Bold statement: If you’re not using video in your social media, you’re
- Making a huge mistake
- Being penny wise and pound foolish
- Not truly understanding where social media is, and where it’s going.
Choose any two.
First there was the radio, an experience that was eventually improved and enhanced (some say) by the invention of television. Fast forward about 50-60 years and the personal computer begins to emerge. Then came modems – linking them all together. Soon there’s there BBS method of communication, then the ‘world wide web’ and then email. Email soon is improved and enhanced (some say!) by social media and chat.
So where are we now? We live in the age of Social Media. People have settled in and now tweet and update their statuses all very comfortably. But don’t get too cozy. Because the next enhancement and improvement to your social media efforts is already here. It’s called video.
These days if you’re only using text in your status updates, or DMs, or tweets – you’re really missing an opportunity to grab your customers and prospects attention. You need to get good at incorporating video in your social media. To do anything less and you might look like the rotary phone of the internet!
Here are 5 reasons to embrace video in your social media campaigns:
- It’s intimate. Videos give you a chance to really let your customer get to know you. Even if you balk at the idea of you yourself being on camera, you can still get so much more of your brand across via a video than you ever can via text.
- It’s fun! Putting a video together using Animoto or iMovie is far more fun than staring at blank screen with writer’s block.
- It’s educational for them. If you are trying to teach your clients or prospects anything complex, a video can do in 2 minutes what might take you 1000 well written words to achieve. And, btw, that’s assuming they’d bother to ever READ 1000 words.
- It’s educational…for you. Creating video is the perfect reason to really think about how you really want to come across to your clients. What tone of voice you want your brand to convey, what kind of music you might choose. It all goes to strengthening your brand. So if you never thought of these things before – videos will force you to take this very important step.
- It works! Video sells better than text ever could. In fact, Internet Retailer “reports that visitors who view product videos are 85% more likely to buy than visitors who do not, based on OnlineGolf.com results.” (Internet Retailer, April 2010)
That alone should convince you. But if it doesn’t, I’ll soon be posting 5 more reasons. I’ll have you using online video if it’s the last thing I do! 😉
Are you using video in your social media? Is it working? Not working? Share your thoughts by posting a comment below.
Social media video is sales without the pitch. It is one of the most effective ways to sell virtually anything over the internet. Plus, people really like to watch short videos. But still many of us haven’t used this method for one reason or another.
Anyways, thanks to you Don for the useful tips.
In the growing internet revolution everywhere, it will surely help to boost up the biz.. 🙂 thanks for the idea.
– Robin
I’ve really enjoyed the videos that you’ve been posting.
Your tips regarding what type of content to include and how to organize your video library will be very useful for my future takes.
Thanks
This is all very good info for folks to read and embrace. I would add a couple of thoughts:
1. If you are posting for your company, remember… people perceive your organization by the video posts you upload. If they are poorly executed or not scripted well, what message are you sending to perspective clients?
2. Keep it short. Less than 90 seconds is good. Think how long you watch a video and shoot to fit that time frame. Keep it moving.
3. Hire a professional company to shoot and produce a couple to get you started. Maybe some client testimonials or a case study on your home page to begin with. Engage the viewer; solve a problem or present options to help. When it’s not a pitch, it becomes a tool to aid in success.
Happy shooting!
I hear you and appreciate your comments.
However, I do want to say that most companies don’t need a professional company to create video that will be VERY appropriate and acceptable to their audience. The key is the quality of the information you provide. People are willing to forgive many things if the content provided is great.
It’s better to produce 20 great content, adequately-produced videos than to wait for 6 months to get the budget to hire a professional production company to produce one. Plus there’s no guarantee that the one professional one will be any good. It will have higher production quality, but it may or may not actually add any value to the lives and businesses of your customers.
Never use the lack of professional video as an excuse for not producing video. Just spend 10 minutes on YouTube and you’ll realize that most professionally-produced videos get very little traffic (other than the ones that are specifically produced to go viral) and that most top-traffic videos on YouTube are not professionally produced!
Don
How did you find me Don,
This is a correspondence site – so here goes- I like what you have to say but I am faced with a bit of a learning curve that causes the problem of not getting any thing up or working. I agree that an informal chat with great data would be ideal even without the bells and whistles. But how to just do the basics is where I am right now.
Dr. Mercola is a good example of lots of data and interest – but just to develop the time for this simple production. Wow! Perhaps some of your videos will have a clue…
Best <<< Wm
I totally agree, I created a Vlog for my start-up from the beginning and get good feedback and click rates. It is definetly a worthwhile thing to do.