During the pandemic brands of all sizes struggled to adapt to changing consumer needs. After a tough year, many small businesses have begun prioritizing making genuine and lasting connections online. Whether they’re doing this by ramping up their social media presence or adding remote services to their list of offerings — brands are finding a way to stay visible and relevant to their customers, even from a distance.
How do these efforts translate to social media in the new year? Today we’ll walk you through the key video marketing predictions small businesses should keep in mind this year.
1. Community is key – and yours may be on Instagram Reels.
This year, Reels could continue to be the best way for brands to grow organically on Instagram. It’s all about experimenting on the platform to see what boosts engagement most. By using Reels consistently in your content strategy, you can build a more engaged community with relatable, educational, and entertaining content.
2. Video is not a one-and-done strategy.
During the pandemic, brands that got the best ROI for their video marketing were the ones that used video consistently and across various social & traditional platforms. As the cost of production of video continues to get more affordable, we’re going to see an influx of videos on social media, so standing out will mean creating a strategy for continuous video creation, and setting specific goals for each month to stay on task.
3. Live video and real-time shopping are on the rise.
We’re seeing a surge in live video coupled with real-time shopping on both Facebook and Instagram. The feature is already available to a limited number of creators, but will be rolling out to more users. Instagram alluded that the real-time shopping with live video is not just for online retailers of physical products; the company is also working on ways to help all types of businesses as well.
4. Telling your story with video helps humanize your brand.
People are literally aching for connection with other people, not just a talking head. Brands that use more interactive, snack-sized videos to share their stories and show their value will have a much shorter sales cycle than the ones that don’t.
5. Simple gets traction.
Brands are getting more value from lightweight, bite-sized content. So, repurpose existing assets to create new content. For content that draws your viewers in: take your text-based content and create social videos, or take a long-form video and create several shorter, social-friendly pieces of content.
6. Organic video content fosters genuine connection with your customer.
Video will absolutely be a top of mind element in everyone’s marketing and content marketing strategy. A big video trend for this year will be, “simpler productions” as we are filming livestream content remotely or from our homes and using scaled-down studios and equipment to create content that connects with our audience and customer.
How you can apply the latest trends to your video marketing strategy:
Now that you know what works, it’s time to start creating. One helpful way to get started is with a weekly or monthly plan. Not sure what to create? No problem. Contact Branding Iron and we’ll help you line out a plan for very affordable video creation and social media marketing investments.
Your first video is on us! Call us before the end of the month and we’ll create an original video for your business and show you how to use it most efficiently.
