If you’ve noticed your social media feeds filling up with videos, you’re not alone. And there’s a good reason. According to Convince and Convert, video on social media gets 1200% more shares than text and image updates combined.
If your small business wants to get started with video but isn’t sure where to start, there’s good news: It’s easier than ever to create video content at a low cost and with minimal effort. And there are lots of video marketing tools for small businesses that make things much easier to make.
Here are our ideas for easy social media video marketing ideas for your small business.
Start with a blog post
Don’t let your great content go to waste! Repurpose your blog content as an informational video. There are many formats you can try, like:
- Recording the author as they explain some of the highlights of the blog
- Put together a slideshow of the top tips in Keynote or Canva and export it as a video
- Use a tool like Lumen5 to combine text with video clips
For more in-depth instructions on converting a blog post, check out this handy guide from Social Media Examiner.
Animate an image
Take a cue from Mailchimp: Adding simple animations to your otherwise motion-free graphic makes the post more eye-catching — and also can tricky stubborn Facebook algorithms into showing your post to more users.
You don’t need serious design or animation skills to pull it off. Using any image maker, create small variations of your image, then combine them into a video or GIF. We’re partial to EZgif, a free tool that’s pretty powerful. Check out our blog post on 5-minute animations to get started.
Interviews
Your audience wants good quality content, not necessarily a high-quality production value. You may associate interview-style video with traditional media outlets, but there’s no reason you can’t try this format out for yourself.
Hubspot is the king of content creation, but that doesn’t mean that every video they produce has a high production quality. Take this interview-style video about social media FAQ’s that netted higher engagement rates than many of their other videos.
Product demonstrations
This video is a no-brainer, especially if you sell a product that needs some practice to use. Follow the lead of the simple, easy-to-follow product demonstrations that power tool company Bosch releases for nearly every new product.
Tips
This format can be especially effective for B2B companies. Consider your expertise and how you can share knowledge in a video format.
MOZ’s Whiteboard Friday series is a darling of the marketing world. With a simple setup — a dry erase board and a marker — MOZ employees break down complicated SEO topics.
Feature a team member
Show off some of the people who make your business great with a spotlight on one of your top-performing or most senior employees.
Tutorials and how-tos
People love how-to content. (Or at least, they love watching how-to videos, and pretending they will do it one day.) Tutorials, recipes, and life hacks now account for a huge bulk of the video you see, but there’s always a new way to spin it.
Benefit Cosmetics regularly posts a combination of user-generated content and their own how-to videos like the below.
Just because your product or service doesn’t lend itself to how-to videos as obviously as a makeup brand, doesn’t mean you can’t try your hand at it.
Behind-the-scenes
Peel back the curtain on your process by filming a behind-the-scenes look.
Promotion or sale
Make a splash with your next promotion. Show off your product or service in use, or rely on simple graphic animations to do the talking for you.
Announcements
Time for a little marketing tough love: No one wants to read your press release. While press releases and news articles on your website can be good ways to provide a deeper level of information, video is a superior format for getting the word out. Take a cue from the smartest brands out there and use a more engaging format, like video, to explain the latest developments in your business.
Hubspot kept it simple with this announcement video from their Chief People Officer. Notice that outside of a simple intro screen, this is a simple video that could be captured with a phone on a tripod.
Go Live
Live video is a chance to capture the in-person feel and start building a relationship with your viewer.
Our client Waterstone Community was facing a tricky situation during COVID-19; how do we get people interested in our homes when no one’s leaving the house? The result was a series of live tours that garnered more interest than any other organic posts in the past 2 years.
This live video from copywriting expert Ann Handley features guest Marcus Sheridan and uses a discussion panel-style to cover important topics.
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