To help you with this exercise, Altitude unveils the main factors to take into account to have a successful video strategy based preparation and promotion!
The foundations of the strategy
A strategy should mirror specific objectives that are clearly identified. It is therefore crucial that you define them properly by asking yourself the right questions well in advance. Think about the purpose of your video and who your target audiences are. This will help selecting the diffusion platforms as well as identifying the digital environment that would best match your needs. The watchword here is definitely: tailor-made. One strategy will not fit everybody’s needs.
What type of promotional strategy?
Once you have identified your objectives, you will then be in a good position to select the approach that would best fit your situation. Amongst some of the best practices, let’s underline the following:
1. Focus on social media
One option would be to concentrate only on social media. If your video should be published on all of your existing social media pages in any case, you can also decide to engage in a more active online promotion to reach additional audiences. Identify the most relevant social media platforms for that purpose and create new pages well in advance so that you can amplify the diffusion of your video. Use up-to-date keywords and hashtags to boost engagement and grow your audience. Don’t forget to add links towards your website and landing pages. Be creative and run a personalised online campaign by posting, for example, a teaser of your video, making a countdown and adding specific messages. Inspire your audiences and make them want to click on your video!
You will also be able to decide whether or not to combine your efforts and native posts with a supplemental investment on social media “ads”, especially for these channels that are the most suitable for your objectives.
2. Smile! And make a thumbnail of your video
A thumbnail is the miniature cover of your video that will be visible online on platforms like Youtube. It is a decisive element as it will act as a « trigger » to push people to click on it and view your video. Make sure you have a good image and don’t forget to create one when shooting your video with your lead actor smiling at the camera.
3. Add « share » buttons
The share button will allow your visitors to relay your content immediately on their own profiles and pages. That’s why this is an important functionality and it is actually quite easy to add if not already there. You can use for example the option of WordStream « Wistia» that will allow your audiences to share the link of your video without leaving the app that they were visiting.
4. Orchestrate your diffusion
During your preparation phase, identify the possible partnerships that you can coordinate with key influencers but also the platforms that you can harness in order to boost your video views. This will come on top of your initial request to colleagues, contacts and friends to share your video as well.
5. The marketing mailing
Merging a video and a mailing can reveal to be a very efficient strategy. You’ll only have to add the word « video» on the title of your mailing and you’ll see the open rate dramatically increase. Furthermore, this tactic will help with your impact assessment, as you’ll be able to capture more detailed information about your audiences’ interest. Remember to integrate your video within your next newsletter and mailing!
6. Don’t forget events
The best strategy will be integrated and will incorporate different and complementary diffusion channels. So if you are invited to make a presentation or to participate at a conference or other initiative, think of this as a good opportunity to further disseminate your video and reach audiences in addition to your online efforts. Make sure to launch your video either at the beginning or at the end of your presentation, or use a simple teaser if it is too long.
7. « Pin » on top of your pages!
Many social media, such as Twitter, Linkedin and Facebook allows to literally « pin » a specific post to keep it permanently on top of their pages. This is very handy when you want to highlight specific information for a period of time. So make sure to create a specific post with your video and your hashtags, and pin it on top of your social media pages. That will ensure a strong visibility.
8. Don’t forget the teasers and captions
Teasers are similar to movies trailers and are great way to trigger your audiences’ interest into watching your video by unveiling some of the salient parts. This is clearly a “must do” to disseminate links towards your video in a dynamic and catchy way.
9. Go ahead and make « stories »
Nope, stories are no more something only Instagram would allow. Today many social media have also enabled this functionality and you can now create stories for example on Linkedin and on Facebook. So go ahead and tap into this possibility by sharing your teaser with specific hashtags and you’ll see your views blowing up. Note that accounts with more than 10 k viewers on Youtube can also access the stories functionality. Take advantage of this!
10. Plan and mark your milestones.
Finally, once you have identified all the essential aspects of your strategy, don’t forget to make an editorial calendar and identify the main stems of your process in order to implement your strategy in the most efficient way. You’ll be harnessing all of the existing opportunities of your environment and will master your video strategy perfectly!