What Is Social Video Marketing?

Social video is a new term and it can be complicated to understand. One definition you could use to describe it is: digitized video meant to be shared through social networks. It goes beyond just viral videos to actual interaction between your audience and you.

Some parts of this definition of social video marketing include:
Social videos needs to be digitized, or optimized for digital channels.

Videos that work on television may not work on a tablet or a smart phone.
Social video also needs to be shareable.

You’re not just optimizing for the channel, but for the ability to share as well.

There are many ways to make a social video sharable, from inducing emotions, to using storytelling structures to bring your marketing alive.
Social videos need to work well with social networking sites. You need to know how to use specific sites to showcase your social video marketing in the best light. Video appears in different ways on different social networks, and each network has a unique audience.

What works on Facebook may not work on Instagram.

You may need to have a stock video that you edit and tweak to fit different sites.

Your audience on Facebook may be more generalized, while your Instagram audience may be mostly mobile and interested in sites and products they can easily view on their smart phone.

Many people confuse social video with viral video, but they are not exactly the same. Social media videos may not get millions of views and still be a big success. If your company sells a high end software package, a video that shows a behind the scenes look at features of your software may be quite successful with less than a thousand shares, because they are highly targeted shares. And, maybe of that approximately thousand shares, you may have 30 percent buy your software package.
While a viral video of your cat and his silly antics may get a lot more shares, but is probably not going to sell your product or service. Yes sharing is an important part of social video marketing, but it needs to be the right kind of sharing that is highly targeted and leads to sales.

Unless you are Grumpy Cat, those kitty videos that get millions of views are not likely to make you money.
Videos are on the rise and are definitely a major trend in marketing. You definitely should add some video to your overall social media marketing plan to help your business grow.