The Best Social Media for Video Marketing
Image via Unsplash by @jakobowens1
The best social media for video depends on the video content itself and the objectives of the content. As a brand or company, deciphering which social media sites will elevate your videos and bring them to your target audience is a crucial part of a content marketing strategy. Are you vlogging, selling a product, building brand awareness? Each of these has its own distinctive way to succeed on the internet.
Content marketing is very much about trial and error, especially in such competitive spaces as today. But learning the tools of different social media sites or how they cater to certain content or marketing will inform a more in-depth strategy for you to build a presence on the sites best suited to your brand or company. One site can account for areas another cannot. For instance, Facebook increases visibility to local customers whereas Pinterest drives CTR and e-commerce.
Rather than a content marketing strategy (there are plenty of those out there), gathered here is data of user and marketer tends plus keys aspects of the best social media sites for video. Provided this information, brainstorm on how to uniquely build upon your brand’s video production within these spaces.
Best Social Media for Video:
Facebook Pinterest YouTube Instagram
Video options: Live Streams, Feed, Stories
(Connect, network, brand awareness, drive traffic, promote products/services)
Facebook is at the top of the list because it may be the best social media for video in terms of its popularity and tools. Facebook has a massive user base that frequents the site daily versus monthly compared to other social media sites. In their 2020 Q2 end, Facebook Inc. reported 1.79 billion daily users and 2.70 billion monthly users.[1] Those are some impressive numbers.
Where there are people, there are advertisers. Facebook is the most used social media site for content marketing with more than 7 million active advertisers.[2]
Video content consumes timelines as users watch 8 billion videos every day.[3] Facebook also offers in-app video editing tools.
Facebook Pages help people connect to your business or brand. In 2017, Facebook said that 1.6 billion of its users are connected to a small business. In a separate survey, they reported that 2/3 users visit the Page of a local business at least once a week.[2]
Streamline your social sites. Since FB owns IG, your posts, ads, and more can both be sent into the media world simultaneously.
Product discovery. Curate a shop and sell products seamlessly through Facebook or IG.
FB offers Insights to understand the performance of your content.
Protect your intellectual property with Facebook’s Rights Manager.
Boost posts or create budgeted ads (there’s a difference) with your video content that can be promoted across Instagram as well (these cost $).
Demographics as of Sept. 2020, the largest group of Facebook users in the U.S. are aged 25 to 34 years.[5]
Facebook has countless resources and options for marketing, use the following links to learn more specifically about ratios and options for FB video or FB video ads here.
Video options: Feed pins (posts)
(Drive traffic, educate, promote content/services/products)
Unbeknownst to many, Pinterest offers an array of attractive tools and features for businesses. The site works more as a search engine than a social networking site and this oversight makes it something of a marketing secret. Video marketing works exceptionally well in this space because of its ‘visual search’ model for ideas, services, and products. Once you make a free business account, Pinterest recognizes you as a content creator, and pins saved from your personal website or social media sites will automatically get additional distribution to the platform. Much like Google, Pinterest wants to deliver relevant and quality content to its 416 million active monthly users.[6]
Pinterest users have buyer’s intent, and therefore visit the webpages that interest them. 90% of weekly Pinterest users make purchase decisions.[7]
Improve your CLR and drive traffic to your website or other socials with promotional or product pins clicks that automatically send users to your chosen landing page.
67% of people discover new brands or products on Pinterest.[7]
Business accounts provide analytics to track performance.
Customizable ad campaigns at a lost cost. Pinterest Ads can cost as little as 10 cents per click for mid-sized businesses.[8]
Less competition than other social media sites. Most content marketers put their effort into Facebook or Instagram.
Positive ROI. Advertisers report $2 in profit for every $1 dollar spent on Pinterest. [9]
Fun fact: Pinterest was the fastest growing site in history to reach 10 million unique monthly visitors.
YouTube
Video Options: Posts, Live Stream, Stories
(Connect, network, brand awareness, educate, promote products/services)
As the second most visited site on the internet behind Google, YouTube is considered the only social media comparable to Facebook in terms of its popularity. There are 30 million daily users and 2+ billion monthly users — amongst them, one billion hours of video are watched every day.[10]
Increase brand exposure and engagement with shareable content. YouTube video is appealing content that is easily shared across other social media platforms.
Monetize your video content. Become eligible to earn $ on advertisements once your channel reaches 1,000 subs and 4,000 watch hours in the previous 12 months.
Drive traffic and capture customers by linking webpages, products, or services to your videos.
YouTube Studio offers analytics and insights to track your channel’s performance, plus more.
Market to international audiences. YouTube is offered in 80 different languages and accessible in over 90 countries.
YouTube is the second most preferred platform for watching video among 18-34-year-olds (the first being Netflix). The primary demographic of U.S. users are 15-25-year-olds.[11]
More than a social app. In 2019, YouTube reported that users’ daily watch time is more than 250 million hours on TV screens.[11] Depending on your brand content, this is good news.
Great for SEO practices, such as target keywords. Like Pinterest, YouTube also operates as a search engine, as many come to the site looking for something.
Music remains YouTube’s most viewed content category. Other popular content types include Vlogs, How-To, Product Demos, and Reviews.
If you’re looking to create actual ads on YouTube, get started here.
Suggested: Should Your Brand Start a YouTube Channel?
Video options: Stories, Feed, IGTV, Live Stream
(Connect, brand awareness, promote content/product/services)
Year after year Instagram upgrades and pivots its features making it an appealing avenue for brands. In fact, 90% of Instagram users follow a business and 200+ million users visit at least one business profile a day.[12]
As a visual site, video content thrives. Instagram reported a year after year 80% increase in time spent watching video on the app.[12] Instagram also offers an array of video tools and content types to get creative.
Create a free business account and join the party. 25 million businesses are on Instagram and 1/3 of the most viewed stories are from business accounts.[12]
Track your progress plus understand what is or isn’t working with Instagram Insights.
With Instagram’s 1 billion monthly active users and 500 million daily active users, potential advertising reach is reported to be as many as 849.3 million users.[13]
Promote posts to boost engagement and find new audiences.
Product discovery. Instagram reports 60% of people discover new products on the app and 130 million users tap to reveal product tags on shopping posts every month.[12]
Instagram shopping has been on the rise for a few years with the ability to create product tags for Feeds and stickers in Stories, but last year Instagram announced Checkout, which makes it possible to purchase products within the IG app and/or through FB.
With its more than 2 million monthly advertisers, Bloomberg reported Instagram brought in $20 billion in advertising revenue in 2019.[13]
Summary
To conclude, Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube, and Instagram are the best social media for video content marketing based on their userbase, tools, and site design. Now it’s up to you to make your brand or company flourish in these spaces. If you are new to ads or marketing on these social media sites, then I recommend taking the time to do more critical research on how to succeed in each space.
Each site has its own strengths, algorism, user preferences, and more, but don’t let these deter you from the opportunities of starting a new social site. Tapping into these spaces with clever video content is one of the strongest approaches to find and connect with your target market. There are endless resources to help you succeed and, as noted before, trial and error is key to building a strong foundation for your brand or company.
Apart from YouTube, each of the social media sites listed in this article has a homepage for getting started with a business account — see below.
Do you need help making awesome video content for your brand or company? Noble Bison Productions is a full-service Denver video production company.
NOBLE BISON PRODUCTIONS
