Greetje den Holder — February 3, 2017 Follow @GdenHolderVideo Marketing Mistakes to Avoid This Year
Advances in professional video production equipment and in smartphone technology, as well as the ease of use of video platforms, enable entrepreneurs to be experts in video marketing. Video marketing statistics show that nowadays, it is essential for entrepreneurs to be experts in this field: 78% of people watch videos online every week, and 55% watch videos online every day. Therefore, video marketing offers entrepreneurs a big opportunity to reach their audience.
However, as always, there are right ways of doing things and there are wrong ways of doing things. In this blog, I address the wrong way of doing video marketing and offer solutions. First, you will find more video marketing statistics and options, though, so you understand the importance of doing video marketing the right way.
Video marketing statistics
Video is growing to dominate your audience’s online activity. If you do not already have a video marketing strategy in place for your website and social media, you are missing a great opportunity to reach and engage with your audience. HighQ has created this infographic to inform you about all the video marketing statistics.
6 video marketing options
SocialMediaToday has listed 6 video marketing trends besides YouTube that you should check out. I will briefly discuss them here, but if you are looking for examples, you should read the original article.
1. Facebook Live
Facebook Live is versatile, and it instantly connects you with your audience. You do not need a fully defined plan because your audience can ask you questions as you go. Moreover, it is free. Just go live, and Facebook does the hard work for you. It will send out push notifications to your audience to encourage more people to watch it.
Tip from SocialMediaToday: Focus your Facebook Live videos on learning from what your audience wants. Hold Q&A sessions, read out responses from people taking part in the session, and do all you can to build a growing Facebook community.
2. Instagram Video
Instagram recently rolled out the same feature as Facebook, so you can now do live broadcasts. The only difference with Instagram is that once the stream is finished, it will disappear. It makes the viewer feel part of a community, and because it will not stay online forever, it almost feels like exclusive viewing.
Instagram will also let you create a regular “story” video, similar to Snapchat, which will lie at the top of your users’ feeds. You are limited to 10 seconds, but this can help keep people engaged.
Tip from SocialMediaToday: Use your video to promote an upcoming product launch, or cover an event. As you only have 10 seconds to play with, make sure you create a fun story that keeps viewers wanting to watch the next one.
3. Snapchat
Snapchat has many options to choose from, such as paying for video ads in between users’ stories, creating Geofilters to encourage users to promote your product for you, or simply setting up your own story and uploading it to your followers.
Tip from SocialMediaToday: A Snapchat video should be fully focused on building brand awareness. Make sure you do not go too hard on the sales, have fun, and create an engaging story.
4. 360 Video
The idea behind 360 video is that every direction is recorded at the same time so that you get a full panoramic view of wherever you may be. This is a really cool one, I think!
Tip from SocialMediaToday: The content of your 360 video could be absolutely anything. Think about shooting in a cool location to showcase interesting scenery. This will really keep the viewer engaged.
5. Interactive Video
Interactive video is fairly new. It can be incredibly beneficial because it is tailored to the individual viewer. You create a “story”, and the user can choose from different options mid-way through the video, depending on the content that they want to see.
Tip from SocialMediaToday: Think about your audience. What journey do they want to go on? Tailor the experience to different buyers and their experience with your brand.
6. Webinar
A webinar is one of those tools that should be in every marketer’s toolkit, as it is the perfect way to drive more leads.
You create a webinar on a topic that is highly valuable to your audience. It needs to be so valuable, that they are willing to sign up with their contact details to watch the webinar. This is a relevant lead that you can nurture through to the sale at a later date.
Tip from SocialMediaToday: The best thing to do with a webinar is to make sure that the content is not fluffy and light. You have got to get your audience interested in who you are and what you can offer them. By providing useful information, they can move further towards the decision of using your product or service.
8 Video Marketing Mistakes
Avoiding these common mistakes that Gordon Tredgold lists will help you create a video marketing strategy that will connect, resonate, and engage with your target audience. This will increase traffic to your website and improve sales.
1. Excessive “hard selling”
When you apply the “hard sell,” it is much like asking your first date to marry you, Tredgold says. There is a very remote possibility, but you increase chances by building a relationship step by step. By creating teaser videos, you will intrigue potential clients and establish a continued relationship.
2. Videos are not part of a campaign
You may only get one chance to make a first impression, and as a result, many companies tend to overload their customer base with info. Tredgold urges you to pace your message and leave something to the imagination without exhausting the rather short attention span of your viewer.
Campaigns are the way to go. Rather than creating a single five-minute video, entrepreneurs should focus on a multi-faceted approach to creating a two-minute video in concert with six 30-second segments. That still adds up to a total of five minutes. The attention span of viewers is now so short, that short, informative, entertaining, and to-the-point videos are required.
3. Poor title and SEO
Interesting titles and effective tagging are essential in maximizing your SEO and harnessing your views. Having a great video no one can find renders all production efforts useless, Tredgold warns.
4. Disharmonized content
Video marketing is not just about visual images. Effective videos all harmonize the images with the best use of voice and text. Tredgold advises you to take all of these components into consideration when producing your video. Everything needs to be deliberate and intentionally planned.
5. Focus on products, not people
If facts tell and stories sell, then do not make your video a list of facts about your products. Tredgold recommends focusing on telling stories about people using your products and the benefits that they derive from using them. If your story is well told, people will seek out more information.
6. Not harnessing the power of video
If a picture paints a thousand words, just imagine how much a well-crafted video can communicate. Just make sure that your videos portray the right content and in the right essence. Videos are all about style, and style is actually more important than content, Tredgold says. The style needs to be authentic to your brand, elevate your message, and make it resonate with your target audience.
7. Under-using available social media platforms
YouTube is great, but it is not the only game in town, as shown above. Maximize both your reach and your SEO by publishing your videos on all platforms. This does not mean pasting a YouTube link on the other platforms. When you load your video into platforms natively, Tredgold explains, you get twice as many views. In addition, do not forget email. As the infographic above showed, including a video in your emails will increase click-through rates by 200 to 300 percent.
8. Videos are too long
Tredgold reminds us that we live in a world of immediate gratification and small attention spans. Therein lies the magic formula to capture your audience in a comprehensive, entertaining, yet limited stage. As you can see in the descriptions above, sometimes 10 seconds are all you have!
62 Easy, Valuable Tips to Rock Your Video Content
Are you inspired to create video content the right way, but do you lack interesting ideas? I have created a list of 62 tips to rock your video content. That might help!
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