How To Market Your Video

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How To Market Your Video
So you had a video made, or you made one yourself, you are really happy with it but obviously that isn’t enough. How do you get it to your target market?

Luckily for you there is literally an endless number of delivery methods. Presumably if you wanted your video for distribution on a medium like TV or as an ad in a cinema you would have stipulated this before having the video produced so that the exact specifications for these formats would have been adhered to at a production level.

For the sake of this article then we’ll forget about TV and cinema.

Don’t worry, there are still copious numbers of options for distributing your video. Many clients forget about distribution after completion and the possible additional costs this could incur. Obviously it is best to work out your available budgets for production and distribution before having the video produced. Many video production companies will be happy to give you your completed video and send you on your way, we at Superveillance see this as half a job, after all it is in our benefit for you to get as many views as possible!




 

Video Hosting

Youtube

Time after time we see people with great videos upload them to youtube expecting them to magically gain views and subscribers, without fail this ends in disappointment. According to Youtubes own statistics 100 hours of video is uploaded to youtube every minute! Now although this is a mind bending stat, good use of title, description and tags can help your video shine through, at least for your desired search terms. Since Youtube was bought by Google, Youtube videos have featured heavily in Google search results, which is one of the biggest advantages of using Youtube for SEO over other providers such as Vimeo. Depending on your product and target market it may be worthwhile using your video as an advert on Youtube, meaning it will play before videos relevant to your target market.

Other reasons to use youtube are;

  • There are millions of users – and so a huge potential audience for your videos
  • You can earn revenue from advertising with the Partner Program (if you want ads on your video, for the most part we don’t recommend this, ask for more details.)
  • FREE Hosting and video uploads
  • YouTube works as a search engine – meaning that more people looking for services or products similar to yours can potentially find your videos and website via YouTube
  • YouTube allows for commercial content
  • You have access to a number of analytics statistics associated with your videos / channel
  • Fast video delivery and quick playback with top notch video services

It’s only right we post some cons too;

  • Having millions of users can mean that your videos get lost within the masses of videos available
  • YouTube places adverts on and around almost all of their videos, disturbing the video viewing process
  • YouTube have their own branding on their player, which you cannot remove even when embedded in your own website
  • Laws and regulations mean that your videos can be removed at any time, should a user complain about them – you have a lack of control
  • Related videos can mean that you lose traffic to competitors
  • There are a limited number of player templates to choose from when uploading your videos
  • Most video uploads are limited to 15 minutes
  • We think it looks cheap when compared to other embedding options

 

Vimeo

Vimeo is also free to upload to but they don’t like commercial videos unless you have a pro account, although it isn’t rigorously policed. We always use Vimeo for embedding video into our webpages. With a pro account ($199.99 / year) you can alter the colours of the player, remove the Vimeo logo, choose to have the videos title on the video and choose to have your logo on there too if you like.





More Pro’s;

  • There are a growing number of members, increasing the number of potential visitors to your videos
  • Vimeo content can rank well within Google search results, if your videos are optimised correctly

Some cons;

  • There is a limit to the amount of content you upload, unless you pay for a Pro account
  • Vimeo doesn’t like commercial content, unless you are a relatively small production company – otherwise you must again pay for a Pro account
  • With a smaller number of users than YouTube, less people are likely to view your video
  • Slow upload times and only one HD video upload allowed per week – unless you have a Pro account
  • You can’t track the amount of time of videos viewed in Analytics.

 

Social Networks

There are a lot of social networks, each with their own merits, I will concentrate on a few of the bigger ones for now.

Facebook

It used to be that you put a post on Facebook page or group and all of the people who liked you page or group saw that post, well not any more. Facebook have made it so that only a tiny number of your brands fans will now see your posts, unless you pay for them. For example we currently have 1500 likes on our Superveillance Facebook page a recent post with no sponsorship only reached 31 people! A recent sponsored post which cost £20 reached 13,500 people and garnered numerous click throughs and likes. The added bonus of promoting your posts on Facebook is the control over the types of people who see the post, you aren’t just limited to your current likes, you have control over metrics such as interest, area, gender, age range and even marital status, so although it is taking the mick that they took away the full functionality of pages it is worth paying for the sponsored posts.

Other options for Facebook ads include ads for your page which appear to the right of the feed, click through rates for these ads aren’t as high as sponsored posts though.




 

Twitter

I was recently told that Twitter can feel like shouting into a crowded bar and leaving again, I certainly echo this sentiment. Twitter requires high maintenance for you to stay relevant as well as clever uses of hash tags and timing of posts. The benefit of Twitter over Facebook is that when you Tweet something all of your followers see that tweet, but depending on how many people your followers follow it can easily get lost in their feed. Twitter recently introduced a promoted tweet function. Similar to Facebooks sponsored post Twitter gives you a lot of control of the metrics of who will see these sponsored tweets. Here is more information on promoted tweets.

 

Pinterest

According to Wired Pinterest recently became more popular for sharing content than email. Pinterest is an image sharing website, images include video though. Pinterest users share everything from photos of celebrities to ideas for weddings. Their users are mostly female so if your target market is female and are into artistic past times or business then it may be well worth looking to Pinterest to advertise your video. The only video we have had much success with on Pinterest was a video we made of a hair show.

Pinterest have only just started to experiment with a Facebook and Twitter style sponsored approach, ingeniously entitled Sponsored Pins, they will have to be pretty unobtrusive though so as not to upset Pinterests very individual aesthetic.

 

Linkedin

Linkedin is primarily a business to business social network and a great place to find potential leads as well as jobs. If your product or service is aimed at other businesses it is certainly worth checking out. Linkedin is free but with paid accounts you get a lot more out of the service.

Here is an article with more information on the different packages available

Like the other social networks Linkedin has a paid ad system called “Targeted Advertising”, this includes a video ad system, when combined with their precision targeting it could make for a very powerful online tool for B2B advertising.

 

Stumbleupon

Stumbleupon is basically a filter for the internet, when you sign up you tick certain boxes you are interested in, ranging from anything like engineering to photography through to chemistry and piercing. When you click the Stumble button you will be taken to a random website fitting one of your interests. Anyone can submit a page to Stumbleupon but if it receives too many dislikes it will be removed. Stumbleupon also have a Paid Discovery ad system where you can choose who sees your content.





 

Direct Marketing

Email

There are a lot of mailing list providers out there, three of the big ones are Your Mailing List Provider, Mailchimp and Constant Contact all give you great design capabilities as well as analytic style feedback on your mailouts, including who opened your email, how long they spent reading it, their location and which links they clicked. The problem with mail outs is obviously that you need peoples email addresses to send them to, and unless there are hundreds of them you can just send them from your email account anyway. Another problem with mailing list providers is they may be automatically blocked by certain organisations mail servers, such as educational institutions or big companies.

 

Physical Media

DVD & Bluray

Many say that video in a physical format is a lost cause, and for the most case they are right. However if for example your video is targeted specifically at the elderly for example dvd production and distribution may still be a viable option. Similarly people still like to be physically handed things, perhaps your DVD or Bluray could be used at networking events or conferences, packaging is key here though.

 

Others

There are a host of other methods to get your video in front of your desired clients, here are a few.

So there you go, that’s a brief overview of some of the options available. Remember Superveillance can help you with all of the above possible delivery methods as well as ensuring your ads or mailouts are designed correctly. Get in touch via our contact page for more information.







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