We live in a world where video is dominating internet content. One often-cited study is from Cisco, which projects that IP video traffic (from both the consumer and business side) will be a whopping 82 percent of all internet traffic by 2022. This is up from 75 percent in 2017.

Simply put, more and more of our time is being spent consuming video than reading print. This isn’t only relevant if you are a creator or hobbyist in your spare time.

Video content marketing is extremely critical for the growth of your business.

By creating compelling video content, you can separate you from competitors. It allows you to generate an extremely strong connection with your audience. And if your video goes viral? Watch out. You may introduce your business to a whole host of people at a fraction of the cost of traditional marketing.

It’s tremendously exciting to leverage video to grow your business. But thinking about it and actually doing it are two separate things. It requires a dedicated effort from you and your team to produce quality content on a consistent basis.

At Dubb, we spend a lot of time thinking about how businesses can grow by leveraging video content. From these thoughts and conversations, we have developed a guide on how you can use video for business growth. While you can view our entire video summary above, we have summarized some of the major insights below.

The Importance of Your Audience

With any video content, your audience is your north star. Your objective whenever creating any video content is to provide value to a certain group of people. Therefore, the best way to provide value is to have a deep understanding of your audience.

What does this mean in practice?

Not only should you understand who they are and what they do, but you should have even more granular information about them. What speaks to them? What are their pain points? What do they enjoy doing? Whether you speak with members of your audience one-on-one or analyze the content that they are posting on social media, make sure that you are laser-focused into your audience’s wants and desires.  

Without having a deep understanding of your audience, you are going to have a difficult time creating content that truly speaks to them.

Content is King

Once you have a keen understanding of your audience, you can start creating your actual video content. There are no rules here, and that’s arguably a good thing. Your video doesn’t have to be a slickly-produced piece of content that you spend weeks and weeks perfecting.

In fact, that may be the wrong strategy—depending on your audience and what it wants.

If you visit social media platforms like Facebook or LinkedIn, you will immediately notice that users are simply sharing their stories. They are simply sharing their life. It isn’t about selling. You should adopt the same attitude. Emphasize the story and the value that you are bringing to your audience rather than “selling” a particular product or service. Evergreen content is a priority at Dubb and it should be for you, as it can continuously send an influx of traffic your way.

Along with this, one of the best things you can do is leverage your own personality. Successful video marketers like Michael Dubin of Dollar Shave Club used their own personalities to sidestep the competition and create content that viewers loved. So if your competitors are all releasing boring step-by-step guides on how to use their products, resist the temptation to mimic them. Challenge yourself to do present your authentic self in your videos. Also, don’t be afraid to leverage the power of the story—especially a story that is authentic and personal.

As far as the type of content to release, this depends, again, on your personality and what your audience wants. Having said that, you can release lifestyle videos, which show what you and your team are working on. They could be whiteboard videos that explain a cool, new feature of your product. You can even shoot a fun, behind-the-scenes video that you can use to recruit new talent. Live video—which is projected to grow a stunning 15-fold from 2017 to 2022—is an attractive option. And don’t forget about shorter, social media-style videos. These are videos of about one to two minutes that can be quick and easy to shoot. Whether they actually have a person in the frame or are simple voiceovers with some animation, these bite-sized videos can be an excellent addition to your marketing portfolio.

Don’t Ignore the Details

Whatever you choose, there are several additional details that you should note when making any kind of video content.

First, think about the best video editing software for you. You can choose from options like Adobe Premiere, Adobe Spark, InVideo (which we use at Dubb), iMovie, and Adobe Rush. Each has different pros and cons, so you want to do your due diligence before proceeding here.

Next, optimize your content for each platform that you are using. You don’t have to release your content to each and every platform, but wherever you post, ensure that your videos are taking advantage of each platform’s attributes. For instance, videos on Instagram TV leverage a more vertical format while the standard aspect ratio on YouTube is 16:9. On Facebook and LinkedIn, users are watching videos without audio, so captions are critical—especially for the first 10 to 20 seconds of your video. Longer videos are better for YouTube while they may not as great for Twitter.

Mind these differences and leverage them when sharing content on these different platforms. If you’d like to learn more about the differences between platforms like Instagram TV, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube, feel free to click on the video above.

From optimizing content for different platforms, you must remain organized. Develop a content calendar so that you are regularly releasing content to your followers and subscribers. If you are following a more erratic schedule, your fans won’t be able to anticipate when you are releasing new content. To create and follow your schedule, you can use tools like Asana, Basecamp, or Monday.com. At Dubb, we use Google Docs, Slack, and Asana, but your configuration is up to you.

To remain organized, it is also helpful to rely on freelancers. If you can’t afford in-house editors, you can always leverage talented freelancers on platforms like Fiverr. After recording our footage, for example, we outsource it to a very talented freelancer in the Philippines who completes high-quality edits (and in a short amount of time). If you’re short-handed, you may want to think about delegating some tasks to third-party freelancers. And when considering a freelancer, consider offering a test project before signing him or her to a long-term contract. Freelancers can be a major help in providing consistent, high-quality content, so don’t be afraid to take advantage of them.

Don’t Forget About Discovery

The value of creating video content comes from sharing it with your audience. That said, this can be easier said than done—especially if you are working for a young, relatively unknown business. If you want exposure in the short-term, you likely want to rely on search engine optimization (“SEO”). SEO, as you likely know, is the practice of increasing the quantity and quality of traffic to your website through organic search results.

Improving the SEO of your content is another article in and of itself, but there are some quick and easy strategies to get started. First, do some keyword research and use your preferred keywords in the title of your video. Along with this, include closed captioning—especially for your YouTube videos, as YouTube will index your captions and include them in SEO. Some other important tips are to tag your videos, post your video onto a blog post or other landing page, and include a call to action in your video (so that viewers have somewhere to go after finishing your video).

Ultimately, this type of organic marketing is an ongoing process, so you want to make sure that you have the time and commitment to make it happen.

But beyond these organic, bootstrap marketing techniques, you may also want to rely on advertising. Once you have found a video or series of videos that are gaining some traction on any (or all) of your chosen platforms, don’t be afraid to put some advertising dollars behind them. You will start to notice more conversions, subscribers, and followers. While you may have a strict advertising budget, social media ads can be extremely cost-effective and can often generate your desired ROI.

Get Started Today

Simply put, video content is an extremely important component of business growth. Creating compelling video content can lead to increased brand awareness, new customers, and more revenue. By being authentic, embracing story, and leveraging some of the tips and tricks I mentioned, you will be well on your way to creating awesome content.

Along with this, we encourage you to check out Dubb. At Dubb, we work with both small and large businesses to help them create personal connections with customers. To learn more about how we can help you kickstart your videos for business growth, don’t hesitate to request an invite.