A Guide to Social Media Video Advertising for 2023

Today, fighting for a social media user’s attention is like competing in the Hunger Games. May the best content strategy win. 

However, there are ways to alleviate the worry of releasing your content strategy out into the wild. 

One of these being the use of social media video advertising.

Video material is becoming more and more prevalent in today’s society. Brands who want to gear towards the younger audiences are finding that content strategies involving social media video ads are more attention grabbing and impactful, as opposed to those that don’t. 

With social media platforms being in a constant state of competition with one another for the title of “best platform”, creators thrive off of the constant updates. With these updates, come a host of new ways to interact with and upload video material. 

If you’re looking for a way to implement video material into your content strategy to eventually jump on the social media video advertising bandwagon, keep reading!

What’s all the fuss about?

Video content implementation is crucial to any social media marketing strategy, as it is snack-size, memorable and measurable. These are the components that make it perfect for an audience who crave short, engaging pieces. 

Because it is so visual, social media video advertising can also do the following:

1. Grow revenue: marketers who use video are growing company revenue 49% faster year-over-year than those who don’t.
2. Influence buying decisions: 90% of customers say that social media video advertising helps them make buying decisions.
3. Give the people what they want: it is no secret that people prefer video content over other formats.
4. Rank higher in search: the average internet user spends 88% more time on a website that contains video; increasing a brand’s likelihood of being ranked on the first page of Google results.

Weigh up your options

Each platform offers multiple ways to create and upload video content. If you’re not already familiar with what your options are, it can get a little overwhelming trying to figure out which style of video or platform is best for your brand. 

Let’s explore the options:

YouTube

Hailed the king of the video format, YouTube is the only place where videos are the primary form of communication. 

Unlike its more modern counterparts, TikTok in particular, YouTube traditionally caters to long-form video. This means that any social media video advertising is typically embedded within a longer video. For example, an influencer involved in your social media video advertising campaign will veer off topic to explain to their viewers that a certain section of the video is sponsored by a brand and that the products they are using will be linked down below; boosting traffic to the brand’s website. 

More recently, the YouTube Shorts feature was launched; putting a spin on the platform’s loyalty to long-form video content. Shorts allow creators to reach new audiences and sell their channel by creating videos 60 seconds or less, in-app, and posting them in the hope of gaining popularity. 

Short-form videos are prevailing nowadays and seem to be the most effective way to grab the attention of potential customers. For a more in-depth look into its growing popularity check out our article on short-form video. While adopting YouTube shorts for your social media video advertising strategy could be the key to increasing reach, traditional long-form videos put you in front of interested ears and eyes. 

Facebook 

Facebook is the largest social media site, so it only makes sense that it offers multiple ways to run a social media video advertising campaign.

These are:

Facebook feed video ads – the ones you see as you scroll down the page.

Facebook in-stream video ads – these appear when text bubbles appear on a video saying “Ad starting soon”. 

Facebook stories video ads – just like Instagram stories, ads appear every so often between scrolling through multiple stories.

Facebook Marketplace video ads – sponsored listings appear with organic listings. This ad type is a great way showcase your product to someone who is already willing to reach into their pocket that day. 

Unlike YouTube, Facebook is not as forgiving to beginners to social media video advertising strategies. However, due to the rewards it reaps, it is certainly not a platform to be overlooked. Those with experience in social media video advertising will vouch for this. 

Instagram

Though originally built for photos, even Instagram can’t escape the inevitable takeover of the video format. 

There are a few ways to run social media video ads on Instagram. 

Instagram Stories ads – some 500 million people use Instagram Stories every day and are a perfect way to reach your target audience, as their attention spans will at least be able to withstand the length of a 15 second ad. 

Instagram Reels ads

similar to Stories, but they show up in feed and can loop, can be up to 30 seconds long and users can like, comment, save and share whichever content they deem worthy of their interaction. 

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Chipotle (@chipotle)

In-stream video ads –

formerly known as IGTV. These are typically for long-form video content and can be shown pre-roll, mid-roll or post-roll.

Instagram Explore ads – considering the Explore page has over 200 million daily active accounts that view it, running social media video advertising on here makes a lot of sense.

Now, Instagram IS one of the more forgiving platforms from which beginners can launch their first social media video advertising campaign, as it is incredibly user-friendly, has high engagement rates and multiple video ad success stories.

Creating a successful social media video advertising strategy

As with any marketing strategy, starting out in social media video advertising can not be met with a one-size-fits-all approach. Instead, think about the following steps in relation to your own brand’s values and image. 

Set goals 

What do you want your videos to accomplish?

Top Tip: if you’re just starting out, we recommend only setting a few goals to begin with, so as not to overwhelm yourself.

Examples of video marketing goals include:

1. Increasing brand awareness
2. Increasing website traffic
3. Promote and market your product
4. Find your target demographic

Choose your platform

We’ve highlighted how each social media platform offers video content options to creators, in this blog.

Top Tip: if you’ve never used video on any platform, begin with the ones where you already have audiences established.

Select your video types

Not all videos are the same, and that’s okay; as long as they are supporting your key goals.

Here are some video types and their benefits: 

Educational – informative and can create brand awareness for new costumers. 

Behind-the-scenes – These give a glimpse into company operations and employees. They usually serve to entertain an audience.

Interviews – interviews are a great way of introducing your audience to a new influencer or vice versa.

Entertainment – these include jokes and pranks and sometimes cute animals. They serve solely to entertain, but can be a great way of emphasising your brand’s voice.

Testimonials – these look like customers highlights and help create social proof of your brand. 

48% of consumers want the video to reflect the specific product or service that they own or are interested in.

Plan the content production

Social media video advertising cannot be done on a whim. A good content production plan will save you time and money. 

Hiring an agency is certainly an option, but if you are doing this all in-house, then you must complete the following: 

1. Identifying needed equipment and props
2. Writing a script
3. Editing the script
4. Storyboarding the video
5. Planning the shoot for optimal filming. Filming won’t be linear for the most part.
6. Gathering the right people who are featured
7. Identifying the place(s) you’ll film and taking natural daylight into consideration for timing.
8. Knowing where to send the footage to be edited
9. Determining who will do the approval sign-offs for each step. For example, you want to make sure that the script sounds good and is in line with your voice. This might require two people to review it.
10. Checking that the music you’re using is licensed for you

Know what post production entails

Allow plenty of time for post-production activities.

These aren’t just cutting and pasting scenes together, it also includes closed captions, text overlays, call-to-action screens and more.

Schedule and promote the videos

Social media video advertising is not a one-and-done. One recording session can product content for multiple platforms. Short-form video material can be extracted from one long-form video and sent to different social media sites for different promotional activities. 

Understand and analyse metrics

Each platform has native analytics that tell you how each video performed. 

The metrics you use should correlate with the goals you set out at the start. For example, if your goal was to increase brand awareness, your call-to-action might be the inclusion of a web link for people to explore the product further. In this case, you should be measuring link clicks.

FAQ’s

Why should businesses use video as part of their content marketing strategy?

Video content is the future of social media marketing. They engage the short attention spans of the younger generation and can be greatly informative for the older generations. 

Our Influencer marketing agency and Social agency are located worldwide, with our agency network based in the USA, UK, UAE and China.

If you want to receive our industry insights, visit our Influencer Marketing & Social Media blog.

@ Socially Powerful

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