There are millions of blogs out there – but very few that are effectively using social media videos to grow and nurture their audiences.
If you can master this, then you can give yourself a huge advantage over your competitors.
There’s no point in creating jaw-droppingly awesome content if no one is viewing it. Sure, ensuring that your content is optimized for search is mission-critical. But those who rely solely on SEO are extremely vulnerable to small shifts in the Google algorithm.
Unlike Google, social media trends are more predictable and give you time to adapt, especially if you don’t mind using a modest media budget to make sure your posts reach people’s newsfeeds. What’s more, strong engagement on social media can help trigger Google to index your new articles more quickly.
Promoting your content on social media can not only boost your overall audience size but also the loyalty of those people. By seeing your content more regularly, they grow more familiar with you and more likely to buy your products.
Many marketers are worried about saturation. Yet high-quality, niche-specific content is not saturated – especially when it comes to video, as historically, there have been barriers preventing people from using it effectively.
Connection speeds are increasing, so you need to be less worried about consumers being unable to stream videos. On top of this, Instagram is pivoting toward promoting video content in response to the rise of TikTok. Brands using video in their content have skyrocketed over the past year, and this was before Instagram changed their strategy.
Another critical point is many people are uncomfortable with presenting themselves in the video format. This means if you can overcome that hurdle, then you can increase your traffic while your competitors look on in envy. Confidence in front of the camera to promote online business is becoming increasingly important.
These ideas take significant investment but they are worth it in the long run. It’s a good thing that they need time and effort, too, because that makes it harder for others to catch up with you if you move first.
Video gets across your personality like no other format and the more your readers trust you, the more they will keep coming back for more.
You must be strategic to avoid creating mediocre content that turns away your followers, though. Here are five of the top types of videos that you should try creating to drive traffic to your blog.
1. Expert quotes from niche influencers
Getting the biggest names to promote your content isn’t always the best idea. Mega-influencers may have hundreds of thousands of followers but a weak connection with each of them. It’s harder and more expensive to try to use their network for your benefit anyway, as data from Influencer Marketing Hub demonstrates.
It’s much better to use niche influencers instead because they will be much more motivated to share your content to their loyal audience. Their collaboration with you will be a sign of credibility for them too.
You can go further than simply mentioning them in your article, though, as that’s what everyone is doing. Orbit Media’s Andy Crestodina is a major proponent of what he calls “collaborative content marketing,” whereby outside subject matter experts help you to create the content itself, making them de facto partners in its promotion as well.
If you’re practicing this collaborative approach, then you can take the relationship a little further by jumping on a quick Zoom call with them and recording as you both talk about the subject of your blog.
This doesn’t need to be particularly structured or overthought. Then simply pay someone on Fiverr to convert this into a one-minute teaser you can post on social media. Make sure they include subtitles for people scrolling with the sound off. You can also do this yourself using an app like Veed, which offers tools specifically for trailer creation.
You can be certain the influencer will share your video post, and you’ll gain some of their followers. The niche influencer approval stamp is best when it’s hard won by someone who doesn’t do many collaborations. It makes you more likely to gain their fans’ trust.
2. Customized templates segmented to different audiences
A common mistake brands make is creating one piece of content and sharing it across multiple platforms even though the dimensions are completely different.
The classic Instagram square content is awkwardly cropped on Twitter and less desirable on Facebook. too. Boosted by Lightricks is a painless way to create the right size video for each platform when you use their vast array of templates.
It’s also a great way to create video content without all the hassle of the editing and recording that you’d need to do if you made it from scratch.
A few months ago, blogger Kiara Williams spent $100 on Twitter ads to promote her articles using Boosted templates. All she needed to do was pick a template, add the title and a call to action and she was ready to go. This was the easy part.
The next part was choosing the correct audience for her post to be shown to. She could have different versions of the same video shown to different audience segments to increase the likelihood they click through. She chose a relatively small audience of tens of thousands of people but highly targeted.
This approach is smarter than a one-size all approach. From this you can gain the types of followers who would be interested in your content. And if you’re creating videos for ads meant to resonate with different audience segments or personas, then you can use Boosted to adjust your video copy accordingly, exporting a new version of your creative that you can upload to your social ad management platform for each campaign.
3. Give yourself a shoutout on your live broadcasts
Pat Flynn of Smart Passive Income is a master of using live broadcasting to grow his audience. Every weekday, for years on end, he hopped on YouTube for an hour, where his followers could also ask him questions and engage with him.
As a result, he’s been able to build amazing audience growth, as measured by SocialBlade.
What’ll you notice when watching these broadcasts, though, is that although the talk feels natural, he is promoting what he’s up to throughout.
Whether it’s his courses, podcasts or other products. You’re being entertained and given valuable tips and knowledge for free, so you don’t mind the subtle sales pitches throughout.
You don’t need to go to the same extremes as Pat does, but regularly going live on social media gives your audience the chance to feel that they know you as a human – and to build self-reinforcing habits based on tuning in to your predictable live videos.
No one wants to be constantly bombarded with sales pitches. It’s well known that people buy from those whom they trust and like.
Pick the platform where you have your most engaged audience and use their live feature. Instagram and LinkedIn in particular are growing in this area. Your live videos don’t need to be long, either. You can just react to whatever questions are asked and where relevant mention the article you published.
Even better, you can talk about the topic your article is on. Then, when you mention your article, you already know the people listening are interested in the topic and what you have to say about it.
4. Tease under-development topics
The ”Rule of Seven” in marketing states that the potential customer needs to hear the message seven times before taking action.
In this case that would be clicking on your blog to read your work. You shouldn’t be concerned with posting too much about a single topic because that’s why people have followed you!
Suzy Menkes is a master at this. She’s an international fashion journalist and regularly shares videos about designers and shows that she’s working on content about. These videos essentially operate as teasers that create anticipation for what her coverage is going to be like.
For instance, Suzy will create a behind the scenes video at a fashion show where the follower can feel they are there with her. They see snippets of what’s going on but not the whole picture. To find out the full story, they need to click the link in her bio.
You can do the exact same thing for your blog. Create content to sow the seeds that your future work will be exciting or informative for the follower so when it’s released, they are expecting it and will click straight away.
You’re laying the groundwork so that your announcement post doesn’t need to be as desperate sounding. Viewers will want to click because of their own curiosity. Showing “how the sausage is made” thereby helps build anticipation for tasting it.
5. Talk about the article itself
One of the easiest things to do is to record yourself speaking for a minute or two about your article in freeflow.
Think of it like a movie trailer. You see the most exciting parts of the film in there to entice you to go and watch the full thing.
You can do the same thing in your video. There’s no point hiding away your best point, because if someone doesn’t click on the article, they’ll never see it anyway!
LinkedIn is a great place to do this though you can also do it on Instagram and other platforms. Ideally you want to cultivate a “pod,” which is a group of people who will engage with the post early on to help the algorithm pick it up.
LinkedIn is a platform where massive virality beyond your followers is possible and happens regularly, especially if you use the right hashtags to reach the right audience members. Filtpod’s free LinkedIn Hashtag Chrome extension can help a lot in this regard.
Tracey Wallace, the Director of Marketing at MarketerHire, is someone who does this outstandingly. In this video, you hear her talk about why SMS marketing works and there’s a direct CTA in the post telling the person to read the full story in the link in the comments.
You can tell it’s not overly scripted, so don’t let perfection put you off.
Your turn
There’s no reason you can’t start any of these videos this week to kickstart traffic to your blog.
Start easy and pick which one you think is most manageable for you.
If you like connecting with others, then why not start with using niche influencers and making Zoom trailers with them? The tech savvy among you might want to create your own topic-based trailers, but don’t worry if this intimidates you to start off with.
If you’re nervous about getting in front of the camera, using Boosted’s templates could be a great way to use video content without putting your face out there.
Stronger blog brands can incorporate all five of these video types to keep their social presences feeling fresh for their followers and effectively attracting more people while driving traffic to their blogs as well.
The more you can build towards showing your face, even when using templates, the more trust you build with potential customers and the greater the traffic to your blog.
Keep experimenting and pay attention to your stats. The social video wave in blog marketing is here, so get in on it before everyone else catches up.