You know the importance of a great social media video strategy, but is your brand doing everything possible to see positive results?
While that might seem like a heavy question, it’s always smart to dissect your video content and see what you can do better. There are so many elements that go into social media videos including subtitles, length, details and sound.
Essentially, you’re trying to explain a lot of detailed information in a few seconds. But when you do it well, you see higher engagement and build a better rapport with your audience.

Planning

Why – are we shooting this video (purpose – sales, followers, utility, education, entertainment)?
Always please your current followers

What – type of video are we going to make?
Product – for each product, show styles, benefits, reviews.
Tutorial – services, tips, what to look out for.
Testimonial – ask everyone for a video testimony, send me testimony videos
Explainer – explain event, products etc
Personality – just YOU – not business. The people behind the brand. What do we do in day to day life.
Lives – plan first. Engage with audience live. Info is relevant ‘right now’.

How – will this help our business? How will this make us money? What’s the end game for this video?

Where – can this be used on multiple platforms or just one?
Consider length of video eg. 1 min for insta
Vertical or horizontal – Vertical for IG stories or lives only

Professional shooting techniques
Framing Part 1
Get high – hold camera up for a different angle
Get low – squat down for a different angle
Get Close
Move around – so people feel like they’re engaged

Framing Part 2
Foreground eg: plants
Midground eg: building
Background eg: beach/water

Coverage
1-3 seconds per frame (10 – 20 different shots for a 30 second video)

Story Telling
1) Establish – set the scene (intro & sign offs)
2) Interaction – action, what is happening in the scene?
3) Reaction – how you or someone else feels about the action you just captured
4) Repeat – mix it up
5) Back & forth – show ‘me’ then show ‘you’
** Use time lapse & slow motion

Tools
You don’t necessarily need a lot of high tech hardware to start creating videos for social media. Remember, if the content is great, people will watch it.

The tools we use are:
iPhone
Lapel mic x 2
Mic splitter
Tripod
Luvo Light ring / LED light

Finishing
We recommend the use of captions on ALL videos and we also like to use headlines.
To edit we use iMovie as it’s simple, user friendly and free
Then we run our videos through Zubtitle for captions and headlines. This is also very user friendly but does have a small annual fee

2 Principles of Video for Social Media

Ways to influence behaviour

Let’s take a look at 3 strategies you can use to influence your audience’s behaviour.

Trusted Advisor Strategy
This is the super power of SME’s right now, go hard with this strategy.
This is a spokesperson for your brand (not a celebrity).
This taps in to the Social brain (mammalian brain – emotion centre)
You can create a sense of safety and connection with the spokesperson, oxytocin is released and an emotional connection is formed with the trusted advisor. Once you have the connection you start thinking how he/she thinks and that’s where you have influence
and they will want to follow your lead. Influence is leadership

We must make our audience feel safe with the presenter or we avoid the messaging. We only create memory structures when safety is present.
Think about the following examples

youi – actor, makes people feel safe / people trust him
MyBudget – owner, when she stopped featuring on her ads response rates plummeted dramatically.
Trivago – actor. people trust and like her and want to follow

Expert in your field – this is how you do it. You have expertise, share it, so people can start
knowing liking and trusting you.

Social Validation Strategy
Testimonial advertising
Tap in to herd animal for cues on how to act (mammalian brain) mammals want to follow, they are looking for leaders – ‘Wow they used that service and got a great outcome, maybe we should take a look’.

FRAMEWORK
There is a 3 step system to creating a great Testimony video

STEP 1 – Before/Problem
Before I was with XYA Brand, this was the problem I was facing (pain)

STEP 2 – After/Solution
After I was working with this brand this was the amazing result (solution)

STEP 3 – Experience/Recommendation
Overarching this was my experience it was wonderful and I recommend it to everyone else

Promise Proof Strategy

To get your audience’s attention you can use an Opener / Grabber (Question / Engaging Statement / fact / data set)

Example: 1 in 2 people die from eating cheesecake!
Response: Ooo that’s new info, that could serve me, I want to find out more

FRAMEWORK
STEP 1 – Promise
What is your consumer promise?
This speaks to the reptilian brain, which is looking for 2 things – is this a threat or an opportunity

STEP 2 – Proof
Consumers are thinking “Why should we believe you?” (mammalian brain)

STEP 3 – CTA (Call To Action)
Don’t us a CTA if you are delivering value, a CTA is better used for sales and offers
Command Action by tell your audience exactly what they should do.
This works well because we are wired to follow more than we are to lead.

Branding Mnemonics like jingles, animated logos, your trusted advisor, should all be cycled through your content consistently to build awareness and trust