You may not have realized it yet but the truth is we’re now living in what people call the Social Video Era.
Take a couple of minutes to scroll through your Facebook feed and you’ll notice that 50-60% of its contents are videos and the rest are pictures, meanwhile texts take little to no percentage in the general feed. Statistics show that over 500 million people are watching videos on Facebook everyday and let’s not even begin to count how many videos are actually on Facebook.
But that’s not the point. The point is we’re slowly moving into a period where videos are used to convey messages and ideas because videos are easily digestible and memorable in comparison to other formats.
Visual content appeals more strongly to the human mind, especially with the combination of music, texts, powerful imagery, etc, and people remember more of a message when it’s watched in comparison to when read.
“One way to connect to your audience is through videos.”
With the growth in our daily video consumption, it seems only fair to want to put it to good use, and video marketing might be just what you need to get your product to its destined consumers.
However, creating effective video content is not as easy as 1, 2, 3, and the result may not always be successful.
So to help you with your journey here are top 5 mistakes that are often made in video marketing.
Lack of Strategy
Before you go into video making you need to have a strategy. Don’t just make a video because everybody’s doing it and it seems to be working out for them. Those people definitely have a plan and they know what they’re doing.
Before you make a video ask yourself these critical questions:
- What is point of this video?
- What message should it carry?
- Who is the target audience?
- Once the video is made what’s the next step?
When it comes to promoting your video, having a strategy makes a whole lot of difference. If your goal is to maximize the audience, you can start by sharing your video natively (by posting it on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.) or by running paid ads on social media platforms. This video could be the start of a series of other actions you plan to take in order to promote your product. The main thing is just to have a plan!
Making Your Video Too Long
What you definitely don’t want to do is bore your audience with a long video. I mean, there’s a reason why the maximum duration of Instagram videos is 60 seconds.
Nowadays human attention is a hard thing to obtain so you have to make at least the first 10 seconds of your video as gripping as possible. And no, I’m not talking about using clickbait or any sensational headlines to attract the audience. Try to be creative and make the video as short as possible.
Keep in mind that videos perform way better when they are between 60 to 120 seconds, with the ideal spot being 90 seconds.
Having High Expectations
“Always remember that Rome wasn’t built in a day.”
It’s good to be ambitious but doesn’t be too over ambitious. The road to success is filled with failure and disappointment, all you have to do is learn from them. Neil Patel on his blog about video marketing said “Achieving consistent growth with video content comes down to two things
- Finding what works and recreating it in future videos and
- Finding what doesn’t work and making sure it’s not in your future videos” [Link: https://neilpatel.com/blog/video-marketing/]
If your video happens to come out not as successful as you had hoped, it shouldn’t be a reason for you to give up. You should learn from it instead and use it as motivation to do better.
There’s no Call to Action
Never underestimate the importance of CAT.
The purpose of your video lies not only in the promotion of your service or product but also in making people take action. A Call to Action is basically an instruction given to the audience at the end of a video which is meant to provoke an immediate response. Some common examples are “visit our website”, “call now on”, “subscribe to”, etc.
Your CTA should highlight whatever it is you want your video to achieve, whether it’s to download an app, donate to a cause, or purchase a product. Always remember to include it at the end of the video.
“In the eyes of the consumer, your video is a reflection of your brand.”
And last but not least Going off-brand is one mistake you should try to avoid at all cost.
Don’t get distracted by the eagerness of creating a video just because everybody’s doing it and it seems to work. Your video should be a reflection of your brand.
To make sure your video is on-brand, try to find with the right partners or producers to cooperate with, who understand the visual requirement of your brand and can emulate it well through video.
Video marketing is not a one-man job. In most cases it wouldn’t hurt to seek assistance.
