Where should you share your video content?
If you think video marketing involves producing one video, publishing it to Vimeo or another hosting platform, sitting back and watching magic happen before your eyes – think again.
We mean, if you’re going to all the effort of making a video, don’t you want it to have the biggest bang for you buck? Of course you do! And to do that, you need to get your video out in as many places as possible.
Here’s the thing – video marketing is never just about one video or a single point of publication. It’s about utilising your video content across all your marketing efforts to engage more followers, attract new customers and wow loyal fans.
Got a website? Add it there. How about Facebook? Or Instagram? Twitter? A company LinkedIn page? Yep, post it there too please.
It might sound obvious but you should definitely be publishing your videos on YouTube (seriously, you’d be surprised by the number of clients who have looked at us blankly when we’ve mentioned YouTube. It’s not just for unboxing clips, product reviews or at-home workouts, folks!).
But you can think outside the square a bit too. Share your video at events. Or conferences. You can even add it to your print material via a QR code. There really are endless options, and we’re going to walk you through many of them in this post.
So, are you ready to make the most of your video? You are? Great, let’s go!
You spent a lot of time making a great video …it deserves maximum visibility!
We cannot tell you how many times we’ve served up a perfectly polished, fit for purpose video only to have the customer publish it to one platform, without a description and a title that Google has zero interest in. Not exactly a viral sensation in the making.
And no – you certainly shouldn’t expect your single video to go viral (more on that point over here). But if you’ve invested in a professional video, you need to put it to work.
So how do you do that? Well let’s assume you’ve just created an awesome video. You’re stoked with the finished product. You really couldn’t be happier. Now you just need upload it to YouTube and your Facebook page and wait for the views to climb…right?
Er, not quite.
Video marketing is strategic. There’s a lot more to it then publishing your video to a few platforms at random intervals. Successful video marketing involves a lot of planning, deliberation and optimisation.
Ideally, you would’ve done all this strategic planning before you created your video. But if you accidentally skipped that part (no judgment, but do it first next time – you won’t regret it) then you might be best to press pause and check out this episode of our YouTube series Moonshine Moonshot. It’s called ‘How to master your message’ and it walks through all the ins and outs of creating a strategic communications plan for your video project.
Ok, onwards.
If you’ve got your video marketing strategy in hand, take a thorough look at it. What are your core objectives or goals? Do you want to boost awareness for your brand? If that’s the case, then you’l want to get it front of as many eyes as possible, won’t you? And that’s never going to happen if you simply publish it your YouTube channel with 35 subscribers. But what if you add it to your homepage? Include a link in your email signature? Pop it in your next company eDM?
Ah, now you’re getting somewhere.
Your video should be everywhere but here are just a few key places
Here’s a quick list of 10 platforms or places you should consider publishing your video to –especially if you want to build brand awareness, increase viewership and drive your business forward.
Your website: Your videos absolutely need to live on your website. Ideally your homepage, which is where the majority of your visitors will land first. Plus, did you know that adding videos to your website is proven to boost SEO, Oh, and a whopping 83% of marketers claim video has increased dwell time on their website. No-brainer.
Your Facebook page: With over 2.7 billion active users, Facebook is the leading social media platform (for now at least), which means there’s a pretty high chance anyone interested in your brand or video will be on there. And if you already have a Facebook page set up, you’re halfway there. Now it’s time to add a link to your video or upload it directly. Here’s a step-by-step guide if you need a little extra help.
Your Instagram profile: Instagram is another critical social channel to house your video but their specs are a teensy bit different to some of the other platforms, so you may need to create a separate output or create a few cut-down versions of your video to make the most of it. Get familiar with Instagram specifications on this page.
Your Twitter account: Twitter is great for sharing video content because if you use the right hashtags, it can be circulated super quickly. You can also tag certain brands, followers or accounts who might be more likely to retweet your video.
Your company and personal LinkedIn pages: LinkedIn is the largest social network for professionals so if you’re trying to reach an executive-type crowd, you really can’t afford to skip it! But don’t just limit it to your company page, if you (or any of your teammates) have personal LinkedIn pages, then post it there too.
Your email signature: This is something you might not have thought of before, but adding your video to your email signature is about as simple as adding a link to your social media page. And it will greatly increase your video traffic without costing you a single cent! The steps will change a little depending on who you email host provider is, so check with your IT team or have a poke around Google if you need some assistance setting yours up.
Your next company event or industry conference: Attending an event soon? Speak to the organisers and see if you can get your video screened – even during intermission. And if you’ve got an internal presentation or company-wide meeting coming up, be sure to screen it there too.
Your print assets: We know what you’re thinking – are these people mad? How can I put a video on something …printed…? Enter the QR code. Yep, they’re not just for supermarket or hospitality check-ins. You can make a QR code linking to your video and stick it on anything you like. The best part? They’re free to make and you can get one set up in about 60 seconds. Here’s a great free QR code generator.
Your YouTube channel: It’s obvious, but YouTube is the second largest search engine after Google. It’s true! Publishing to YouTube is one of the best ways to create a legion of adoring fans for your content. Plus having a YouTube link you can pass on makes it way easier for other businesses to share your videos. YouTube also includes an embed code, which makes it simple for brands to embed your video to their own website – which you want!
It will take work to build views, but they will rise over time
Trust us. A video we published to YouTube in 2010 has just clocked over 1,000,000 views. Yep, that’s six zeros you’re reading. It’s a pretty huge figure and it’s all happened organically too.
The video in question is called ‘Carmen’s Story’ and it was part of a series of films we produced as part of our first impact film project called Life Before Death.
But all those views didn’t happen overnight or even over a couple of weeks or months. They took their sweet time – and it’s also partly because we published that video everywhere. On the project website. On our own website. Across social. At public events. And so on.
So if your video doesn’t snag a few hundred views in the first few hours it’s live, don’t lose heart. But if you share it as widely as possible, you have a MUCH higher chance of getting there.
Before we sign off today, we wanted to introduce you to our latest project which is actually a learning website we’ve created called the Moonshine Communications Academy. We have created a series of courses to help you make amazing content that reaches an audience.
Head there now!
Parting words
Landing on the right person to share your story isn’t rocket science but you will need to put in some groundwork.
The perfect messenger will ultimately depend on:
• Your audience
• The type of video your creating
Get these two points nailed down and you’ll find the whole process much easier.
We hope this post has got you excited to make your next video project, keep the creative juices flowing and subscribe to our YouTube channel Moonshine Moonshot over here. Prefer to listen? There’s podcast for you. Simply search Moonshine Moonshot in your favourite podcast app. New episodes every Tuesday!
Video production brief tip 5: What style are you looking for?
Defining the type of video you want will go a long way to help your video production company capture the right footage. By type, we don’t just mean genre, like action, drama or thriller, although it does play a small part. What you really need to drill down on is whether you need an about us video, a case study video, a testimonial video or something else entirely.
You’ll also need to give some thought to where you’ll publish your video. Will it just be simply going on your website or do you need something for LinkedIn and Instagram too? Maybe you’re making a feature-length documentary with view to have it end up on a streaming channel. All this information will be useful to your production team, so try be as clear as possible.
To learn more about video types, we dive a bit deeper in this post over here.