Everyone knows the importance of using video content on social media, but how can you use and integrate it into your own business?

Studies and articles unanimously point out the edge video content has in marketing go back years, and businesses that fail to adapt to using video will fall behind. To a new business, or even a well established one, beginning to implement video into your advertising and social media can be a struggle. Here are some of the most genius way of how to integrate video into your business and use it to your advantage.

Connect With Your Audience

Connecting with your audience is important for every business, but how you do that can be a determining factor for your success. You need your customers to trust you and there is no better way to do that than with video. Breaking down the barrier between your company and the customer will be key for growth, and giving viewers a sense of the people behind your brand will make you more authentic and personable. One of the best ways to do this is by telling your brand’s story. Viewers retain 95 percent of a message when viewed in a video, compared to 10 percent when read in text, so it is absolutely vital to get behind the camera at some part in this process.

More Engaging

Because video grabs and holds attention so much longer than images and text, replacing certain aspects of your marketing and website with video can benefit you greatly. The effects of doing this are very evident.

Consumers tend to:

• Take action after viewing a video ad, such as navigating to a website or clicking a link.
• Share social videos more often than text and images combined.
• Spend 88 percent more time on a website with video.

Videos can be used in place of product pictures or on parts of your website such as describing your brand’s story. Another great way to incorporate video content into your brand’s social media is to show the behind the scenes process of what you do. Consumers enjoy the transparency and often like knowing what they are involved in. Implementing some of these simple changes will increase your organic traffic greatly and get all traffic, paid and organic, more interested and invested in your brand.

Strategy Behind Videos

With the billions of people on social media comes lots and lots of content, and a big portion of it gets completely overlooked. The digital world’s competitiveness is growing daily. Luckily, by following a proven strategy you will have an edge before you even begin.

A few important things to keep in mind when creating videos include:

Tell a story – Be authentic and tell a story your target customers can relate to. If you are not telling a story aim to have a theme for your video.

Have a purpose and strategy – Whether you are presenting a new product or sharing an exciting announcement, have a purpose for your video. Make sure to test on different platforms as well as the types of videos you are putting out. Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube will all yield different results but it is important to test on all platforms to see where to optimize your content for. Testing different forms of video such as going live on social media or different campaign ideas will also tell you what consumers are engaging with, and you can build off that. Your strategy should change over time and that is okay.

Keep videos fast-paced and short – While videos are more engaging than images and text, viewers will still click away if your content is not fast-paced enough. With so many distractions and other content in front of us all the time we need to do the best we can to capture the viewer’s attention, and short, fast-paced, and to-the-point videos are your best bet. Keep in mind that depending on where you are optimizing your content for, every platform is different. Facebook’s most popular videos are 2 minutes or less while YouTube videos perform best between 4 to 10 minutes.