You already know adding photos is a powerful way to add visual appeal and interest to your social media posts. When you add video clips you take it to a new level. Video clips, even if they're just of your talking head, add sound and motion in addition to the actual subject content, and this three-dimensional communication multiplies the energy and power of your posts.
If you create your own video, you will need to practice with a camera to produce usable clips - too much camera movement is the usual culprit of shaky or woozy images. Learn to keep the camera very still, maybe even using a tripod for that purpose - it's the subject that moves, not the camera. And don't even think about moving around a room or following someone with a video camera until you've practiced enough to be very good at it. The last thing you want to add to your media posts are videos that cause nausea.
The good news is there's a whole world of video content you can use for free. Just be sure to check about permissions and licensing, they vary widely. YouTube is still exploding as a powerful worldwide source of personal expression, marketing, and news. You can learn a lot about what's appealing, and what's not, by checking out YouTube.
When you have video content you want to include in your posts, somehow, there are plenty of choices. One easy, popular, and effective technique for adding video in your posts is to upload it the video clip first to YouTube and then include the clickable link to your post. A step beyond a link is to embed the clip itself in your media post - YouTube makes this easy, too, by displaying the short embedding code you need to paste to your site, blog, or social media post.
Many social media sites will enable direct video uploading, if you use several sites this method can be extremely time-consuming. When you're first starting with video content for your business social media content, keep it simple and upload the clips to YouTube and then either insert the links or embed the clips using the YouTube code.
There are plenty of video sites other than YouTube as well as utility programs that will spread your video clips around. As you're starting out, however, avoid trying for a home run with video and focus first on good content. If you discover that your video clips get good comments and reviews, you might consider setting up your own YouTube channel to attract followers and 'subscribers' (I put that in quotes because there is no charge to subscribe to YouTube channels).
Bad video is annoying, but even "just good" video clips can add a lot to your social media efforts.
To start out, the two most powerful types of clips to use for your business are customer testimonial shots (keep them short, no more than one minute) and (again short) clips of someone from your business who is energetic and reasonably well-spoken who can convey your company's mission, message, or personality.
The recognition of video's ability to enhance social media presence is increasing quickly. In addition to YouTube and similar sites, the popularity of video blogging, where all posts are video clips is a testament to the medium's communication strength.
