You’ve probably read at least dozens of articles about producing the “perfect” online video for your marketing campaign. You’ve studied different variations of do’s-and-don’t’s lists and chosen the best video production company to suit your needs. You’re ready to take the video marketing scene by storm and find out for yourself, once and for all;
Does this really work?
Getting the perfect video for your brand really only brings you about fifty percent of the way to the endgame. Online video marketing is a tricky, stormy sea to maneuver through, and you could – at any moment – find yourself smashing into a couple of really big rocks.
3 THINGS FOR THE JOURNEY
Sticking to this ship-and-sea analogy, you need three things; a route, a crew, and a ship. You can’t sacrifice one for the other. If your ship is less of a ship and more of a rickety dinghy held together by superglue and prayer, you don’t stand much of a chance.
You have got to pick your transportation. You can have your route clearly mapped out (your marketing strategy) and the best of the best as crewmembers backing you up (your video production company), but if your ship isn’t suited for your journey, you’re going to have big problems.
The ship in this metaphorical sea journey is your chosen platform.
SOCIAL MEDIA AND MARKETING
Fact is, your chosen social media platform can make or break your marketing strategy. Different platforms have different parameters, metrics, and features – and they cater to different audiences too. Tumblr and Instagram, for instance, usually appeal to the more aesthetic, artistic type (jewellery, makeup, drawings) whereas YouTube is just a huge smorgasbord of entertainment (comedy topping the charts, with song covers and vlogs just below that).
Here’s a quick rundown of 3 of the best social media platforms that can host videos; their strengths, weaknesses, and everything in between.
YOUTUBE
The very first video-hosting site that gained popularity, YouTube remains one of the best choices for video. If nothing else, the keyword search on this platform is optimized, their formula for video suggestions is pretty spot-on, and their user interface is crisp, clean, and easy to understand.
Strengths: Everyone is familiar with this platform, and it’s quite easy to randomly find videos on the site just by clicking links or entering search terms.
Weakness: Constant competition. Every day, forty-six thousand years’ worth of videos are watched on the site.
Probably the first and most social of all social media platforms, Facebook is a good way to get your video out to an established base of followers. While many use Facebook more as a way to stay in touch and updated with family and friends, a lot of businesses consider it an excellent platform to boost brand awareness.
Strengths: It is crazy easy to share videos across different platforms and profiles via this site.
Weakness: There are no “suggested videos” or “related videos” to take advantage of, and randomly stumbling across a video ad via a set of kewyords is rather difficult and not as cut-and-dry as YouTube’s search engine.
Although Instagram focuses more on images and photos taken, this auto-updating platform has certainly made a name for itself. The audience reached here is definitely more of the artsy type, and thus can be easily caught by tasty visuals.
Strengths: Fits this generation’s “30-seconds-or-less” mindset perfectly. There’s a certain charm to the sped-up videos that make them easy to view and easy to watch – again and again and again (Instagram has an auto-loop feature).
Weakness: Limited to 60 seconds – barely the length of a proper explainer video. Audio is also auto-muted, unless you tap on the video, so anyone disinterested can literally just ignore you.
