
In 2020, life moved even more online. Social media users increased by more than 13% in just twelve short months, and social platforms rolled out new functionalities to adapt to changes in real time.
Globally, people are spending more time on their phones than they do watching TV, with people aged 16-64 spending an average of 2 hours and 25 minutes daily on social media alone.
Though the landscape is changing by the minute, we’ve got you covered. Use our social media superguide for everything you need to create stand-out social video content.
What is social media video marketing?
Social video marketing is using video to promote or market your brand and increase engagement on social media. Video has exploded in popularity on social media in recent years— four of the top six places people watch video are social channels.
Research suggests that more than 50% of consumers want to see videos from brands— more than any other type of content. Plus, 90% of customers say videos influence their buying decisions. Social video marketing is key to keeping your followers engaged with your brand.
How to become an expert at social media
Let’s get technical. Check out our comprehensive style guides that cover video and ad specs for every major social media platform:
Defining your video strategy for social media from A-Z
Here’s an A-Z glossary of some of the most social media terms that every social content marketer should know:
Algorithms
Algorithms determine the order in which content is distributed on users’ feeds. If social video content marketing were a game, social media algorithms would be its ever-changing rule book. Social media algorithms update frequently, so it’s important to keep up-to-date on industry trends and tweak your social video marketing strategy accordingly.
Analytics
Analytics is the catch-all term for data that gives you insight into how your social video content is performing and how you can improve. It includes impressions, engagement rates, clickthrough rates and more.
Bots
It can be tempting to take shortcuts to grow your following, but buying bots can tank your engagement rates long-term and even get you shadowbanned by Instagram for violating their terms of service. Instead, invest in a community management strategy to grow your channels organically and authentically connect with your audience.
At the end of the day, wouldn’t you rather have 5,000 followers who love and continuously engage with your brand than 5,000 bots who never really engage with you?
Clickthrough rate (CTR)
Clickthrough rate is a key engagement metric that refers to the number of times a user “clicks through” to external links. Calculate the rate by taking your click number and dividing it by the post’s total number of impressions.
Engagement rate (ER)
This social media metric measures the number of interactions with content (comments, shares, likes) against its amount of impressions.
Evergreen content
As the name implies, Evergreen social video content covers topics that stay “fresh” for viewers over a long period of time and does not experience significant seasonal peaks and dips in demand. Evergreen content’s long shelf life can drive consistent traffic and engagement over time, making it super valuable for social content marketers.
Impression
An impression is every time a post or ad appears on a user’s newsfeed, regardless of whether or not it earns an interaction like a view, like or comment.
Influencers
Influencers are social media users with either large followings or high-quality content, although oftentimes both. They promote products or services to their audience in exchange for payment, free product or exposure. Working with influencers within your target audience can mean getting a lot more (relevant) eyes on your brand.
Micro-influencers
Micro-influencers typically have smaller audiences ranging anywhere from 10,000 to 100,000 followers. Because their organic followings are smaller, advertisers can go more niche with how they market to these groups. According to a study by HelloSociety, micro-influencer campaigns can see up to 60% higher engagement.
Monetization
Social media monetization is how you generate revenue from your audience on social media by converting followers into paying customers, and it includes tactics like influencer marketing and affiliate posts. Keep in mind that no one is going to follow you if all your content revolves around sales, so try to limit sale-oriented posts to 10%.
Native advertising
A marketing term for advertising that appears “natively” on social media platforms, meaning the content is made to look like editorial content, not an advertisement. In-feed ads and paid search listings are two examples. Consumers look at native ads 53% more than display ads, and native advertising can boost purchase intent by 18%.
Stagnancy
One of the biggest advantages of social media video marketing is its near-limitless growth. But what happens if you notice your follower count remaining stagnant, or even worse, declining? Your social media video marketing has probably grown stagnant simply because your content no longer resonates with your audience the way it used to.
The best way to break out of stagnation? Try new strategies and see what sticks— for example, try experimenting with new content forms and hashtags.
User-generated content
User-generated content, or UGC, is any type of content that’s created by unpaid contributors. UGC works like word-of-mouth marketing (think getting a product recommendation from a friend), and it can be far more powerful than traditional advertising.
It’s not all lo-fi selfies either; UGC can take the form of polished and engaging social video content.
How to decide what social media channels are good for your business
Unsure where to focus your social video marketing strategy? Read on to learn more about the most popular social channels today, their key audiences and how these platforms are used across the world.
Facebook at a glance
More than 4 billion video views take place on Facebook daily, making it one of the most important channels to consider when defining your social video marketing strategy.
Instagram at a glance
Instagram’s 1 billion active monthly users spend an average of 27 minutes per day on the platform. And between Instagram Stories, IGTV, Reels and Live, the platform is a social media video marketing goldmine.
LinkedIn at a glance
LinkedIn is the biggest business social media site, which means its audience is made up of professionals who engage on the platform for business, career-building, and mentorship.
LinkedIn has rolled out some big updates in recent years, including improved support for social video content. It’s easier than ever to share and record video content on the platform, and users are 20 times more likely to share video content on LinkedIn than any other type of content.
TikTok at a glance
As of January 2021, TikTok has 689 million monthly active users worldwide. That makes the platform the seventh-largest in terms of users, surpassing social channels that have been around much longer like Snapchat, Pinterest and Twitter.
A significant chunk of content on the platform consists of users reacting to or riffing off other people’s uploads, so if you’re looking to create an engaged community, you’ve come to the right place on TikTok.
Twitter at a glance
Twitter remains one of the leading social networks with over 320 million users worldwide, although user demographics skew heavily male, with only 30% of users identifying as female (as of January 2021).
Pinterest at a glance
Pinterest has wow-ed the world with inspirational content and how-tos since 2009, and the platform continues to evolve with its audiences. More than just mood boards, Pinterest reports that 85% of its users come to the platform to start planning a new project.
YouTube at a glance
YouTube has always been a video behemoth in its own right, but now it's the second largest search engine in the world — a close second to Google.
What videos should you be making?
Video has become increasingly important on every social channel in recent years, and the most successful social video content both informs and inspires viewers to give you their attention (and convert to paying customers). Read on to learn more about the different types of social video content you can create:
Explainer
As the name implies, explainer videos explain how a product or service works. Perfect for Instagram Stories and mobile Facebook ads, your explainer video should hit all the highlights in 60 seconds or less.
Teaser
Teaser social video content doubles as a call-to-action by encouraging viewers to visit your YouTube channel or website for the full video. Try teasing part of a lesson or how-to in a short clip, leaving your viewers wanting more.
Product
This video type is often an entry point to potential customers discovering your brand for the first time. It should be about more than just the product — show how your brand fits in the bigger picture of your customers’ lives.
Whether you’re selling a product or service, the product video can be a make-or-break moment for your potential customers. First impressions matter!
Stories
Modelled after Snapchat, Stories are a fullscreen visual format that disappears after 24 hours. That means you can post easily and rapidly without worrying about overloading your audience.
But just because the format is ephemeral doesn’t mean Stories aren’t powerful video marketing tools — 62% of consumers say they became more interested in a brand or product after seeing it in their Stories.
Reels
Reels are Instagram’s clapback at TikTok’s meteoric rise and a new way to create fun and engaging social video content that is 15-30 seconds long. They can be used to share educational content, showcase newly launched products, and more.
TikToks
TikTok is all about short-form video — in fact, the recommended length of a TikTok is a mere 30 seconds. The biggest challenge for marketers face on the social platform is communicating the brand message in half a minute or less while also standing out from the millions of videos uploaded to the app daily.
Video carousels
Video carousels are a great format to utilize if you need to deliver a few different messages, because they allow you to communicate multiple benefits and features in an organized fashion.
Plus, video carousels are more interactive than other social video content types — viewers don’t just watch video, they swipe through carousel cards.
What are emerging video marketing trends: Coming up with fresh social video content
Brands are increasingly expected to release an endless churn of content online, and sometimes it can be hard to keep your creative output fresh. Try out the below tactics the next time you’re stuck brainstorming.
Scroll through your saved posts on Instagram or your favorite Pinterest board and take notes on which posts you gravitate towards and why.
Review your highest-performing posts and make a list of what they have in common. Do they feature similar imagery or caption length? Do they include a strong call-to-action?
Sometimes the best way to get the creative juices flowing is to take a break and completely unplug. Try going for a walk or listening to a guided meditation. You might be surprised how refreshed you feel after!
Let’s get real— sometimes social media marketers need a brain break from generating new content ideas altogether. When the burnout is real, try these tactics:
How to make the most of UGC
User-generated content encourages people not just to watch your social video content, but actively participate in the output.
Ask your audience to share UGC with a branded hashtag, so you can easily search for new user-generated content. If you find a stellar piece of content you want to use, ask the user for usage rights by commenting on the post with a script like:
“Thanks for the tag! Can we feature your pic on our social, website + other marketing? To give us the go-ahead, reply with #yesBRANDNAME.”
Video marketing tools for social media
Social video content marketing can be laborious and time consuming, but luckily, it’s never been easier for small business owners to create professional content themselves. Video marketing software makes it easy for anyone to create, edit and distribute video content whether you’re just starting out or a regular video pro.
Check out our round-up of the best video marketing software out there.
How and why to repurpose content for social media
With the sheer amount of effort and time that content creation demands, making the most of your resources matters. Enter the divisible content strategy: an approach to content creation where any single piece of content can be repurposed across multiple marketing channels.
Repurposed content = an extended shelf life for expensive, outsourced video assets = money saved in the long run. Looking for examples of a divisible content strategy in action? Here are a few:
Measuring your video strategy for social media
It’s important to track how well your content performs, so you can build on what’s working and ditch what’s not. Defining your social media goals will determine which metrics you should measure.
For example, if your goals are focused around brand awareness and perception, impressions and reach — how many times your post is seen — are each an important metric to track.
Arguably the most useful tools for measuring the success of your social video content are engagement and engagement rates. Engagement is the number of times viewers interact with your video in the form of a like, comment, share or clicked link.
Engagement rate is the number of engagements divided by the total number of impressions, telling you the percentage of people that engage with your post out of those who see it.
Don't forget to compare your engagement rate to industry averages— the number becomes a much more meaningful metric when contextualized by your competitors.
Social content ideas that only take minutes to make
Instagram polls
Instagram polls take minutes to make, and they can have a big impact. You’ll gather intel on what your customers on Instagram want from you and what content resonates best with your audience.
Here’s our guide on Instagram polls, where you’ll learn how to poll your audience with content like AMAs (“Ask me anything”), and trendy “this or that” style polls.
Instagram poll templates we love
Seasonal moments
A huge faction of social media is oriented around seasonal moments — everything from “National Pasta Day” and “World Health Day” to globally celebrated holidays. On some platforms, you can highlight these moments with hashtags to up your reach and attract new followers.
Seasonal moment templates we love
Memes
Memes are an undeniable well of inspiration on social media. They’re everywhere and ever-changing, trendy and easily replicated, and show your social media following that you’re paying attention — and that you don’t take yourself too seriously.
Meme templates we love
More social media wisdom from Vimeo
Vimeo offers advanced features for social media marketers such as an AI script generator, intuitive video teleprompter, AI caption creator, and video translator tool to enhance your workflow.