Growing a social media channel isn’t as easy as sharing your blog posts. Twitter isn’t a place to publish press releases, and you shouldn’t think of Facebook as a great platform to copy/paste your latest email sale copy.
Brands that fail to take advantage of social media aren’t just missing out on potential growth — they also run the risk of looking silly, outdated, or ignorant to their audience. And the truth is that you can easily pivot your strategies by focusing on one specific type of content.
Social media videos.
We could start this off with a whole laundry list of statistics about why video is such a big part of a good social media strategy. But for the sake of getting right to the valuable information, let’s limit ourselves to just four stats.
- 25% of marketers say live video is the most effective part of their social strategy.
- 50% of social media users prefer video to other forms of content.
- 85% of social media users want more videos from brands they follow.
- Social media users share 2x the number of videos as any other type of content/post.
There’s really just one takeaway from all of this: Video content is valuable, influential, and basically a requirement for any brand that wants to grow its presence on social media.
4 Popular Types of Social Media Videos
1. Tutorial Videos
Whether you are focused on growing a brand or marketing a product, your social media followers are interested in what you are “selling.” (That’s why they’re following you, after all.)
That interest often leads to curiosity, a desire to learn more about what you do or what you have to offer. Or maybe it becomes a sense of comfort about using your product, which in turn can lead directly to sales, trials, downloads, etc.
A tutorial video can be as easy or as complicated as you like. From installing a basic screen capture software to filming yourself with a product, you can show your followers how to use a specific product or service you offer.
And as one of the most popular types of videos on YouTube, tutorial videos are a reliable and effective option for any social media account.
2. Q&A Videos
According to one study, 81% of consumers go online to research a product or service before they make a purchase. And if you’ve ever searched for information about a product, chances are you spent time checking out FAQs or Q&A videos to help make your decision.
A good Q&A video can serve a few different purposes. On one hand, they offer an easy way to boost audience engagement — you can field questions from followers, host giveaways or challenges, and show people that you care about customers by welcoming user feedback.
On the other hand, Q&A videos also provide an opportunity for you to really humanize yourself and/or your business. Think of a Q&A video as an interview, except you’re allowing your followers to interview you. They’ll get to know you better, and in the process develop a better understanding of what matters to you.
Hopefully, that establishes a sense of trust in you and your social media content.
3. Behind-the-scenes Videos
Speaking of interview-style videos as a way to humanize your business, going behind the scenes is a popular way to pull back the curtain around your brand and your process. And just like Q&A videos, a behind-the-scenes video can introduce yourself, your collaborators, and your brand values.
Social media has rewritten the script for how businesses speak to their customers. Behind-the-scenes videos are a great way to explore your brand and products in a genuine, no-nonsense manner while also presenting those details in a personal, humanized way.
4. User-generated Videos
User-generated content (UGC) has become a staple of the most popular (and successful) social media channels. Follow your favorite brand on Facebook or Instagram and you’ll most likely find content created by a customer but shared by the brand.
UGC works on a variety of levels. It shows that you’ll reward audience engagement, sharing your platform with the people who are passionate about your product or service. It’s also an easy type of video to make, since it requires little to no effort on your part but you get the benefit of any traffic or excitement that the video generates.
To put that into perspective: 51% of consumers worry that only half of brand-generated content is authentic or genuine. UGC sidesteps this issue by highlighting — or even celebrating — user testimonials, which carries a lot of weight with prospective customers.
Produce Great Social Media Videos With Any Budget
Each of these four popular social media video types can come in different shapes and sizes. A “tutorial video” could be a step-by-step how-to video, or a webinar, or a whiteboard video — the goal is to educate people, but benefit from the accessibility and shareability of a video.
Another great thing about this approach is that most of these video types have a pretty low barrier of entry, even for small businesses. You don’t need a $5,000 YouTube camera to shoot these types of videos, and you don’t even need to hire an editor or videographer to polish the final products.
Things like tutorials, Q&As, and UGC are almost expected to be “rough” or “authentic” in terms of quality. You can shoot these kinds of videos on a smartphone, because what matters most is how the content is presented rather than the visual quality or production value.
Viewers will go into a specific type of video with certain expectations. People want to learn something in a tutorial, they want to get answers from a Q&A, and they want to hear honest testimonials from a UGC video.
And by meeting those expectations — and doing it in a way that engages, entertains, and educates the viewer — you can take full advantage of video content on your social media channels.
