Video can ignite your social media, but you need to know how to use this medium to its best effect. Manraaj Sunner offers his practical advice on how to maximise its impact

Brands and businesses are using video, but few are realising its true value as the ignition point – the spark – of a targeted social media marketing campaign. Likewise, many brands and companies are embracing social media, but not getting as much out of the experience as they could.

With a videocentric approach, video serves as the centre of conversation from which layers of additional conversation evolve across social networking channels, blogs and forums – often extending into traditional publications and beyond.

This conversation goes from being about the video, to being about the brand or business behind the video, and then to the products and services offered by that brand or business. It then evolves into a conversation about the fans of the brand, to the people behind the brand, and so on…

As with any successful marketing effort, this requires proper planning and execution. I’ll explain how our agency goes about attacking this process, from start to finish, and will offer some fresh ways for marketing executives, gym managers and fitness entrepreneurs to look at video as a crucial piece in the social media puzzle.

Step one is not ‘go shoot a video’
Too many campaigns fall flat, or flat out fail, because they start with a video and end with a plan of what to do with the video. That’s retrofitting, and that can be more costly than doing something the right way the first time.

We start off by establishing objectives that can be measured against hard goals – like more website traffic or increased sales – as well as soft goals like a greater number of blog mentions, retweets and interviews.

Next we identify the target audience. Who is the ideal customer and where are they online, right now?

Then we establish what the video will be about, what will be the bigger conversation surrounding that video, and where and how that conversation will happen. The time to figure all that out is not after you have posted the video.

Content is king – so be creative
The video should be engaging, and above all shareable. Make it funny, shocking, quirky, confounding… whatever adjective you choose, make sure it’s something worth talking about.

The video itself is not, and should not be, enough to tell or sell the entire story. This is where a lot of marketers go wrong, packing too much into one video or making it into an out-and-out advertisement.

Online videos don’t always require insane production values, but they do need to be valuable. Three questions we ask before writing and shooting any video are: Firstly, how will this video add value to people’s lives? Secondly, should the video be funny or entertaining, shocking, controversial? Which genre if any will best fly with our client’s audience? And thirdly, how likely will people be to share the video if given the opportunity? Why should somebody care about it enough to watch it? After that, we outline and write the script, then plan the shoot.

Understand the medium
Unlike other forms of media including TV, radio, print and billboard, social media is not a broadcast channel intended to reach the masses, but rather an interactive channel intended to mingle with the masses. As such, time and attention need to be given to setting up the right channels and building relationships.

Is your audience mostly on Facebook? LinkedIn? YouTube? Twitter? How much time do you have to spend on social media marketing each week? These factors will help determine which and how many channels are selected and developed.

One last thing to consider before locking down a video shoot is integration. Will the video be part of a larger marketing strategy including TV, radio, banner, video pre-roll, website integration, PR? This is an important thing to consider, especially if you’re working with multiple agencies. As mentioned above in regard to retrofitting, integration is much easier and more cost-effective the first time around.

Long live the video
Shoot and edit the video – including pre-production, casting, crewing up and executing – according to the script and objectives. After post-production, the video is encoded for the places it will live online for a very long time.

To establish the video as the originating medium, we upload to YouTube. Remember, your video shouldn’t just be used once for a short stint campaign – it should be used constantly from the point of creation forward.

Video search optimisation is very important at this point, so research is always key.

Starting a conversation
Now we have a video link or two to work with. Just a few of the things we can do to help that link see the light of day include: sharing the video with your new YouTube community, inviting new friends and emailing the link; posting the video story and a link on Twitter; embedding the video on Facebook – sparking conversation whenever possible; posting the link on LinkedIn status updates and starting a few discussions based on the bigger story surrounding the video.

The final step is to start building a genuine conversation surrounding the video. Outreach is a very important part of this process and includes reaching out to relevant influencers; launching local, topical and/or industry-related press releases; and contacting relevant online and offline publications. Just be sure the story is compelling, the video is engaging, and the product or service is sincere.

Have you made a promotional video for your fitness business? We’d love to see it.