As an entrepreneur, you must know the impact of creating and distributing visual content on social networks as a marketing strategy. Videotapes boost the reach of your post and enhance your engagement with your audience. Sharing them can promote your brand, bring in traffic, create awareness and increase sales. Studies indicate that your conversion rate increases by 80% when you have a video on your website's landing page. Promoting your brand on social networks using videos requires you to get your watchers’ attention within the first 8 seconds and keep it; otherwise, they will not watch till the end. Therefore, the length, details, subtitles, and sound of your video, play a crucial role in making people find your video and watch it.

If you do not see the results of the videos you've distributed on social platforms, then you most probably are doing something wrong. Read on to learn the best ways to create video content to bring in more customers for your brand and hence increase sales.

1. Use native videos

As you post your video content on your channel on YouTube, you can also consider marketing it on native platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Hosting your video online via YouTube offers reaches a broader target audience because it's the second largest search engine on the web. When you distribute videos on the numerous social networks such as Facebook, opt to post native videos rather than offering YouTube videos which redirect a user to another link. Such videos on Facebook allow you to exploit the feature of Autoplay that allows your video to continue playing as the viewer visits other feeds on their profile for Social Media Marketing. This improves the UI and increases conversion rates. When using links such as YouTube videos on Facebook, the user will be required to click manually to play, then directed to view the video on an external source thus being compelled to leave their feeds. This doesn't resonate well with most users.

2. Optimize your video for search engines

What's the point of creating a video for online marketing if it cannot be found on search results nor drive visitors to play it? SEO helps in understanding what customers search for to get to your site then place you in a position to give them the content that is useful and relate to them. Optimizing your video helps in improving ranks on search engines thus making your videos more visible and get many views. Follow these guidelines that ensure you catch the visitors’ attention and also boost your organic search results:

• Make the name of the video brief and descriptive to compel visitors to play it. For instance, on Twitter, a catchy hashtag will be quite useful.
• Describe briefly and upfront what the visitor should expect to find in the video.
• Sell your video by giving it an attractive thumbnail that also catches the eye thus boosting the number of viewers.
• Ensure the video is responsive on various screen sizes to attract the high population of smartphone users especially.
• Categorize your video appropriately to make locating the content someone was looking for easier.

3. Don’t make long videos

Most social media users aim to be entertained as well as consume content efficiently, keep track of current trends and emerging issues in the process of viewing their feeds. Sharing short and useful videos on your landing page will ensure a visitor achieve all these without consuming much time. For instance, the recommended period for videos on Instagram is 30 seconds, Twitter - 45 seconds, Facebook - 60 seconds and YouTube - 2 minutes for the message to be effective. Although longer videos provide the advantage of sharing more in-depth information, shorter is always best given the limited amount of time you have to grab a watcher’s attention. Short videos are effective for people who want to find useful information and move on to something else. Videos of limited length are easy to share, build stronger relationships with viewers by keeping them engaged and making them want more.

4. Make the best use of the 10 seconds at the beginning of your video

Create something interesting and persuasive to your viewers that will grab their attention, make them stop scrolling away and watch the shared content before moving on. A third of your viewers will scroll away if you don't capture their attention or provide interesting material in the first 10 seconds. Therefore, make a video script that will make your viewers hold on and watch your video till the end.

5. Incorporate a Call to Action

Remember to include CTA when creating your video. If it is worth watching, it should be good enough for sharing. Provide your users with CTAs to direct them to what you would like them to do after watching the video. It is obvious your goal is to have your video watched by as many people as possible. It is, therefore, an essential marketing strategy to direct your users with CTA such as 'Share', 'Shop now', 'Sign up', 'Learn more,' to guide them to act the way you want. A Call to Action should be compelling, clear, persuasive and aimed at achieving a particular goal.

6. Tell stories in your video

Sharing a story in social media as a marketing strategy adds value to any content. Videos explain better by affecting the emotions and moods of your target audience making it easy to connect with you and induce action. If you use the right characters, approach the story in an angle that attracts attention and convey your brand message, you can count on real results of the video. Storytelling makes your brand more relatable to your audience. The example can be a site for sportsmen that posts video interviews with sports stars: their exclusive interviews, workout routine, and much more that can make people follow and wait for every new video.

7. Post live videos

Instagram Live and Facebook Live are features that can also be used to promote your brand using real-time events. You can show your audience live experiences through your page and give them the option to share and comment. Use the comments from your viewers to get ideas of the next live event.

Final words

Using videos on media platforms as a marketing strategy is already applied by most of the successful brands you know. As long as you prep yourself before recording, have something of value to say that will get viewers involved somehow and you are time conscious, your video should be hitting the top results on search engines. Focus on quality and not quantity. Make your videos unique and personal such that it resonates well with your target audience to the extent that you will not have to worry about your competition. Use the above tips to promote your videos on social media effectively thus help more people to gain awareness of your brand.