This chapter is about why you, as an author, need to think about creating video content for your social media platforms. Regardless of how introverted you are, regardless of how many crappy book trailers you’ve seen (don't do those), video is here to stay, and the sooner you embrace it, the better.
Don’t believe it? How’s this for proof?
Video is engaging. It’s personal. It’s almost intimate. It is the medium of choice for social engagement. So if you want to grow your author platform, if you want to expand your audience, if you want to connect with your current readers, you need to think about how you can be creating video content to include in your current book marketing and social media mix. But before you rush off to create that content, there are some guidelines you’ll want to follow in order to achieve success on each platform before uploading.
1. Design for Sound Off
When it comes to Facebook videos, it is crucial to remember that 85% of video views will occur without sound. That’s due to the autoplay feature that Facebook enables for native video uploads. That means you need to be creating video content that can still be informative and engaging without sound, or you need to ensure you have subtitles in place so that people can follow along.
2. Understand Why People Are on the Platform
People use Facebook for news/current events and knowing this can help guide the type of content you’ll want to create. How can you position a video to be informative or newsworthy? Are you about to launch a book? Are you running a giveaway? Have you recently reached a milestone in your publishing career? What is happening in your world, or the world of your books or characters or business, that you can share?
3. Native Video Performs Better Than Shared
Whenever possible, upload the video file to Facebook directly. In a study conducted by Search Engine Journal on videos uploaded directly to Facebook vs. YouTube videos shared via a link, it was found that native Facebook videos achieved much higher engagement rates. They achieved an average of 2x as many views and likes, 3x as many shares, and 7x as many comments as videos shared via a link.
4. Live Video is Highly Engaging
According to Facebook, videos that are live are watched for 3x as long as videos that aren’t live. The great thing about live video is that not only are engagement rates high during the broadcast, but you also have a piece of video content you can repurpose and share again later. Facebook video is almost certainly the most important video platform for authors. Chances are you will already have a following or at least a presence on Facebook, so adding video to your arsenal is a great way to build upon this existing platform.
1. News-Based Format
Similar to Facebook, Twitter is used by people to get an understanding of what is happening in their world both, big and small. Think of content that’s newsworthy to achieve high engagement.
2. Native Video Performs Better Than Shared
Again, similar to Facebook, it’s important that video content for Twitter is uploaded directly to Twitter either through the built-in video feature or via the upload option. This will result in more views and engagement and ultimately better results than sending people to another site to view the content.
3. Know the Time Limit
At the time of this course’s writing, users are faced with a 140-second time limit when uploading a pre-recorded video to Twitter. This doesn’t apply to videos recorded within the Twitter mobile app. So, if you’re looking at creating video content that's longer form, such as a book launch or an interview, you’ll need to do so via the Twitter app itself.
1. Two Methods of Sharing
Instagram provides two ways to share content. Either through the newsfeed, which gets posted for everyone to see, for all time. Or inside Instagram stories which makes them available for just 24 hours. The best strategy with these two options is to treat the story’s function with rawer content, and keep more polished content on newsfeed as you would on Facebook.
2. Design for Sound Off
In the same regard as Facebook, this is something you will need to consider. Is the content visually appealing and attractive enough to capture and sustain people's attention without subtitles? Is the message going to be lost if the audio isn’t available? If this is the case, then make sure you have subtitles on your videos, particularly the videos posted to your Newsfeed.
3. Understand Why People Are on the Platform
Instagram is a great platform for sharing aspirational content. Content that inspires viewers to take action and learn new skills. You could record how-to videos showing people how you plan stories with mind maps on whiteboards. You could share a video of your favorite reading location at sunset. If you design your book covers, you could show a time-lapse video of your cover design. Think outside the box, share content that inspires action.
One of the reasons authors don’t utilize video extensively is a lack of experience using the tools. Anyone can record a selfie video, but for anything past that, many just put it in the "too hard" basket without really taking the time to find out what’s required. Here are a few tools that will make creating video content (meaning production and distribution) a little bit easier:
1. Quicktime
As the default video tool for Apple MacBooks and Macs, Quicktime provides an easy-to-use platform that allows you to record video for vlogs, interviews or videocasts, and a screen record feature for how-to videos and webinars. This basic tool is a great starting point to accompany the video capabilities of your smartphone.
2. Wistia
Wistia is a video platform designed for businesses. The platform makes it simple to share videos, embed them into your author website and landing pages, and also keep track of how many views you’re getting. The platform can even show you how far into a video each person gets before they decide to leave. Wistia is a great tool for helping you to understand what is working well in your video marketing efforts and where you need to improve.
3. Animoto
Animoto makes it easy to create professional looking videos with built-in features that allow you to easily create text overlays, subtitles, voiceover, and more. You don’t need to learn how to use any complicated video editing software to bring disparate video elements together. Everything is contained within the Animoto platform. It’s a great way to achieve a big budget look without the expense.
4. Your Smartphone
Don’t underestimate the effectiveness of video recorded on a mobile device. Video doesn’t have to be highly polished to be effective. This is particularly true when it comes to communicating with your existing fans. Mobile video is a great way to create authenticity and deepen the connection with your readers. It just feels so much more personal than video shot from a tripod.
Video isn’t every author’s content creation cup of tea, but it’s becoming increasingly important as a medium to connect with new readers and strengthen the following of existing readers. As with everything, you may feel uncomfortable at first, but if you persist, you could see a vast improvement in the engagement with your content, the reach of your platform, and the loyalty of your existing readers.
This chapter was compiled from the following posts on the IngramSpark blog:
The Importance of Creating Video Content as an Indie Author by Matt Aird, CMO of Koru House Media
Creating Video Content for Social Media by Matt Aird
