Nick BuchheitCreating video content to help market your brand is a no-brainer. Viewers feel a more personal connection to your message when you’ve crafted meaningful content for them to consume. In fact, 76% of marketers believe that social media videos are more effective than any other marketing technique.
However, the world of social media video marketing is fast-paced. Trends come and go faster than you can create new content, and it can feel impossible to keep up. With each new trend coming on the heels of the others, you have to jump aboard before it’s already passé.
Keeping up with social media video trends presents a big challenge for marketing teams, and it’s about more than just TikTok dances and memes. To capitalize on the most important social video channels, you’ll need to focus on creating content that fits their format, video length, and platform.
Deciding whether to focus on keeping up with social media video trends or not is just the first step in the journey. Meeting your audience where they are can make targeting and converting your viewers into customers that much faster. When done well, it’s a natural extension of your brand.
With the right perspective, your marketing team will have an agile tool to reach viewers in a personal and meaningful way.
Knowledge Is Power: Understanding Social Media Platforms Is Essential
According to Forbes.com, nearly half the world’s population uses social media. Before you set your video marketing team loose in the social media jungle, get to know the lay of the land. Focusing on the right platforms to reach your audience can make all the difference, so you’re not wasting your marketing dollars.
To get the best ROI on your video content, focus on platforms that place a high value on visual content. These include:
- Facebook – 3.05 billing monthly active users
- YouTube – 2.49 billion monthly active users
- Instagram – 2.04 billion monthly active users
- TikTok – 1.22 billion monthly active users
Clearly, social media video marketing is a powerful tool that allows you to reach a massive potential audience. If you can stop them from scrolling past, you’ve got an audience that’s ready to engage.
Social Media Trends to Watch in 2024
As mentioned above, social media video trends are about more than viral videos and memes. Different types of content play better on different platforms. You should consider tailoring your strategy to focus on how each lends itself to different types of content.
Short-form videos on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube Shorts receive 2.5 times more engagement than longer videos. Instead of investing time in a long video, viewers prefer to get as much information as they can fast. More than just a glorified commercial, your short-form videos can help educate your customers through microlearning. This content strategy also lets you position your brand as a thought leader in your industry.
Authenticity is one of the key factors that viewers look for in social media video content. By creating content that reflects the human face of your brand, you connect with viewers and make them advocates for your brand. One way to do that is through behind-the-scenes videos, our next trend to watch. From beginning to end, capturing your process gives an insider’s view that customers love.
User-generated content (UGC) is a growing social media video marketing segment that feels authentic to many viewers. Even when working with influencers, you forge a connection between “real people” and your brand.
Accessibility features like captions and subtitles aren’t just for those who are hard of hearing. Many viewers watch videos silently on their phones, and including captions ensures everyone can enjoy your content.
These are some of the 2024 video trends to pay attention to. Incorporating these into your social media video strategy can make all the difference in increasing engagement.
Rely On Your Marketing Team To Stay On Top Of Social Video Trends
Trust your marketing directors, creatives, and social media managers when it comes to keeping up with changes in social media trends. They’re the ones planning and executing the content and usually have access to performance data.
They know and understand these platforms and trends and know what is required to succeed. Allow them to explore, experiment, and trust their judgment. After all, you hired them for their expertise!
If you don’t have an in-house creative team that’s generating content for your social media channels, consider hiring a video production company. These experts have the skills and knowledge to guide you to social media success!
Don’t Expect Every Video To Go Viral
Creating a piece of content that blows up is fantastic. But social media trends and engagement are unpredictable things. Like any marketing approach, social media video is a long-term investment in building relationships with your audience. Instead of focusing on hitting hard numbers, give your team some leeway to discover your brand voice.
Too much pressure can squash creativity when you need it the most!
Instead of putting too much focus on an individual piece of content, look at the big picture. You’re engaging clients across the sales funnel with social media videos, so paint in broad strokes.
Work with your marketing team to develop a strategy that covers several months, quarters, or the whole year. You can still pivot quickly to take advantage of national or global events or postpone content that might not be timely.
Planning ahead can also make it possible to capture content for your whole campaign in one go. Not only does this remove some pressure for meeting deadlines, it can help relieve budget constraints during filming.
Embrace Your Brand’s Personality And Tell Stories
Standing out in the social media space is increasingly difficult. You’ll quickly discover that videos focused on telling a story perform better than others. People crave narratives and want to connect with the characters in your videos.
Focus on your audience first and engage in social listening to learn more about your audience. Then, use your brand voice as a guide to infuse your content with personality and a point of view.
Keep Your Brand Relevant With Social Media Videos
Leveraging social media video trends is a proven way to increase audience engagement with your brand. Creating content that grabs viewers where they spend most of their time online not only makes sense, it’s effective.
Covalent is a creative video production company with the tools to help elevate your social media strategy. Our focus is on high-end production quality, and we have a deep understanding of video trends that perform. We know how to make the most of each platform so you can relax and let the ideas flow.
Check out the social media video services we offer, and let’s get busy!