The Power of Video Marketing: YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, And TikTok
What’s the Benefit of Using Videos?
Video is quickly becoming a huge part of marketing. Social media platforms have made it easy to display advertisements with the highest likelihood of engagement to date. Videos have become the most-shared type of content and are a key way for businesses and brands to increase their engagement, convert users, and build brand awareness. This is especially because people tend to remember videos more than photos due to the storyline inherent in a video. With the ability to track tons of data points, videos are super measurement-friendly. From seeing basic views, to replays, and even where a video stopped watching, one can take this information to enhance the video content moving forward. A majority of people nowadays want to learn about products and services through videos. This could be attributed to lower reading levels in general, but also users get a feeling of security from videos. The security could be as basic as having seen the product or heard of it prior to purchasing or knowing that someone they trust is using a product or service. Therefore, marketers are latching onto this tool as fast as they can.
There are different types of videos, from testimonials, interviews, user-generated content (UGC), educational, “unboxing”, branding videos, and more. It’s important to make sure that whatever videos you’re creating, that they are mobile-friendly. The majority of time people spend watching videos or browsing social media is on their cell phones. Plus, our attention spans are pretty short so the shorter the video the better. Packing a punch of engagement in a short time span is the best use of your video.
YouTube
YouTube is the second largest search engine behind Google and has 2 billion users. This means the platform reaches a wide range of ages and all demographics, but is also inundated with media. The content is user-generated, with opportunity for advertisements. The possibilities for you on this platform include creating a branded channel and posting videos, using influencers to promote your brand or products, or launching a video campaign with YouTube. If you choose to create a branded channel and put content of your own out, it’s good to remember that this platform – and others as things are trending – have more engagement with casual, user-generated content, than professional. Also, descriptions for videos are not a highlight on the screen as they might be on other platforms. Therefore, the title is what matters most and what draws viewers in.
If you do a video campaign on youtube, know that they do a cost-per-view (CPV) structure. The areas where one can place ads on YouTube include:
- Youtube Discovery Ads
- Placed on Bottom of a Video
- Before a Video (skippable)
- Middle of a 10-minute or more video
- Non-skippable ads
For more information on ads on YouTube, including video and still shots, check it out here.
Facebook is the #1 platform to watch branded videos. Not only does Facebook prefer videos, but their users do too. With Facebook, users don’t typically watch videos with sound when scrolling. Facebook Live is a huge element of their video content too. For posting videos on your business page, you can choose a thumbnail that will best bring a viewer to watch the video. You can also have text that’s engaging and gives the viewer the point of the video so that they want to watch it. Remember – our attention spans are short! Additionally, the vertical video format used on Facebook is more mobile-friendly than the square option seen on Instagram.
For advertising videos on Facebook, you can place the ads in the Stories aspect of Facebook, in the social feed, or during autoplay of videos.
Read the details of video advertising on Facebook on their website.
Instagram is big, with an estimated 500 million active users, but not as widely used as Facebook or YouTube. About a quarter of people make purchases based on seeing ads on Instagram. This number is increasing though, while Facebook and YouTube are staying steady. Instagram gives options for square or landscape videos, although square is typically better. On a business page, you can post all of the branded videos you’d like from product, tutorial, educational, or UGC. Plus, Instagram also has a live feature like Facebook does. Hashtags and tagging other accounts tend to make more of an impact on Instagram than other platforms too. Captions are a benefit to Instagram, though they definitely need to be kept short in order to grab a viewer’s attention. People are less likely to read a lengthy caption unless they’ve already engaged with the profile a lot. Videos are limited to 60 seconds before it needs to be on IGTV (Instagram TV).
In terms of advertising on Instagram, there’s a few ways to go. Videos can be placed in the stories area of Instagram, which is very popular, in the feed, or in the Explore section. What’s great about Instagram is that the ads can be interactive in Instagram stories. Meaning, you can ask the audience a yes or no question or have them rate a video with the sliding fire or heart scale.
Recently, Instagram has revealed that IGTV is going to be letting creators put ads into their videos. This will be a way not only for creators to monetize their videos, but for your brand or product to get out there. It’s essentially another way of using social media influencer marketing – which you can read about it more in our recent blog post.
TikTok
The last one I want to talk about is TikTok. This platform has had a huge boom in a short span of time, growing to an estimated 500 million users. It’s a mix of other platforms like Snapchat, Instagram, Youtube, is tied to music, and has a dramatically younger audience attached to it. In your TikTok profile, you can have links to different social platforms you use. The platform itself is not very professional, and there aren’t currently as many privacy laws as Facebook or Instagram. The Discover page has trending hashtags so the use of hashtags on this platform is important. People using this platform to gain awareness have seen that it is sometimes easier to get a spike in views compared to other platforms where views stay stagnant. Creating video ads on TikTok is possible, and they have interactive elements like Instagram does. Videos are mostly as long as 15 seconds, although you can string clips together to make them longer.
Read more about advertising on TikTok here.
If you’re wondering about the best way to utilize videos in your marketing strategy, reach out to us and we’ll help you find out. From advertising to building your brand’s presence on social media, we’re here for you!
