A Video is Worth a Thousand Social Media Posts

Not too long ago businesses scoffed at the idea of having a presence on social media. But those days are far behind us, and now businesses are fighting for shoulder space in a hectic social media landscape. A similar transformation is underway in the realm of visual media, specifically YouTube.

Very few businesses are currently capitalizing on YouTube, but those who do choose to embrace it are winning big and are far ahead of the curve. We’re talking about more than creating video ads—although they have their place—we’re talking about creating your own videos, your own foothold in the visual media landscape (before it, too, becomes overcrowded).

Right now, the thought of creating a YouTube page for one’s businesses is relatively novel. Many businesses believe that their product or service wouldn’t translate well to video. “How am I supposed to make appealing video content about coffee beans?” a bean roasting company may ask—a fair question, but there is always an angle to use.

For a business that roasts beans, they could create a video series demonstrating the various and optimum ways to make coffee at home—not just their coffee, but coffee in general. This is an important distinction because when you’re trying to gain the trust of consumers in an informational video, the last thing you want to do is compromise that trust by coming across as biased (that’s what video ads are for).

Instead, you want to subtly incorporate your brand into the informational videos. For the case of the coffee roaster, the obvious solution is to use their own beans in the coffee-making process; they may even have a link to purchase the beans at the end of the video or in the description. But the video should never be about the beans, themselves. In a medium like YouTube, content comes first.

Every business, from the most mundane to the most extravagant, has an angle that would work well for videos. The challenge is finding out what that angle is.

Do you sell fertilizer? Maybe you should create videos on planting techniques.

Sell clothes? How about a video-series with fashion tips.

Bottled water? Create a video highlighting clean-water initiatives in under-developed countries.

There is always a way to tie your business into relevant and enticing video content, just remember to do so subtly so that it’s not immediately apparent that you are indirectly marketing your products or services.

The thought of incorporating video content into your marketing can be intimidating; after all, if it is not “good” content, it could actually backfire on you. The good news is that you don’t have to do everything yourself. Thanks to a vibrant freelance market, there are countless video experts out there waiting to help brands just like yours.

You may be thinking, “this sounds like it could get real expensive real fast,” but keep in mind that your video content library does not have to be as expansive as, say, your social media content library.

The downside with social media is that to maintain your foothold, you have to constantly create new and enticing content. The beauty of videos is that you only need one successful video to establish that foothold.

Of course, it can’t hurt to have a lot of great videos, but the point is that once a video is on YouTube, it isn’t going anywhere. You can reap the benefits of content you created years ago so long as it is still relevant and useful to consumers. (And if it isn’t, an updated version would make for great content).

Nearly every business has a foothold in social media now, but there is still a lot of unclaimed territory in the video realm. Will you be one of the pioneers?

Are you interested in building a presence for your business on YouTube but not sure how best to go about doing it? Give us a call or shoot us an email—TAE can help.

 

Contributed by Bryce Ward