7 Best Types of Video Content to Grow your Brand on Social Media
With the rise of TikTok, Instagram reels and IGTV, and the always-present Youtube platform, it’s no surprise that video is the newest media trend. Instagram’s latest update where the head of Instagram, Adam Mosseri, shares that Instagram is no longer a photo sharing app. This is big news! With 84% of people admitting to being convinced solely by a brand’s video content, it can seem daunting to create video content without professional help.
But, we’ve noticed a strong shift in the way video content is created on social media. There’s no longer a need for a whole production-- rather, it’s just you, your phone, and the video content you can produce natively in-app. Instagram tends to algorithmically favor video content over photo content for awhile now, so if you’re only starting to get into video now - WELCOME!
Not sure how to get started? Keep reading below to get some expert ideas on how to grow your brand through video.
Behind-the-Scenes Videos
Allowing your customers to get a peek at what goes on behind-the-scenes of your business helps to grow meaningful connections— they turn into your very own, personal cheerleaders, and fans. It seems backward, we know! We’ve been conditioned to believe that the non-glamorous parts of our business should be hidden, but that’s no longer the case. In the age of transparency, allowing your customers to see where your values lie, where your struggles are, and more importantly: how much work you put in, allows your personality to strongly resonate with your customers. With COVID-19, and even beforehand, it’s become apparent that customers are valuing trusting relationships over price when it comes to what they consume-- they are now paying closer attention to the social activism, the outreach, and everything that allows a company to display their morals.
Let your customers see the progress you are making with establishing and growing your brand, let them see how your team works (and who they are), or the steps involved in making what you are selling. Life Lapse customers love seeing our behind-the-scenes content. This content is our most engaged posts, and we find it heartwarming to see the support from our customer base. When we make new announcements, whether they be app updates, or reach new milestones, our sweet customers cheer us on.
These behind-the-scenes videos do not need to be highly produced. In fact, most are produced directly in-app, as it is far more authentic than scripted and professionally produced videos. A great example of on-the-fly video content is Marissa from @Stilclassics.
Another platform where smaller businesses are gaining traction by allowing a peek into their behind-the-scenes is TikTok, with creators like @ErinnDubs and @xxl.scrunchie.
Here are some examples of the type of videos you can post:
How your products are made
Team member introductions
Office tours
Sneak peeks of new products or updates
The packaging and order process, from start to finish
2. User-generated content (UGC)
When it comes to views, customers are 2.4 times more likely to see user-generated content as authentic as opposed to brand-created content. When your customers do unboxing videos, review the product, or describe their process using your app, it works amazingly to build the trust of future customers. So...how do you generate user-generated content? It’s simple: ask for it. You can ask on social media, in email marketing, and, if you’re a CPG brand, ask for a review in a well-designed postcard that goes with your mailer!
UGC strategies:
If your customer tags your brand in a post: share, share, share! The more your followers see you engage with user-generated content, the more they will want to do so themselves!
Ask influencers to do reviews of your product on Youtube. This will help your SEO, as Google owns Youtube, and so it will favor this type of content. 😉
Repurpose and recycle videos to your various platforms, making sure to still credit the original creator! For example: if a customer tags you in a product review, you can share it on Pinterest or Instagram. Link to the product on your website, and give the video creator credit.
Embed user-generated videos throughout the product pages— just make sure to get the customer’s permission to do so!
3. Product Videos
These are a great way to display additional details about your product, and to tell your product story. However, there are a few things you need to keep in mind!
Does the platform have a sound-on environment (ex. TikTok)? Or is it sound-off (ex. Instagram)? This will determine the format your video will excel as.
You have only 1.7 seconds to catch someone’s attention on social media as they scroll through their feed.
Our favorite type of video to capture attention is stop motion video, because the visual narrative allows you to make content that doesn’t require sound to impress! Also, it’s short, loopable, and all-around magical when it comes to capturing the attention of your audience. Stop motion is super easy to make from your phone, using our app, Life Lapse.
Stop motion isn’t just great for your Instagram feed, it also works amazingly for Facebook or Instagram ads, and on Pinterest. Using Pinterest and stop motion as a marketing tool has worked well for us— Pinterest now automatically plays videos, meaning that people are immediately drawn to the movement on your pin. In the past 30 days at Life Lapse, we have had over 3 million impressions and 1.7 million views without any paid advertisements. Video views have increased more than 3 times in 2020 as compared to 2019. Pinners are also 2.6 times more likely to purchase a product after seeing branded video content on the platform too.
4. Educational content
You can increase the lifetime and value of your content by keeping your customer engaged through educational and informative videos. Yes, we know it sounds * boring *, but hear us out: education doesn’t have to mean boredom. If you provide educational content in a fun, casual, and engaging way, your customers will happily participate. Brands like Glossier do this well, by brands and creating fresh and approachable content about how to properly use their beauty products.
Firsthand, we’ve seen how educational content has allowed us to grow our brand and business, year by year. Allowing your customers to learn how to use your products will leave them happy and confident in their purchase decision. Not to mention, it will keep them coming back for more.
For Life Lapse, video tutorials are the most engaging pieces of Instagram content we produce, going beyond the number of likes we normally get for a post. People not only like the videos, but they share them or save them for later, increasing our engagement very quickly.
Educational videos do well on social media, and you can also repurpose them for other platforms:
Email campaigns for customers who have purchased your products
Directly on your website (FAQs, product pages, landing pages)
5. Video Direct Messages (DMs)
At Life Lapse, we have made many meaningful connections with customers and collaborators. Some have even blossomed into friendships! It’s not the most conventional way to retain business connections, but it stands out in a crowd of DMs. It is becoming more popular as a result of COVID-19— brands and businesses are opting for more transparent, authentic content, as it is the closest thing we have to a face-to-face connection. As the world heads towards an accelerated digital age, customers are crowding around businesses and brands that ensure a human connection in a sea of cold, distanced narratives. An example of a brand that does this well is Mejuri, who use video as a customer service tool by hosting digital styling appointments through video.
6. Thought Leadership Videos
Are we the only ones that love hearing about people who have succeeded and learning their tips and tricks? We hope not. Everyone has a wealth of knowledge, and sharing life experiences on your brand’s pages can help with your brand story.
There’s no need to create a YouTube channel, become a business coach, or share your insider secrets. It’s as simple as keeping your business community up-to-date with short videos on your accomplishments, achievements, and occasional mess-up moments can help to keep you on the radar of potential investors, hires, mentors and mentees. It’s time to value collaboration over competition! A great platform for this is LinkedIn, which centers all around the professional and career journey. When you upload videos natively to the LinkedIn platform, you get 3 times the engagement than a text or link post.
If you’ve followed our brand for any length of time, you’re probably familiar with our CEO, Sarah. Core to Life Lapse’s ideology is that it is important to share the good, the bad, and the ugly sides of the entrepreneur and tech startup journey— not just the highlight reel. When you scroll through your feed and find other #bosses only sharing their achievements and awards, it can feel overwhelming when your life and your journey isn’t going quite as smoothly. So, here at Life Lapse, we value our CEO sharing her failures and mess-ups regularly. Sarah’s vulnerability in sharing her rejection and embarrassment on Dragons’ Den, helped many entrepreneurs learn from the mistakes she made. Plus, this transparency has helped give Life Lapse so many opportunities-- and now this embarrassing moment is a crucial part of Sarah’s success story.
7. Video meetings
Your people are your brand. While this category might not necessarily be a social media strategy, it is important to have engaged employees that will help build your brand on social media. Especially when it comes to what they are sharing on their own platforms. Life Lapse has worked with a remote team for workers since its inception (so three years!), meaning that the company was more than prepared for the shift to work-from-home. Sure, it’s plenty difficult to replace the coffee station banter and in-office atmosphere, but video meetings can come pretty close. In fact, they are the best thing you can do to keep your employees engaged and happy. It’ll be easy to spot when they are not happy— there will be a trickle-down effect on your product, your service, and your brand as a whole. Take care of your employees.
What are your favorite modes of video content? Let us know in the comments below.
Want to learn more? Download our app here, and make sure to follow us on Instagram at @lifelapse_app.
