The Role of Video in Social Media Marketing

Social media plays an integral role in a comprehensive digital marketing strategy. And an integral part of social media marketing is video content.

Video content has been proven to drive huge levels of growth online across all major social platforms – from video-based YouTube and TikTok platforms to Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and others. It’s also of high value on websites, blogs, and for email marketing campaigns.

According to a 2022 Digital Consumer Trends Report:

• Video currently wins in terms of attracting and holding people’s attention and time.
• The majority of people access the internet via their mobile phones.
• Facebook is almost as influential as Google in terms of content search.

Moreover, more than 70% of consumers prefer to learn about goods and services through videos, and video has been proven to dramatically increase sales for eCommerce businesses.

While text-based content will always be critical to search engine optimisation, organic search results, and online visibility, the place and role of video are changing.

Most audiences merely skim written and audio content until or unless they find what they are specifically looking for. Video, however, has a unique power to captivate and engage wider audiences – and consumers generally wish to see more video content across social platforms.

Why Include Video for Social Media?

• Engagement – video enables consumers to understand the brands they follow, who they are, and what they represent, and to feel that there is a human aspect to their preferred brands. Video is a great way to help create and support deep emotional connections between your brand or business and your community. It also delivers relatable and more persuasive content for your audience.
• Longevity – some of the best content you can share for your business is evergreen – it stands the test of time, remains relevant on your blog or another channel, and can be reshared into the future. It can generate new engagements and leads for weeks, months, and even longer.
• Appeal – people learn and absorb information in different ways, and each of us favours one over the other. While people can learn best by hearing, reading, or doing, the vast majority of people favour seeing or watching – which translates to video or live content. Furthermore, watching a video is a passive activity – so it is more appealing to more people at any time of the day or night.

Social videos particularly appeal to younger audiences – so if your brand or product target audience is Millennial or Gen Z, you can’t afford to ignore the need for video marketing content.

• Shareability – video content is highly shareable across platforms, but is not limited to social sharing alone. Great videos can also be incorporated into your onsite blog, email newsletters, and more – potentially reaching more diverse audiences.
• Power – the power of video is multitudinous. For starters, it is a great sales tool. For example, Pinterest users are more than twice as likely to buy after they view a brand video on the platform. This is because video enables brands to dynamically showcase their products, adding context.

Not only is it a powerful sales tool, but it is also a strong driver of great SEO results when employed cleverly as part of a comprehensive SEO campaign.

To achieve the very best results, it’s important to hire professional video production services for your corporate, commercial, and video marketing purposes. Professional videographers, especially when they work with a digital marketing agency, have the creative insight, experience, techniques, and skills to bring your vision to life – and even to design and create a vision from scratch that will suit your brand and your audience.

The perfect balance will include the right ratio (for your business and its audience) of written content, images, and video. So, up your social media marketing game – and say hello to video content for your brand!