GUEST BLOG: How to integrate video into your digital marketing strategy

By Rob Straathof,  CEO, Liberis

It’s been predicted that video will make up 74% of all internet traffic next year – a compelling reason to start including it in your digital marketing strategy.

Even if you don’t have a big budget for video, or employees who specialise in video content creation, this doesn’t mean you can’t create captivating messages that will resonate with your audience.

Digital is the easiest (and cheapest) method for creating and sharing video content. Here are four ways in which you can integrate video into your digital strategy this year:

1. Use video natively on social media

People are shorter on time than ever and are less likely to click a link on social media through to your website or YouTube channel.

Instead, reduce user-friction and increase views and engagement by posting videos directly to your social media profiles.

Snapchat, Vine and Instagram are just some of the social media networks with apps that you can use to create and share short-form videos for free.

For example, sustainably and ethically-made T-shirt company The White T-Shirt Co. recently used Instagram to take followers on a journey through the making of their t-shirts.

Periscope is another newer video sharing tool being used by innovative brands. For example, Rayna, the owner of eco-chic beauty retailer Reina Organics, uses Periscope to engage customers by demonstrating new products, interviewing brand owners and passing on beauty tips.

2. Show off your expertise

With brands and individuals sharing more content than ever it’s becoming commonplace that you have to give away a lot for free in order to stand out. One way you can do this is by publishing helpful information, such as tutorials and guides.

By doing this, you’ll eventually make a name for yourself as an expert in your field who your prospects will return to and potentially buy from, time and time again.

For example, thousands upon thousands of people search for hair tutorials on YouTube every month; so if you’re a hairdresser, it’s as simple as finding out what styles people would most like to do themselves and then creating video content that meets their needs (more on how to find this information below).

Watching the videos by ‘Confessions of a Hairstylist’ show that you don’t need to be a trained actor to make an effective video, you just need to be knowledgeable about your topic and on-trend.

If you’re an expert but you’re short on time and don’t have the immediate cashflow to cover a content creator’s salary, taking out a business loan can help you get your content dreams off the ground.

Make it easy to get discovered on YouTube and search engines and find new content ideas by looking at what people are already searching for

3. Marry video with SEO

SEO should play a major role in your digital strategy and, believe it or not, optimising your videos is fairly similar to optimising your website.

For example, YouTube is a search engine, but search engines can’t ’watch’ video content so they need you to provide text information about your content so that they can show your video in the right search results.

The best part about optimising your videos for YouTube is that YouTube is part of Google and well-optimised videos have the potential to show on the first page of Google’s search results, exposing your content to thousands of potential new customers.

Make it easy to get discovered on YouTube and search engines and find new content ideas by looking at what people are already searching for.

Use tools like Keyword Tool and AdWords Keyword Planner, which tell you how many people are searching for specific keywords every month.

Think of what your ideal customers want to know. People use search engines mostly to find information, so keyword phrases containing ‘how to’ in relation to topics in your niche are a good place to start.

For example, ‘How to do a French braid’ gets an average monthly search volume of 14,800. By having your video properly optimised, you’ll have a better chance of getting to the first position in search results.

If you identify the keywords that receive thousands or even hundreds of thousands of queries a month before you even script your video, you’ll be able to create content that better meets the needs of the people searching for that topic.

4. Use digital to multiply your content

A major benefit of creating video for digital platforms is that you can take inspiration from most of your existing content as well as create more new content off the back of it.

For example, you can break up your webcasts and webinars and turn them into a series of videos.

You can find points made within your blog that would benefit from visual explanation, and even turn your infographics into more in-depth visual guides.

You can also use the images which you already have to make a slideshow video with an accompanying voiceover or music.

On the other hand, you can use your video content to create new blog posts showing things like the making of the video, as well as transcripts and, if appropriate, use the audio from the video to create a podcast.

Photo (above): Gabriel Garcia Marengo