Just the other day I read a great post on YouTube video marketing that I found in my Twitter feed – yes I am still enjoying Twitter people. And even though most clients tend to focus on Facebook and Instagram posts these days and do have good reasons to – i.e. more minutes video watched on Facebook than YouTube these days – most of us should NOT ignore video marketing. Because thanks to the rise of Facebook and its video features as well as Instagram’s (live) video feature people are not watching less but more video. Let’s go through some video usage numbers first and then into the tips to create great videos. Tips I will be taking to heart as should you!
Hard figures do not lie
YouTube has over a billion users according to their own statistics . Almost one-third of all people on the Internet — and everyday people watch hundreds of millions of hours on YouTube and generate billions of views. That is a huge audience. Three hundred hours of video are added each minute. That is a whole lot isn’t it!
Facebook has 4 billion daily video streams. Some even say it is up to 8 billion -counting 3+ seconds of watch time a view. And that is data from end of 2015. That is a huge amount of time people spend watching videos. And that means a big potential for you selling your services or products to tap into, to get leads, work on brand recognition and so on. The total potential Facebook Video Viewing Audience is 1.71 Billion Monthly Active Users according to Mediakix.
Instagram‘s average no of video ads shown monthly is 200 million – Expanded Ramblings Stats. And 25% of all ad impressions are in videos. Thirty-seven percent of all users have watched video on Instagram. So video is not that big on Instagram yet, but it is new and it is growing. And it takes a decent chunk of the ad space.
65% of your audience are visual learners . So images, but certainly also video material matters a lot. And it is not only social media marketers that say so. Educational sites and institutes as well. That is why I mentioned before that when you work on content marketing you should not only work with text, but it certainly also means that you should consider video and photo marketing a lot more.
Should YOU use Video content?
Now, should you, should your business get into video marketing? Is it good for your business to create solid video content? Well, that depends on what you are selling and who you are selling it to as usual. It is important to do research on how people interact with the products you are selling and what material they check out before they purchase similar products in your field. For selling make-up or beauty products it is often really necessary to demonstrate your product. The same goes for basic devices like drills or coffee makers.
But also for services such as a delivery service a video is great. A short video explaining how the service works can go a long way. The key here is again whether a short video will help your client and whether a short video will do your product justice. So consider this all before you get onto the video marketing gravytrain.
As soon as your product requires too much time – more than 10 minutes often – to explain in a vide. Or when the service simply does not lends itself well to being shown in a video because it requires interaction for example you can better stick to other means of marketing.
Creating Great Video Content
What makes videos great videos that get loads of views, that stand out in search results, that increase your product sales is for the bigger part the same on whatever platform you choose to go for. Be it YouTube, Facebook or Instagram. There are basically general rules that you should keep in mind creating great videos. Let me share some of these with you now. The ones I will get into are as follows:
- Video Quality
- Audio Quality
- Video Lenght
- Duration
- Description
Video quality should be HD these days of course. Audio should be clear, stereo when possible and not have annoying background noise.
Video length for most product or service videos tends to be 1-5 minutes. But this depends on your product still. Some products or services require more time. But make sure your audience is up for it. Most of the time 5 minutes is the max.
As for the description, well, you need a description that is clear like you need for regular content. And of course it should contain all the keywords relevant to the video. The keywords you also want to be found with.
YouTube Video Marketing
Besides making sure the video is of excellent quality there are a few things you should keep in mind doing video marketing. Some are related, some are not. Here we go with a few they matter to make sure you will stand out on YouTube:
- Video length
- Keyword relevance
- Viewer engagement
- Your number of subscribers
- Watch time
These are based on YouTube tips. They never share their algorithms and neither does Google, but it helps a lot.
YouTube Video example:
Most listed items I explained earlier for great video content. What we do see here is subscribers, viewer engagement and watchtime. And that does make sense as indicators does it not. A view is just a view, but do they finish it and or how long they watch will surely tell whether the user was engaged. Engagement can also be shown by likes or comments. And if they do subscribe they must a have really liked what you were doing.
Facebook Video Marketing
According to the Social Examiner there are several things you can do to engage your audience on Facebook:
- Inspire so speak from the hear
- Educate
- Be entertaining
- Use featured video as an option – more views (paid)
- Create a playlist
And when you read these suggestions they do make sense don’t they? People on Facebook tend to be there for entertainment. And if they will not be entertained they should be educated well, or inspired. And that goes the same for all advertising really.
NB One of the reasons that makes Facebook Video marketing so appealing is the way people can interact with it, connect it to Instagram. The option to engage and show engagement on the timeline is amazing and a real killer feature. That and and the options to track engagement.
Instagram Video Marketing
Though I have worked quite a bit with YouTube and Facebook for video over the years I have to admit I have little experience with video on Instagram. I do use it for photography and marketing through images, but not so much through video. Not that live videos are possible besides regular videos and now that video ads are growing we should consider it. Instagram where I am currently at – Bahrain in the Middle East – is enormous.
So how do people get more engaged on Instagram using videos? How can we make marketing work better. Well I have seen that this is pretty much the same as through Facebook. The only major differences are that Instagram is a mobile only or almost exclusively mobile beast. The other is that hashtags are very dominant on Instagram as they are on Twitter. And finally, profile links are the live line to your product or services.
So to be succinct things that stand out in Instagram as a medium:
- Mobile only
- Hashtags rule
- Profile links are vital
So when you create content you need to do it with a mobile audience in mind and you should pick the proper hashtags. The hashtags will connect your content to related content and when done well that will increase your authority and the virality of your video post. The mobile ready video (portrait size and HD) will make sure they can enjoy it.
And finally the profile link. If you promote a specific product, prefer to the url in your profile! The one in the text won’t work. And that would be a real bummer not wouldn’t it!
Technical Sound Videos
Some great Facebook video quality tips were mentioned by Izzy Video here. And these tips tend to be useful for any video platform. Let me mention them here briefly with some additional comments on the rules at YouTube:
- Use the H.264 codec for Facebook video, and the AAC codec for the audio portion of your video. For YouTube that will work as well.
- The ideal file formats are MOV or MP4. YouTube recommends MP4 as the wrapper format.
- The ideal Facebook video dimension is 720p (frame size of 1280px wide by 720px high). For YouTube there are more options
- The video frame rate must be 30 frames-per-second or less.YouTube states “Content should be encoded and uploaded in the same frame rate it was recorded.”
- Audio requirements are: stereo audio with a sample rate of 44,100 Hz (commonly printed like 44.1 kHz). YouTube allows 96khz or 48khz
- The maximum duration of a Facebook video can be 25 minutes. YouTube allows 25 minutes or 1GB
As for Instagram and video formats / requirements, I do not know yet really. On SO I read 480×480 and 640×640 are available as video sizes (portrait format like images). So that way we know the aspect ratio at least. When I find out more I will let you know.
Quicktime and VLC
Quicktime and or VLC are your friends here. Free of charge software that do the job well. I often use Quicktime for screen recording with VLC to record me at the same time. Both allow standard recording that will follow the needs for both platforms as well as Instagram. As long as you make sure you store as HD and pick the recommended aspect ratio or do a full screen video you should be fine. Especially on YouTube it should be 16:9 or close to that ratio. Otherwise you get ugly black bars on both sides.
FYI : If you want fancier ways to zoom in, add text and so on I recommend Camtasia which I used in the past.
Other Resources
