The Ins and Outs of Video on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn

While Freddy from iCarly makes video production look easy, your firm may not have a young camera whiz behind the scenes to help you out. But if you’re not making social media videos, you’re missing out on some major marketing opportunities.

On average, a person watches 16 hours of video content a week, and 6 in every 10 people prefer to watch videos on the internet over television.

Now is the time to start social media video marketing. Follow these social media best practices to stand out with video on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Plan out your social media video marketing strategy from beginning to end

Don’t just dive in and start making videos. Video production can be expensive, so maximize your time and investment by planning ahead as much as possible. Before you create any video, get a game plan together.

When mapping out your video marketing strategy, you should:

• Know your goals for video marketing. What do you intend to accomplish with these videos? What’s your call to action for each item?
• Consider the types of videos you want to make. Educational, testimonials, behind-the-scenes?
• Check out different social media platforms. This way you can learn what type of content is commonly posted that aligns with your firm’s overall brand.
• Think about the actual filming of the video. Are you good with an iPhone and a ring light, or do you need a more sophisticated setup?
• Have a plan for sound. 83% of people watch mobile videos on mute. What can you add to maximize the content without any sound?
• Time it right. Look into when the best time is to post your video to reach your audience and use metrics to see what areas of your video marketing can be improved.

Facebook video

If you want eyeballs on your videos, 75 million people visit Facebook Watch daily. There are a few video formats to choose from on Facebook:

• Facebook Live: Lets any user live stream videos directly to the platform
• Facebook Watch: Facebook’s platform for uploaded videos
• Facebook Stories: Collections of short videos that appear on your page for 24 hours

Of the three types of video on Facebook, Facebook Live is by far the most popular. People are 4x more likely to tune in to a live video on Facebook than they are to watch a previously recorded one.

You have to be savvy on Facebook if you want people to see your content, though. Unless you pay for advertising, your videos won’t just pop up on people’s feeds. Users have to like your page and watch your content consistently for videos to start showing up.

So to enhance your Facebook marketing, be sure to create content that people will want to share. On Facebook, users tend to share content that’s inspirational or entertaining. People are less inclined to watch educational videos on Facebook, so you may want to strategically limit that content if you want to grow views.

If you aren’t sure where to start with Facebook video, try out one of these and check the metrics later to see if it appeals to your target audience.

• Customer success stories
• Interesting facts over clips of cute animals or beautiful scenery
• Comedic videos

Also, don’t just link videos from YouTube or another video platform when sharing on Facebook. Videos uploaded directly to the platform receive more preference with Facebook’s algorithm and typically receive more likes and shares.

Twitter video

Twitter marketing strategy can be summed up in one word: short. There are 6,000 tweets sent every second. If you want to keep people’s attention amid all that content, you have to get to the point right away.

But the challenges of Twitter are also its greatest advantages.

Twitter videos are often lower video quality, so they don’t cost as much to make. Twitter users value authenticity and frankness first, so those types of videos perform best.

When creating videos for Twitter, keep them short (10-15 seconds suffices). Most videos on Twitter are filmed with a smartphone while the person talks to the camera. So literally anyone in your office could make a fun, short video and post it to Twitter.

Here are a few ideas for inspiration:

• A quick behind-the-scenes of a day at the office
• Your company’s stance on an important topic
• A list of funny tips related to your industry

And keep the tweet verbiage for your video short too. The tweet itself should be a sly call to action to encourage readers to watch the video. Consider your tweet the trailer to your Twitter video.

LinkedIn video

LinkedIn touts itself as the social media platform for professionals. And more than ever, professionals on the platform want to watch video. A post with video is 20 times more likely to be shared than one without.

So when you create LinkedIn marketing video, professional content converts. Try any of these career or business-related video types:

• Product demos
• Webinar series
• Explainer videos
• Company culture spotlights
• Spicy takes on the state of your industry
• Live broadcasts from events or conferences
• Employee recognition videos

With LinkedIn, there’s no specific place for videos on your page, so if you post frequently, videos can quickly get lost. To remedy this, share a video more than once and add relevant hashtags so that people can find your content easily. Plus, any video with a hashtag could end up featured in “trending hashtags,” which means even more views.

Another video format is LinkedIn Live, which makes any business stand out because only pages with 150 followers or connections can go live. Live has stricter video rules: you can only go live once a day and you can’t overly promote in your stream. However, LinkedIn encourages sessions longer than 10-15 minutes for your audience to grow. If you’re looking to boost audience engagement with your firm, a LinkedIn Live video can be a great way to do that.

Simplify your social media video marketing strategy with Clearview Social

If you make great video content but can’t manage to secure enough views, Clearview Social can help.

Clearview makes it easy for your employees to share your thought-provoking content, with a queue-builder to plan out posts in advance and email prompts that let your employees share content in only one click. Plus, Clearview’s robust analytics outline what type of content works best for your brand, so you can better target your marketing efforts going forward.

Clearview’s PeakTime feature also takes the guesswork out of finding the right time to post. PeakTime’s AI determines the best time of day to share so the most people will see the content you’re sharing.

Social media marketing doesn’t have to be hard. Get A Free Demo with Clearview Social and simplify your video sharing on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn today.