How to Properly Use Video as a Content Marketing Channel

A few years ago, most entrepreneurs thought that content marketing is another term for writing and posting web articles. Today, video is considered as the most effective content form. It easily drives content engagement and provides the best ROI. The rise of the online video form is owing to the internet speed and the auto-play option that was added to Facebook and Twitter news feeds a couple of years ago.

Since then, the popularity of the commercial video form has skyrocketed. You can easily see this trend on the various viral video charts. For example, this is the list of the most popular video ads on YouTube in 2016:

1. Mobile Strike – “Arnold’s Fight” – 101.1 million views;
2. Knorr – “#LoveAtFirstTaste” – 60.4 million views;
3. Nike “The Switch” – 56.4 million views;

In this article, we’ll explain how you can use the benefits of video content to improve your marketing strategy and attract new customers.

Types of video content

The videos you post on your website and social media pages need to have a special form that’s convenient for your customers and consumers you plan to target. Digital marketing beginners who are trying to add this type of content to their strategy usually choose some of the proven commercial video forms. These include some of the following:

• How-to videos – are niche-specific video tutorials;
• Monologs – are videos made in the form of vlogs that feature company representatives, influencers, and celebrities;
• Infographic videos –  are animated videos that share statistics and research results;
• Artistic videos – cover everything from music videos to short films;
• Action videos – are sports and adventure videos shot from the first-person perspective, with GoPro and other action cams;
• Webinars – are video presentations, lectures or workshops;
• Streaming videos – are videos that are streamed in real time;

Video production starter kit

You won’t be able to shoot and edit good quality videos without adequate equipment. For hardware, you’ll need to invest at least a few thousand dollars. The software is much more affordable and easier to get. If you don’t want to pay for the expensive video editing programs, you can always use the open-source alternatives. The video production starter kit for beginners should look something like this:

• DSLR camera, HD camcorder or GoPro (depending on the type of videos you want to shoot);
• Artificial light sources;
• Microphone or a voice recorder;
• Other hardware pieces, like lamps stalls, SD cards, tripods, projector cloth screens, etc.;
• Video editing software, like Adobe Premiere Pro, Sony Vegas or Lightworks;

Where to use video content?

Videos are used across many different content channels, including:

1. Company’s website – Blog sections of commercial web pages are the perfect place for posting interesting and useful videos. They can be added to posts or landing pages, and placed in the body or the header section;
2. Social networks – Videos are widely used across all popular social networks, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat. They can be posted directly on the timeline or in the form of sponsored posts or page ads.
3. Video hosting platforms – YouTube, Dailymotion and Vimeo have billions of visitors, and sharing interesting videos on these platforms can make them instantly viral.
4. Newsletters – Consumers like to get useful videos in their email inbox.

How to optimize your videos for social networks?

The online videos creation is different from commercial, music videos or movie production. Many digital agencies like Alexander Thomas Media, for example, have perfected video optimization for social networks.  This type of optimization affects video’s length, form, resolution and captioning. People don’t like watching long videos on their newsfeeds, and that’s why most social media videos are up to 5 minutes long.

They also have subtitles, because auto-play options of Facebook and Twitter play newsfeed videos in the mute mode. Since social network users scroll their newsfeed until something attracts their attention, the video’s main subject and the most appealing scene is always added to the first few frames.

To optimize video content in the right way, marketers need to follow the metrics of their previous shares, and to experiment with new video forms, post timing and social media ads. That’s what makes this job so interesting. As the popularity of this type of content continues to grow, in the next couple of years, we can expect that even more stories will be told through the beautiful compositions of sounds and camera frames.