At last week's ClickZ Live New York, the session "Unlocking the Secrets to Mobile Video" shared tips and tricks for getting the most out of video on YouTube Capture, Instagram, and Vine.
Last week at ClickZ Live New York, Larry Markovitz, the organic search director at Catalyst, and I spoke at the session on "Unlocking the Secrets to Mobile Video: YouTube Capture, Instagram & Vine." We agreed that success with micro-videos requires many of the same elements as any good desktop-content program: good content, social marketing, community management, and outreach/PR. But, we also described the differences between desktop and mobile video, discussed common mistakes made by traditional marketers, cited a couple of case studies, and provided some emerging best practices.
I spoke first and said the audience for mobile video is huge. YouTube has 1 billion users worldwide and 158 million in the U.S. And mobile makes up almost 40 percent of YouTube's global watch time. Instagram has 200 million users worldwide and 70 million in the U.S. And there's an increasing shift on Instagram from photos over to videos. Finally, Vine has 40 million users worldwide and 25 million in the U.S.
Then, I unlocked six secrets to mobile video success.
How to Create Video Content That Speaks Directly to the Audience
A new Animoto Online and Mobile Video Study found that 96 percent of consumers find videos helpful when making purchase decisions online, 93 percent find video helpful in comparison shopping, 93 percent find video helpful for instructions post-purchase, and 87 percent find video helpful for researching additional items from the same brand.
In fact, 73 percent of all consumers are more likely to purchase a product or service if they can watch a video explaining it beforehand. That's why 67 percent watch instructional videos and 64 percent watch product and service videos. By comparison, 64 percent watch humorous videos.
In addition, people want to watch more business video: 57 percent wanted more videos for electronics, 39 percent wanted more video about restaurants, 34 percent wanted more video about travel, 33 percent wanted more video about exercise or fitness, 31 percent wanted more video about automotive, and 30 percent wanted more video about events and conferences.
How to Determine Which Platform to Use and Where to Share Videos
The first mobile video app that I covered was YouTube Capture 2.0 for iPhone and iPad. It enables digital marketers to:
Start recording instantly.
Stitch together an unlimited number of clips.
Trim and rearrange clips right from your phone.
Add a soundtrack from YouTube's audio library.
Touch up videos with color correction and stabilization.
Upload to YouTube and share on Google+, Facebook, and Twitter.
Next, I looked at Instagram for Android, iOS, and Windows Phone. It provides:
Free custom-designed filters.
Video recording with cinematic stabilization.
Linear and Radial Tilt-Shift blur effects for extra depth of field.
Instant sharing to Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Tumblr, and Foursquare.
Unlimited uploads.
Finally, I touched on Vine for Android, iOS, and Windows Phone. It lets digital marketers:
Upload unlimited Vines for free.
Instantly post videos on Vine, then share to Twitter and Facebook (more coming soon!).
Find, follow, and interact with people close to you.
Explore trending posts, featured hashtags, and editor's picks.
How to Boost the Visibility of Your Videos in the Search Results
YouTube is the world's second-largest search engine and its algorithm looks at relevance, upload date, watch time, and rating. So, to optimize YouTube videos, digital marketers need to conduct keyword research and optimize their video's title, tags, description, annotations, and captions. They also need to upload a minimum of one video per week, make videos worth watching, and create content worth sharing.
Search on Instagram is mostly limited to hashtags. Still, there are ways to optimize a video:
Username: Use your brand name.
Profile picture: 180-by-180 pixels.
Name: Don't just repeat your brand name.
URL: Include a link to your website.
Settings: Connect to social accounts and save original photos.
Bio: 150 characters.
Twitter search results include the most relevant mix of tweets, photos, videos, news, and accounts all in one stream. Clicking on a hashtag in someone's tweet will perform a search for tweets containing that exact hashtag. To search for tweets mentioning a user, enter his or her username, preceded by the @ symbol, into the search box at the top of the page.
The Importance of Quality Social Network Connections Over Quantity
Who has quality social network connections? According to a recent article on Google's Think Insights, a psychographic group called Gen C is 1.8 times more likely to be influencers, saying that "people often come to me for advice before making a purchase." Gen C spends a significant amount of time on YouTube: worldwide, 76 percent of Gen C visit YouTube weekly, and 36 percent visit daily. Three-quarters of Gen C across the globe agree that "YouTube is the first place I go to when looking for online videos."
Gen C thrives on creation and curation. Gen C sees creation as a way of life; whether it's shooting videos, writing blog posts, or posting reviews, more than nine in 10 create online content at least once a month. This psychographic group also adds value and drives engagement in their communities by sharing links, building playlists, and updating their status. And three-quarters of Gen C curate online content at least once a week.
Gen C is also likely to be your best customers. From electronics to live events, fitness to travel, clothes to cosmetics, Gen C buy products and services with far greater regularity than do their non-Gen C counterparts; they're up to 3.6 times more likely to purchase. And two-thirds of Gen C around the world says that "If there is a brand I love, I tend to tell everyone about it."
Tactics to Connect With Influencers With Social Properties
I shared three tactics to help digital marketers connect with influencers using video.
First, I cited the example of Orabrush, which sent Rob Beschizza, the managing editor of Boing Boing, an unlisted video.
Next, I showed how the Bounty Rimini Adventure Club, the most famous disco/pub/restaurant/pizzeria in Italy, shot an Instagram video of speakers at the recent Be-Wizard! 2014 conference.
Then, I told the story of how Alex Kornfeind, a journalist and "social media racing driver" in Italy, had used Vine to first create a #PanoramicSelfie and then created @PanoramicSelfie accounts on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube to "spread the world when you travel!"
How to Measure the Success of Mobile Video Campaigns
Finally, I asked the packed room of attendees, "How do you measure mobile video success?" There was a time when the only metric that mattered to a marketer was seeing the YouTube view count ticking up, but those days are long gone. Increasingly, marketers are questioning the value of a view and are focusing instead on creating content and distribution strategies, which drive deeper levels of engagement, such as sharing, data capture, or online purchases.
I urged digital marketers to use shares as a key performance indicator (KPI) for mobile video success. In content marketing, shares are a must-have KPI for any authentically social campaign. According to Unruly, 40 percent of the 1,000 most shared Instagram videos come from brands. For example, Peanuts' Snoopygram (26,962) was the most shared branded video on Instagram, followed by EA Sport's FIFA 14 real-time spot (16,499), and a promo for HBO's popular TV show Girls (15,376).
However, I ended on a cautionary note. One of the most popular tools on Google's Think Insights is called The Customer Journey to Online Purchase. It illustrates eight different marketing channels: Display click, social, email, paid search, other paid, referral, organic search, and direct. I asked the audience, "Where's mobile video in the customer journey?" It appears to be missing from the tool.