Rising Popularity of Social Media

In the quick-paced environment that is social media, having that ‘wow factor’ when it comes to your creative content is key. Of the 4.5 billion people in the world with internet access, over 3.7 billion of those are active social media users, and statistics show that that number grows exponentially every single day. Social media is quickly becoming the powerhouse of the internet, and its popularity won’t be dwindling any time soon – a fact more and more businesses seem to be picking up on. As of December 2019, it’s estimated that over 80% of all small and medium businesses around the world use some form of social media, and as such, it is vital to put out innovative, high quality video content to provide an edge in such an increasingly competitive global market.

Produce Competitive Creative Content

Social media is a fast-moving and ever-evolving medium, and each day means a new trend, a new interest – and an average of over one million new people joining the social media circle. Recent statistics suggest that over 300 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube every minute, and 95 million photos and videos are shared on Instagram each day. With such an inconceivably vast amount of content, it’s important to stand out by emphasising quality over quantity to avoid getting lost in cyberspace, with short and snappy, but high production value media.

Keep It Short But Effective

This ‘snappiness’ is key when it comes to video on social media, in quite a unique way compared to traditional media. The first 5-10 seconds are crucial – social media users are already overwhelmed with content as it is, and if you haven’t grabbed the audience’s attention by then, they’ll likely just swipe past. Having that instant ‘wow factor’ is vital for social media, and keeping it interesting and fast will help to ensure there isn’t a dull moment in your video where viewers will decide to continue scrolling. Unfortunately, there isn’t really a one-size-fits-all approach to making sure your video has this spark – it all depends on the niche of your brand and the energy you’d like your video to have. However, oftentimes the incorporation of bright colours, effective graphics and animations, and a high production value can really help your video stand out from the rest. Another thing to consider is including subtitles on your video. On social media, videos often autoplay without audio – the viewer has to actively click on the volume button in order to hear what is being said. If your video has subtitles, it may encourage a viewer to pause in their swiping to take a look, as it allows them to understand what’s happening in the video without having to take a break from their feed by clicking on the video. This, alongside that brief but visually captivating content, is super useful when it comes to bringing in the interest and, along with that, the likes, shares and comments.

Importance of Engagement

If a video gets good engagement on social media, it means your content is viewable beyond your followers. Each time a person shares your post, it introduces a whole new audience to your brand, therefore bringing in more traffic, more views and more likes. In other words, the content you post needs to be shareable. At the end of the day, it doesn’t necessarily matter how many followers you have – if your content is engaging enough, it will be shared and seen by hundreds or potentially thousands more people than you may expect. Engagement is so important, and arguably one of the best advertisements. The likes and shares and comments aren’t coming from you – they’re coming from your current or prospective clientele, which is incredibly valuable. In general, the average social media user is more likely to trust another consumer over corporations, so to see your brand being backed by your clients is extremely reassuring and promising for any potential customers. As such, it reduces any scepticism or uncertainty a viewer might’ve had and replaces it with confidence that your brand is who they should go with over your competition.

Strengthen SEO

Boosting your SEO is also super important to get your content viewed by the masses. It can be strengthened through using trending keywords – tools such as Google Keyword Planner and YouTube Suggest are really useful to see what’s current, and can help your content be viewed by as many people as possible. As well as this, optimising your website and content for mobile is inarguably crucial. With 91% of social media users accessing social channels through mobile, it’s so important to make your content accessible to these people; otherwise, that’s a lot of traffic you’re missing out on. Fortunately, some websites such as YouTube automatically optimise videos for mobile, so there’s no stress on your part to make sure it’s accessible – but this is important to keep in mind when choosing a platform to post your content onto. The mobile user holds an awful lot of power over the internet, and catering to them is vital so as not to miss out on any potential interest.

Reflect Your Message

But as well as this, your social media should reflect the attitude and values of your brand – this way, you can attract the right audience and put out a message you can back. Creating content that will appeal to your target demographic will help to increase reliability and trustworthiness within your sector, as the audience will feel more inclined to choose you over any of your competition due to the relevance and quality of the work you produce. Think of it as a video form of the service you would provide to your customers – impress your target audience by producing shareable, relatable and efficient content to give you that edge, and the sales will come rolling in!

By Cordelia Soykan