Whether you’re a marketer or a business owner, you may find yourself in a situation where you’ve created a great piece of marketing content for your business, but you’re not sure how to promote it and make certain people see it. What you need is an effective, affordable way to distribute and promote video content to ensure that you get your money’s worth out of your marketing video.
We’ll show you how to promote video content so that it reaches more people using simple and effective content marketing tips that don’t cost an arm and a leg.
Use All Your Distribution Channels
You should take advantage of every media channel you have available to you. Every platform is an opportunity to reach a new audience. It’s always a great practice to post your video anywhere you can, including social media platforms, email newsletters, and even text messages.
Free Social Media
Social media is a great way to promote video content and engage with existing and potential customers. Each social media platform has a slightly different demographic. You should post on any platform available to you, but be sure to concentrate effort on platforms that are likely to include your target demographic.
- YouTube
YouTube has approximately 247 million users in the U.S., and that includes nearly every demographic (Statista, 2022). All your video content should be posted on Youtube regardless of your product, service, or target demographic.
Bonus Tip: If you have a new video you want to promote, make it your featured video on your YouTube channel page.
Facebook has a very high volume of users at about 240 active users in the US. The age of Facebook users generally ranges from 18 to 55 with few children and seniors using the platform.
Instagram is smaller than Facebook, but more popular with younger generations, ranging between 18 and 40 years old.
LinkedIn is a great business-focused platform, and we highly recommend it if you are in the B2B space. This platform is widely regarded as the best platform for business networking.
- Alignable
Alignable is another business focused platform. Although it has far less users than LinkedIn, it has a greater focus on local networking and referrals.
- Snapchat
Snapchat has about 100 million users in the US, and is great for sharing very short videos with a younger audience. The general age range of Snapchat is 16-30.
- TikTok
TikTok is a more recent platform with about 100 million users, ranging in age from about 10 to 30. TikTok is mostly used for sharing short, entertaining videos.
Paid Social Media
Paid advertising can be a great opportunity for businesses of all sizes to promote video content. For years now organic reach has been diminishing on most platforms and the most effective way to reach people has become ads. It’s always a good idea to invest a little in paid advertising to make certain you’re still reaching people.
- Facebook and Instagram
Facebook’s Ads manager allows you to advertise on both Facebook and Instagram. You have access to great demographic targeting and budget options, as well as a built-in A-B testing system to help you find what types of ads work best.
- YouTube
YouTube ads reach a very large number of users, but cost a bit more than Facebook or Instagram.
LinkedIn is the most effective advertising platform if you’re looking to engage with other businesses.
Direct Communication
Sending emails and sms messages to past clients is a great, inexpensive way to get your video into the hands of people. They’ll also be more likely to watch it since you’ve already built a relationship with them. The best thing about marketing via direct communication is that you can do your own demographic targeting. Using email marketing platforms like MailChimp or SendInBlue you can send a video to a specific set of your email database; like your very own demographic targeting system.
Make sure to focus on the platforms where you’re getting the most traction with your audience, whether that be on a social platform like FaceBook, or through something like an email newsletter. Once you determine which channel your audience prefers, focus your efforts there.
Use Best Publishing Practices
It’s very important to carefully consider your publishing details whenever promoting video online. This includes things like:
- Thumbnail
- Title
- Hashtags (#)
- Description
If you take the time to set these correctly, your video will get significantly more exposure and interest when you post it.
Thumbnail
Your thumbnail is extremely important. It’s the first thing viewers will see, and if it doesn’t immediately entice them they’ll be unlikely to read your title. Use something that accurately portrays your video, and highlights the best/most interesting point of your video. Be careful not to use bait-and-switch tactics to get people to click on your video. If you draw someone into your video with an exciting thumbnail only for them to find the video is not what they expected, they’ll just click away and you’ll lose an opportunity to build trust. Be honest, but present your content in an exciting way.
Title
The wording of your video’s title should follow the same principles as the thumbnail; enticing, yet honest. Your title needs to include the key words and phrases your viewers are most likely to use; don’t use industry jargon that they won’t understand.
An example of a great title for a video tutorial would be, “How to replace an air filter in 3 easy steps”. Or, for a promotional video you could use, “How ExampleCompany is making X faster/easier than ever before.
Hashtags
Your hashtags will help the social media platform determine what topics your video is related to. This way your video can be presented to people interested in those topics. As a general rule, it’s a good idea to include a couple branded hashtags, then several that are related to your industry and the area you serve.
Description
Your video’s description is not nearly as important as your thumbnail, title, or tags, but it’s still a great tool for giving a brief overview and call to action.
Bonus Tip: Also it’s important to add or enable captions on your video since approximately 80% of mobile users watch videos with no sound.
Measure Results and Modify Details
When you post video content it’s very important to collect data on how it performs and which platforms you’re succeeding on so that you can alter your tactics accordingly.
The first step is to decide which metrics will accurately represent your video’s “success”. For an advertisement that might mean clicks to your website/store-page that end in a sale. For a branding post, or a new product offer, it might be views, shares, comments, etc.
Once you know what your target metric(s) is, measure them over the course of two weeks, and then reassess. If you find that one of your posts is under-performing, try implementing some changes to the post such as:
- Changing the thumbnail
- Changing the title and description
- Changing the hashtags
Check back in a few weeks and see how your post is doing. If your metric has gone up since your last update, keep the changes! If they go down, try something else and keep at it.
Engage in Online Discussion
On most platforms, higher levels of engagement indicate to the algorithm that your video is helpful or entertaining, and this will boost your video’s visibility. A great way to get people to share and engage with your content is to respond quickly to questions, comments, and concerns. If you can prove to your audience that you respond to every comment in a timely fashion, people will be more likely to engage with you.
Bonus Tip: If you post a video that is longer (10+ minutes), try cutting out short, interesting clips and posting “highlights” that include a link back to the main video. The advantage of posting highlight clips is that people are more likely to watch and share videos that are between 30 seconds, and 3 minutes. These videos can reach more people and act as a great introduction to your longer content.
Get The Most Out of Your Video Content
By posting your content everywhere, optimizing for views, and engaging with your audience, you can increase your exposure significantly and get far more value out of your marketing video. Good luck, and feel free to contact us if you need any help to promote video content.
