10 Fantastic Social Media Video Ideas
While people search for videos on YouTube and Google, on Social Media platforms like Facebook and Instagram, they are more likely to come across a video while scrolling through their feeds. For this reason, it is more important that your video needs to catch their attention quickly and provide value. In this article we are going to cover 6 Things To Think Through To Create Fantastic Video Content and then 10 Fantastic Ideas for Social Media Videos.
6 Things To Think About While Creating Fantastic Video Content
1. Identify Your Goals For The Video
Your first step is always to identify your business goals for the video. Think about what you want to achieve. Do you need to generate new leads? Do you want to expand your audience? Do want to get people to attend an upcoming event?
2. Entertain, Inspire and/or Educate
Your video needs to be valuable to your audience. Three ways to do that are to make them entertaining, inspiring or educational. If your audience doesn’t feel they are getting value from your content they are less likely to consume future posts.
3. Keep It Short
Short videos perform the best on social media. Keep Facebook and Twitter videos under 2 minutes and Instagram videos under 1 minute (the platform forces this anyways). In general, shorter is better but obviously you still need to accomplish your goals.
4. Focus On Story Telling
Videos that act like stories are more engaging and entertaining and therefore are the most likely to produce results. When you tell a story, your customers can better relate to your brand and can better understand how it can help them.
5. Don’t Require Sound
Make sure your audience can follow your video without sound. Most of your audience will watch your videos muted.
6. Have A Call To Action
Having a call to action is one of the most effective ways to get results from your content. Let your customers know how they can interact with your brand. For example refer them to a page on your website for more information.
10 Fantastic Ideas For Social Media Videos
1. Interviews
Informational question and answer videos both engage the audience and provide value by answering some of their questions. Put together a list of questions then sit down with a leader in your company, a thought leader in the industry or even a customer and have a chat.
2. Testimonials
Nothing is more rewarding than a video of a customer talking about why they love your product or service. And these are usually pretty easy to obtain - just ask (better immediately after a particularly positive customer experience).
3. New Product or Service Introductions
Video is a great way to highlight a product or service. 78% of people said that their buying decision was influenced by a brand’s social media post. These videos should show what problem is being solved and emphasize the unique features of the product.
4. Events
Create videos about upcoming events or past events - or both! If you are holding or attending an event use the video to generate excitement providing a sneak peak into what it will be like and what value they will get from the event. After the event post a video about how the event went and what value you received from the event. Event videos show excitement and action around your brand.
5. Short Case Studies
Case studies help build trust in your product or service. Provide key analysis and point them to a blog entry or similar to get the full details. Your study can be detail oriented but your video should get right to the point and be short or the audience is less likely to continue watching and follow your CTA (call to action).
6. Promotions and Deals
Everyone likes a good deal. Create a video to offer your social media followers a special soon-to-expire deal with a CTA on how to take advantage of this promotion.
7. Giveaways and Contests
Just like Promotions and Deals, everyone likes free stuff! Contests and Giveaways are proven ways to drum up engagement. A video promoting these Giveaways and Contents help to emphasize the excitement.
8. Explanations
Have a particular question you get asked over and over? Creating an explanation video (and adding an entry in your website FAQ) is a great way to answer those questions to a wider audience. And they provide you the opportunity to take your time and address the topic exactly how you want to address it.
9. How-To Videos
These type of videos are the most searched type of video online. People learn most about a product or service by seeing it in action. People are always asking how to do something including how to use your product or service. Create a short fun segment that provides the basic steps to perform a key function with your product or service.
10. Existing Blog Post Summaries
You have already taken the time to put together some great blog content so why not reuse that content and try to increase traffic to your post. Record short 20 second videos summarizing your article.
Summary
Video is the name of the game when it comes to generating social media engagement and traffic. Marketers have been explaining video’s rising value for years and this article includes a lot of good statistics backing up the idea if you aren’t convinced.
Be sure to stop and think about the purpose and value your video will have before diving into the creation process. Think about the Call To Action and which video idea might better address that CTA. And most important … get out there and start creating content!