Re-posted from Dane Frederickson

Online video has been getting a lot of buzz in the past couple years, with good reason. Video is an impactful medium for business and it’s now easier and cheaper to produce and distribute than ever. In fact, you can even shoot video with your phone and distribute to your online social network for FREE- but we do NOT recommend that!  Even as it’s now commonplace, that’s still pretty amazing.

The catch? It still takes the time and the skills to make something that will help rather than hurt your social media goals.  In fact, just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. Some brand messaging is too important to entrust to people who don’t create high quality video every day.

To help you identify the opportunities for how you can add video to your social media mix (or improve what you’re already doing) here’s a few ways video can be used effectively in social media.

1. One of the more obvious uses is to extend your reach and boost visibility. Video grabs people’s attention and if you select a great thumbnail and teaser text, many will want to see what the content is. Once it’s posted, you can then cross promote wherever makes sense.
2. Helps your rank higher in search results. There are significant SEO benefits of frequently released content, even through social media. The algorithms are designed to give prominence to those that release frequent content that people really do watch, share, like and comment on. Web crawlers give preference to video: it’s inherently more valuable because it’s a more engaging type of content.
3. You don’t have to start from scratch. You can repurpose the pre-existing content on your blogs, webinars and the like.  You’re already spent the time making it; why not get most bang for your buck?
4. Video can increase engagement: through time-on-site ‘stickiness’ as well as comments, shares, likes and whatever comes next! You can actually engage audiences with exciting /helpful content and while they are watching they’ll be absorbing your message.
5. It can shorten the sales cycle. How much time does your organization spend educating prospects about your product/services and brand? Imagine if you could spend the effort crafting a laser-focused video that did the heavily lifting, globally, 24/7 and for years? Video acts as a virtual sales staff, hanging out in the places where users spend time
6. By giving customers the tools, they can educate themselves of uses and best practices of your product/service even after purchase.
7. What better way to show off your company and its values, besides an expensive visit? Recruitment videos are a great place to start.
8. Customer testimonials: Short of an actual demo, nothing seems to work as well for building trust and understanding in prospects. They can see the pleased expressions on your happy client‘s faces. The opportunity is to clearly demonstrate how your solution can work for new clients.
9. Icebreaker. If your prospect has never met you, video can also remove the element of unknown. Once the prospects ‘meet’ your team and your company, you’re probably a lot closer to signing a deal.

Once you have identified the opportunities that sound like they might be right for your situation, the next step I’d recommend is to find a production partner that can help tailor the right solution for your goals, budget and messaging.  It’s tempting to bootstrap a video project but the results are typically not satisfactory.

I’d urge you to take a look online at what other companies are doing that seems like it gives any inspiration.  Whichever route you choose, just make sure you are leveraging best practices and optimization so that your hard work gets the nest results.

Good luck, if you would like a little guidance, feel free to contact me at markw@rmavp.com.