Studies indicate that the average social media user spends 17 hours a week online watching videos. Another study says 89% of users were convinced to purchase a product. This shows the importance of video content in your social media strategy.

In fact, 71% of marketers suggest that they create video content as part of their digital marketing plans. To win over audiences, you need to create high-quality videos regularly. To help you make the most of video content, we have developed this guide, which will be helpful when brainstorming social media content ideas.

What is Social Media Video Content?

Video marketing on social media involves using promotional videos across different platforms like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, X, TikTok, and LinkedIn. With good video content, you can be assured of content that users will love and interact with. With viewers liking, commenting, and sharing videos, brands can grow and have a loyal customer base.

Why You Should Consider Video Content

There are many reasons why you should consider video content. These include:

Effectively Communicate Your Message

If you want to create posts that communicate the message quickly, videos will enable you to do that. Unlike long text that can be complex, videos allow you to break down the concept into simple and memorable bite-sized content. 96% of marketers suggest that videos have helped users understand their products or services.

Better Website and SEO Services

Statistics indicate that videos are among the most shared types of content. 51% of social media users suggest sharing video content more than other content types. Remember that when your video content is shared, it results in a chain reaction as more people see the video and visit your website or channel.

Building Authentic Connections

Nothing can tell your brand better than videos. They show the real stories and people behind your products or services. Video content provides users with an opportunity to see and hear things. This results in a clear message and enables your audience to understand that they know you better, which helps build a loyal customer base.

Better User Engagement

Videos usually get more comments, shares, and likes than other posts. For instance, Instagram reels are the most popular content, producing double the engagement level of other content types.

Steps in Generating a Social Media Strategy

If you want to make an impact with your social media marketing, you need to develop a good strategy. Here are the steps to follow when creating videos that resonate with your target audience:

Set Your Goals

Before implementing a social media video strategy, consider what you are trying to achieve with the video. You can have a wide range of goals, such as:

• Increasing sales.
• Improving brand awareness.
• Driving traffic to your site.

No matter the goal you have in mind, ensure that it's specific and measurable. For instance, instead of aiming to increase website traffic, you can put your goal as “increasing visitors to your site by 20% or gaining 5,000 new followers on Facebook.” Such a goal will guide you in the kind of videos you should create and give you a clear benchmark to measure success. 

When setting a goal, you should ensure it falls within the five stages of the marketing channel. These are awareness, consideration, decision, adoption, and advocacy. When you set your social media goal and determine the funnel stage, you can create a more compelling call to action. Here are the types of videos to make for different stages of the  buying journey:

Awareness 

This is usually the first stage of the buying journey. In this stage, the goal of any brand is to capture the consumer's attention while introducing themselves. Video marketing on social media enables you to reach new customers while telling them more about yourself, your values, and your brand offering.

However, you only have a few seconds to capture your audience’s attention and create eye-catching, opinionated, or educational videos. For instance, you can post opinionated thought leadership or educational videos. This will improve brand credibility; therefore, when consumers have a buying intent, they will consider your brand.

Consideration

The main goal in this stage is to create demand since consumers are already aware of the brand and its offerings by the time they get here. However, you still need to play your part in creating demand for the products or services. Consumers can also consider the company's core values and culture.

You can highlight the company's core values or brand story when creating videos on this page. Doing that will enable you to establish an emotional connection with the audience, ensuring they select your company over the competitors.

Decision

In this stage, the goal is to make customers out of your prospects. You can use this stage to create customer testimonial videos to show the potential and benefits of your products and services. Such a video will show prospective customers the benefits and results other users have gotten from selecting your company's brands.

Adoption

In this stage, you want to show customers who converted how they can get the most out of your product. You can use fun and energetic how-to videos suitable for platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, and IGTV, where viewers have no problem spending more time watching and learning. You can create different kinds of videos for this stage of the buying process, such as:

• Educational videos. These videos are suitable for products that have a learning curve. The video content can focus on tips, hacks, special features, and optimization. This content can increase your customer’s trust in the product or service.
• Webinars. These videos enable you to engage with customers in real-time as they ask questions, which places them among highly engaging videos that can help drive engagement.
• Live streams. This will enable you to capture a bigger audience even though your biggest fans and followers are still likely to tune in. Statistics indicate that live content is the third most engaging content on Instagram’s in-feed content. This can be attributed to your followers being notified of the Instagram live stream if their app is open to enable them to tune in easily.

Advocacy

In this stage, the goal is to inspire evangelism, where happy customers tell others about your products or services. Remember that not all advocacy videos will go viral or come directly from your fans. You can showcase your employees by talking about why they like working there.

Understand Your Audience

A good video strategy should speak directly to your audience, making them feel the video was specifically made for them. Therefore, you must determine your audience's age, interest, and online behavior. Consider whether your audience is predominantly made of Gen Zs or Baby Boomers. Understanding your audience will enable you to create content that resonates with them.

Choose the Right Platform

Each social media platform is usually suited to a distinct demographic and audience.

Instagram

Instagram is an excellent platform for sharing short-form videos, while YouTube channels are best suited for creating shorter videos and webinars to reach a broader demographic. You can use Instagram videos for organic and paid campaigns as these will enable you to:

• Build the trust of your audience
• Bring your brand story to life through storytelling.
• Connect deeply with your audience.
• Show your products or services in action.

You can read our guide on Instagram vs. TikTok social media marketing.

LinkedIn Videos

LinkedIn videos are suitable for professional videos focusing on a particular industry. You can use LinkedIn videos for:

• Brand storytelling. Establish your brand’s voice on LinkedIn by sharing videos that will position you as an expert in your industry. You can also use an engaging story to introduce yourself to your brand. 
• Promoting products. LinkedIn has a wide range of features that you can leverage to create compelling content and improve customer engagement.
• Video blogging. Unlike when Linkedin was a simple onboarding platform, LinkedIn has become a great video blogging platform.

YouTube  

With over 2.5 million active monthly users, YouTube is the place to go for creating in-depth instructional videos, explainer videos, and storytelling with the story unfolding. With its diverse audience, YouTube can also be a great platform for sharing different types of content. 

Besides, YouTube is among the most popular search engines. YouTube videos appear on search engine result pages and, therefore, help marketers enhance the visibility of their brands by creating content on some of the commonly searched topics.

TikTok

TikTok is a great platform for posting short and engaging content for the younger audience. According to a Sprout Social Study, short-form videos generate 2.5 times more engagement than long-form ones. Additionally, short-form videos drive the highest engagement among TikTok’s in-feed content, followed by images and live videos.

Besides, TikTok videos such as duets combined with TikTok Sounds and TikTok trends provide brands with a creative way of video marketing. The app is excellent for driving awareness. Trends such as #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt is an excellent choice for converting users into customers. You should, therefore, incorporate videos in your TikTok marketing strategy.

Selecting Video Types

Next, you will want to determine the right kind of video for your marketing strategy. When considering a good type of video, you must find one that works for your goal. You also want to ensure that you create authentic content, as this is one of the considerations consumers make when deciding on videos. You can make videos that highlight your products or services. You can also create other types of videos, such as demos/testimonials.

 All in all, we can categorize the different video options into:

• Educational. These are usually informative types of content suitable for bringing brand awareness to new customers. When creating these types of content, use a serious and casual tone. For instance, if you target your existing customers, you can create video guides providing product tips.
• Explainer videos work similarly to educational videos but try to educate the audience on the product or services offered. These videos explain your company's role and how the brand seeks to solve a problem. Add a call to action to prompt the viewer to take action.
• Behind-the-scenes videos show glimpses into a company's operation or employees. Their goal is often to entertain audiences and give them a virtual peek of the behind-the-scenes action.
• Interviews. You can get guest speakers to interview in your videos. This is a great way of creating authentic content.
• Entertaining. Funny videos such as jokes, pranks, or cute puppies are popular and often aim to entertain audiences. They can be a good way of emphasizing your brand voice and making them feel like part of your community.
• Testimonials. When marketing, testimonials often appear like customer highlights and are a good choice for creating your brand's social proof. 
• User-generated content. These are videos created by customers when using your brand. They also offer social proof to show happy customers.
• Product highlights are a good choice for highlighting the key features of your products or services. They can help to showcase your brand's unique features.
• Narratives. When well used, storytelling can help you leave a lasting impression on your users. You can do it using animations or even create a documentary explaining how the brand was founded and the problem it is resolving.

Content Planning

A good content production plan can help you save time and money. Whether you want to use a pen and paper or a spreadsheet, you need a plan for creating and filming videos. You also need to plan for your in-house content production. Here are a few steps to follow for content planning:

• Start by considering the available in-house resources. These include your team's skills, available equipment, and software. For instance, you should consider whether you have a skilled script writing or editing staff. Consider also the kind of lighting equipment or camera available. When you understand your capabilities, you will set the stage for what you can produce.
• What do you need to outsource? Do you need to outsource some key equipment and skills to an agency or freelancer?
• Create the content calendar. This can enable you to remain organized. The calendar will outline the content you will produce, when to film it, and its release date. Ensure that you consider the time for video editing and revisions.

Keep Publishing

If you want your brand to remain in the minds of your target audience, you need to create content consistently. However, with so many other tasks to do, this can be difficult. Here are ways to ensure consistency in publishing content:

• Stick to your plan. Will you publish a new video every day, once per week, or every week? No matter the option you choose, choose a frequency you can maintain.
• Have a clear allocation of roles. Ensure that each person understands their responsibilities, such as script writing, who will be doing the filming and editing, etc. Having a clear role can ensure there is no confusion or task overlap.
• Create realistic deadlines. When setting a content creation deadline, be realistic. Consider the time spent on various tasks such as scripting, shooting, editing, and each video review. If you set an unrealistic deadline, you can end up with rushed content or burnout.
• Track progress. Whether you do this weekly or biweekly, you need to ensure that you are tracking your progress. This can ensure that each person is accountable. If you are getting behind schedule, create room for adjustment.
• Buffer building. If possible, work ahead of schedule. Buffer content can help you deal with unforeseen circumstances leading to unexpected delays.
• Be flexible. Not all the types of content you create resonate with your target audience. Therefore, if you find the content isn't working or there is a new trend, you should be ready to change your content strategy.

Understand the Post-production Steps

Unlike what many creators think, post-production involves more than just cutting out parts of the video scenes. It also involves additions such as text overlays, calls to action, and more. Remember that the more polished you want the video to be, the more time it will take. However, some videos, such as those on Facebook Live, may not need much editing. Since they're usually published immediately, you can edit the title and caption, but not much.

Once uploaded, videos also need to undergo a post-production process. For instance, if you upload to YouTube, you must include tags, closed captions in multiple languages, detailed captions, and more. Remember that creating a formal and polished video requires much effort and will take more work than the basic live stream.

Video Scheduling and Promotion

After creating your video, the next step will involve scheduling and promoting it. Don't think that everything is done once you have published it on social media. You must upload the video to several platforms, which can take months. Remember that you can repurpose your video in different formats and for different platforms. That means a single video recording can help produce several videos. You can even combine several short clips into one long video.

Analyze the Video Performance

Another critical step in video marketing is analyzing. You can not tell how well the video performs without checking the statistics. Therefore, you must look into metrics such as watch time, view counts, comments, and likes. Different social media platforms will show you different metrics, so you must decide which metrics are essential. 

For instance, if you posted the video on YouTube or TikTok, engagement is one of the key metrics you must look at. The most important thing is to track the metrics for the goal you set in the beginning. If your goal is brand awareness, you might want to look into video views and impressions.

Drive Audience Engagement

Videos are just the first step towards creating engaging content. You need to take action to drive engagement on your videos by responding to users who comment on them. You can do that by answering their questions, responding to their funny quips, and asking users what kind of videos they want to see. 

No matter how you engage with your audience, interactions will help you boost engagement. Besides, your audience will feel more valued when they see you value their input. This will help strengthen your connection with them, and they will value their connections with you. You can also organize contests and use user-generated content to drive engagement. Doing that will make your audience feel like they are also part of your brand story.

Tracking Success

You need to monitor your video's performance closely. Are people viewing the content from start to finish? Is the video content editing shared? To understand your videos' performance, you can track various metrics such as likes, shares, comments, video views, and click-through rates. 

Use various tools like Instagram Analytics and YouTube Analytics to understand your audience’s preferences. These metrics will provide crucial insights into the performance of your video. You will know the videos that worked well and those that didn't. You can then tweak your approach to improve your videos in the future.

Conclusion

From the sound, music, and beautiful visuals, video content has everything necessary to attract audiences. That's why statistics indicate that video remains the most popular type of content on most platforms. It is, therefore, crucial for marketers to incorporate videos in their social media marketing. If you are wondering how to do that, our detailed guide will help you.