Creating a social media video strategy can be an intimidating task. There’s so much to consider—from the content you create to how you share it on different platforms. And there are plenty of other factors that can complicate matters even more, like time and budget constraints.
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But don’t worry—we have your back! In this post, we’ll walk through six steps for creating a social media video strategy that gets results.
Step #1: Define Your Goals
As the saying goes, “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.”
Before you start making videos, ask yourself what you want to achieve with them and how they fit into your overall marketing strategy.
The most common goals are:
- Brand awareness – You want people to recognize your brand and associate it with something that makes them feel good.
- Customer acquisition – You want to attract new customers who will buy your product or service.
- Customer retention – You want existing customers to continue buying from you instead of going elsewhere.
Step #2: Determine Your Audience Or Customer Persona
Once you’ve identified your goals, it’s time to figure out who you’re talking to. This is an important step that many marketers skip over, but it’s critical to your success.
Your audience is the reason why you’re creating social media videos in the first place. It’s crucial that you know who they are and what they want from your business.
For example, if you own a clothing store and want to sell more shirts, then your target audience is men between the ages of 18-25 who are looking for t-shirts for their birthday parties. If your goal is to raise brand awareness and increase traffic to your website, then your audience is women between the ages of 35-55 who are interested in fashion trends.
Step #3: Understand Where Your Audience Is Watching Video
The third step to creating an effective video content strategy is to understand where your audience is watching the video. This may seem obvious, but you need to know which types of videos will resonate with your target audience and where those people are spending their time. You can use the following resources to help you determine the best places for your content:
- YouTube Analytics – YouTube has its own analytics that can help you determine how your videos are performing on its platform. You can use this information to determine what kinds of videos are most popular with your audience and where they are sharing them.
- Social Media Analytics – Social media platforms also have their own analytics tools that allow you to see which types of content perform best on each platform. You can use these insights as part of your strategy for creating compelling content for each platform.
- Google Keyword Planner – Google’s free keyword tool allows you to search for keywords related to your video topics and then see how many people are searching for those terms each month. This can help you determine which types of videos will attract the largest audience based on current search trends in your industry or niche market.
Step #4: Choose The Right Video Length
The average video length is 6 to 10 minutes, but there isn’t a set formula for choosing the length of your videos. What matters most is that you choose a duration that’s appropriate for your topic and audience. If you don’t know which duration to choose, try creating a few different lengths and testing them out on your audience.
For example, if you’re planning on creating a 10-minute video about how your product works, ask yourself these questions:
- What are my goals? Is it to educate the market or promote sales?
- How much time do they want to spend watching my video? Is it more than 10 minutes? Less than 10 minutes? Somewhere in between?
- How much information can I fit into 10 minutes? Can my message be condensed into six minutes instead of 10 minutes?
Step #5: Consider A Brand Consistency Checklist (Logo, Tagline, Slogan, Colors, Fonts)
This step is a crucial one. It’s important that your social media video strategy matches your brand identity. This starts with your logo, tagline, and slogan. Your logo should be clear and easy to recognize. Your tagline should clearly communicate what you do and how you do it. Your slogan can be more specific than your tagline but should still reinforce the same idea.
The colors of your logo are also important because they can subconsciously influence how people perceive your brand. For example, red is associated with passion and excitement whereas blue conveys trustworthiness and calmness. Similarly, certain fonts convey different messages about a company or person’s character in general (e.g., Comic Sans = playful; Garamond = professional).
Step #6: Always Include A Call-To-Action (CTA) With Every Video
Your final and most important step is to include a CTA with every video. This can be as simple as stating your call-to-action at the end of the video, or more sophisticated by using a call-to-action button at the bottom of the video that leads to your landing page.
But in any case, always make sure you have an actionable CTA in place so that people know what you want them to do once they’ve finished watching your video.
Final Say
If you have the wherewithal to pull off all six steps, the potential rewards can be huge. One video with a thoughtful strategy and good production values can send you viral, attract an enormous audience, and spread your message far and wide. And if you’re able to convert even just a small percentage of these viewers into customers, it could make all the hard work you put into your video worth it!