varied considerably.
Just load the video onto your website or YouTube does not guarantee anyone will actually see it or respond. Therefore, I have found that if a client is not familiar or confident with how to showcase their video, I will assist in the next steps.
When and where to post your video
Firstly, consider when is a good time to publish on social media as each platform has optimum times to post. Sprout has produced some suggestions, however, it also depends if the content is time-sensitive, such as launching a campaign.
Next, think about how and where you are going to load your video onto each social media platform. Here are some ideas:
Website: Unless there is a reason not to, put the video on your website in a prominent position such as your home page rather than tucked away in the menu.
YouTube: Posting your video on your website can in most cases be done by loading it onto platforms such as YouTube or Vimeo. You can even customise your profile on there as you would on any other social media platform.
Facebook: Videos can be loaded onto this platform directly. You can also pin the video to the top of your page, have it as your feature video or, if under 90 seconds in length, use as your header video.
If appropriate, share your video from your page to community or interest groups you belong to. If you would like to know more about groups, check out by Facebook
Unpacked blog.
Twitter: If it is under 2 mins 20 seconds you can load the video onto your feed, otherwise just use a YouTube link.
Instagram: If under 1 minute, load the video onto your feed. Or if over 1 minute you can either split the video up into segments or use IGTV to load your video and share a preview of your video in your feed. If you would like to know more about this, please take a look at my blog: InstagramUnpacked.
Linked In: Here you can post on your profile and your business page if you have one. Occasionally, Linked In only accepts a .mov format rather than an MP4. In this case, I use a converter to create this new format. Having said that, on Linked In, linking to a YouTube video looks just as good as loading the video into a post directly.
Google: For those of you who are active on your Google page, you can load videos that are under 1 minute, or sometimes longer if the video size is really small. Again, it’s a little fiddly, but I convert the video to a smaller size if needed.
Alternatively, screengrab an image from the video and add a link to your YouTube video.
Email Campaigns: If you use mail chimp or something similar to email your clients, there is usually an option to add a link to YouTube or Vimeo. The video preview comes up and allows the viewer to click through to the video itself.
Splash the Cash
If you have invested in a great video and want to make sure it is seen, you may have to throw some money at it and promote it on your social media channels.
Try and make sure you target the video post to the sorts of customers you think should see it.
Get linking, hashtagging and sharing
If appropriate, tag another business in your post and make sure it works on every platform. That way, they may retweet, share or repost to their own followers. On Instagram, use hashtags that relate to your video and whenever possible, share your video to friends and groups on Facebook.
Here are a few examples of videos getting noticed. (View videos at the base of this page or use the highlighted links)
The Studio Tappers: I had created a video for The Studio Chislehurst and produced a second one for their adult tappers. A few weeks ago, I noticed they had posted a photo on Facebook to promote their extra tap dancing classes, so I suggested we add the tap video. Perfect timing, those in the video shared and commented and within a week, they had had over 5K views, an extra 30 new likes and 9K reach.
St Mary Cray Primary Academy: This school had improved dramatically over a three year period and commissioned this video to showcase their success. On Facebook, they paid to promote the video and have had 17K views to date and some incredibly positive feedback.
Lingotot Generations: This video took place in a residential home. When the video was published, the home was tagged in the post. They subsequently shared the post with a comment on their Facebook page and the video gained 3K views.
And finally, as I mentioned at the start of this blog, 85% of videos are watched without sound on Facebook. Therefore, try and add subtitles to your videos to make sure the video is viewed by as many as possible.
If you are unsure about anything video or social media related or have a question, please drop me a line on: info@clareherriot.co.uk.
x Clare