6 tips to step up your Video Marketing Game in 2018!

Video marketing is all the rage nowadays. From 13-year-old kids to start-ups or even established companies, almost everyone is trying to get big on Youtube!

Among all this buzz, how do you actually go about and implement it? How do you create a video that doesn’t put viewers off? How do you implement and optimize things on your end? After all, you are quite busy simply running your start-up. Who on earth has the time to make videos on top of everything?

If you are asking yourself all these questions, this post will go right down your alley. Here are the top 6 tips for creating video content which does well, without breaking a sweat… or the bank for that matter.

1. Key to Video Marketing: Get started!

There’s this misconception that it costs a fortune to produce high-quality videos. But that’s a thing of the past. These days it’s dirt cheap to make videos that look as good as big budget productions.

All you need is your smartphone and natural lighting!

In today’s video marketing space, speed is everything! So the sooner you put out video content, the better. When you are ready to upgrade, invest in a better camera, some studio lights, maybe an external mic for better audio. Green screen backgrounds are also great if you are doing a lot of talking head videos or product reviews. You can edit out the green background and add whatever backdrop you want when you are editing your videos.

Check out this Gary Vee original for some inspiration:

Just start putting video content out there and you will pick things up as you go. Don’t wait until you have the perfect video because you never will. You are just postponing everything.

So start small and grow from there. There’s no reason to invest in a $5,000 camera from the beginning, only to learn that you don’t like doing videos.

2. Work smart: Use DIY tools

After the industrial revolution, humans and machines worked hand in hand. Now, being the digital revolution, if you don’t make use of the digital tools, you’ll be left behind.

There are many apps in the market that can help you edit your footage or even create animated videos from scratch. These apps help you save a lot of time which you can focus on creating more content or working on your core business instead!

Moreover, when it comes to Animated videos, only corporates go to studios these days. DIY tools help you create Studio Quality animations on a budget! No more time constraint, no more complex software and no need of technical man power!

Check out this high quality video created using Animaker:

These tools have levelled the playing ground for all. Even a solopreneur or startupreneur can create studio quality animations and compete with the big guys!

3. Relevance is King: Start Optimizing!

Before you start writing the script and filming your video, you have to decide which platform you are targeting. Creating just one video and simply shoving it up both platforms just won’t cut.

Even the same person will be in a different mood depending on which platform you catch them on. That’s why it’s extremely important to tailor your videos for the platform you plan on using them on.

If you are using YouTube you can get away with creating content which is slightly longer, but it has to add value! YouTube works pretty much like a search engine. People use YouTube to find an answer to a specific question. So they are in the mindset of learning something new or watching a review. In short, they want something that is highly informational.

Facebook, on the other hand, is a whole different deal. People don’t go on Facebook to learn something new or to find an answer to a question. This is where people chill, connect with their friends or simply distract themselves from work.

Videos that are really funny, shorter and grab people’s attention right from the very start will do very well on Facebook.

And Instagram was very much the same as Facebook, with the additional constraint that you needed to keep your video less than 60 seconds.

But now, along with Instagram stories, you can also make great use of IGTV to take your video marketing to the next level!

If you decide to use Facebook for your video campaign, make sure to upload your video directly to Facebook instead of sharing a Youtube link. Facebook is quite sneaky and they promote more of native videos.

4. Follow the trend: Leverage live streaming

Live streaming is kind of a big deal right now. Both YouTube and Facebook favors live streams over any other type of content.

In April 2017 – just 1 year after Facebook launched their live video feature, Fidji Simo – the head of video from Facebook, shared in a post that 1 in 5 Facebook videos are now live streams. And I’m betting that number will continue to grow year on year and that both Facebook and YouTube are giving live videos a tiny little boost. Live Videos also attract more viewership:

So if you are just starting out your channel or your video marketing efforts, doing some live videos will help you gather some momentum and grow your subscriber base faster.

You could do live Q&A sessions with your followers, a live behind the scenes video or even live interviews with influencers in your niche.

Check out this in-depth guide on how to do live-video marketing!

5. Plan ahead: Reserve one day of the week for Video Creation

Getting traction on YouTube, for example, takes consistency, so you will need to have new video content uploaded to your channel at least 1-2 times per week. Otherwise, it will take forever to take off. So it’s better to have a handful of videos in the pipeline, ready to get published.

Instead of doing small 2-3 minute videos every week or every other day, just reserve one full day for filming and get them done in bulk.

It will save you the time of setting up everything over and over again, and the filming is likely to run smoothly as you are focusing solely on that specific thing for the whole day.

Check out these really simple tips to make the most of your time:

6. Bonus Point: Tips for the camera shy marketers

So many people hate being on camera. They hate the way their voice sound, they don’t like the way they look and the reasons could go on forever.

This is perfectly normal, and the vast majority of people I know have this problem. For most, it goes away over time and you will start feeling natural in from of the camera once you’ve put up at least a handful of videos.

Here are some tips to make you more confident in camera:

Additionally, there are countless ways of making videos without even being on camera. You’ve got things such as product reviews with a voiceover, screen share videos, animated or explainer video and the list can go on. There are literally countless different types of videos you can do for your business. If you ever go out of ideas here’s a bunch of suggestions to keep you busy.

Conclusion

To sum it up in a nutshell – focus on getting your feet wet at video production without worrying too much on the technical aspects of it, that will be dealt with later down the road. Make your videos informational, helpful, and add a dash of humor, without making it look like a sales pitch.

Carefully craft your videos based on the platform you plan on uploading, and try to simplify both your production and post-production process as much as possible.