How to combine your content and video đŸ“č marketing strategies

There’s no denying that video marketing is incredibly effective.

Businesses are experimenting with video as part of their social and content strategies and enjoying a whole host of benefits.

With so much research suggesting that video is the future of marketing, what can you do to take your business to the next level and incorporate your existing content into the mix?

 

Video marketing statistics for 2018

Before we get started with today’s post, here are some of the most mind-blowing video marketing statistics that will help shape your future marketing strategy. If you’re not working on video content right now, it’s time you made a start.

  1. Video content on Facebook has 135% greater organic reach than image posts
  2. Testimonials, tutorials and demonstrations are the most effective video content types
  3. 78% of people watch online videos every week, and 55% view online videos every day
  4. By 2020, online videos will make up more than 80% of all consumer internet traffic
  5. Viewers retain 95% of a message on video, compared to just 10% when reading text
  6. 100 million hours of video are watched each day on Facebook
  7. 50% look for videos related to a product or service before visiting a physical store
  8. Searches related to “how to” on YouTube have grown 70% year on year
  9. 52% of marketers say video is the type of content with the best ROI
  10. On average, people spend 2.6x more time on pages with video than without

 

Writing content that complements your videos

Although video content on its own will increase conversions, boost your presence on search engines and spread the message about your brand, bring together a content marketing and video marketing strategy could be a powerful move.

Below, we’ve put together just some of the ways that you can use content to take your video marketing to the next level.

See also: The benefits of using video content on your website

 

Post transcripts under your videos

Although search engines are advancing at unprecedented levels, written text still trumps a video when it comes to search engine optimisation (SEO).

Simply put, it’s much easier for a robot to read a blog post than it is for them to watch and transcribe a video, but you can make it easier for your videos to be indexed and seen by others by transcribing them yourself.

There are a whole host of benefits to transcribing your videos, including making them more accessible to those who are deaf or hard of hearing and protecting your business against disability discrimination laws.

Not only that but transcribed videos are easier to comprehend, as they can be distributed in different formats and can be saved for a later date.

Transcriptions can also make videos easier to watch and comprehend in sound-sensitive environments, like when using public transport or working in a busy office, and having written content also means that videos can be translated into other languages to boost your reach and send your messages even further afield.

But the biggest benefit, without a doubt, is SEO.

Transcribing your video content makes it more searchable, so viewers can easily find what they’re looking for without sitting through endless video content with vague descriptions and video titles.

And, according to data at 3play media, 97% of students said interactive transcripts enhanced their learning experience.

Another great benefit is that having your video content transcribed and right in front of you, you’ll easily be able to create more content on your initial video topic.

You could turn video testimonials into written reviews on your landing pages, or you could take a video tutorial and add more context, screenshots and other multimedia elements and turn it into a blog post.

 

Craft effective video descriptions

Your video description is your one chance to tell users and search engines what your video is about, and link to additional tools or resources to help them find more information.

As well as adding a transcription of your video to your description (see above), you should think about what users will be likely to search for if they wanted to find a video like yours.

Just like you would with a new blog post or page on your website, you’ll want to find keywords that users are searching for, and incorporate them into your video title and description.

As well as the appropriate tags, you should think about other content to include in a description.

Give an introduction as to what you’ll be covering, and if your video is quite long, you could even add in an ‘index’ with timestamps on different sections to improve your user experience.

And don’t forget about the other metadata.

It’s important that you add tags to your video on YouTube and other video sharing websites to help your video appear in search results; you can get ideas on what sort of tags to use by looking at your competitors, or seeing what’s trending in your niche and following their tagging and video description techniques as a rough guide.

Third-party tools, such as TubeBuddy, can be used to find tags in a similar vein to SEO keyword tools.

The software allows you to see how many people have been searching for your keyword, and it will suggest alternatives that you could use instead.

This tool can be used to ‘SEO’ your videos before they’re published to increase search engine optimisation and views.

 

Use video in social media posts

While YouTube might be your first port of call when you launch a new corporate video, social media can be just as effective – and in many ways, more so.

Of course, you can post the same video in multiple formats, but videos will perform differently depending on a couple of factors.

Videos posted on Twitter and Facebook tend to be shorter and perform better because they get to the point and take up little time.

That’s because there is so much content competing for your attention on social media, and the distraction of a new notification or like can cause you to click away from a video after only a couple of seconds.

Keeping your videos short and succinct will help you perform well on social, as attention spans on social are shorter than on YouTube.

From a technical perspective, shorter videos perform better on Facebook because the network’s algorithm is centred on sharing, interaction and watching to completion.

On the other hand, YouTube puts its focus on “watch time” and the amount of time people have spent looking at your video, which is why long-form content will perform better on YouTube than on social.

The good news is that you don’t need to create separate videos for social media and YouTube; instead, you can cut down your longer videos into shorter ‘bursts’ and include them as part of a social media update, along with some text.

For example, If you recorded a video on dog grooming and one of the points was on how to wash out shampoo from a dog’s fur, you could crop your video to just the segment on shampoo, and share that on social with a comment such as “Does your dog have dandruff? You may have been washing your dog’s hair wrong all along! Watch this!”.

Complementing your short videos with equally short, engaging written content will increase video views and shares, and make your videos more likely to perform well on social.

And if you want them to watch the full videos, you can add a link in the comments or as a second tweet to add context.

 

Incorporate video into your blog posts

Content marketing is one of the most effective ways of growing your business online, but with so many blog posts published every day, marketers and small business owners need to work super hard if they want to stand out and increase their click-through rates.

Video is a great way to add more value to your blog posts and offer an alternative to a 5,000-word text-only article.

Whether you’re just starting out in video marketing or you’ve been running a successful YouTube channel for a while, finding a way to marry your written content and video content together can offer some serious benefits and help expose your brand to even more customers.

If you want to go back and make your old blog posts more engaging and dynamic, you could film introductions for people to watch before they get started reading your content, or you could turn an old blog post into a short video that can be shared on social media.

Or, if you’ve been working on a new batch of videos, you could write a blog post about each of them, and use it has an opportunity to expand on the points raised in the article, provide more information through links, infographics and screenshots, and encourage audience interaction and discussion in the comments section.

If you write blog posts based on previous videos, you’ll already have a backbone and structure for your articles, and you might find it easier and quicker to publish content on your website.

 

Spread your videos through guest blogging

Persuading more people to watch your video content can be tough, especially if it covers a topic that’s already been done to death. If you want to spread the word about your videos and get more viewers, one way to marry together content and video is through guest blogging.

See also: What are the benefits of guest blogging as a small business owner?

By reaching out to bloggers and webmasters in your niche and sharing your knowledge, you’ll be able to increase your brand awareness – and add a link to your video or YouTube channel in the process.

It’s a win-win strategy that increases the value of your guest post, allows you to find a new audience for your video content, and make it easier to write more content for more sites.

See also: How to start guest blogging as a small business owner

If you published a video on how to use your new accounting software, for example, you could pitch guest blogs on finance, business, marketing and startup blogs and incorporate your video into the content.

After posting a couple of blogs on reputable websites and including a video in your content, you’ll likely see a spike in video views and a boost to your conversion rate.

 

Wrapping up

Although video has undoubtedly changed the way we consume content on the internet, there’s still a place for traditional content in your marketing strategy. Don’t be afraid of experimenting with new ideas, like live video and short-form video content, and see where it takes you.

Good luck with your campaign, and remember that the team at Muffin Marketing are always on hand to assist by providing content marketing for small businesses to suit every budget.