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Hi Friends,

Continuing our theme of Social Media marketing trends, this month we’re breaking down short form video marketing. Joining the TikTok and Instagram Reels party is a great way to keep your marketing strategy in alignment with the current trends, and you may even find it’s easier for you than creating graphics and written content.

Be Well, Nicole, Jane, Patti, Ben, Sam, and Matt

Short Form Video

The era of selling a product or service to an audience in a slick Mad Men-esque advertising campaign is long past. Nowadays, audiences want to be entertained, they want to be educated, they want to be told a story that they can relate to. Businesses are required to focus more on sharing their story than selling a product.

Short form video marketing is a great way to do that while falling into step with the trends of social media platforms leaning more toward video content.

So, what is short form video? The defining length of short form video varies depending on the social media platform you’re using. Instagram Reels are around 15 seconds, while YouTube - a much more comprehensive video platform - defines short videos in its search as under 4 minutes. The ideal length for most other platforms, however, is around or under 60 seconds.

The Recipe for a Short Form Video

There are several ways to put together a short form video to share on social media. As a business looking to use this tool as a form of marketing, you want to be intentional about each element and clear on your message. Otherwise, you’re just sharing a lot of noise.

No matter which direction you take your video, or how you express your message, there are a few key elements you want to be sure to include:

• Authenticity: Short Form videos are an excellent way for audiences to become familiar with your brand. With familiarity comes trust, and better chances of purchase when it comes time to make buying decisions. Audiences can also smell smarmy advertising from a mile away. D

• A clear point or goal to the video: If you’re answering customer questions, sharing how to use your product/service, or increasing brand awareness; keep it clear, simple, and on point. If you have more to say on a related topic, you can just make another short video!

• Keep the call the action to a minimum: If you end your video with “Follow us here, here, and here, and be sure to subscribe. Also check out our website and sign up for our newsletter…”, you will get none of those actions from your audience. Choose one or two calls to action, keep them relevant to the video, and they will have a much stronger chance of the audience actually following through.

With these key elements in mind, let’s take a closer look at three different types of short form video that are trending now.

Education or Explainer Videos

Answer client questions, provide educational tips and tricks, share something that the general population may not be aware of. This can help groom future clients, existing customers, or encourage familiarity for those who are preparing to make a buying decision. (Check out one of our clients Sell 207 below!)

Product Highlight Videos

Whether it’s an employee, customer created content, or an influencer you may be working with - product highlight videos are a great way to bring focus on a product, share how it’s used, and create familiarity with the product and brand.

Behind the Scenes - An Inside Look At Your Brand

Behind the scenes videos encourage familiarity and connection with the people who run your company. Allowing audiences to get to know the people, they will be more likely to buy from a company they feel connected to on a personal level.

When Short Video Marketing Can Work For You

The short time constraints are helpful to keep videos on track without trying to fit too much in, and they are an entertaining way to connect with your customers and engage with a larger audience. You’re able to get more information out about your products or services, and able to do so in a more authentic voice.

If your marketing plan is looking for ways to engage with a broader audience and create brand familiarity - short form videos can certainly meet a lot of your requirements and leaves enough creative freedom to allow you to remain true to your company values and culture.

If you’re interested in learning more about creating video content, but are intimidated by the prospects of having to show your dancing skills (or lack thereof), don’t sweat it. We have several ideas, templates, and tips in a two part livestream series here and here (and we don’t assume you are a professional video editor!).

From The BEC Blog

Using Pinterest to Drive Website Traffic

The question that no one asks me but I wish people would: Is Pinterest still a thing? The answer is YES!

Pinterest has 450 million-ish monthly users and is a great driver of traffic (and business) for a few reasons…

(And we’re getting traffic from pins we made FOUR YEARS AGO!)

Read the BEC Blog About Pinterest

Clash of the Social Media Ads (Part 1 & 2)

Are ads for you? While we recommend them in a marketing mix, certain kinds of clients can be hesitant about spending money on ads, particularly new businesses that seem to have a ‘small’ audience in terms of who their product would appeal to.

Read the BEC Blog about our Social Media Ads Experiment

Celebrating Client Victories

RATES Research - What happens when you get the NSF grant but you need to maintain a website, format online reports, and market yourselves while also, you know, developing cutting edge projects involving watersheds in multiple states? It started with some website content updates and fixes but slowly has turned into more. “We were going to hire a full time marketing person but we appreciate having access to a team and working with you.” We’re paraphrasing the head PI Dr. Andrew Ernest here (PI is science for Principal Investigator) but that’s kind of what he said to us on the last call we had.

Have an idea for your business that feels out of reach? Talk to us about what you’d like to do and we might be able to help!

Did You Know?

It’s all in the wording and how you spin the story.

The Dutch word for “brawl” is “vechtpartij”. Broken down, “vecht” translates to “fight” and “partij” translates to “party” - giving us a much more fun wordsmithing of “fight party”.

Friend: Hey, I heard you got caught up in a brawl last night!

Me: Nah, but I was invited to a fight party!

For Your Entertainment

The Fort Drum Family Advocacy Program had a family of groundhogs outside their office window, and took a few videos of them playing around. They then used Canva to convert these fun videos into an educational opportunity promoting their program and services on their Facebook page.

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