In our recent post titled The Ultimate Guide to Video Content Marketing, we explored the different types of video marketing content, their purposes, and how to create them. We also touched briefly on developing a video marketing strategy for your content and how to use it to market your brand.
So let’s say you’ve read the post and produced a great explainer video, showing your company's newest product — an amplified marketing platform, for example. It’s been decided in your marketing strategy that the goal of the video is to sell the product to a new audience and that you will promote it on social media platforms to do so.
The video is complete, and everyone in the office is high-fiving its quality and ingenuity, but then the social media manager asks, “Which platform(s) are we sharing this video on?” No one is sure.
We thought we’d help with Part 2 of the original post.
With social media at the forefront of marketing videos for business and one of the best places to get noticed by consumers, let's take a look at the major player’s platforms, including notable features for video, reach and market statistics, organic and paid posting capabilities, and the types of videos to post on each platform.
Video Marketing on Social Media
There are several online platforms on which to promote your marketing videos. We’ve compiled information on each of them to help you make your decision.
YouTube
Nowhere is the importance of video content on display more than, YouTube, the largest video-hosting platform in the world and essentially a search engine containing billions of hours of content. On YouTube, businesses can create channels for video advertising to help them reach new audiences, promote products (or the company itself), build a customer base, and increase sales.
Similar in a sense to B2B podcasts, YouTube is also an educational platform. By making educational, explainer and demonstrational videos, a brand can develop a following as a thought leader — the first step in developing trust with potential customers.
Notable Video Features
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- Viewers can engage with videos by liking, disliking, commenting on, and sharing them.
- Users can download videos to watch later offline.
- A clip feature allows users to grab small portions of the video and share it online.
- Features auto-play, meaning the next video in sequence is played automatically once the chosen video is complete.
Reach and Market Statistics
Paid and Free Posting Capabilities
YouTube is a free platform which also contains a variety of paid advertising strategies for sophisticated targeting called YouTube Advertising. To use this feature, you must set up a channel for your business, create your video ad, and set up your campaign. While setting up your campaign, you get to choose your objective, target audience, ad copy, budget, and more. YouTube Advertising also offers analytics, which makes it easy to measure your campaign’s results.
Types of Videos to Post
Explainer, educational and instructional or demonstration videos all perform particularly well on YouTube.
Twitter is a social media platform on which businesses can share their views, comments, and videos with their audiences within a 280-character limit. It is a popular medium for news organizations because of its capacity to quickly provide real-time information.
Twitter helps to raise brand awareness, engage with customers and potential customers in real time, drive traffic to your website, build customer trust as a thought leader, and develop a community of like-minded people.
Notable Video Features
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- The caption is limited to 280 characters; therefore, it is not a great platform for videos that require a lengthy explanation or caption.
- Viewers can engage with videos by commenting, resharing, or liking them.
- Video tweets take up more room on the feed.
- Videos can be scheduled to post at a different time without having to use a secondary scheduling app.
Reach and Market Stats
Paid and Free Posting Capabilities
Twitter has historically been a free social networking site. However, with the recent purchase by Elon Musk, there is uncertainty regarding how the platform will be managed going forward.
Currently, there is Twitter Ad Campaign — a paid advertising tool on which you can promote your video. Paid ads are exposed to a predetermined broad target audience for increased visibility. Ad Campaign’s features include: inputting your objective (reach, engagement, followers, or website traffic), selecting your target audience, creating your ad with a short caption and video, adding your website’s URL, and then setting your desired budget.
It’s important to note that Twitter ads use an auction, where advertisers bid against each other to have their ads shown to the audience they're targeting. In addition to your bid, Twitter also places importance on the quality of the ad. So, as we’ve said many times, start by creating quality content in the first place!
Types of Videos to Post
Brand and FAQ videos perform well as people often look to Twitter for informative content. Twitter is also a great place to post newsworthy videos or videos on trending topics.
If you want to market to professionals, LinkedIn is the platform of choice. It is a social networking platform made to connect with like-minded business professionals, share content, and apply and recruit for jobs. It is also a great platform for sharing B2B video content.
Notable Video Features
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- Viewers can engage with videos by liking, commenting, or reposting them and by sending them to friends or colleagues.
- LinkedIn features the ability to select a video thumbnail that is either a frame captured from the video or a separate still photo.
- You can add an SRT (subtitles) video caption file to your video for viewers who prefer reading.
Reach and Market Stats
Paid and Free Posting Capabilities
LinkedIn allows users to create a business account on which they can post videos for free. They also offer paid advertising with LinkedIn’s Campaign Manager. With this feature, you can title your campaign, create a campaign group (by project, location or budget), and then set up your campaign. LinkedIn’s Campaign Manager lets you set the campaign objective, target audience, ad format and placement, budget, and schedule. They also have a tool to track your conversions based on your campaign’s objectives.
Types of Videos to Post
LinkedIn is another great place for brand, behind-the-scenes, and educational videos.
Facebook is a social networking site that was designed to make connecting and sharing online with family and friends easy. Today, it is the world’s largest social network with capabilities such as selling products, hosting 360-degree videos, business advertising, and more.
Notable Video Features
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- Live Video
- Viewers can engage with videos by liking, commenting on, or sharing them.
- Users can join specific groups and share videos amongst them.
- Facebook features the ability to select a video thumbnail that is either a frame captured from the video or a separate still photo.
- You can add an SRT (subtitles) video caption file to your video.
Reach and Market Stats
Paid and Free Posting Capabilities
Facebook users can create a business account on which they can post videos for free. Or, businesses can pay to advertise their content with Facebook’s Ad Manager. Ad Manager is an all-in-one tool for creating ads in which you can set target demographics, manage when and where the ads will run, and also track how well your campaigns are performing against your marketing goals.
Types of Videos to Post
Brand, behind-the-scenes, explainer, and product videos and testimonials all perform well on Facebook.
Instagram is a photo- and video-sharing social networking service owned by the American company called Meta Platforms. The app allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters and organized by hashtags and geographical tagging. Posts can be shared publicly or with pre-approved followers.
Notable Features
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- Posts on Instagram can be liked, commented on, sent to other users, and even saved and re-visited later.
- Instagram allows you to share videos in the form of static posts, stories (that last for 24 hours and live on in highlights if desired), or live.
- Instagram has innovative video-making features that include adding music, filters, and more.
- Instagram allows users to make high-quality videos for free and quickly.
Reach and Market Stats
Paid and Free Posting Capabilities
Instagram allows you to create a free business account and post video content organically.
They also offer a paid advertising tool called Instagram Ads (or Meta Ad Manager). On Ad Manager, you can name your campaign, select the objective, include special ad categories, enter campaign details such as buying type and spending limit, select specific audiences such as country, language, age, and gender, and even go as far as performing A/B testing on your ads.
Types of Videos to Post
Brand, behind-the-scenes, explainer, and product videos are successful on Instagram. Q&A or FAQ videos also perform well on Instagram Live.
TikTok
TikTok is a social media app centered around short videos (5 to 120 seconds in length). TikTok advertisers can show their brand and products in action in a short video clip. While this format may be challenging for B2B brands that sell more complicated services, it’s ideal for B2C brands that want to move away from static ads and share engaging content.
Notable Video Features
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- Videos can be uploaded or created in the app.
- TikTok has millions of filters, effects, and music in the app that users can add to their videos.
- You can take advantage of TikTok’s live stream capabilities.
- Posts on TikTok can be liked, commented on, and sent to other users.
Reach and Market Stats
Paid and Free Posting Capabilities
TikTok allows users to create an account and share videos for free, however, they also have a paid platform called TikTok Ad Manager. Ad Manager has many ways to advertise ranging from ads that appear among the native newsfeed to ads that include up to 10 images and appear in TikTok’s newsfeed apps.
On Ad Manager, you will be able to create a new campaign, set a specific objective, and input your budget. You can also create ad groups on which you can create promotional goals, define your target audience, add a campaign budget, and add specific ad placements before creating your ad.
TikTok also provides native analytics to measure your ad’s performance.
Types of Videos to Post
Brand, behind-the-scenes, explainer, educational, product, and explainer videos all do well here.
Promote Your Video Content in Social Media
Using social media to advertise your video is a surefire way to reach a large audience no matter what your budget is with both paid and organic strategies. Integrating both into your social strategy will help to keep existing followers engaged while reaching new audiences.
Understanding the best platform or combination of platforms for your video content marketing is a crucial piece of the B2B content marketing puzzle.
For more on how Casted can help your video marketing effectively reach your audience and drive demand, request a demo.
