Let’s talk about a question I’m asked all the time – “What type of video content do I need to produce for social media vs. YouTube?” Now, some of you may be thinking that YouTube is social media and yes, it is. However, YouTube has a different format and therefore comes with different video needs. Here we will tackle the different tactical needs for both.
Be educational. The number one rule for videos on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn is to be educational. You need to educate the end consumer on whatever subject matter you are an expert in. Whether you’re a doctor, lawyer, in retail, sell jewelry, work in sports enhancement – whatever! – don’t talk about what you do, but instead, answer questions people have related to your industry in general. These are the FAQs you get every day from your customers.
Sharing educational content will help you build a tremendous amount of trust and rapport with your social media audience and it will help deliver a lot of new customers. Your goal should be to become the local market leader in education for your industry.
Video length doesn’t matter. I often hear people say videos on social media need to be less than two minutes. But when you look at the data, that’s all wrong. Don’t worry about the video length. Your focus needs to be on providing valuable education and if that makes the video two minutes, 30 seconds, or six minutes long, it doesn’t matter. I have data that proves videos can be successful across various social media platforms no matter what the length. So, don’t obsess over video length, and certainly don’t try to condense your content to fit a certain timeframe.
Ease of production > video quality. You do not need to hire professional videographers for all your videos. The more important element is ease or production because you want to be creating a lot of videos. So, I do all my videos in my office using my laptop because it’s quick and easy. People like real, so don’t be afraid to open your laptop or whip out your phone to record a video in your office, your retail store, or even on location. We had a home services client who used to shoot AC repair videos up in attics so he could show the ductwork and those videos did great!
The point is that it doesn’t matter the quality of your video. What does matter is that you make a good number of videos so we can test and learn what people respond to most, you can show all your expertise, and because people do want to see you. Consistency creates familiarity and familiarity builds trust.
For YouTube, you don’t have to be as educational. In fact, I recommend you create more commercial content. The reason for this is because the video ads on YouTube are the pre-roll ads that are skippable after six seconds. That’s not a lot of time to catch someone’s attention so you need to quickly share the specifics of your business or call people out by location. For example, if your business is in a particular city, you can say, “Hey Dallas moms listen up!”
Now, few people are going to click the ad because they are there to watch the video that’s coming after the ad, but that doesn’t mean the ad is ineffective. Quality YouTube ads raise brand awareness and help businesses get discovered. What we find is that after running a YouTube ad, more people will migrate over to Google to search for that business.