How to do social videos right

Why does social media video marketing work?

As most of us know from personal experience, social media and video go hand in hand. Scrolling through our multiple feeds at some point during most days, we will encounter posts from people we like, accounts we don’t know, clickbait articles and videos. 

I don’t know about you, but I engage an awful lot more with the videos I see on my timeline. Whether they’re organic or paid, it doesn’t really matter. However, with such a huge variety of content out there, it can be difficult to stand out, even with your own followers. 

We’re here to give you some tips based on our own experience of creating social media video marketing that works. 

Why video stands out on social media

Video is naturally more engaging. Two of the biggest social media platforms, TikTok and Instagram, focus strongly on video content. This in itself is an indication of how popular this content is with audiences. Easier to engage with than written captions or other content, they’re a great tool to educate, inform and convert prospects. 

They’re also a great format to quickly communicate your key messages, share your unique selling points or express the personality of yourself or your business. These characteristics mean video content is popular with both audiences and creators. 

Tips to master social media video production

Having created social media videos for clients with a range of objectives and needs, we’ve picked up a few helpful tips along the way. 

Think about what you like

Thinking about how you view and engage with social media videos yourself is a good starting point. Consider the types of content you like to see most, the trends you’ve spotted on particular platforms and look closely at the editing tricks which look cool or interesting. 

Then, apply this thinking to review any audience or competitor data you’ve got. What’s working for them? Are there any trends you can see and take advantage of? What are the tips that make some videos more engaging than others? 

Shoot in portrait

Social media videos are pretty much always viewed on smartphones. By shooting in a portrait orientation, your video content will already be in a format that suits these platforms and their algorithms. TikTok videos and Instagram reels use the dimensions of 1080 x 1920 pixels, so shooting with this in mind means you can avoid too much editing later. 

At YouNeek, we always shoot our content in landscape (1920 x 1080) but keep the final social edit in mind so we can reformat the frame easily for the portrait version. If you’re starting out shooting social videos on your phone, then it’s best to follow the above guidance.

Get the length right

You can watch and post videos of longer lengths these days. But realistically the shorter the better and the more likely people will be to watch it. I prefer content that is under 30 seconds long. 

From a marketing point of view, social media videos should be as concise as possible. Looking at the analytics, you’ll be able to see the number of seconds at which most people stop watching. So use this as a benchmark for your video length.

In our experience, longer-form videos are great for converting audiences while shorter ones capture engagement. Use the short lengths to capture their interest and longer ones to drive a call to action. Plus, lengthier videos give you space to share more of your personality, insights and expertise.

Use captions

The majority of social media users now turn the volume off when watching videos. Using live captions means followers can view your content silently at work, on public transport or while their other half is asleep next to them. Using text on a video also makes a more engaging alternative to standard posts and links. 

Make it platform-specific

Even if they can use videos of the same format and dimensions, each social media platform has its own particular style of content. On TikTok, amateur-made, fast-paced videos are popular. Instagram reels and video posts are more wide-ranging and include professional, high-quality film alongside user-generated content. 

Ideally, this means you’d shoot and edit separately for each channel. However, even if you’re using the same content, think about how you can adjust the captions, music or effects to better suit individual platforms. 

Measure and learn

To keep making video content that engages with your audience, you need to understand what they like. One of the biggest benefits of social media video marketing is the analytics you have available to you – so make sure you use it! 

Once a month (or more frequently if you post lots of content) take a dive into the data to see what’s driven engagement and what hasn’t. From this, you can start to see patterns in the topics, formats and types of content your audience prefers and generate ideas on this basis. 

Is the quality important?

Our team has digital marketing and high-end video production experience, so we can answer this with two different hats on. Firstly, social platforms are there for social reasons. A lot of videos posted there are produced by amateurs, so film quality isn’t the priority. For example, an Instagram Live video at an event could work brilliantly. 

However, if you’re talking about a product or a customer testimonial, you’d want the content to look as professional as possible. To give the best impression of your brand, output should always be as good a quality as it can be. By balancing this with the expectations of your audience, you can create truly effective content.

Another easy way to separate expectations would be – if your video is appearing on your account’s ‘grid’ or timeline, make it professional. If it’s on your story, quality is less important as it disappears in 24 hours, so you can run and gun it.

How can YouNeek Productions help?

Any modern marketing professional will understand the effectiveness of video content. Knowing how best to use it on social media is where we want to help. 

With the right approach, quality video content can be created at scale, meaning you have a library to share on your business’s accounts. We offer packages with efficient filming costs that will give you a stock of short videos to post as and when you want. We can also help you publish this content and use analytics to help your content generate as much engagement as possible.