Learn all about the top TikTok transitions that can help you go viral.
Standing at a staggering 1 billion active users, TikTok has become a mammoth of a social media platform today. After a record-breaking 2021, TikTok is killing it in 2022 too. So good that it’s hard to ignore.
Brands are leveraging TikTok more than ever so that they can directly connect with their audiences through a format they love.
So we looked into what’s trending on TikTok to identify patterns in what works and what doesn’t. And we found that content that does well is more than just around a trend, it uses seamless transitions.
Here’s everything we learned.
What are TikTok transitions?
TikTok transitions are like special effects in a video. The primary purpose of transitions is to flawlessly merge two separate video clips into one creation.
We see such transitions on Instagram too, but most of these are inspired by TikTok trends. Plus, you don’t have to film it all in one go. You can simply record and pause multiple times, and the video will look like it’s professionally edited.
As a beginner, TikTok transitions might feel hard to pull off, but once you get hold of the basics, you can always experiment and create your own magic.
These transitions have a purpose, and that is to sync the video along with the music or what the person is saying.
Transitions are also handy to reveal something new. Be it an appearance change, or to nudge that the speaker is shifting to the next topic.
When done right, TikTok transitions can make for a smart marketing strategy to boost customer engagement rates. Let’s take a look at why!
We are all guilty of scrolling through TikTok or Instagram reels. Ever wondered why? That is because they have an element of surprise, and brain scans show that humans are hard-wired to derive pleasure from unexpected events.
TikTok transitions are all about ‘What’s going to happen next?’, and that anticipation keeps us hooked for hours.
Surprises are cheap. Charm and creativity can reside in the smallest places possible. Rather than trying to overpower the competition with extravagant production budgets and media plans, you can surprise your audiences without spending a single dollar.
Surprises transform behavior. Wael Asaad, assistant professor of neurosurgery at Brown University says “It’s been known for a long time that it’s unexpected events, in particular, that drive learning,”
Since transitions have an element of surprise, there is a high probability that your audience will want to look at more TikTok videos by you. This builds a strong relationship between you and them.
For example, in the emoji makeup trend on TikTok, participants ask their audiences to choose emojis of their choice so that they can recreate them on their faces. These TikTok videos have an element of surprise, awe, and you feel like binge-watching them.
This trend can be found under the hashtags #EmojiMakeup and #EmojiMakeupChallenge.
TikTok transitions are perfect to build a high level of curiosity. Science related videos leverage the element of curiosity quite well. Tell a story and build a lot of suspense. Once your audience is curious, they will watch till the end.
For example, chemteacherphill conducts crazy experiments with chemicals, and see how they react. He also talks about each chemical and uses a simple transition method to showcase the results.
Element of emotions
Transitions are good. But how do you keep your audience hooked? By tapping into the most important aspect of their attention spans- emotion.
Your transitions should take your audiences on an emotional ride. Make them feel happy, sad, empowered, excited and more. Infact, emotional marketing makes an amazing first impression. The more emotional element you add to your transitions, the better people will remember you.
Use your transitions to tell a story. For example, if you are a travel content creator who saved up for an exotic trip to the Maldives, use the headbutt transition to reveal stunning locations, and make your audiences feel like they are with you. Add short descriptions too.
Your transitions need to be tailored as per your audience. For example, an animal shelter can create stellar TikTok transitions with the animals’ baby videos and grown up videos.
And finally measure your audience’s emotional response to your TikTok transitions by understanding how their emotions manifest into actions. Do they like your video more, share it more, or comment more.
Position your phone on a stable surface so that you can make sure that the frame doesn’t change.
Put on a timer on the right side of the screen and decide how long you want the clip to be. A good practice is to have at least 4 seconds, which can be edited later.
Now, wait for a second and snap your fingers.
After this, change your location, outfit, makeup, or anything else that you want to transition into for the final reveal.
Put on the timer again, and set it for 4 more seconds i.e. a total of 8 seconds.
Now snap your fingers as before and tap on ‘V’ to go to editing.
On the right side, you will see ‘Adjust Clips’, tap on that.
Now, tap on each clip and trim it down to the snap. Don’t forget to keep the actual sound of the snap for a more realistic effect.
Finally, tap on ‘Save’ and you’re all set!
Another alternative to snapping is hand-swiping. Just run your hand from one end of the frame to the other end.
Compared to the finger snap transition, this is slightly more complicated. In this case, you need to hold the camera, and there is no need to set up a timer.
You need to bump into the camera to prompt a new look.
Tap on record and capture a few seconds of yourself.
Drop your head and elevate your phone at the same time. Ensure that your last frame is the top of your head.
Stop the recording, and get ready for the final revelation.
Tap on record. Make sure to start with the top of your head, pull the arm down, and reveal your new look by pulling your face up.
Tap on V and go to the edit page.
Do note that your first, and the last frame, need to be on the top of your head.
The headbutt transition method has several alternatives. For example, you can flip your hair into the camera or smack the lends with your palm. The goal is to ensure that your camera is properly covered in between the takes. This transition will add a unique touch to your video because it feels like the video is shot from various angles.
Perspective Transition
Another easy to learn transition is perspective transition. Here’s how to do it:
Place your camera in front of you and start filming. As you keep looking in the front, gradually move your arm.
Face the camera for a moment and turn away.
Change what you want for the reveal. Now record again from the front, and make sure your head is to the side.
Now turn back again and look in the front.
Finally, when you edit the clips and merge them, ensure that it looks like a seamless head turn. When you edit the two clips, make sure that it looks like one smooth head turn.
With the perspective transition, you can experiment a lot. Create an illusion of multiple cameras by filming above, below, or spinning your camera. If possible, use a pop socket to keep your phone in place.
Hoodie transition and card transition are also popular amongst TikTokers.
As you master the art of these transitions, it’ll become easier to learn more transitions and create flawless TikTok videos.
You can also find a plethora of tutorials on TikTok simply by doing a hashtag search about #transitions. Under this hashtag, you can find various creators sharing their hacks and talking about the accessories they use to create their content.
Alternatively, you can use TikTok listening tools like Radarr to identify and predict trends. Learn more about it here.
Make your transitions go viral with these hacks:
Crop the video for a smoother look
Choose a plain background without any disturbance in the background
Try to keep your pose the same, and the lighting similar
Are you using TikTok for marketing your business?
Well, if you ask us, TikTok sure is one platform that is keeping a massive segment of internet users across most demographics, engaged.
So if you haven’t already, it’s time for you to get started with TikTok marketing and we have some resources to help you!
As more and more businesses go online and make use of digital channels to market themselves, it is becoming difficult to keep customers focused on your business alone.
People are busy. Time and attention spans are limited. How can your brand cut through the noise?
Community marketing.
Today, various brands are actively leveraging community marketing to connect with customers on a deeper level.
People love communities because they feel a sense of commonality. Communities help them build genuine and emotional connections with people and brands that share the same values and interests.
Community marketing is a win-win situation for both the brand and its customer, and that’s why we think it needs to be an integral part of your growth strategy.
What is Community Marketing?
Community marketing is a growth strategy that brands leverage to bring their customers together over a common topic of interest in a non-intrusive manner. Community marketing is less about the brand and more about the customers’ needs, desires, and interests.
For example, a dog food brand can create a community around dog health, adoption, or provide a platform to dog owners where they can share their dog’s cutesy moments.
Before we understand why community marketing is essential for a brand, let’s understand the psychology behind a community.
What defines a community?
A community can be defined as an exclusive space where people that share identical values and interests, feel a sense of belongingness to a common topic of interest.
Three pillars of a community are:
Connection: an innate understanding that all members of a community are connected, and are distinct from the outsiders.
Practices and habits: members of a community share certain acts and behaviors that solidify culture and the essence of a community.
Sense of responsibility: members of a community have a moral obligation that compels community members to serve each other
Why is community marketing important?
Now that we understand community and community marketing, let’s deep dive into why it is important for your brand.
1. High impact, low-cost
Building a community consists of low-cost marketing strategies like live streams, giveaways, webinars, engagement, collaborations, and social listening. These strategies are more honest as compared to flooding your customers’ feeds with rudimentary ads.
However, community building takes time and patience.
You need to constantly be at it, and gradually gain their trust by engaging in a way that makes them feel proud to be part of your community.
2. Enhanced customer experience, better ROI
86% of people are willing to pay extra for an item if the customer experience is great.
With great community management, members feel like a part of your brand, they are acknowledged, and their questions are answered quickly. Furthermore, when your community matures, a good chunk of the engagement is user-generated.
For example, old members help new members resolve any basic issues they might be facing.
3. Activates word of mouth marketing
Robust community marketing brings in meaningful exposure. A study by Nielsen revealed that 92% of people prefer to go with suggestions from friends and family, as compared to advertising.
4. Enables social listening
67% of brands utilize their communities to get insights about new launches, features, and services. Communities are like data banks. Once they increase in size, they can help with market research.
5. Retention marketing
Acquiring customers has become costlier than ever. Traditional marketing tactics are not as effective. To decrease the cost of acquiring more customers, retaining your current customers is crucial.
Community marketing is so powerful that it can support sales, marketing, and customer experience teams. Indulging in regular conversations with customers builds brand loyalty, and provides an opportunity to understand customers’ pain points, desires, and how your products/services can add value to them.
Examples of brands using community marketing
1. Nike
Nike, the world’s no. 1 sports brand worth $37B has been leveraging community marketing like a pro. Here’s how:
Nike is a mastermind at community segmentation. They have proper social media pages for each sub-community, that are based on location, interests, and gender. The brand owns around 20 such sub-communities as of now.
Every March, Nike hosts a grand event to celebrate its best-selling sneakers, AIR Max. Fans eagerly wait for this event as they get to meet fellow sneakerheads, take part in exclusive contests, workshops, and are amongst the first ones to know about future releases.
Nike repurposes user-generated-content for social proof. They use dedicated hashtags on their mobile app called SNEAKRS, share exclusive news on the latest launches, and collaborate with fellow sneaker fans.
Nike is big on customer feedback. In 2018, they announced a design contest that brought participants in droves to workshops in London, Seoul, New York City, and more. Winners got to meet the creative team of Nike at their headquarters. Another initiative by Nike called ‘Nike by you’ lets customers design their version of sneakers. This provides them insights into what customers prefer when it comes to personalization.
2. Sephora
Sephora launched their online community called ‘Beauty Talk’ which is a huge forum for users to address their concerns, share ideas, and learn about new products.
They have a beauty board too where customers can upload their pictures after using Sephora products, and link all the products they used. Basically, Sephora’s customers become their brand ambassadors without Sephora lifting a finger.
Furthermore, this becomes a holy grail for the marketing team to explore pain points, figure out what products perform better, and respond to customer queries efficiently. All in one channel.
3. Lego
Lego Ideas, a web platform initiative by Lego in 2014 has been an excellent attempt at community marketing, and to date sets a fine example.
This platform lets users share their innovative ideas for new Lego set launches and showcase their Lego unique creations. All members get to comment and vote too. Lego moderates the community in a more nuanced manner- they foster positive interactions by selecting certain ideas by members for new launches and incentivizing them.
4. Techcrunch
Community marketing works excellently when you factor in exclusivity. For instance, to keep existing subscribers engaged and draw new subscribers during COVID-19,
TechCrunch introduced Extra Crunch Live, an exclusive webinar speaker series only available for subscribers. They moved the majority of the events scheduled in 2020 to a subscription-based model.
Precisely 2 months after the launch, TechCrunch reported a mind-blowing growth of 600% year-on-year increase in the subscriptions.
5. Miyoko’s Creamery
Miyoko’s Creamery is a fully vegan dairy brand that produces various types of cheese and butter that are all plant-based. They have a Facebook group with a quirky name that goes by ‘Taste Mmmakers’ where they encourage customers to “share heart-melting stories, swap creamy recipes, enjoy delicious discounts, and be the first to know about the many exciting updates Miyoko’s has for the future.
This group connects individuals who love cooking with plant-based ingredients or are interested in veganism.
Must-haves for success in community marketing
1. Understanding your customers
Before you promote your community, it is important to create an ideal customer profile, because that has a direct impact on how active your community is. Start with a single niche.
If you are a dog food brand, try to create a community around the most relevant topic. For example, dog health. Invite vetted doctors to take webinars, educate dog owners about various dos and don’ts, and even create a FAQ segment for new dog owners.
2. Identify topics of interest
Pinpointing what your customer desires from your community can be a daunting process. Social listening is a great method to identify what they are talking about on that particular channel that you are making a community on. It also helps you keep track of competitors.
Once you get a solid idea about what your community members want, you can start creating valuable content.
3. Active monitoring
When you build a community, you need to be consistent with monitoring the conversations happening in there, so that it doesn’t get spammed by irrelevant content or gets hijacked by competitors. You also want to make sure that the conversations are active.
If you don’t monitor, you will leave your members in the lurch, which in turn will harm your brand’s reputation. This is where having a social media response strategy comes into play.
4. Objectives and goals
Each month you must set clear goals of what you want to achieve from the community marketing. For example, boost loyalty, improve CLTV, enhance the share of voice, improve customer engagement, or take feedback.
5. Optimize your strategy
\As you make use of social listening and understand how people interact in the community, you can gain insights about what works and what doesn’t. This will help you optimize your strategy for better outcomes.
Conclusion – Do you really need community marketing?
Today, brand communities have become really powerful because they tap into two essential needs of humans, i.e. social and emotional.
If you are not focussing on community marketing, you are leaving money on the table. The best place to start with your brand’s community marketing is to look into what your competitors are doing to keep the audience engaged.
This is the first part of our monthly social media marketing calendar series. Remember to subscribe to our newsletter for more!
More often than not, marketing is sporadic for businesses. Though everyone understands how important timing is when it comes to marketing, some businesses tend to follow the ‘on-the-go’ approach and miss out on many opportunities to engage their audience.
Businesses forgetting these dates is justified to some extent. After all, it can be overwhelming to plan marketing and advertising campaigns month after month.
However, this problem can be tackled smartly by having a monthly calendar of dates for your promotions.
To make things easier for you, we have come up with this marketing calendar for the month of April. It not only consists of all the significant dates but will also provide you with ideas to make it work. Enough of talks; let’s get into it!
Social media marketing calendar for April 2022
April 1 — April Fool’s Day
This has to be one of the most light-hearted days of the year– April Fool’s Day. There is no certainty on how this day originated. Some treat this day as a celebration because of the changing seasons. On the other hand, some believe that it comes from the time when the new calendar was adopted.
As a company, you should not miss an opportunity to show some marketing activity on April Fool’s Day. You can leverage social media to promote a non-existent product, post about shutting the business, play pranks on your customers, and can also arrange giveaways.
Remember the joke PayPal posted in 2018? They tweeted, saying that PayPal users will now be able to print money directly from their phones. This joke generated 5000 retweets. If only ten individuals see the retweet, PayPal targeted 50,000 people alone on Twitter. And let’s not include the news websites that reported this tweet and Facebook/Instagram pages that spread this further.
If your brand is about originality and creativity, you can generate a massive return on investment by marketing on April Fools’ Day. But be wary about the jokes you crack and not tap into something your audience is sensitive to.
April 2 — World Autism Awareness Day
World Autism Awareness Day was recognized nationally on December 18 2007. The aim was to encourage the Member States of the UN to spread awareness throughout the world about people who are going through Autism Spectrum Disorder.
In the United States, one in every 44 children is diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder. When we talk about marketing, it’s not always about putting your products in front of your audience. It is more about being in the good books of your target audience.
Autism awareness day is an excellent opportunity for you to give back to people. You can raise awareness about it or raise funds to support an organization dedicated to autism. Let your audience know that you care about them.
Moreover, autism can be your theme for the month of April. For example, if you plan to raise money, collect them throughout the month. It’ll not only increase the funds but will also help you reach more people. You’ll go a long way if you can paint the right picture of yourself in your audience’s mind.
April 5 — Deep-Dish Pizza Day
Deep Dish Pizza is one of the most popular varieties of Pizza in America. And on April 5, people get an opportunity to celebrate it. American residents are always satisfied with the Pizza irrespective of how they are eating it. Be it dine-in, delivered, take out, or homemade – it works for America.
This is a massive marketing opportunity for Pizza brands or any food company for that matter. As a pizza store, you will not have a shortage of taglines to celebrate the birthday of a thick, tasty crust filled with delicious toppings.
For other food brands, they can create a mouth-watering atmosphere for their audience by putting out recipe videos, arranging masterclasses, offering a discount, etc.
April 6 — National Walking Day
Mark the first Wednesday of April as National Walking Day. It is the day when you celebrate the easiest way to stay fit and healthy. It might not look enough, but when you consistently walk for 30 to 60 minutes every day, it improves your health drastically. It can even help prevent ailments like Type-2 Diabetes, Heart Disease, and Cancer.
Almost every industry can target this day for marketing their business. Here’s how some of them can:
Health and Wellness Industry: There are various medicines available to boost energy levels, nutritional supplements to improve fitness, etc. You can use social media to educate your audience about how your products can take customers’ fitness to the next level when consumed with regular walks and exercise.
Fashion and Tech Industry: You can encourage people to go out on a walk. What do you get out of it? When they go out on a walk, they’ll need shoes and sports clothing– that’s the market you can capture. You can also sell a problem that not knowing how much you’ve walked and how much you improve can hamper your motivation to go out every day. Hence, customers should buy your smartwatch or fitness bank to track how much they’ve walked.
Food Industry: Go with a tagline like– “Done burning all the calories? We have some healthy food to offer.” You can be creative and convince people that just walking is not enough, they’ll need a healthy diet, and that’s where you can help them.
April 10 — Siblings Day
Call them your best friends or your arch enemies – the bond of siblings is a huge part of our lives. This is the reason why we celebrate them on April 10 every year. It was Claudia Evart who created this holiday in 1995 after losing her siblings at a very young age.
If you run a business associated with families, you can make the most out of this day by reminding your customers and viewers about it. Not just a reminder, you can attract more buyers by offering two-for-one on the selected range of products. You can make male-female combos for siblings.
Moreover, you can also ask employees to bring their siblings to the office for a small party and can capture the moments and post them on social media. When you show such a positive culture, you get commitment and loyalty from employees and customers.
April 10 — National Hug Your Dog Day
Dogs deserve all the love and affection that we can give them. And it’s no surprise that we have a day dedicated to hugging our dogs- The National Hug Your Dog Day. When you hug your dog tightly, it releases a hormone called ‘oxytocin’ in you and your dog. This hormone is basically a love drug that strengthens your bond with the dog.
Are you a part of the petconomy? If yes, you cannot miss telling the world how badly you stand for hugging pets (not just dogs). Moreover, it is not necessary to be from the pet industry to treat this day as a marketing opportunity. If you are a company following the pet-friendly office culture, this is the perfect day for you to boast about it on the internet.
When you make your office pet-friendly, you get more talented candidates that you were initially missing out on. There’s no better occasion than this to express your pleasurable attitude to our furry friends.
April 12 — National Grilled Cheese Sandwich Day
When you ask people of the United States to make a list of top comfort foods, Grilled Cheese Sandwich will be a part of almost every list. April 12 is the day recognized for bread grilled to perfection with warm, gooey, and melted cheese.
Another gold mine for the food industry. People love stories, and it’s a form of shareable content. You can educate them with the story of how the sandwich was popularized in 1762 as a quick snack during a card game. This is a lesser-known fact that most viewers will share within their circle, and hence your brand will catch more eyes.
If you are a restaurant owner, what you can instead do is run an offer like– “Eat One Sandwich, We’ll Pack One For Free!” You’ll see a massive boost in sales. And if people like the taste, they’ll definitely buy more and visit again.
April 17 — Easter
Easter is one of the principal holidays of Christianity. Three days after his death by Crucifixion, Easter marks the resurrection of Jesus. It is essential to know that the exact date of Easter changes every year. However, the definite period in which it occurs is March 22 to April 25.
You can use your social media accounts to create interactive (where you assign tasks) Easter giveaways. If you manage to have a good giveaway idea, you’ll be able to increase your brand awareness. When someone from the audience finishes the task, you can appreciate them, and this appreciation won’t go unnoticed.
Some of the things that you can include in the giveaway are recipe booklets of famous and traditional Easter meals, a box of bunny chocolates, a toolkit for Easter egg decoration, and other Easter-themed items. Including these items will surely make the giveaway more interesting.
April 18 — Tax Day
The US residents mark the deadline to file the income tax details as the Tax Day. They have to inform the IRS of all the income they received in the previous fiscal year. The date lies somewhere on and around April 15. However, the date can be extended to accommodate extreme weather conditions or holidays.
This is a terrific day for you to collaborate with finance companies and create something extraordinary for your customers. Take an example of The Times-News. They launched a free tax preparation sweepstake by collaborating with E & R Financial Solutions and Harrington Income Tax Service. The price included a $25 gift card and a free tax preparation. This promotional campaign drove wonderful results.
Creativity and innovation play a significant role in all aspects of human development. And the United Nations aims to raise awareness about it by celebrating World Creativity and Innovation Day on April 21. The UN is emphasizing it because innovation and creativity do not only yield economic value but are also the driving factors for social development.
You can celebrate this way with your audience by educating them about why sustainable development of humanity is needed if we want long-term success. You can host a seminar/webinar for this one, where you can share how you are relying on innovation and creativity to opt for sustainable development in your industry.
Moreover, if you are a SaaS brand, this is a great day to put yourself out there in public. You can flaunt your advanced and innovative technology to spread awareness about your brand.
April 22 — Earth Day
This is an amazing planet we live on, but it needs our help to thrive sustainably. That’s why on April 22, billions of people come together to celebrate Earth Day, aiming to protect our planet from deforestation and pollution. People across the world participate in various activities like planting trees, cleaning their residential area, etc.
You can launch a campaign where for every purchase a customer makes on April 22, you’ll plant a tree. This will definitely bring a boost to your sales. And on top of that, you’ll be doing some good work. Moreover, you can use quirky captions for your social media channels. Something like– “Thanks Earth, you rock!”
April 30 — Hairstylist Appreciation Day
Tipping hairstylists for their work is one thing, but if you genuinely want to make them feel appreciated for what they do, don’t forget to acknowledge National Hairstylist Appreciation Day. This day is not at all about bold and quirky hairstyles. It is more about the people who are behind them. It is about the people who make you look glamorous and help you feel confident.
This day has the potential to generate massive ROI, especially for companies of the beauty and cosmetic industry. If you are one of those, you can go out on your social media handles to thank the hairstylists for using your products. You must understand that when a beauty professional uses your brand, it becomes more credible for the individual users. You can give extra discounts to these professionals and encourage them to use your products.
Just Keeping Tab on Dates Is Not Enough
Keeping a tab on important dates does wonders, but it’s not enough if you want to unlock the true potential of marketing. You can make your marketing campaigns much more effective by listening to social media.
Social listening helps you identify what your target audience is engaging with. You can find out the trends they like being a part of and the ones that are not working for them. When you know a particular trend is working for them, you can put more effort to cash in on it.
For example, if your brand deals with a teenage audience, you’re more likely to attract a larger audience on April Fools’ day. On the other hand, health care professionals will be more interested in campaigns on World Autism Awareness and national walking day.
You can use Radarr, a social listening tool, to find out what your audience has to say about the ongoing trends in the market. Your marketing will become relatable to the majority once you understand what the audience expects from you. Social listening improves your digital marketing strategies and results, and there’s no question about it.
When you ask how important it is for businesses to have a robust video marketing strategy, the one-word answer is always going to be “very”.
We are currently in the new era of marketing. And in this era, visually oriented content trumps everything else because of its ability to create hooks easily.
In the past few years, the average video consumption time of individuals has increased drastically. A statistic by Invideo claims that 96% of the consumers increased their online video consumption in the year 2020. Invideo also says 9 out of every 10 customers showed the desire to see more video content from businesses and brands, as compared to other formats.
With such an increase in the consumption of videos, it is not one part of the marketing strategy anymore. It is the center of outreach efforts, especially on social media.
Marketing this format of content, however, is completely different. You have to stick to trends and the expectations that your audience have from you. Getting started with video marketing can be really challenging in its initial phase. But that’s where persistence and we come in.
In this video marketing guide, you’ll learn all about video marketing, from its definition to how you can create a strategy that generates massive ROI. We’ll make things a little easier for you by providing seven tips for a good video marketing strategy too.
What Is Video Marketing?
There’s a popular saying in the digital marketing industry that an image is worth a thousand words. To put things in perspective, a good quality video has at least 30 frames per second. You can replace tens of thousands of words with a really short video. That’s how impactful a video is. The impact that a video can potentially create is the base for video marketing.
Using video to promote your business, tell your audience about your products, and engage with them is called video marketing. It not only increases engagement but also educates your audience present on the channel via different mediums. It can also serve as a medium to build customer rapport, promote valuable customer testimonials, stream live events, and post entertaining content.
What Is a Video Marketing Strategy?
You might be using videos for ages to promote your brand or might have just stepped in, but all of it is the same if you don’t know where you’re heading with your videos. You need a proper outline of the road map to take the right actions, proper metrics to measure the success of your video marketing campaigns, this is what having a video marketing strategy is.
Video content marketing strategy is as essential as execution. A robust road map ensures that you are aware of the return on investment (ROI) your video content is generating for you. It also helps in determining which videos are working for you and which are not. A video marketing strategy organizes tasks for you to reach your goals seamlessly and also aligns your video content with the real brand objective.
Why Do You Need Videos in a Marketing Strategy?
There’s no content medium that is more powerful for storytelling than a video. It is one of the best ways to build a deeper relationship with your target audience. To prove the fact that video has to be an irreplaceable part of your content marketing strategy, we have a list of statistics to share. Take a look:
According to Cisco, in 2022, more than 82% of all consumer internet traffic will be generated via online videos, and this number is 15 times higher than what it was in 2017. In fact, around 85% of the internet users (as of January 2018) in the United States watched a mobile video on any of their devices.
The online video stats show that consumers love video marketing. An OptinMonster statistic suggests that 72% of the customers find it convenient to learn about a product or service with a video. The same survey stated that 84% of these customers are convinced to buy a product/service after watching the video posted by the company/brand.
As far as social media sites are concerned, the stats show that the users are responding in the affirmative. Facebook gets more than 8 billion video views daily. In its first year, the newcomer TikTok got an average of 1 million video views per day. Twitter claims that a video is retweeted six times more than a photo or a no-media tweet. On YouTube, users upload 500 hours of video content every minute, and the average per day video consumption on this platform is around 1 billion hours per day. In short, social media craves video.
When viewers read a text, they are only able to retain 10% of the complete information. In comparison to this, video viewers retain 95% of the message shared in the video. (Insivia)
Wyzowl published the State of Video Marketing report in 2020, in which it was mentioned that 86% of businesses use video as a marketing tool. The number is 63% higher than the past couple of years.
40% of the shoppers across the world said that they had made many purchases after discovering the product in Youtube videos. (Think with Google, 2018)
According to Wyzowl, the percentage of marketers who consider video to be an irreplaceable part of their marketing strategy has increased consistently in the past few years. It 82% in 2017, 85% in 2018, 91% in 2019, and 91% in 2020.
Source: Wyzowl
In other words, this is the right time for you to create a video marketing strategy on social media that can bring leads and improve the conversion rate. In the next section, we’ll share a seven-step video marketing strategy template to help you create one that works the best for you.
How To Get Started With a Video Marketing Strategy?
Are you starting your video marketing journey from scratch? No worries, you can still make it intentional from day one. With its help, you can bring rope in more qualified leads in your sales funnel. It is essential that your videos serve a purpose. And instead of just building excitement, it should produce measurable outcomes.
Here’s our 7-step guide that deals with all the fundamental elements of video marketing strategy:
1. Set Clear Goals
The first step, not just for video marketing but for any other form of marketing, is to set goals. Establish what you want to accomplish with your videos in the initial stages. In the beginning, you should set a fewer number of goals (easily achievable) so that you don’t get overwhelmed.
While setting up the goals, you’ll want to target all the stages of the marketing funnel. However, it is essential to target the most important stage when you’re starting out. You can’t expect people to purchase your product when they don’t even know your brand. So, in this case, the first step would be to create brand awareness.
Source: Lemonlight
You can create a video for the awareness stage if you want to attract a new set of customers to your brand. The video you create for this stage of the funnel should show your viewers the problem they are facing and how you can solve it for them.
In the next stage of the funnel, the consideration stage, viewers consider that their problem needs a solution and hence are looking for ways to solve it. The more you engage with them, the more likely they are to move forward with you. For the consideration stage, create videos to engage with the customers so that you stay on top of their minds.
Similarly, you can set goals for the other stages of the funnel as well. When you create funnel-specific videos, you’ll be able to put in a better and more relatable CTA. Moreover, setting goals for your video marketing strategy will ensure that you are on the right path.
2. Decide on Platforms
Videos come in different dimensions and run time on different platforms. While there are some older platforms like Facebook and Instagram that offer several types of videos, the newer ones, TikTok and Snapchat, are strictly sticking to one format only. This multifaceted nature of video-sharing platforms has made it essential to determine which one will align the best with your marketing goals.
Your video quality should be top-notch. That is the primary reason why it is advised to start with the most compatible platform. When you post on the most compatible platform, you’ll see your content getting detached from others, leading to incredible output.
The secret behind every successful video marketing campaign is that all the videos are posted on the platform where the majority of the target audience is present. Being partial towards a platform or selecting the one that you like will lead to an ineffective campaign.
3. Social Listening
Knowing what users are saying about your brand on different social media platforms can help you create more engaging and relevant content with a higher chance of going viral. This is where social listening comes into the picture.
You should listen to your audience present on social media, monitor their conversations, and engage with them to understand what type of content they want from you. If people do not like some videos, you should avoid posting such content. Instead, look at the posts where your audience has posted positive comments and take inspiration from them. It helps you avoid the ongoing trends that your audience doesn’t like and allows you to jump on the trends your audience might like.
Moreover, social listening can also help you determine which stage of your buyers’ journey needs the most attention. For example, if someone is in the consideration stage, you can look at their conversation and analyze what their views are about your videos that introduce your products or services to new customers.
Simply said, social listening gives you access to lots of valuable insights and data, which can come in handy for improving your video marketing game. There are tools like Radarr that helps you listen to your target audience on various video marketing platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. The best part is that you can see all the insights, from every platform, on a single dashboard.
There are various types of videos that you can post on different social media platforms, and all of them serve a different purpose. Irrespective of the type of video you post, the video should align well with your overall content marketing strategy.
Identifying what type of video you should post for your marketing strategy is a crucial step. Because it’s the type of video that determines the set of audience that’ll engage with it. You don’t have to make videos of the same type throughout your video marketing campaign, but it should always bring value to the audience.
Here are some types of videos can you can consider making:
Educational: These videos educate your audience about your products and the problems they can solve. Aiming to establish the brand as an expert, the tone of these videos are not casual; it is more on the polished side.
Behind-the-scenes: These videos give an inside look into how the company operates and how the employee works. Looking at the workplace environment, the audience finds it easier to connect with the brand. These videos are mainly to entertain the audience and build a connection.
Interviews: Interview videos are a great way to not only introduce your company to the users but also introduce new guests. These guests can be someone from your industry or even your employees. Your brand appears more authentic when you post such videos.
Testimonials: These videos are for people who like your product but just need a little proof that it actually does what you’re saying. Video testimonials are the best form of social proof you can post for your company, culture, products, or services. In most cases, if the story shared in the testimonial is good, the customers are persuaded to make the purchase.
It is, however, essential to not jump to every type of video at once. For sure, all of them are important for your video marketing strategy, but selecting the video types based on the resources available is an ideal way to go forward.
5. Plan Production
You just can’t get up and post videos for your marketing strategy. There has to be a pre and post-production plan in place. You can get rid of all these production tasks if you just hire an agency or video production company to take care of your video filming and editing tasks. You’ll give the instructions, and the company will handle the rest.
But if you are planning to do all the production work on your own, you’ll need to plan every step for perfect execution. Here are the steps you need to take care of:
Buying all the required pieces of equipment and props
Writing and editing the script
Storyboarding the video
Planning the schedule for the shoot so that the people in the video don’t have additional work at the time of the shoot
Gathering the right set of people to get featured
Selecting the place for the shoot to happen
Taking care of the lighting
Need people to approve each step. For example, you can’t just write a script and shoot it. There have to be people to check if the tone of the script is right. If it conveys the right message, then it can be approved!
Keep in mind, these are only some of the many things you’ll need to take care of. And it only includes the pre-production part. Once all the steps of pre-production are managed, you’ll have post-production to deal with. The point is, the video you post should be completely polished and optimized for audio, visuals, and words.
6. Schedule and Promote Videos
Moving on, after getting done with your video creation process, you should put all your focus on scheduling and promoting it on your decided platforms. As far as scheduling is concerned, you have to plan it in a way that your content keeps appearing even after weeks of your first post.
For example, you can retweet the same content many times on Twitter. On Instagram, you can share the video post again and again in your story. And as for live streams, to ensure that the maximum audience joins the chat, you’ll have to promote it quite often.
Your one shooting can generate a lot of content. You can repurpose it, or slice and chop to form new content out of it. You just have to be creative while promoting video content.
7. Understand Their Performance
Your job is not finished after posting the videos; you also have to keep analyzing how the video is performing on different social media channels. The statistics associated with the video, like the number of views, watch time, the number of likes and shares, types of comments, etc., will tell you all about the performance.
Every social media platform has its native analytics dashboard that tells you how your video is performing. You should analyze if the performance of the video aligns with your goals or not. You should even keep tabs on the older videos. If you have used the right keyword in the video and have picked the right topic, it can stay relevant to the audience even after a couple of years.
The above template is just one of the video marketing strategy examples. Your format and way of organizing things can be a little different based on your industry, but the foundation is still the same. That said, here are seven valuable tips that can increase the effectiveness of your video marketing strategy:
1. Start With the Right Channel
As we have mentioned already, it is best to start with the channel that has the majority of your target audience. According to Statista, the audience on Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat spend around half of their time watching videos on the platform. You can choose any of the three, depending on the age category you’re targeting. And since all the platforms have different sets of guidelines for content size, time, and format– it’s best to pick the channel that’s most compatible with your business.
2. Use Storytelling
Social media users will watch your videos only if it creates some value for them. If your video is all about you and your company, the audience is more likely to ignore it. The video content that works the best has a story that viewers can connect with. The more relatable content you put on social media, the more keen audience will be to know and connect with you.
New trends bring an opportunity to attract more audiences with your videos. However, there can be some totally unrelated trends, and if you become a part of it, your audience might not like it. Instead of force-fitting yourself, pick the trends that go well with your business.
Amalgamate your content with emotions that people have for your brand. But how can you use those emotions if you have no idea what people feel about your brand? This is where sentiment analysis comes into the picture.
Radarr, the social listening tool, also offers the feature of sentiment analysis which helps you find out the intent and sentiment behind the content posted online. You can use this feature on the conversations generated by your videos and find out how the audience is feeling about it.
5. Adopt and Ditch Platforms When Needed
There are enough analytics tools available in the market that can easily tell you which platform works for you and which is the one you should leave instantly. If some platform is not generating enough ROI, it’s a waste of your time and effort. Don’t drag your feet into something that is not good for your business. Instead, you can put extra effort into a platform that generates good ROI.
6. Shorter the Better
What would you like more– appearing in front of people for a significant amount of time on one day or keep popping up in front of their eyes every other day? Most of you, and wisely so, will choose to appear in front of your audience every day. So instead of packing one video with everything you have to share, split it into parts and share ten videos in place of one. Moreover, the shorter your videos are, the more your audience will engage with them.
7. Put CTA at the Right Place
Yes, it is a different format of content, but your audience still needs to know what they have to do next. So, having a clear CTA is mandatory. But just having it is not enough. You must ensure that you position it carefully. A study by Wistia found out that CTAs in the middle of the video are most effective and have the highest rate of conversion.
8. Engage With Your Audience
The rules of the best-performing content don’t change for videos too. If you want your videos to create a ripple effect, you should focus on monitoring the response on videos. This means keeping a tab on conversations around the videos and the comments it receives, and responding to them in a timely manner. This is where having a social media response strategy comes in.
Conclusion
Video marketing is not a choice anymore, it’s a must-do practice to stay relevant in the market.
And your decision to use video for marketing has already increased your chances to have a genuine and emotional connection with your target audience. This connection on its own is enough to increase your sales.
But getting started with video marketing requires following a strategic approach. That’s why your first step to video marketing, needs to be social listening.
Competitor analysis is an essential part of any business’s marketing efforts. It allows you to determine your opponents’ strengths and weaknesses so that you can stay ahead of the game.
The fact of the matter is that competition increases every day. There are always at least a handful of other businesses that are targeting a common audience with the same or similar products/ services. So, to position yourself better in the marketplace, it is important to conduct a timely competitor analysis.
In this article, we will look at what competitor analysis is and how to conduct a thorough one to stay ahead of the curve.
What is competitor analysis?
Competitive analysis requires paying close attention to your competitor’s products and services, as well as their market share, marketing strategies, sales tactics, and overall performance.
Researching these details will help you identify ways of deterring the competition from taking away the current share of your target market. Although this strategy involves a lot of research, putting into careful consideration what information you will use to win over customers is highly beneficial in the long run.
Analyzing your competition can be very valuable. It can help you to better understand how they function as a business and spot opportunities where you can outperform them. Thinking about the way your competitors operate can also enable you to stay up-to-date on trends in the industry.
For example, if there’s been a recent shift in the way consumers use the product or service you both offer, analyzing their strategies might give you some insight into how best to appeal to your own demographic.
How to conduct a thorough competitor analysis?
Here are the top 4 areas you should be looking at to conduct a thorough competitor analysis– business, product, customers and marketing.
Business metrics
Under this section, you will try to get an understanding of a business’s company overview, funding and revenue.
Company
To get an overview of the company, you will need to know the names of the CEO and other important members, the founding year, global office locations, number of employees, etc. This information is generally available on the company’s website. However, you can also go through their LinkedIn profile to know what job openings they have, employee profiles, etc.
Getting an understanding of the positions they are hiring for or the employees they have hired will provide you with an understanding of their focus. You can also review their Glassdoor ratings to get anonymous ratings of their company’s culture, pay, and management.
Funding
Figuring out the amount, dates and investors your competition has received funding from is a key step in case you are planning on raising capital. Try not to approach the same venture capitalists (VCs) your competitors have received funding from since they may turn you down due to a conflict of interest.
Revenue
This is a significant area to track down. You must religiously follow your competitor’s revenue and the number of customers to gauge the level of competition your brand is facing. While it will be easy to find some of this information on Google, for others, you may want to set up alerts of interviews and press releases.
Another way to get an estimate of your competitor’s revenue is to apply the formula given by Jason Lemkin from SaaStr.
Revenue estimate = Number of employees * $150,000 (or $200,000 if modestly funded)
These 3 pointers under the business metrics will offer you decent benchmarks for your brand’s growth.
Product
When doing an analysis of a competitor’s product or services, the important factors to consider are features, pricing, benefits and technology.
Features
In this segment, you will analyze the features of the product or service your competitor has to offer. You should have a detailed understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of each feature and how you can incorporate that in your own product or service to provide premium service.
Pricing
You may either get this information on their website or by contacting their sales representative. Try to figure out if they provide discounts to particular segments or if they provide a premium or affordable pricing for their product. Try to come up with monthly or annual plans that offer competitive pricing to seize more opportunities.
Benefits
What benefit does a customer get from opting for your competitor’s product? Analyze the perks like free trials, freemium versions or other free tools customers receive access to upon subscription.
Technology
There are free tools available that let you analyze the tech stack your competitors use. Right from the technology their website uses to plugins, analytics systems and CRMs, you can access it all.
Customer awareness
In this section, you will try to chalk down your competitor’s share of voice (SoV), sentiment, key topics, geography and social media platforms they are active on.
Share of voice
You must try to measure your competitor’s share of voice to gauge the number of mentions they are receiving on social media and other web platforms to know where you rank. Turn on alerts for any brand you may consider your competitor and see how your SoV grows over time in comparison to theirs.
Measuring sentiment is a crucial factor when it comes to competitor analysis. It doesn’t matter if your competitor is being spoken about. It could be that their audience is not responding positively to them. It could be that their customers are not happy with their customer service or product features.
Understanding the sentiment behind these mentions will help you position your product better in the market since you will have a benchmark.
You can keep a track of the key topics being discussed by using social listening tools. It will give you a detailed analysis of what is being spoken about and how your team of marketers can work towards filling that gap.
Geography
Knowing the locations of the mentions your competitor is receiving will help you understand their current markets and a rise of mentions in new areas could give you an idea of the markets they are trying to enter. Keep a track of any changes you may notice to know their market focus.
Social media
You can draw up a comparison report to understand which platform your competitor’s audience frequents the most. Otherwise, you can also try to utilize social media platforms they are not leveraging yet and become the voice of authority there.
Under the marketing analysis, you will need to estimate your competitor’s SEO, social media, advertising, influencer program, content marketing, customer acquisition, sales, customer service and strengths.
SEO
This is crucial when it comes to leaving a digital footprint. The two things to consider here are the keywords your competitor is ranking on and the backlinks they have received. Use the keywords to make your keyword strategy and the backlinks for being linked on authoritative websites in your niche.
Social media
What platforms are your competitors actively using? How many followers do they have? Are their posts receiving good engagement? Have you built a strong community online? Gaining insights on these questions and more will guide you to create a robust social media strategy.
Advertising
Enter your competitor’s URL on any website analyser tool to ascertain if they have any running ads or what keywords they are targeting. You can also get an understanding of which platforms are bringing them the most traffic. You can then reach out to authoritative platforms to know the criteria for sponsored posts.
Influencer program
It is hard to ignore the value of influencer marketing. During your analysis, it will be beneficial to know if your competitors have partnered with certain influencers to reach a wider audience. An influencer could be anyone from a single entity to a website that holds authority in your industry. Right from sponsored posts to guest blogs and media houses, try to get as much information as possible and pitch to relevant people there.
Content marketing
There are many free tools available online to analyze your competitor’s content strategy. Tools like Radarr show you which of their blog posts were shared the most so you can alter your content marketing strategy to reach a similar audience. It also helps you uncover topics that your audience cares about, but hasn’t gotten enough content around.
Customer acquisition
Here you will examine if they attend and exhibit their product at conferences, sponsor them, or even have an affiliate program to acquire customers. You can also check if they have a referral program in place to incentivize their customers or if they use other novel tactics.
Sales
Do your competitors conduct product demos? If so, try to book one. Understand their process and any strengths you can implement or weaknesses you can leverage to better your sales strategy.
Customer service goes a long way in retaining clients. Determine the strategies your competitors are using to improve your own. Check whether they have a live chat option or their website or if they provide customer service over emails and phone calls. You could even check their response time on these channels and social media.
Finally, jot down any notable feature that gives your competitors’ an edge in the market. This could be an experienced CEO with authority in the industry, well-renowned marketers or even top influencers.
With the above research, you may notice peculiar patterns that help them add value to customers. You could try to mimic this and execute it even better than them.
Foolproof your competitor analysis with social listening
Once you’ve completed the above steps, your next step is to focus your attention on validating the insights. Here is where social listening enters the picture.
‘Social listening‘ is the process of using social media platforms to track, measure, and evaluate the audience’s behavior and engagement with a brand, so that you know more about your target consumers.
With social listening, brands can get a sense of how favored they are relative to their competitors. When establishing benchmarks for a share of voice, companies will have a better idea about where they stand in the competition and see who is winning in the online conversation.
In order to stay ahead of the competition while also staying true to your brand image, it’s vital that you make use of social listening to ensure that you’re connecting with your clients in a way that portrays your company in an authentic and personable way.
While trust is a key factor when it comes to any sort of business transaction, social media can help build up its presence as well as maintain it through conversation starters, encouraging customer feedback, and cultivating long-term relationships.
A good social listening tool will equip you with a sentiment analysis tool that helps you dig deep into conversations to uncover how people ‘feel’ about the brand or topic in question. This is an added layer to add to your competitor analysis since it can give you insights into what the audience feels about your competition. This way you can actually create clever campaigns centered entirely around your target demographic and the angle you can best play to form an emotional connection with them.
While trends may come and go, your emotional connection with the masses may be the factor that sets your brand apart.
Summing up
Whatever business you’re in, staying on top of the competition is essential. There are always going to be competitors out there who want a piece of your pie. If you want to maintain your lead, or even grow your business, this is something that you can’t afford to ignore. Use the steps above as a starting point for conducting a competitor analysis and soon you will be able to beat out the competition.
Remember it’s not just a matter of compiling the data; you’re analyzing it and then taking action on what you’ve learned.
A good competitor analysis makes you more aware of your weaknesses, gives you insight into your strengths, and helps you persuade other people that your product and/or service is an excellent fit for them. This proves to be especially helpful if you have to get an edge over competitors in fast-moving markets.
Ready to foolproof your competitor analysis? Bring all your data onto one dashboard with a social listening tool.
