Why should you start video marketing? I’ll bet you’ve watched an online video in the past week. More importantly, I’ll bet your customers are watching video too. That’s why if you haven’t started you need to start video marketing right now.
Whether you’ve never shot a single video or you’ve done a few but it’s not a consistent part of your social media marketing strategy, if you want to grow your business you need to consider adding video to your social media marketing strategy.
Here are the six reasons you need to start (or just scroll down and watch the video if you prefer).
Video is Easy and Everywhere
In the early days of video it was complicated to create and even difficult to watch. Your audience needed to download software, create an account and figure out how to make it work. And the bandwidth was low so quality was poor.
But today, video is easy. Take out your phone, log into your favourite social media site and you can start creating a high quality video.
People can watch your videos without logging in or signing up. The barrier to entry is low. They can watch where they already are.
People Do Business With People
Even with online shopping people prefer to do business with a person they know, like and trust.
This is particularly true if you sell a service that requires your clients to trust you. If you’re selling financial advice, heath services, business advice or anything to do with people’s children, they need to really trust you before they reach into their wallet.
It is so much easier to build a connection, and trust, with your audience using online video. People can see your face, hear your voice, experience your expertise. and get a sense of your personality.
You can absolutely build that connection with text only but if you’re not a talented copywriter it’s a lot harder.
But if you can talk to the camera you can start building the connection, the know, like and trust factor needed for people to buy your services..
In fact, if you’re a more experienced entrepreneur who is good at sales conversations, you’ll be better at online video. You can translate your sales skills into video.
Instead of worrying about the technology, think about one person you could be talking to and talk to the camera as if you’re talking to him or her.
Google Loves Video
YouTube is owned by Google so Google loves it. In fact YouTube is the number two search engine in the world. If you post videos to YouTube related to your niche you’re much more likely to be found on Google.
But even if you’re not posting regularly to YouTube there are other reasons video helps you show up on Google.
If you have a video embedded on a page on your website you are 53% more likely to show up on page one of Google than a similar page without a video.
Why?
Most people don’t read a web page word for word, they skim. Which may take only a few seconds.
But if there’s a video on the page, even if they only watch a faction of the video, they’ll spend more time on the page. Time people spend on your page is a signal to Google that you content is valuable. So your page ranks higher.
For example, you can embed a Facebook Live video on your website (just as I did here).
Social Media Loves Video Too
And it’s not just Google: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn even Twitter are pushing video in their feed.
If you feel like organic reach is down start adding video into the mix. The head of Instagram stated that Instagram is no longer a photo sharing app, it’s a video sharing app.
Facebook has been saying for ages that Live video gets preference on the feed.
What’s really interesting about Facebook Live videos is that even though the majority of people watch the Live video on the replay not while it’s actually live, people watch longer than a prerecorded video.
Live video is less polished, more authentic, and feels less like an advertisement. It feels more like a conversation. Which I suspect is why people watch.
Video Ads Convert Like Crazy
Video ads get more attention, convert better and are often significantly cheaper than other ads.
When you create social media ads you’re competing against other people who are creating ads for the same audience. However, fewer businesses are creating video ads so your costs will be less.
Additionally, when a video ad shows up in the feed, people are more likely to pay attention to it. They may stop in their scrolling and at least watch part of the video. If you can get your call to action near the beginning you have a better chance of converting.
You Get More Mileage Out of Video Marketing
If you create one video you can do a lot more with it than a photo plus caption post.
You can take a Facebook Live video, download it and then upload it to YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram and more (note, you need a third party app for Facebook Live videos to be of high enough quality for sharing to YouTube).
You can embed your Facebook Live into a blog post (just like I did here).
You can transcribe your video and turn it into a blog post, email newsletter or downloadable PDF to be used as a lead magnet.
Edit your video into shorter clips for use on Stories, Reels or in the feed.
Take the content from your video and create an infographic for Pinterest.
Turn the content into a SlideShare or Carousel post.
Have I convinced you to start video marketing today? Leave a comment and let me know your thoughts (or questions) about online video.
