#TechIsTheNewAwesome – Utilizing Live Video for Online Marketing

If you’ve been watching the trends in digital marketing, then you won’t be surprised to hear that video currently makes up 74%  of all web traffic. Just look at your own social media feeds and you’ll see lots of videos as you scroll through. And if you look closely, you’ll notice that they’re not just ads. There are videos of news stories, self-help information, humor and a variety of other content.
There’s a good reason for all that video: it works! It’s engaging, has been proven to make the message easier to remember, and those who see it tend to stick with the content longer. Forbes reports that by 2019 video will claim more than 80% of all web traffic. Video traffic is high across all platforms – video views on phones and tablets now account for about half of all traffic. As video has become more popular, more platforms are making it available to their users.

Facebook Live, Twitter’s Periscope, Instagram, YouTube, and Snapchat all provide easy ways to share video. And you don’t have to spend a fortune to produce it. Smartphones have made it easy for anyone to produce high quality live streaming experiences for their social media feeds.
If you haven’t been using video as part of your marketing strategy yet, you might be wondering how to make it work for your company. Let’s say your tech support or customer service lines have a question that is frequently asked. A live how-to session that explains the problem can give your customers the chance to learn more about the product and interact with your experts. Other ways to engage your audience include live streaming events that you sponsor, a “behind the scenes” look at your business, and inspirational testimonies by customers.
Of course, nothing is quite as simple as it sounds. If you grab the camera and just start broadcasting  without a plan, chances are you won’t get the results you’re looking for. You need to treat video like your other marketing initiatives: you need to choose the right platform for your business, craft the message you want to convey, learn about the tools and determine how you will measure success.
Take a look at how others in your industry are using video. If video isn’t widely used in your industry yet, check out leaders in other industries. Buzzfeed is considered one of the best at streaming, and brands like Starbucks and Mashable incorporate live video as part of their marketing strategy.

With a little homework and lots of practice, you can successfully weave live streaming video into your overall marketing strategy. Once you hit on the right formula for your business you’ll find that your customers are more engaged, your message is hitting the right points, and you may even have some fun.

Live video is one my passions. If you have an event coming up and would like to get some live coverage for your social platforms, give us a shout at The Social Media Advisor! Let’s show the world how AWESOME you are.
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Hollie Clere of The Social Media Advisor is a “#BeAwesome” Developer, Social Media, Brand Builder, Content Manager, Trainer and Author in LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Blog, Google+,YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram and the tools to manage them.



#AwesomeConsistency – How Consistent Video Supports Company Culture & Expectations

We keep talking about how video, live video in particular, has the biggest impact in social media in 2017 – and that’s just facts. If you are planning to incorporate video into your social media or marketing strategy on a regular basis, to take advantage of the benefits of consistency, then you will need a game plan for the videos you create. Why? Because your videos will become a part of your corporate and personal branding – they will speak to your company culture and visually demonstrate your mission, vision and values to your audience. Expectations will be the ultimate result of this effort so if you do not begin with the end in mind, you could miss the mark with your video marketing.

Company Culture

How do your marketing videos affect your overall company culture? It’s a twofold approach. First, they act as an example to your team of what your business stands for both internally and externally. They can be used to showcase the brand, boost employee morale, and leverage both recruiting and retention efforts.

Not only are they a promotional tool for hiring the best talent, they build your company’s online presence in a way that sets expectations for the audience. Video is a way of demonstrating what you stand for, what you do, and how you engage with others. It establishes trust and a level of comfort, as your viewers start to feel like they know you and what you stand for. This lowers any perceived or hidden barriers between you and your followers. Know, Like, and Trust – the social marketing triad – is established by posting videos regularly.

Starting with Video

The great thing about video marketing is that you can begin with as little as a cell phone or invest in really high-quality production experts – depending on your budget and what you are looking to achieve with your content. With the rise of live video, people no longer expect an expensive end result. Often, just sitting down, speaking to your audience, and responding when they engage is all that is needed to make video worthwhile.

Stay on Point

If you don’t really understand your own branding yet – I mean backwards and forwards – then take time to fully develop your brand story before diving into video. Why? You are going to want to display those aspects of your branding that make you unique, interesting, and that differentiate you from your competition in your videos. Clear and concise content is what is needed to retain attention and audience.

Spotlighting

Do you hate being spotlighted or feel uncomfortable with the idea that it must be you on camera every week? Get creative or switch it up. Give your staff a voice by interviewing them. Highlight your products as they arrive or as you are packing them up to ship out. Show off your work space. Give viewers an insider’s perspective on how and why you do what you do.

Have a Purpose

As with any decent marketing strategy, understand before you start what you are wanting to get out of this process. What is your call to action? Are you trying to connect with your audience and deliver your brand messaging to more people (reach)? Trying to grow your list / sales funnel (lead generation)? Do you want to flip viewers into paying customers (conversions)? Communicate what you need and what is important to you, and your business. In order to get your audience invested in you, they need to understand your “why.”

If you haven’t started creating videos for your website, email newsletters, vlogs, or social media – then now is a great time to start! Soon everyone will be doing it and it will be more difficult to #BeAwesome and get the sort of results you can get right now while this movement is fairly new.

Ready to brainstorm and talk strategy? Book a discovery call with me!

Be sure to Follow us and Let’s Engage!
Hollie Clere of The Social Media Advisor is a “#BeAwesome” Developer, Social Media, Brand Builder, Content Manager, Trainer and Author in LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Blog, Google+, YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram and the tools to manage them.

#AwesomeContent – Why Native Video Gets Higher Engagement on Social Media


In our last blog post, there was great detail about why live video is important and how it impacts engagement on social media. Live video is cream of the content crop but other videos are almost as impactful.
In a 2016 HubSpot survey, 43% of consumers wanted to see more video content.
Today, most of the major social media platforms have their own native video publishing options.  Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter… not to mention YouTube and Vimeo…are invested in video content.  This makes it simple to take a video from your smartphone or your desktop and upload it to these sites.
We’ve already talked about WHY you should be creating and sharing videos. Now we need to talk about native posting and why it’s important.
Native video is video that is uploaded to or created on social networks and played in-feed, as opposed to links to videos hosted on other sites. Native video formats are specific to each social platform and are designed to maximise video engagement (i.e. number of views), discovery and distribution.
-Wikipedia
Yes, being able to schedule your social media posts in advance is not only helpful, but often necessary to ensure that you remain consistent and relevant online. Unfortunately, this sort of scheduling is not encouraged by the major social platforms and their algorithms are set up to boost native content over scheduled posts.
Video takes time and effort to create and produce. You, absolutely, need to be getting the most return on your time.  Since video content promotes the most engagement – you want to expand your reach as much as possible with every post. Facebook and Twitter and Instagram want you playing in their sandbox as much as possible and will reward you with expanded reach and presence when you do so.
According to Adespresso, one case study found that there was a 135% increase in organic reach for native videos even compared to photos.
There are additional perks to taking the time to post videos natively – including better analytics and editing opportunities. However, the real push is that 135% more reach! This is no small number.
Take the time to really showcase and highlight your videos by posting them directly onto the platforms. It’s my mission in life to show you how to #BeAwesome with your social media and native video is exactly the technique to use. I will leave you with this nugget:

According to Facebook, by January of this year there were three billion video views on their platform everyday.


Be sure to Follow us and Let’s Engage!
Hollie Clere of The Social Media Advisor is a “#BeAwesome” Developer, Social Media, Brand Builder, Content Manager, Trainer and Author in LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Blog, Google+,YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram and the tools to manage them.

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