7 Types of Video that will Improve your social media marketing

By Scott Mason

Video is my favorite way of learning about a topic. Yes, I like to read, but nothing has the emotional impact of a video.

Telling stories with video increases engagement and gives people a reason to talk about you—approximately 72% of marketers plan to use more video in their social channels, according to the 2023 Social Media Marketing Industry Report. What types of videos will get the attention of your audience? Creating videos that tell stories is a powerful way to connect with your audience on an emotional level and increase engagement with your content.

In this post I will describe how best to combine video, storytelling and social media.

1. Share Your Customers' Stories

We’re big believers in customer advocacy here at Alphabet—it’s a great way to evangelize how your product is helping to enrich your buyers’ personal or work lives.

On Airbnb‘s Facebook page, the company posts video stories about places around the world, as told by Airbnb hosts. This is a great way to produce engaging and interesting content, and create an emotional connection between your prospects and your business.

2. Tell Personal Stories

Gary Vaynerchuk is a great example of how to do this successfully—he is known for stories and video from his Wine Library TV days and he’s constantly innovating. He regularly posts videos on his YouTube channel that include personal stories as a way to connect with potential customers.

3. Interview Interesting People

An interview or video podcast is a great way to draw out stories from industry thought leaders, customers or partners. Video interviews don’t require a big budget. Just make sure you have good questions and an engaging guest.

Someone who does this well is Michael Hyatt—he posts portions of his video podcast interviews on his Facebook page as teasers.

4. Teach Viewers How To Do Something

The Home Depot does a great job of telling project-related stories from the customer’s point of view. In this YouTube video the company shows viewers how to install a tile backsplash.

Seeing people accomplishing their goals will inspire many of your viewers. Your videos can teach them how to do a project and highlight the tools they’ll need to gather to do the job.

5. Shoot A Documentary-Style Video 

Another way to tell stories with video is to shoot in a documentary style. Corning, for example, created a documentary-style video that explored applications for the company’s glass in a wide range of innovative products. It has been viewed by over 27 million people on YouTube so far.

6. Create Animated Stories

Another option for social videos is to develop an animated story, similar to what Chipotle has been doing with its video series Back to the Start on its YouTube channel.

You could hire a video production company that specializes in animation, but there are also a number of tools you can use to create animated videos such as GoAnimate, Powtoon and MakeWebVideo.

7. Take Viewers “Behind the Scenes”

People love to see “how the sausage is made”.

Constant Contact often provides a look at the people behind the company. In the following example, they posted a simple video on Facebook of their Day of Service Who doesn’t want to know more about a company whose employees have fun together—and one that contributes to charity? 

Okay, enough from me... 

Now it’s your time to get out there and be creative with video in ways that help your business grow revenues.

9 secrets of successful video marketing campaigns

By Scott Mason

No other form of marketing can have the emotional impact of video.

Some business owners, however, consider video to be difficult to create: time-consuming and expensive. And they are sometimes disappointed with the amount of effort it takes to produce a video versus the amount of exposure and visibility that it actually receives.

In this blot post I’m going to provide 9 tips that will increase the probability of your video appearing high in a search engine list and being viewed by thousands of people.

  
1. Create compelling content

Before creating a video, think of what the online community will be interested in—making a video that is compelling to a niche audience will result in great organic growth. In my prior post I described seven different types of video (here's a link to that post: bit.ly/1VqdBMv). Think carefully about the one that will resonate best with your audience.

2. Optimize your content

Once your video has been completed think about what keywords you want your video to rank high for. Since Google owns YouTube, the search engine giant gives a lot of weight to videos posted on that property when compiling organic search lists.

3. Create a strong call-to-action

During the video editing process create a lower third graphic that is unobtrusive to the video content. Include the website URL that you’d like to promote as well as your logo and a phone number because this is ideal for driving traffic from the video to your company’s website.

Another good idea is to create an end screen for the video that has a call-to-action. This will be the last memory the viewer takes away from your video so give them a reason to visit your website!

4. Upload your video to YouTube

YouTube is the second most popular search engine in the world—over one billion unique users view content on the site each month and more than six billion hours of video are watched every 30 days. Uploading your video to YouTube provide the possibility of content being seen by a huge global audience.

5. Share, share, share

Share your video across numerous blogs and social media channels. The more often your video is shared, the more visibility it will receive—as in link building, if your video is picked up on numerous websites, the search engines will view this content as more powerful which can improve your organic ranking for the video.

6. The more interaction, the better

The more “likes” you receive on your video and the more comments you obtain, the better. Just like a social media post, the more buzz that your video receives will result in greater exposure. For example, if a video receives 20+ combined comments and “Likes” and also generates over 100 views, the more likely there will be spike in YouTube and organic search results.

7. Add a transcript to your YouTube videos

Most people are not aware that you can upload a transcript on YouTube—creating a word document based off of what the subject featured in the video is saying. Since major keywords that you want to rank high for will likely be included in the script, this will provide SEO “juice” for your video.

(Click here to learn more about creating YouTube transcripts: bit.ly/1KnJDkF.)

8. Seek subscribers
The more subscribers you have, the easier it will be for you to gain publicity for a new video that has been recently uploaded. Did you know that when someone subscribes to your YouTube channel, your most recent video will appear on the homepage of their account—therefore, you can expose your content to wider audiences by subscribing to other channels that are interesting and actively participate in comment discussions.

9. Upload your videos to other networks

Although YouTube is certainly the best bet for obtaining online exposure for your video, properties such as DailyMotion, Vimeo and Break will also provide added exposure. (Sites like Vimeo cost money to sign-up for but, depending on your wants and needs for your video, it could very well be worth it.)

Okay, enough from me…

Now is a great time to get started with video marketing campaigns—with compelling content and good SEO exposure, this rich form of media will help you obtain more publicity. Happy story telling!