Social Media Video Best Practices

Your clients and customers are watching a LOT of social media video. Both Snapchat and Facebook have both exceeded 8 billion video views per day. YouTube has over a billion users with 1 billion hours watched daily. There are over 600 million Instagrammers. Understanding the social media video best practices for the variety of platforms can be intimidating.

But, if your brand is not creating and promoting video on social media channels, then you are missing a huge opportunity.

Why Should You Consider Using Social Media Video in Your Marketing?

It doesn’t matter what your company does, or what you are selling, if you don’t have a video marketing strategy for the most prominent social media platforms, you are going to fall behind competitors that do. There are some compelling reasons to pursue a video marketing strategy.

Social video can deliver impressive ROI.

This might be the only thing your boss really cares about, so here are some stats:

• Videos are 6X more likely to be retweeted than photos and 3X more likely than GIFs (Twitter).
• Snapchat users watch 10 billion videos per day (Digital Trends).
• Businesses that use video grow company revenue 49% faster year-over-year than organizations that do not. (Aberdeen Group).
• 70% of marketers claim video generates more conversions than any other type of content (Vidyard).
• 73 percent of B2B marketers say that video positively impacts marketing ROI (Buffer App Survey).
• YouTube has over a billion users (that’s roughly one third of the internet).
• Facebook reports surpassing 2 billion monthly users (Facebook).
• Native videos on Twitter drive 2.5X replies, 2.8X retweets, and 1.9X favorites than non-native video. (Twitter).
• On average, YouTube reaches more 18+ year-olds weekly on mobile alone during prime-time TV hours than any cable TV network (Google)

Social media videos can also deliver on several marketing objectives.

• Building brand awareness and brand storytelling
• Employer branding (promoting your company as the employer of choice to a desired target group)
• Lead generation
• Customer engagement and support such as how to videos and FAQs

General Considerations for Creating Effective Social Media Video

Before jumping headfirst into the world of social media video, consider the following characteristics that can affect how successful a video is on social media. Keep in mind that each social media platform is different, and video content needs to be optimized for where it will be shared.

For the purposes of this article, we are mainly addressing social media video best practices for creative and not on-the-fly live video, which is a different animal altogether.

1. Create with shareability in mind.

Emotions lead to sharing. Create a video that will give viewers an emotional reaction – joy, laughter, anger, sadness, or a call to action. Most viral videos evoke a feeling of happiness, surprise or admiration.

2. Focus on Storytelling.

Tell a concise and cohesive story. Creating a storytelling arc from the first frame will help capture the attention of your audience and keep them interested.

3. Always start strong. 

Vidyard found that you typically lose the majority of your audience within the first 30 seconds or less. Twitter’s study on video found an early story arc means the video is 58% more likely to be viewed past three seconds. Feature your product or brand message early in the video.

4. Know the Goals for Your Social Video.

Define your goals for each video and determine how you are going to measure them.

5. Know the best Aspect Ratio.

Social video should generally be optimized for mobile first. This means generally speaking, square or vertical video will perform best on social platforms, but not always.

6. Sound or No Sound?

Some social media platforms will display videos to users with no sound by default, or they allow users to set this preference. Platforms where users are scrolling a feed are where users tend to prefer muted video.

We can all probably relate to scrolling a social media feed in a boring meeting. In this situation, the last thing you want is for a video to start blasting out of your phone. Create video with this in mind and make sure the story works with no sound when appropriate.

7. Choose the Best Length for Your Video.

Shorter is usually better, but the best length of video can vary by platform (more detail on this below).

8. Don’t forget to optimize for search.

Depending on the platform, using hashtags and keywords can help get your video in front of more users.

Social Media Video Best Practices by Platform

When creating video content for social media, it’s important to produce the right video for each platform.

Because each social platform has a unique audience and different strengths and weaknesses, your videos need to be optimized for each different channel. A video that works on Twitter may need some serious editing before it can work on Facebook. You may find you need an entirely different approach for the video on Instagram or Snapchat.

Try creating a mission statement for each social media video platform.

Doing this for each social platform can help focus your video marketing efforts allowing you to create more shareable and effective social video. To help you, we’ve outlined social media video best practices and considerations on the major social media platforms.

2. Twitter Video Best Practices

The Twitter Feed is a scrolling environment like the Facebook feed which means it shares many of the same best practices, like communicating the important part of your message in the first 15 seconds and using visuals to grab attention and “stop the scroll’.

However, Twitter is a largely open feed experience vs. the private Facebook feed, so it generally feels more professional and is ideal for B2B marketing.

Twitter and Omnicom partnered in a study to identify the unique strengths of Twitter video. Key Twitter social media video best practices uncovered include:

Optimize for Mobile First

93% of video views on Twitter are via mobile devices. This means that almost everyone watches Twitter videos through a smartphone, which makes it important to optimize your video content for mobile.

Keep Video Short with a “Sound-off ” Strategy

The study found that shorter videos of 15 seconds or less are more likely than videos of 30 seconds to drive memory encoding.

Also, a “sound off” strategy works. The first 3 seconds of Twitter video did not need audio to capture the user’s attention and drive engagement. The study found that personal relevance and memory encoding were at the same level whether sound was on or off. But when someone did watch the whole video, having sound created an uptick in all the key metrics. They also found that dialogue has more of an impact than music.

The study also found there are creative aspects of Twitter video that make people more likely to stop scrolling and watch, such as:

No Automatic Captions on Twitter

For videos on Twitter, captioning or subtitling must be included visually in the video. Consider this when creating a “no sound” strategy for Twitter videos.

Calls to Action: Twitter

Twitter launched call to action buttons for promoted tweets in 2016, but unlike Facebook, Twitter lacks the ability to add a call to action directly to your video. Try to include a call to action in the accompanying tweet instead.

Hashtags & Search

Twitter hashtags are a powerful tool that allows Twitter users to track what anyone is tweeting about a particular topic or event. Always tag your Twitter video with a couple of relevant hashtags which will help your video reach people interested in the topic that are not already following you.

4. SnapChat Video Best Practices

If Millennials are part of your target audience, you should definitely be on Snapchat. Comscore reports SnapChat has a market penetration of nearly 70% in the 18-24 year old age bracket.

Avoid a “Too Polished” Tone

Snapchat isn’t about promoting a faceless brand. The content that brands post on Snapchat shouldn’t be overly polished. Snapchat is about showing your brand’s personality and connecting on a human level.

The demographic you’re most likely reaching, 18 to 24-year-olds, loves personal stories. Instead of sharing gorgeous product photography as you might on Instagram or Facebook, you should highlight personal and spontaneous moments. Too much scripting can ruin the spontaneous vibe of Snapchat and it can make your presence feel like advertising.

Video Content for Snapchat Stories

Snapchat stories are one of the avenues to reach your audience via video on Snapchat. Video on Snapchat stories can range from impromptu snaps to a planned campaign.