Image by Melissa Faust from Pixabay
If you are looking for tips to enhance your overall marketing strategy for your small business online, you must create a business account (if you do not already have one) on Instagram. With billions of daily active users, Instagram is one of the most popular social media platforms out there to build your professional presence. Building audience engagement is one of the critical ways of growing your reach and scale on the platform; that’s why, many businesses even tend to employ professional services and buy Instagram views, likes, and followers to stand out from the crowd.
However, you can do this with minimal financial investment in professional services and paid account activities. All you need to do is create a solid social media marketing plan and incorporate all the latest Instagram trends to your advantage. One of the must-haves in your schedule is an intelligent video content strategy.
What is Social Media Video Content Strategy?
Video Content Marketing is one of the most powerful social marketing strategies of our times. It involves creating videos of varying lengths and formats to direct audience engagement to your social profile and content. Instagram has constantly been updating its features ever since its inception in 2010, and it makes creating and publishing video content convenient for its users. Whether you are a B2B company or B2C brand, employ video content marketing on Instagram to boost your business online.
The right kind of video content strategy will enable your small business to:
- Grow brand awareness;
- Build a more extensive follower base;
- Develop organic audience engagement;
- Create sustainable customer relationships;
- Create leads and conversions;
- Humanize your company;
- Make sales directly or through embedded links on your posts and bio;
- Give you a better insight to plan your future marketing strategies;
- Create campaigns and events.
What can you use on Instagram to develop a Smart Video Content Strategy?
Instagram offers 5 different types of video content posting. These are:
- Instagram feed video
The first type of video upload on Instagram is its original feed upload. Upload a video using your camera or use pre-recorded content from your Photo Library just like you would a photo. A regular video upload can be of three to sixty seconds in length. You can add filters, stickers, location, caption, and product tags to your videos. If your settings are public, your viewers will be able to like, comment, save and share these videos like they can on any regular uploads.
- Instagram Stories
This type of upload follows a disappearing timeframe. You can put up a video of 15 seconds in length on Instagram Stories. However, there is no limit to the number of videos you can upload to your Story so that you can upload multiple clips or segments for a longer video. Content uploaded on Stories stays for 24 hours unless marked as a Highlight. Uploading Stories is similar to uploading regular video content. You need to specify whether you are posting as part of your Story or some other Instagram format.
You can add emojis, stickers, polls, and several other in-built embellishments to maximize audience engagement on your Story. This is one of the few places where you can add a clickable link as well. Instagram Insights track audience interaction and your viewers can message you with comments, responses, and feedback.
- Instagram Live
Instagram Live is a feature that enables creating live video streams using your device’s built-in camera. IG Live is excellent for building authenticity, trust, social proof, and credibility. The unedited real-time broadcast makes IG Live a popular means of creating reviews and product demonstrations in addition to showcasing behind-the-scenes reality snippets. Businesses and influencers tend to use this feature for conducting workshops, webinars, interviews, and demonstrations. IG Live has been known to generate lead and sales conversions for many B2B and B2C businesses. Another significant aspect of live broadcasting is that Instagram allows for collaborative joint live session hosting. You can further create Live rooms for more detailed and sustained platform engagement.
Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay
A live session can go up to four hours and is reflected on the Story feed. This means currently, only followers can see your live sessions. When you start a live IG broadcast, your followers receive a notification, and your Story gets boosted up on their Story feed. Like any Story feature, Live broadcasts are only temporarily viewable after the session has ended. However, you can save the recording as a video on your IGTV channel or download it to your phone.
Tracking audience reception and engagement on a live feed is easy too. A real-time viewer-counter gets displayed on the screen as you broadcast. Viewer comments and interactions can be made visible to all your viewers. You can further pin some of them to your screen to sustain your discussions. You can also disable or moderate comments by using Instagram’s inbuilt features.
If the feature is available in your country, you can add Shopping Tags to your broadcast. Furthermore, Instagram currently lets you add donation buttons if you are going Live to build social awareness or raising funds.
- Instagram Reels
Instagram Reels is a micro-video format option. It is popular among businesses for its fun way of putting information across. You can upload or instantly create 15-30-second-long clips as Reels. You can further edit your reels using texts, speed controls, and AR filters besides captions, hashtags, and shopping tags. The green screen mode and timed-text effects are beneficial for businesses.
The Reels tab is a unique space for reels alone. You can also run exclusive reel searches on the Search and Explore tab. You can track your reel engagement details in Instagram insights.
- IGTV (Instagram TV)
If reels use super-short video content, IGTV is Instagram’s long-format video channel. Your videos can run for hours, but you can only upload pre-recorded content on your IGTV channel currently. Instagram even has a separate app for exclusive IGTV video content though viewers do not need to download this to watch your uploads necessarily. You can customize and edit your videos with music, captions, subtitles, and cover photos to give them the appearance of a series. IGTV videos have a 15-second preview time on a regular Instagram home feed. To watch the full video, your viewers have to click on the video. The Search and Explore feature of Instagram has a specific section dedicated to IGTV content. Instagram has recently also added new ways of monetizing IGTV content. Although most of this is still being tested, you may be able to experience the benefits of these enhanced updates depending on where your business is demographically located.
Steps to Consider While Creating and Implementing Your Video Content Strategy
As with any content strategy here, too, planning is half the battle won. To take advantage of video marketing and grow your small business, you need to:
1. Set micro-goals
Have definite time-bound mini goals in place so you can review your content posting strategy frequently and consistently. The nature of the videos you create, the captions and hashtags you pair them with are all affected by what your end goal for the content is. Vague goals can hinder your marketing strategy even if they are optimistic. Your videos must ultimately provide your business and its services value and an image.
2. Plan investments in advance
You will likely need to boost your visibility with paid advertisements and promotional posts. Facebook and Instagram ad marketing gives you several budget-friendly options for promoting your business. You can specify your target audience, traffic generation landing site, duration of the promotion, and several other parameters to maximize the benefits of the advertisements. Integrate promotional activities with regular video content uploading to give your business the limelight it needs to grow.
3. Mix image, text, sound, and video
A well-conceptualized video can bring you audience traction and conversions in huge numbers. Remember to utilize Instagram’s in-built enhancements and add text and music to your videos. You can add filters, memes, gifs, and polls besides adding shoppable tags and clickable links to your videos. Add particular text and subtitles to your video content to make it understandable to viewers of a larger and more inclusive demographic.
4. Know your video formats and specs
Regardless of which type of video you are creating, always keep in mind that your target audience is more likely logging into their IG account using mobile phones. Keep in mind the best specifications for each type of video you can upload on your account.
5. Employ skillful narratives
To ensure that you have your viewer’s attention, create a story arc to keep your viewer watching the video for at least 3-5 seconds. Some topics you could consider for your video content include:
- Interviews.
- Product reviews.
- Customer response.
- FAQs about your company, products, services, or upcoming events.
- Tutorials and demonstrations.
- Behind the scenes stories.
- Event videos.
6. Know your target audience’s Instagram behavior
Post videos consistently and check your engagement ratios to understand when and from which audience demographics do your videos derive the most reactions. Research your target audience’s behavior to choose your video formats, time of publishing, choice of hashtags and captions, and other aspects that can help your Instagram marketing strategy.
7. Post regularly
Build audience anticipation and help your content climb the visibility charts by posting consistently and strategically.
- Schedule your video posts in advance. Consider using scheduling and auto-publishing tools to ensure you do not miss your publishing window.
- Use the different spaces of Instagram for advertising and providing teasers of what to expect.
- Create videos in different formats on the same topic to reach the maximum audience.
- Conduct product reviews, demos, surveys, and interviews to boost your business.
- Collaborate with fellow IG users on your video content creation and publishing. Work with influencers or others in your niche or allied industries to broaden your target audience and build your brand.
8. Cross-promote your content
It is not enough to cross-promote content at an internal level. Give your videos the edge by promoting them on your other social media handles. Drive engagement to your Instagram account from other platforms to build your brand up.
9. Edit before Publishing your Videos
Edit your videos before putting them up online. Unless the video is a live broadcast, comb it for any inconsistency and error. While raw and simple footage has more excellent audience traction, you must not leave room for misinformation. Add whatever add-ons you need before you hit the post button. A good strategy is to pair your video with call-to-action. If you cannot place clickable links or buttons on your video yet, create a call-to-action caption to ensure better traffic generation and sales.
In conclusion
Instagram video marketing can be the solution you seek to make your small business stand out over others. Videos are versatile, popular, attention-grabbing, and can be tailored for any end goal. Moreover, you can set a budget that fits your pocket for video content creation. Try creating a few videos and check your progress on the social media site. You will be surprised at the results!
