Video is the most versatile and engaging type of social content B2B marketers have at their disposal. From brand awareness initiatives to showcasing creative work and bolstering digital ad efforts, video is an invaluable social media content engine — so long as it’s used correctly.
If you’re struggling to get results from your social media video content, it could be that your process is inadvertently to blame for stifling its success. Here are some of the most common formatting, strategy, and execution mishaps we’ve encountered and how you can avoid them before your video potential gets squashed.
Even though 90% of businesses already use video content within their marketing efforts, the true potential video remains largely untapped — particularly in the realms of B2B. Video is a medium that offers unmatched versatility and creative freedom. It gives savvy marketers proven opportunities to reach niche audiences and capture viewers' attention in ways traditional media simply can’t.
But, no matter how visually impressive, captivating, or well-produced your video content may be, the way you use it determines whether it fuels engagement with your social media audiences or just totally flops.
Here are a few common culprits:
Algorithm Changes — Social media algorithms are constantly in flux, and every update has the potential to impact the ways your video content is ranked, prioritized, or distributed within those platforms. It is important to monitor the platforms you utilize consistently so that you can plan for or quickly adapt to any changes that could affect your content performance. It’s also never a bad idea to keep a close eye on current marketing and social trends — or at least to pay attention to what’s driving those trends — as they might present opportunities for your brand to participate with a timely, relevant, and creative contribution.
Subpar Quality — It may seem obvious, but poor audio, blurry visuals, and other standard quality issues should be avoided at all costs. Not only are quality issues an immediate turnoff for most viewers, they also negatively impact the way a platform’s algorithm “scores” your content, jeopardizing its overall performance even further by sabotaging future engagement. This doesn’t mean that you can’t utilize well-made UGC content or casual “phone” videos strategically, but quality standards are just as important even when your content is less formal.
Poor Timing — Most social platforms have activity “peaks” —certain days or even times of day when users are at their most active and engaged. Uploading or sharing a video outside of these peak windows, or posting at a time when a trending topic is dominating the platform’s feeds increases the likelihood of your video being drowned out by the noise, buried beneath a flurry of competing content, or missed altogether.
Bad Format Fits — While most social channels have adapted to accommodate both long and short-form video content, there are certain formats on every channel that consistently perform better than others. It is also crucial for brands to strategically format their video content so that it’s compatible with each platform’s specific posting options — making sure to use vertical edits for Story posts, for example. Using the wrong format on a social platform can turn even high-quality videos into total flops.
Weak SEO — SEO is just as important for social video content as it is for web and digital ad content. Failing to use strong titles, relevant tags or keywords, and interesting description copy for your videos makes them harder for your intended viewers to find and far less likely to earn strong engagement.
“Even though 90% of businesses already use video content within their marketing efforts, the true potential video has to offer is still largely untapped — particularly in the realms of B2B.”
Know Your Platforms
Maximizing the potential effectiveness of your B2B video content starts with creating a strategy that’s dually informed by platform-specific best practices as well as the unique preferences and behaviors of your intended viewers. Where platforms like LinkedIn and YouTube lend themselves better to podcasts, webinars, and educational videos, those same videos would likely underperform on platforms like TikTok and Instagram, where respective audiences tend to prefer much shorter, fast-paced videos over lengthy informational content. If you’re in need of a little inspiration, take a look at a few videos that were made by B2B brands who understood the assignment.
It’s important to remember that no two channels are identical — and neither are the audiences you’re looking to reach there. Here are a few channel-specific attributes marketers will want to keep in mind when utilizing video content on these larger, well-known platforms:
Post Types: Short-form videos, Reels, Stories, Live Broadcasts
Insights: Instagram Posts, Stories, and Reels work best when they are utilized together, so videos should be shared in all post formats whenever possible.
Videos created for Instagram should be shorter in length and formatted for each type of post.
Instagram also gives users the option to broadcast “Live” story content for viewers, offering authentic opportunities for brands to directly engage with their audiences.
Post Types: Short-form videos, Stories, Live Broadcasts
Insights: Facebook gives brands the option to post videos directly to their pages or to utilize the “Story” option for vertically-oriented, short-form videos that are temporarily featured at the top of their audience’s personal feeds, similar to Instagram.
Facebook also offers a “Live” broadcasting option that can be used for webinars, podcasts, special events, or other longer-format video content, which performs better and earns higher audience retention in a live format than it would as a lengthy in-feed post.
Post Types: Long-form content, Shorts
Insights: YouTube currently hosts one of the biggest and most diverse collective online audiences in existence. B2B brands should make sure they connect their SEO strategy to their channel page as well as any videos listed in their channel libraries. While there are no strict guidelines as to ideal video lengths, YouTube “Shorts” offers a vertical, short-form format option that lends itself well to cross-platform sharing and engagement.
Post Types: Long- and short-form videos
Insights: LinkedIn allows for both long- and short-form video content. Because the platform’s audience is primarily made up of corporate professionals and industry influencers or experts, webinars, podcasts, and other educational or professional development content tends to perform best here.
Post Types: Short-form videos
Insights: TikTok almost exclusively hosts short, fast-paced videos that tend to be less than 45 seconds long. TikTok leans heavily on humor, user-generated content, and influencer marketing to engage users with extremely casual and authentic content.
No matter the platform or the medium, there is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all approach when meaningful content marketing is the goal. Our most important recommendation, especially to the B2B brands we partner with, is to do your due diligence by using intentional, thorough audience research to inform the creation of your content as well as the strategies that will allow you to realize its full potential.
Contact our team to explore the potential of your video content or need a flop-proof brand or marketing strategy that can help you take it even further.
Handling everything from SEO and paid media to analytics and campaign setup across multiple channels, Jordan is the practice lead within our digital marketing team. When he's not crafting digital strategies, he's either indulging his passion for comedy (he interned at the Colbert Report AND Comedy Central), enjoying a variety of podcasts, or spending time with his wife and two young sons.