The object of your marketing campaign is to reach your target market on their turf. Whether it’s radio, television, or through direct marketing, you must cater to your audience’s preferred method of receiving information. With an astounding 58% of Americans being wired into social media networks, it comes as no surprise that social networks are a prime way to reach your target audience.
Today, the astounding growth and emergence of social media has been taking a sharp turn away from simple text communication toward a specific medium: videos. Whether its a how-to tutorial video, a funny short cartoon, or a tour around the office, videos offer your audience exactly what they are looking for in the most optimum format. In addition, including videos in your social media and overall marketing strategy offers ample benefits.
The Value of a Video
Undoubtedly, social media has truly changed the way the world communicates. While you may already have a presence on social media outlets, your campaign should include a healthy mixture of videos. Simply put, your visitors are 12 times more likely to share your video posts than they are links or text posts. If you want to engage your audience, do so with motion.
Truth in Video Numbers
The numbers don’t lie, and videos are trending in effectiveness.
According to Cisco, online video viewing and use is projected to double to 1.5 billion by the year 2016.
Based on a survey by Invodo, 52% of consumers state that product videos make them much more confident in making a purchasing decision.
According to WebDAM, conversions on landing pages are increased by 86% when videos are incorporated. All of these statistics show the trend toward the proliferation of videos in the social media world and the internet.
YouTube and Friends
While Facebook is the largest social media network, YouTube holds more than its own. With more than 1 billion different users each month , YouTube users spend more than an astonishing four billion hours watching video. This statistic makes YouTube the preferred source of information for adults aged 18-34 over any other cable network. This means, your social media marketing strategy must include a proper mix of videos on YouTube and other social media outlets. As a result of including a healthy mix of videos in your content marketing campaign, you will reap exponential benefits.
Videos for SEO
If content is king, videos would be unmistakably the queen of your content marketing campaign. Another benefit of making videos for social media sites is for SEO ranking. Simply put, when you include videos on searchable social media outlets, such as YouTube, you stand to expand your brand. More so, if a potential customer makes a video search through a search engine, your video stands to be at the top of the list.
However, simply posting a video on Vimeo or YouTube doesn’t mean your video will be found. Since search engine crawlers are unable to discern non-text content, you must make sure your meta data includes keywords in your descriptions and text titles. Because YouTube is one of the largest media search outlets, the following information will guide you toward properly optimizing your video content.
1. Descriptive text content in your descriptions and titles
2. Recent trending and the total number of views
3. Viewer ratings
