Video Location Options for Video Marketing
(Disclaimer: Many factors will be important in determining your actual results on social media and no guarantees are made that you will achieve results similar to ours from our ideas and techniques presented in our blogs or videos.)
As I’ve mentioned many times before, and you’ve probably heard this from other experts as well… video content creation is no longer optional on social media for businesses; video marketing must be a part of your total social media marketing strategy.
Video content is *the* preferred content on all social media platforms, and these platforms have said they will show videos more often to your followers because that is what people want to see. With videos receiving 6x the engagement as other types of posts, and the amount of engagement a post gets will determine if your posts are seen, so how can you not use video content as part of your social media strategy?
Planning the video content strategy is important, but where should you post your videos to be the most effective? It depends on the type of video content you’re producing! Let’s dive in…
Instagram has 3 main locations you can upload your video content but it will depend on the type of video you’re producing as to which area you should use.
- Instagram Video Posts – These are like normal picture posts that live on your Instagram page, they stay there forever (or until you delete them), but you can only upload video that is 1 minute or less. The types of videos that will perform best in this location are more “polished” videos: create a short commercial, highlight a new product/service, show a short how-to video, etc. Use text overlays & subtitles so people can watch with the sound off.
- Instagram Story Videos – These are very short, 15 second videos that are great for sharing a limited time offer, show your products in action, introduce the people behind the scenes of your business, or do a walk-through to show what you’re doing right now. You can add fun stickers, polls, etc. on top of the videos too, and if you have something to say that’s longer than 15 seconds, you can do successive videos so 5 stories are really 1 topic. The possibilities here are endless. Bonus: Stories disappear after 24 hours, but you can save your story as a highlight that will live on your profile.
- Instagram Live Videos – These live in your Story area at the top of the newsfeed, but you simply choose “live” to start your live video. These live videos typically disappear after you’re done going live, but before you finish your live video, you have the option of saving it for 24 hours so people can watch it later, but it will still disappear after 24 hours. You can go live on IG for up to 1 hour.
- IGTV (Instagram TV) – This is a separate mobile app you need to download if you want to add a video to your IGTV channel. However, if you upload videos longer than 10 min, you may use your desktop, which is unusual for Instagram. Anyone can have an IGTV channel, and you may film up to 1 hour. These videos should be episodic in nature to get people to come back to your channel repeatedly to see what’s new. However, people can watch your IGTV show on the regular IG app, because anyone who is following your Instagram account is automatically following your IGTV channel. And no, they can’t follow one and not the other – they’re a package deal. Best of all, you can add clickable links in your IGTV description to drive traffic to your website, blog, etc.
Facebook:
Just like Instagram, Facebook has multiple locations for your video to live.
- Facebook Stories – Just like Instagram, you can film short video content that will live at the top of people’s newsfeeds so they’re easily identifiable that there’s new content. However, you get 5 extra seconds on FB – you can film up to 20 seconds for FB Stories. They also disappear after 24 hours, but you cannot save your stories like you do on IG.
- Facebook Video Posts – These are pre-recorded/created videos that you upload to your business page as a regular business post. It’s important to upload videos directly so they’ll auto play in people’s newsfeeds – if you post a YouTube link, people are taken away from your FB business page to YouTube, and it doesn’t get shown in people’s newsfeeds as often because it’s considered a link post.
- Facebook Live Videos – These are videos that also appear as regular business page posts but because they’re live, you get an opportunity to interact with your followers in real time. This is good for a Live Q & A, doing a live webinar, providing a tutorial or how-to video, or interviewing someone. Your followers will get a notification that you’re live, and you can film up to 4 hours.
YouTube vs. Vimeo
Then there are video platforms like YouTube & Vimeo that are designed to host videos. So which one should you use for your business?
SPOILER: I prefer YouTube because it is owned by Google & therefore, if your video has tags/keywords that people are searching for, your YouTube video will appear on the first page of Google search. Additionally, YouTube is its own search engine, in fact, it’s the 2nd largest search engine behind Google. Finally, it has WAY more active users (1 Billion users) whereas Vimeo only has 240 Million users. But, let’s break it down…
According to TechSmith Blog and Hubspot Blog:
Website:
Of course, you can put any video you like on your website with a little help from your web designer, perhaps. What’s great about videos that live on your website, is you own these videos! If you only put videos on social media channels like Facebook, and Facebook decides to shut down (remember MySpace?) or for some reason kicks your account off of its platform, you no longer have access to these videos.
Videos on your website is custom content that will benefit the visitors, perhaps a company highlight video, a how-to video, or short educational video. And when you post a direct link on your social media pages to these videos, you get increased traffic to your website and an opportunity for your visitors to go in depth & learn more about your business.
Conclusion:
Know the benefits of each platform and what you expect to get out of your videos in these specific locations, but perhaps it’s a great strategy to repurpose your video content and use it in multiple locations to reach the widest possible of audience. Keep in mind you may have to trim & edit the videos to be appropriate for the different platforms. Video marketing can be overwhelming but take baby steps and start small; then add more when you can. Don’t feel you have to be perfect or do all things – there is no overnight success!
