It’s no surprise –– our lives have changed dramatically this past year due to the pandemic.
Everything from how we work, how we shop, to how we interact with others has transformed in more ways than one. However, one thing remains the same after all this: content consumption. Especially when it comes to videos.
But even before the onset of Covid-19, the consumption of video online has seen incredible growth year after year. In fact, Cisco has by this year, video content will have represented 82% of all internet traffic.
This can be contributed to major social networks from TikTok to LinkedIn, all encouraging users to create more video content by adopting the ‘Stories’ feature. With more video content being created and watched everyday, people naturally started spending more time on social media.
And once we entered lockdown era, we saw an almost immediate surge in social media consumption: a whopping 10.5% compared to the previous year according to Business.com.
Make more videos, spend less time
The point here is that whether you’re a brand, non-profit organization or, or a media publication, everyone is expected to create videos for social media nowadays.
Companies in particular, must keep up with the demand of videos –– as customers, communities, and stakeholders are all expecting more from them.
The problem is that a lot of teams don’t have the budget and resources to churn out large quantities of videos quickly. In-house marketers may be used to producing videos autonomously, but what about other, less-experienced teams such as HR or internal comms who now have to figure out how to keep up with the demand?
The challenges of creating social media videos
Creating good quality videos on social media can be not only time-consuming and expensive, there’s also the issue of the lack of ideas and inspirations. This is where internal teams need to get scrappy.
Producing a lot of videos can seem like a daunting task. But with the right best practices, it doesn’t have to be.
The easiest way to come up with video ideas is to identify all the different types of videos you can make, and how you can take existing content you have and repurpose them for social media.
In this blog post, we’ll share how you can using content you likely already have to create the the most effective types of video for social media including:
- Tutorials
- Behind the scenes
- Interviews
- News & ‘Did You Know’
- Commercials
- Job offer
- Event teasers
- Podcast teasers
But before we kick off the list, let’s take a step back and remind ourselves about why videos work so well as social media content.
Why social media videos
When we come across funny, interesting, or insightful content on the web, our reflex is to share it with our networks – it’s essentially why social media was created in the first place.
Shareability & virality
In fact, social media sharing is likely how many of us learned about, and still recall viral videos like ‘Gangnam Style’ or The Dollar Shave Club ad.
Social media has made sharing videos a simple and effortless process, making truly outstanding content ‘go viral’ instantaneously.
Instilling FOMO
“Have you seen the ‘Flip the Switch?’ challenge on TikTok?” is a question we’re hearing more and more these days.
No one likes to be the last person to hear about something trendy and cool, and that’s why social media videos are so effective at instilling the ‘fear of missing out’ feeling.
However, getting FOMO about a blog post? That just doesn’t happen as much, simply because videos are just so much more engaging and creative.
SEO
Did you know that YouTube is the second largest search engine after Google? So creating social media videos and then uploading them to YouTube would be a no brainer.
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If you want more eyeballs on your branded content, your best bet is to somehow transform it into video, optimize it for SEO, then publish it on YouTube.
Without further ado, let’s jump right into the 8 types of social media videos your company needs to be creating.
8 Types of Social Media Videos You Should be Creating for Your Brand
1. Tutorials, how-to’s, and explainers
Did you know that tutorials are the second most popular types of videos on YouTube? According to Mediakix, they’re the most- watched videos, right after commentary types of videos.
People consume social media content very often for entertainment and mindless distraction, but they also consume to satisfy their curiosity and thirst for knowledge.
For brands, this means that videos are the ideal medium when it comes to developing product-focused content. Tutorials are an excellent way to ‘soft-sell’ to your prospects as you’re not asking them to sign up for a demo but they’re still able to get a sneak peek at how your product works.
Tip: Take your company’s most popular helpdesk articles or product tutorials and repurpose them into Instagram or LinkedIn Stories. You could create a series of tutorials or share additional tips and tricks related to your product with your core users.
Further Reading: 7 Simple and Free YouTube Transcript Generators
2. Behind the scenes
These types of videos are a great way to give an exclusive look into what goes on at your company.
Showing your audiences how things are made by creating ‘The Making of…’ type of videos can be a very engaging way to teach people about your products.
If you’re a SaaS brand, this can be a good opportunity to highlight your unique company culture by creating a video with footage of your hackathons or brainstorming sessions. ‘A day in the life of…’ videos of one of your employees could be great social media content for employer branding.
Tip: If your company’s product is something that is very technical, B2B, or just plain ‘unsexy’, this is an effective way to help people understand it better. If you’re a pharmaceutical brand, you can create a video about the most recent research you’ve done to develop a new vaccine or give a virtual tour of your laboratories via Instagram Stories or TikTok.
3. Interviews
When it comes to different types of interview videos, the possibilities are endless. However, there are 4 key types that are highly engaging and easy to produce for social media.
1) Thought leadership
You can also do AMA’s or ‘Ask Me Anything’ style videos via Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn Live with your executive team.
2) Customer testimonials
Wondering what to put on your Instagram Highlights section? Why not dedicate one to customer testimonials?
3) Expert interviews
Hearing from industry experts can be engaging and educational for viewers. This type of video can be useful in many ways — both internally with your employees and externally with customers.
Want to win the trust of potential customers? Provide them with high-quality, insightful content about your product or services that are associated with industry experts.
Be sure to tag the expert or industry leader you interviewed when publishing your video on social media.
4) Employee interviews
Interviewing your company’s employees is not only a no-brainer but can be a highly versatile form of content. From highlighting a specific role for recruitment to zooming in on your company culture for employer branding––these are great videos you can ask all of your employees to share across their social networks.
4. News & ‘Did You Know’
Product launches, company news, and company history aren’t always the sexiest types of content to see––especially in an email newsletter or blog.
Fortunately, repurposing these into videos for social media allows you to be more creative with it. The result? Corporate content that is more digestible and engaging like this ‘Did You Know’ video from Sea Shepherd:
Tip: Keep in mind to add a call-to-action to your video on social media, whether it’s an end screen, a link, or leaving something in the first comment.
5. Commercials
Gone are the days where most brands are forced to shell out thousands of dollars to produce large scale commercials for TV.
Social media has allowed brands to take commercial videos into their own hands and as a result, reducing cost and resources. Take a look at this creative take on a product commercial from Zendesk:
Tip: When writing the script for your commercial, imagine it as if you were creating it solely for social media. This could help you simplify your idea and trim out unnecessary details.
6. Job offer
Good help is hard to find these days, and it’s no wonder many companies are starting to think outside the box when it comes to recruitment.
Recruitment videos are effective because not only are they easily shareable via social media, but they can bring your company culture to life by offering a glimpse inside.
Unlike a regular job posting on a recruitment site, you’re able to tailor your video’s look and feel for LinkedIn or Instagram––in order to appeal to the audiences you’re looking to attract.
Try incorporating other elements into your recruitment videos such as employee testimonials, or a ‘behind the scenes’ look into your company to help you stand out.
Tip: Be sure to include key information about the role as well as a call to action so potential applicants know where to go to apply or to learn more!
7. Event teasers
Whether it’s physical or virtual, these events depend on one thing to attract attendees: a stellar teaser video. Like a movie trailer, event teasers give prospective attendees a taste of what the actual event will be like by highlighting all of the best parts.
A good event teaser video would include upbeat music, catchy visual imagery, and spotlight clips of keynote speakers or presenters.
Tip: Sponsored Instagram Stories here can be super helpful in order to get the event in front of more eyeballs.
8. Podcast teasers
Last but not least, we have a type of social media video content that is growing in popularity day by day: podcast teasers.
Podcasts are relatively simple to produce, engaging, and offer a nice content consumption alternative to staring at more screens.
Promoting a podcast though, that’s another thing altogether. It can be tricky for prospective listeners to get an idea of what your podcast is about when there’s no associated content visual aid.
That’s where teaser videos can come in handy. They can be easy to create and even highly shareable on social media.
Tip: Using simple online video makers, you can create a teaser video that has an eye-catching background image, your company’s branding elements, as well as a dynamic audio wave graphic. This brings your podcast to life along with the audio and gives potential listeners a good idea of what they can expect to hear.
Over to you
It may seem daunting to have to create video content not just for your website, but now for social media as well.
Don’t fret, your company probably has tons of existing content to create these 8 simple types of videos. Have a look around in your internal video libraries, or ask different teams about videos they have created in the past––you’ll likely come across a content goldmine.
All you have to do now is to repurpose them for social media.
Let us know in the comments if the examples and best practices we’ve listed in this post were helpful in your video creation process, and good luck!
Author Bio
This guest post was written by Sandra Chung. Sandra is the Sr. Content Marketing & Partnerships Manager at PlayPlay. Hailing from Vancouver, Canada, she now calls Paris home and lives a life that is somewhat less enviable than the one portrayed in ‘Emily in Paris’.
Cover Photo by Alex Suprun on Unsplash
