“It baffles me that so much money is still spent on forms of advertising that are not beneficial to the consumer, nor where the current consumer attention is. Pre-roll ad views. Commercial breaks on streaming sites. These are the “impressions” marketers are focusing on. Why? There are better places money should be spent with bigger upsides. Great marketing should feel like a renovation, not a rehash of what has been done before. For a consumer to get excited about something, to be compelled by something, it comes down to attention. Attention, not impressions. They need to really consume it. That is the game. There are two places right now that companies need to be focusing to win their marketing game. One is mobile, and the social networks contained within mobile. The second is video. Anyone who doesn’t realize that the cell phone is exactly the same thing that the television was in 1965 is completely ignoring the future. When an ad comes on, when pre-roll shows up, people reach for their phones. As soon as the experience they were trying to have is interrupted by an invasive ad, the phone is where they turn to continue being entertained. Plus, the phone is always there. As you read this, is your phone within five feet of you? I thought so.” – Gary Vaynerchuk
Video, video, video. That’s the catch phrase we’re hearing in the social media marketing world today. My newsfeed is completely filled with recipe videos, time lapse videos of royal icing sugar cookie decorating, and even Dr. Pimple Popper in slow mo. (Yeah, you read that right. Fair warning… ) So, it really shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that video is the way to grab your target audience’s attention. As suggested in the quote above, the vast majority of social media usage occurs on mobile. Nearly 80%, that is. So that’s where you need to be too. Social video is probably the best way to reach your audience right in the palms of their hands. They’re already using Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Snapchat on a daily basis – are you? 
Here are some tips for getting started with social video:
- Just start! Audiences on social media tend to connect with brands more when the message presented by the brand feels authentic. Start with a slightly bumpy tour of your office space and don’t worry about the bumps – there’s authenticity in knowing that an actual human recorded the video.
- Feeling brave? Go LIVE. Nothing is more authentic than a live video with the ability to respond to questions and comments as they come in. One of the biggest values of social video is providing an opportunity for your consumers/clients to make a connection with your brand. Showcase the people who build your brand with a Q&A session.
- Make a plan. Don’t be scared to just start and be authentic, but also start with a plan. Lay out some questions for an interview with your CEO, outline some tips to share, or even showcase a recent project your office has completed and list out some bullet points of what you learned during the process.
- Hire us. We’ve developed a system for effectively filming multiple social videos for our clients in a short amount of time. We take care of any necessary editing, post-processing, and we’ll work with you to write a script if desired. Social video doesn’t have to be movie theater worthy, but it can help to have a few supplies beyond your iPhone. We’ve done the work and collected the equipment and we’d love to help you film!