Nowadays, social media has become a new addiction for people, especially younger generations. Scrolling and swiping screens have become daily exercises and among the quickest ways to kill time.
Videos are the most engaging type of content today. As more and more people get addicted to videos, businesses leverage this trend to get more sales. That's when social media videos gain popularity over the years.
With countless video content on social media, creating one should be easy. But will it successfully boost sales as you expected? Not necessarily. You need to be strategic to make your social media videos perform wonderfully.
Discover the eight best practices for creating social media videos to boost sales. You can also gain long-term benefits such as building brand awareness and adding credibility to your brand. Without further delay, let's jump right in!
#1. Identify Your Target Audience
Identifying your target audience is a crucial step to do before anything else. It's the only way to know their preference, characteristics, and behavior. You can personalize your content to match your target audience's tastes.
Moreover, identifying the target audience allows you to find their pool. You can discover which social platforms are used mainly by your potential customers. It will enable you to create a focused marketing strategy by targeting the right social media.
For instance, if you want to target younger customers, Instagram and TikTok can be the best channels to approach them. But if you're targeting professionals and other businesses, LinkedIn is more suitable to try.
Besides, understanding your target audience helps you decide what content to produce. It can be animated videos, motion graphics, product demos, live-actions, etc. You can also plan ahead whether you want to produce the video with your internal team or hire an explainer video agency.
#2. Incorporate Interactive Posts
Interactive posts allow you to build two-way communication with audiences. It's an effective strategy for building relationships and engagement with prospective buyers. So you can get a higher chance of turning them into paying customers.
There are many examples of interactive posts, such as quizzes, polls, contests, etc. Instagram is an excellent platform for creating interactive posts. It has built-in features to let you create interactive posts instantly.
Moreover, you can respond to audience questions on social media. Showing quick actions can be a plus point for your brand. Encourage audiences to comment, like, and share your post, so it reaches more audiences.
You may consider running a contest and giveaway. A competition and giveaway are the quickest way to motivate people to take action. You can give a free product or other deals to the winners.
#3. Publish User-Generated Content
User-generated content refers to those content produced by customers. For instance, review videos and written testimonials are user-generated content. So brands have little interference in creating this kind of content.
You must encourage customers to make reviews and tutorials to generate massive user-generated posts. Once they tag or mention you on posts, you should repost them so they are visible to prospects as well as giving an act of appreciation.
User-generated content can be more influential than content from brands. Audiences value customer experiences as genuine sources of information. The more user-generated your product generates, the higher your chance to get more sales.
#4. Create Shoppable Posts
Nearly all social media platforms have features to create shoppable posts. You can find the features on major social media like Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, and TikTok. Shoppable posts help sellers and buyers do their job easier.
For instance, Instagram is among the first platforms to incorporate shoppable posts. It allows sellers to post product images and videos along with price tags. Users who want to buy the product can click the buy button and continue the checkout process.
Social media videos that work best for shoppable posts are product demos, tutorials, and testimonial videos. Providing such videos can add more confidence for prospects to make a final decision and buy your product.
#5. Promote Live Videos and Flash Sales
One of the most sales-driving kinds of social media videos is live videos. 80% of customers prefer to watch live videos from brands rather than read blog posts. That's why many brands make live videos their regular content to boost sales.
Live videos are also a great way to promote flash sales. They can trigger audiences to get deals during the live videos. Some brands only give offers when viewers purchase during the live streaming.
You can promote the event beforehand to gather more viewers on your live event. Also, consider making a regular schedule to do live streaming. So audiences can get ready to make a purchase.
Moreover, live videos are good for boosting sales and generating long-term benefits. They allow you to communicate in real-time virtually and build stronger relationships with audiences.
#6. Consider Influencer Marketing
Working with well-known influencers is a strategic way to reach more audiences and boost sales. You may need to spend more budget to use their service, but all the costs will pay off if you do it properly.
More than 80% of buyers are more motivated to buy products promoted by influencers or creators. Audiences value influencers' reviews and testimonials as genuine sources of product information.
You can ask them to create content like testimonials, product demos, and vlogs as your social media videos. There are four types of influencers you should know, which are nano, micro, macro, and mega influencers.
Those types differ according to the number of followers they have. Nano influencers have the lowest rates as they have the fewest followers compared to micro, macro, and mega influencers. The more followers they have, the higher their rates.
#7. Optimize Social Media Video
Creating social media videos is only part of the game. Before launching your videos online, you need content optimizations to boost their performance. The content optimizations may be different depending on which platform you post your video on.
For example, you should use hashtags when posting videos on Instagram and Facebook. Hashtags allow your content to become more discoverable through search engines or recommendations.
Meanwhile, you need to make extra efforts when posting videos on YouTube. Not only should you add hashtags, but other elements like video titles, descriptions, and tags are also vital in boosting video performance.
Choose keywords related to your content, brand, or product. Invest in long-tailed keywords to compete fiercer with bigger competitors. You can leverage SEO tools to generate the most potential keywords for your social media videos.
#8. Focus on Valuable Content
Valuable content is key to gaining the trust of audiences. So, your content must be informational or educational rather than promotional. In this day and age, hard selling is no longer a marketing trend.
Over-promotional content can come too pushy to audiences, scaring them away from your product. A way to avoid being too promotional is by incorporating a story-driven script on your social media videos.
A story-driven script focuses on capturing audiences' pain points emotionally or humorously. If your video content is engaging from the get-go, you have a higher possibility of making them convert at the end of your video.
Some ideas for valuable video content include product descriptions, demos, tutorials, reviews, Q&A, and more. You can ask experts, influencers, or customers to participate in your video content to attract audiences.
Conclusion
Social media videos are vital tools for businesses to approach audiences today. Companies should invest in creating short video content for their social platforms to reach more audiences, meet new prospects, and generate more sales.
The above points are some best practices for creating social media videos to boost sales. They are practical for businesses of all sizes. Small and medium-sized enterprises can join the trend to grow and expand their companies.
