Five video marketing tips to get more views

Has your business got some great video content you want to promote? Mark Brennan, Head of Digital at Freshfield, shares his top video marketing tips to get more video views.

One of the most staggering changes in marketing over the last five years has been the explosion of video content being consumed every day. By 2021 Cisco expect 82% of all consumer Internet traffic to be online video, and it would take one person more than five million years to watch the amount of video crossing global networks each month. While the rise of video-on-demand (Netflix, Amazon and others) will account for a lot of this growth – companies are producing more video content every year.

Brands often produce video in a single format for one purpose – promoting their company at a tradeshow, launching a new product or supporting recruitment for example. The video is used for that purpose and that’s it. The investment made in video can yield a much better return when the video is marketed effectively to a target audience using my five video marketing tips:

Change the format to boost engagement

Great video marketing is all in the planning. Before you start filming and editing, think about what you want to produce and why, when you need the video content releasing by and what channels might be best to reach your target audiences.

When you plan your video, don’t just think about a two-minute video to play to potential clients in a sales meeting. Could that 30-second customer testimonial be used on your website? Could those short clips of your team be re-used on LinkedIn to show why you are a great employer? If you are opening a new office, do you need a short video for staff to share on social media?

Best practice is to tailor the content for the purpose of the video, the needs of the audience and the channel the video is hosted on. Generally speaking you get a better response if you host a version of the video on each platform (i.e. upload one video to YouTube and a different version to LinkedIn rather than just sharing the YouTube link on LinkedIn).

Size matters too, so try to get to the point quickly. Research from Wistia shows that on average, people watch more than 70% of a video shorter than 30 seconds, but only 60% of a video of five minutes duration.

Different formats work better in different contexts, for example:

• Video clips in Facebook news feeds tend to be played on an app in public, without sound – so if your video doesn’t work without sound you need to add captions.
• On Twitter the maximum length of an uploaded video is 2 minutes and 20 seconds, but generally the shorter the clip the more people will watch it to the end.
• Videos you upload to LinkedIn can be up to 10 minutes long – allowing for more detailed ‘how-to’ guides than Twitter but they also autoplay in your feed with no sound – meaning captions are needed.

Use YouTube to get found

YouTube is the world’s second largest search engine, so if your video isn’t on YouTube you are missing out. Create your channel and upload your videos, making sure you use relevant keywords in each video’s title, tags and description to increase the chances of getting found either through YouTube or Google.

YouTube also offers a highly targeted paid advertising service called TrueView where you can place a short video either before or after the video the user is trying to watch. You can use geographic, demographic and interest targeting to only reach people you want to show the video to, and you can either pay per impression or per views of more than 30 seconds’ duration (or shorter if your clip is less than 30 seconds).

Harness the power of social media

As I mentioned earlier, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter all give you the power to host video on their channels and like images, content with video in is much more likely to get engagement and shares. Make sure you reach as wide an audience as possible by mentioning contributors (for example the clients who featured in your testimonial videos) so they can share with their connections

Facebook allows you to run highly targeted video advertising campaigns based on people’s location, demographics and interests, so if your target audiences are on Facebook or Instagram, this is a great opportunity for you.

Boost your website conversion rate

As a rule, landing pages with video embedded have an 80% higher conversion rate than those without video – highlighting the power of video to demonstrate, persuade and influence. If you’ve got an amazing case study or testimonial – make sure your customers see it on your website. Embedding a video from YouTube into your site couldn’t be easier.

Play to a live audience

If you’re giving a presentation at a conference, to new employees at induction or one-to-one with a potential new client, shake up the boring PowerPoint presentation with a video interlude. This will help you get your breath back, gather your thoughts, recapture your audience’s attention and help make that presentation more memorable.

If you need more help using your videos to engage with target audiences, our team of video production and digital marketing specialists can help.