In 2017, digital marketers expanded their content marketing strategies to move heavily towards developing how-to videos, company videos, product videos and explainer videos that are shared on social media platforms to drive new leads to B2C and B2B company sites, but many video marketing managers are not adhering to best practices of marketing these videos, which is costing companies thousands of dollars in production costs. Don't make the same mistake. Follow these 3 best practices tips below to maximize the effectiveness of marketing online videos, creating better engagement, and help driving new leads.
Tip 1 - Customize video length by social media platforms. Not more than 2 minutes in length, if it's on YouTube, and less for other platforms
Videos are great to help online users understand an idea, a product, company brand, or just for entertainment, but many video marketers make the mistake of building videos that are too long and not customized by platform in video length. Unfortunately, video marketers experience high video abandonment rates of online viewers, such as 60%+, before videos are completed, which is why it's important to understand how each platform's user base engages with the most success in watching videos.
According to Hubspot, most abandonment rates happen after two minutes on YouTube, one minute on Facebook, forty-five seconds on Twitter, and thirty seconds on Instagram. As a digital marketer, make sure to edit videos according to engagement on each platform, to make sure that an online viewer will complete a video view without abandonment. By customizing the video length, will ensure that online viewers will have a good experience will all videos produced by the company, and create a positive halo-effect of the company brand.
Tip 2 - Better to host videos on YouTube, Vimeo, or Wistia, but embed the video at company website
There are mixed opinions on whether it's better to host videos on a company site to garner better utilization of Search Engine Optimization from Google or on a video platform, such as Vimeo, YouTube or Wistia. Yes, it's true, that your site will benefit from hosting video on your company site because of the SEO, but unless you have a lot of server bandwidth, it may not be the best idea, especially with large file size videos or many videos on the website.
The best solution is to host videos at a video platform site, such as Vimeo, so that server bandwidth is not reduced at a company website, but will benefit to adding to the SEO, when embedding the video to the site, and will not slow down video viewing by online users. Vimeo can cost as little as $50/month and offers a good video viewing experience to your online users.
Tip 3 - Distribute the videos in multiple social marketing channels
Just because you build a video, doesn't mean that people will find it easily. Make sure to market the full-length of the videos into multiple social marketing channels, such as YouTube, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook, which will drive users to the video at the company site. At the end of the videos, make sure to include a url of your company site with a click-through action. This will ensure leads reach your company site.