There was a time, not so long ago, when every marketer ranted about the importance of blogging and written content. Fast-forward to 2020 and video content is the new, must-do item on every digital marketer’s list.
Yes, blogs and articles are still important, but videos are on a meteoric rise to be the next frontier of content.
If your business or marketing team is still neglecting to produce video content, then you’re missing out on the opportunity to capitalize on this tremendous content trend.
Here are 9 tips to promote video content.
Tip #1: Don’t Reinvent The Wheel
If you listened to those some-time-ago marketing experts that rightfully chirped about how critical blog content was (and still is), then you’ve already created a number of content assets.
When it comes to video content, you don’t need to reinvent the wheel. What this means is don’t just create entirely new content pieces using the video format. Instead, take your most successful blogs and repurpose them as videos.
After all, these are your greatest hits! Repurposing old, successful content assets will save you both time and money. This allows you to commit more attention to promoting your videos!
Tip #2: Be Different — Find Your Voice!
Whenever you are creating content, it is vital that you find your unique voice. This means developing videos in a way that stands out from the competition and is unmistakably your own creation.
You might…
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Incorporate your own branded animation style
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Have a unique video personality conveying the content
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Use engaging thumbnails
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Adapt a unique conversation style
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Etc.
You want to produce content that people can only find with your brand. Look at what already exists and find ways to be different from the crowd. Viewers like different!
Tip #3: Length Matters
Video content is much more engaging than written text, or even images. You can deliver greater value in a shorter span of time. That said, you need to respect the time of your audiences. It’s a valuable resource and if you ask too much of it, then they will not watch or engage at all.
You should aim to keep your content under 2 minutes and 30 seconds. Any longer and your views and engagement metrics will begin to fall because people won’t want to watch when you’re asking too much of their time.
Save your long-form videos for after you’ve already engaged audiences!
Tip #4: Vary Content
Don’t keep playing the same tune over and over. Instead, vary your video content as much as possible. This will keep audiences engaged and returning for more, future video posts. There are two ways you can vary content:
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Length: Longer videos allow you to pack more value into each viewing. However, don’t be afraid to mix in some short, 10-30 second videos as well. These are more digestible and appeal to mobile and young audiences that like to consume content in short bursts.
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Type: Videos are a very diverse content type, much like blogs and articles. You can do a lot with the format! So, don’t limit yourself by using the same video type each time you post. Mix it up, try new things and explore interesting video ideas.
Tip #5: Tease The Best Parts
As you are promoting your video content assets, try and find the most engaging part of each one and use it in your promotional materials. This is the essence of the video, or the main value highlight that you use to draw in viewers.
It’s all about leading with your strongest hook. Don’t feel like you’re giving away your best insights. Rather, you should realize that using these golden nuggets will tease people into absorbing your videos and watching every second.
Tip #6: Optimize Your Cross Channel Promotion
When promoting videos, you want to spread the word across as many relevant channels as you can. More promotional messages across more channels means maximizing the number of potential viewers because you’re getting the word out to more places.
But, there is a big difference between maximizing cross channel promotion and optimizing it. With the former, you could plaster the same message across every channel. The problem is that every channel has rules and user expectations.
A great promo message on Instagram looks nothing like a good LinkedIn promo. Respect how each channel works and you’ll optimize your promotions in no time.
Tip #7: Content Quality Trumps Video Quality
A lot of marketers worry about making video content because they don’t have expensive equipment or sophisticated editing software. Thus, they worry that it is out of their budget to produce high-quality, professional-grade videos.
This is actually a damaging oversight because you don’t need these things to have a successful video advertising strategy. The truth is that audiences are used to and comfortable with content filmed from the smartphone in your pocket.
Sure, video quality is nice, but what audiences really want is new, interesting and insightful videos. In short, they want something they haven’t seen anywhere else before.
Tip #8: Incentivize Sharing
Whenever you’re promoting anything online, shares are a top priority, When a user shares your videos, it immediately expands your reach to their entire network. If just one of their connections also shares it, then your reach quickly grows exponentially. This is how content goes “viral.”
Due to the huge value of video shares, a common promotion technique is to incentivize the action. This means rewarding people that share your video. Rewards don’t have to be something extravagant, just enough to engage your audiences and encourage them to act.
Tip #9: Leverage Video Ads
In addition to incentivizing shares, you can also run video ad campaigns on YouTube. These ads appear in many different formats, from displaying at the beginning, middle or end of a normal YouTube Video, to even appearing as a sponsored result when someone searches content on YouTube.
The idea of online advertising can be intimidating for many, especially when it comes to the idea of costs. Many marketers ignore this valuable channel all together because they fear paid promotion on Youtube is far beyond the limits of their budget.
Not so! Paid video ads are not expensive and can expand the reach of your video content by a great deal.
Conclusions
The numbers support the overwhelming power and impact of video content. Don’t sleep on it because the longer you wait, the more crowded the video content arena becomes.
Get in early with these 9 video promotion tips and reap the rewards!
