You can only genuinely benefit from your social media video initiative with the correct approach and philosophy. Provided you’re only doing this because you feel like you have to, you’re limiting your potential for success.

Your perspective and enthusiasm will be the core drivers of your video quality. People can tell when someone is authentic and excited to connect and communicate with them. They can also tell when that excitement is non-existent and that the social media video only functions as a tickbox marketing item. 

Once you’re ready to dive first into social media video production and embrace it wholeheartedly, apply these core tenets for all of your content ideas:

• You increase your chances of being found and connecting with your potential customers by publishing more content.
• The more visible you are to your potential customers, the likelier they will purchase your products or services.
• As your customers buy more, your profits will skyrocket.

It’s that simple! With the above mentality, you’re ready for the next step of this video content journey.

Be Campaign-Minded With All Video Content

The most successful social media videos don’t exist in a vacuum. They are one component of an all-encompassing campaign involving different marketing and advertising forms. 

Joining your social media video as part of your campaign could be audio (e.g., a podcast), images (e.g., banner ads, social media graphics), and text (e.g., blogs, social media posts).

Additionally, your social media video should be part of a stream of several videos that incorporate your overarching campaign.

There are many advantages stemming from this approach. For one–it diversifies your marketing efforts so that you’re touching all bases to reach your audience. In other words, you don’t put all your eggs in one basket.

Furthermore, this campaign-minded approach means you can repurpose the same content based on the medium used. Your video script can be massaged into a blog post, for instance.

The video medium itself has many different publishing forms. For example, on Youtube, it needs to be 16×9, while it must be a square on Instagram. You’re still using the same video–but merely formatting it differently. 

The philosophy here is making the content once and putting it everywhere. You’re maximizing one idea or theme and spreading it as far as possible, extracting the most value for time spent.

Additionally, the campaign-forward approach better drives home your marketing message. With your social media video as the backbone of your campaign, all supporting content will heighten the impact of the content within.

Define Your Topic Matter And Call To Action

Once you’ve entered the crucial campaign state of mind, ask yourself, “what topics can I make a campaign out of?” Then, write out your ideas.

Discuss these topic ideas with your team and survey your audience about their most glaring pain points. Massage your content to revolve around your brand’s solutions to soothe those pain points. 

Now, let’s delve into the critical nature of specificity in your videos. 

Video marketing–on a generalized basis–is over-saturated. So, if your ideas are too broad and don’t hone into something unique, you’re content will get lost in the shuffle. Finding a niche reduces the potential for oversaturation because you’ll be the only one (or one of a select few) making videos about that given topic.

The need to strike a chord with a niche group of consumers highlights the importance of surveying your audience about their pain points. Without that crucial information, the niche might be too specific and irrelevant.   

Then, consider your “call-to-action” or CTA when writing down your topic ideas. Your CTA is the desired response of your audience and typically involves them further engaging with your brand. You’ll successfully prompt your audience with your CTA if the video resonates with them.

CTAs are most often a version of “Order Now,” “Get Started,” or “Click the Link Below,” to name a few examples. With videos, the execution of your CTA will come down to the medium you’re using. On YouTube, for instance, you can have CTA links pop up on the video–but you can also add the links to the video description. 

You must establish publishing dates for your video topics and space them accordingly. Start slow with once per mouth and transition to twice monthly when you’re more comfortable. Then, once you feel comfortable and confident, you can publish videos once weekly (or even once daily if it’s really working for you).

Create Your Script/Script Outline

With your first campaign topic established, it’s time to write out an outline for your video.

Your outline should include the main points you wish to touch upon to make your social media video digestible and memorable. Remember, you want your video to stick in the mind of audience members, so don’t overstuff it.

Use this template to create your outline:

• The Hook:

• • Here is where you hone into the audience’s key pain point (e.g., are you sick and tired of poor lawnmower performance?)

• The Story:

• • Yes–your social media video is more than a piece of content–it’s a form of storytelling. The narrative revolves around how you grasp the audience’s pain points because of your own experiences. You can shine a light on how challenging it was to overcome that pain.

• The Offer:

• • You’re presenting the solution to the problem, “do this if you want to be finished with that.”

• The Call To Action:

• • Ensure that every social media video you make ends with a call to action.

Empathy will prove the most vital tool in your videos. Audiences want to align with brands that understand and relate to their struggle.

Designing A Content Pipeline

As we said earlier, your videos don’t exist in a vacuum. It’s not a matter of recording once, then moving on. It’s a continual effort, where you’ll be making new videos on–at least–a semi-regular basis.

Keeping track of different marketing materials in various completion stages can be daunting when combined with the rest of your content strategy. Without an organizational system, getting lost and losing track is an eventuality.

Thus, you need a video content pipeline (on top of a general content pipeline). Such a system helps define when, how, and with whom you’ll create and publish your videos.

Step 1: Organizing Your Ideas

• Your video content pipeline starts with writing down your idea. Every idea you brainstorm should exist in this section. Give each idea a proper name, so it has a defined identity.

Step 2: Choose The Videos You’re Going To Shoot This Month

• Pick the videos you’ll make in a given month (we often do five per month to help us get ahead of schedule). Doing so lets you know what supplies you’ll need for each video, ensuring you show up prepared and ready to shoot.

Step 3: Adding The Post Video-Shoot Elements

• This stage often involves making a separate intro and outro and deciding on your thumbnail.

Step 4: Organizing The Video Files

• This stage involves data-wrangling. More specifically, you’re grouping your separate videos into different files so that you can access them easily when need be.

Step 5: The Video Editing Process

• Now it’s time for the video editing–here, you should assign and write down who will edit the video. Be specific with your checklist (e.g., edit raw video, add B-Roll, add graphics, add music, color correct, upload for review on YouTube). Using Trello allows you to tag an editor, add a checklist without recreating it, create one single point of description, add a thumbnail image, and put in the due date.

Step 6: The Video Review

• Use a tool like Vimeo to review the social media video. You can add notes and time stamp any suggested changes. Again, with Trello, you can tag the editor with suggestions. The editor will then be notified through email. 

Step 7: Quality Control

• Ensure the video is exported correctly and that no channels are hidden. 

Step 8: Writing A Description

• Write the description for the video on YouTube and schedule it to be published on the platform.

Step 9: Export Audio

• Provided your video can be turned into a podcast, isolate the audio in an Mp3 format.

Step 10: Schedule For Social Media Publishing

• The video is ready for your social media channels and can potentially be accompanied by a blog.

We’ll reiterate the use of Trello and how valuable it can be to video production. Other project management software like ClickUp or Monday will also fit the bill.

What’s key is having the project management software that offers you a visual of the given pipeline stage your videos have entered. This way, you’ll remain on top of all your video projects, even if they’re still just ideas. 

Making Your Video

We’ll double down on a point we made in one of the above sections. The video setup we suggested is ideal and affordable (considering the potential ROI) at around $1,500. That said, a well-edited social media video made with your smartphone can take you far. 

Outside of a well-written script and a strong campaign idea, your success rests upon how well you present yourself on camera. 

The first step to enhancing your on-camera presence is looking at the camera lens, not your on-screen reflection. Doing so connects you and the viewer directly–because you’ll be looking at them. 

On the other hand, failing to make that all-important eye contact will make you seem impersonal and awkward. Nobody wants to stare at someone’s left ear. 

Furthermore, bolster your screen-to-screen eye contact with your winning smile. Such welcoming energy is infectious and must be maintained throughout the social media video. At the very least, you need to start and finish the video with a smile. 

Being conscious of your energy levels and doubling down on them is vital. During the video review process, you’ll notice that you don’t look as energetic as you felt during the recording. 

Undoubtedly, forcing yourself to be energetic won’t seem natural. Still, you’ll get more comfortable after doing reps. You’ll then hone your technique, which will help you better connect with your viewer. The concept is straightforward–what does the viewer have to be excited about if you don’t seem excited?

The next step involves B-Roll or secondary footage–also known as your best friend. 

B-Roll is like window-dressing to establish your main campaign message. Suppose you’re discussing a state-of-the-art treadmill. You could B-Roll of people running on the treadmill. Or, you could show people struggling to run outside when talking about pain points.

Don’t be stingy with shooting B-Roll, either. The more you have, the more rough diamonds you can find that can bolster this and future campaigns. 

Note that lighting and audio quality will dictate much of your success. People need to be able to see and hear you if they’re to trust and like you. 

Lastly, you’ll need to decide on a thumbnail for your video. The image–typically from the video–draws in viewers to click through. Ensure the thumbnail is visually appealing, memorable, and engaging enough to attract clicks.

Bolster Your Video With An Article

This suggestion goes back to the campaign-mindedness discussed earlier. Your social media videos can’t stand alone–they need other supporting actors to complete the ensemble, so to speak.

Enter the blog article. 

An ideal jumping-off point for a blog is transcribing the video verbatim, making it easier to recycle and repurpose. You’re editing and positioning what’s already written instead of inventing something from scratch. Or, you’re making it once and putting it everywhere–saving exponential amounts of time. 

Beyond giving audiences an extra tangible piece of marketing material, your article helps ensure more people see your video. This result stems from the Search Engine Optimization advantages offered by blogs. You’re publishing content with relevant keywords related to your social media video, increasing the chances that it’s visible in searches.

Moreover, a viewer–who doesn’t have time to watch a video–can quickly scan over the content of a video by reading the accompanying article instead.

Posting Your Video On Social Media

You need to post your video–and a link to the accompanying article–on your social media channel of choice.

We suggest focusing most of your social media efforts on the platforms your audience frequents the most. Don’t waste your efforts on a baron wasteland. Find out where your target viewer spends most of their time–whether TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, etc.–and post the video there.

That’s not to say you should limit yourself to one channel. You can post on multiple platforms, but ensure those platforms are popular with your audience. Often, you’ll find that trying to hit too many channels with your content can spread your efforts too thin.

Additionally, research what time your audience is most active on social media and post then. This could be a process of trial and error, as you post at various times and collect the data on when you get the most engagement. 

Automating your social media posting with scheduling software (e.g., Hootsuite, Buffer, Later) helps ensure you post at the correct times and are always prepared.

Measure Your Results

Measure social media video metrics such as:

• Engagement:

• • Are people liking and commenting on your video?

• Watch times:

• • This will tell you if your viewers are invested in your social media video

• Social shares:

• • People sharing your content on social media means you’re expanding your audience.

• Clicks and Click-Throughs:

• • People clicking on the links you post with your videos brings them one step closer to a sale. 

• Conversions:

• • Are your videos leading to sales or subscriptions?

These analytics tell you what’s working best in your videos and give you an idea of what requires a course correction.

Pro tip: use any of these tools to procure the necessary analytics for your videos.