Go for Evergreen

I recently read a great article about getting the most out of your content investment – the concept was around creating blog posts that have a 700-day shelf life. Crazy, right? One of my favorite quotes from the article was “Can you imagine tweeting about a blog post that was published in 2013?”

Although the article refers to written content, the concept is equally applicable to video. In the world of continuous content, it is important to create replicable materials. If you keep your videos free of time-specific details, then you can re-feature them on your website and social channels. For example, if you create a killer brand anthem video that is “timeless,” you can use and reuse this video across your social platforms, your website and even in sales outreach for months to come. Better yet, you can re-purpose certain clips from these videos for future video projects.

video-trends-chart

Distribute Wisely

Ideally, your video should have its own distribution strategy. Prioritize hosting your video on your website first. Today, many companies are moving away from Youtube as a primary hosting platform for their videos, choosing to embed them on their website and use Youtube as a back-up instead. Chances are, people will stay on your website longer if they have a video to watch. However, if they have to locate your Youtube social button, click on it, and then scroll through a list of videos, it may increase the chances that they’ll leave your page before getting through an entire clip.

Utilize your social channels, and get creative. Link to your videos, but even better, consider making several 10-15 second cuts of your video to post on platforms like Instagram. These cuts can also be used as “previews” leading up to your video launch and are especially useful on sites where long-form videos aren’t always convenient to view, such as Twitter. Shorter cuts can also be used on Facebook in the same way, but the benefit of Facebook is that it can easily integrate a longer video, so make sure to post the full version on your company’s Facebook page too.

instagram-video-content, #videomarketing

Another tip: “pin” the tweet featuring your video to the top of your twitter feed for several weeks (or more) after its launch, and consider making it the website link in your bios on both Facebook and Instagram. This will sustain a level of traffic to the video across time.

Don’t forget about your blog! Brainstorm some blog posts that can either lead to (or from) your video and link to the video in your posts. If you are hosting the video on Youtube, make sure you link to any related blog posts in the description. Videos are typically large projects and you want to make sure that they have as much exposure as possible – especially since, out of all of your content, they are the most likely to hold your audience’s attention.

youtube-angle

Many claimed that 2015 was going to be the year of the video, and from the statistics, it’s obvious that it was true. It’s even been predicted that by 2017, 74 percent of all internet traffic will be video. This makes it even more important for you to solidify the foundation of your video marketing strategy so that you can create effective videos with razor-sharp purposes and water-tight distribution plans now, and in the future.