How to use viral videos in content marketing

Thursday May 12, 2016 , 6 min Read

When I started marketing my second startup, I was limited to social media and blog writing. Gradually, I learned a lot about content marketing through images, storytelling, slideshows, and infographics.

I recently started learning video marketing and it’s not a secret anymore that the impact of marketing through videos is phenomenal. I worked with video-making platform Stagephod, and understood the basic concepts of video making. A few months ago, I wrote about the video making process for startups.

Last month, I met with award-winning video marketer Ashish Chopra to exchange my thoughts on video marketing.

Image : shutterstock

Here, in brief, are some of my learnings on video marketing.

3-step video marketing campaign

Reach of your campaign

The video is outperforming all other marketing channels in reaching out to the target audience because of the virality factor of videos. Facebook gives more of a boost to video posts than text and images. If in doubt, just look at your Facebook feed and count the video updates.

Native Facebook videos work better than YouTube videos. You upload your video to Facebook, get initial traction, and see the magic. Magic will only happen if your video can connect with the emotions of your target audience. Videos have the potential to reach millions of target users overnight.

Conversion to traffic to your website

The second step is re-directing the audience to your platform. We have observed that it's hard to convert users from videos to website. Don’t worry, if you keep on creating great videos, people will get to know about your work and eventually come to you when they need your services or product.

You can make your best effort to give your audience a reason to click your website link. Always show your website name at the end of the video and give a compelling reason to visit your site. Create videos with your brand name so that people can search for you on Google if they can not locate your website link.

Show them some offer or signup bonus to get their attention. This way, you can also track how many people are signing up from video marketing.

Conversion from traffic to signup

In the third step, you try to close the sale. If your video goes viral, expect 0.5 to 1 per cent of video watchers on your website. The percentage may look small but 0.5 per cent of a million users is 50,000 users on your website in a single day.

Optimise your landing pages for conversion to signup.

The impact of a viral video is not limited to website traffic. It will create a long lasting brand impression in the minds of your consumers.

The process for video making

Video making can be as simple as recording videos on your mobile phone, the cost of which is absolutely zero if you have a good concept and your team can act.

Here are a few steps for making a video for your startup

Think of a strong concept for the video. You can not come up with a great video without plotting a brilliant story.
Do the storyboarding and write the script. You can outsource these two steps if you don’t have a good storyteller in your team.
Action/ Production - Execute the video as per the story.
Post-production- Keep editing till you come up with what you need. Do colour correction to improve the picture quality of the video.
Sound - Don’t ignore the quality of sound. Buy background sounds for animation videos.
Subtitles - Videos with subtitles are more viral because Facebook auto plays videos without sound.

The resources needed for video

# Lights, camera, and artists (Actors). You don’t need these for animation videos.

# Video editing software - Windows Moviemaker and Adobe Premier Pro can do a good job for editing self-shot videos.

# For animated videos, Try Powtoons, Goanimate or Biteable.

# Background sounds - YouTube Audio Library, Incompetech, or buy from Fiverr for just $5.

# Stock footage can also be used in your video.

Simple videos can be made by combining GIFs

Pre-publishing work

Once you have a video ready, don’t publish without checking the following points.

Strong title: People watch the title before the video. You should write something intriguing and action-oriented to attract more people to watch your video.

Image: Select a powerful still from the video or some custom image to describe the content of the video. Show something that your customers can relate to and understand. The description of your video should tell a story (include important keywords)

How to market the video

You cannot do much to market your video. Yes, that’s true. The content of your video must be powerful enough to market itself.

Any video can become viral only if your customers can feel the connection with the concept of the video. The most important part of the video is storyboarding and script. Invest more effort and money into the first two steps of the video-making process.

A strong concept with average execution will yield higher results than a poor concept with great execution.

A compelling story with a brilliant video execution can be a growth hack for your startup.

I recommend that you publish videos on Facebook and get traction in 10-15 minutes. The Facebook algorithm will help you promote your video organically. Follow these steps after posting your video.

Share the Facebook link to your video on your social media, company website, blog and wherever you can find your customers. The initial 10-15 minutes are crucial for the virality of you video on Facebook.
Get as many people as you can to watch and share your video. Ask all your friends and team members to share the video on social networks (within five minutes of publishing video).
Share your video into the discussion groups (Reddit, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google)
Send an email to all your subscribers and customers. If your video is good, they will definitely share.
Send an update to industry influencers. They will promote your video if you have a good relationship with them.
If you get 100-200 shares in a few minutes, invest some money in the paid promotion on Facebook. If you fail to get organic shares, the paid promotions will hardly work for you.
That is it. Facebook will do the rest of the work for you.

Summary

A viral video will contribute significantly to your customer acquisition, engagement, and brand image. You can also boast of your video marketing skills to your investors, which will help you raise the next round of funding.

Let me know if you find anything helpful in this article. Don’t hesitate to contact me if you need any help in video content marketing.

(Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of YourStory.)