If you are a business owner, and you intend on using social media to promote your business, you need to produce video content.

 

Like… yesterday.

 

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO, has gone on record saying that by the year 2020, Facebook will consist of mostly video content.

 

CISCO also predicts that by the year 2020, online videos will account for more than 80% of all consumer Internet traffic.

 

I know what you’re thinking.

 

“But, videos cost too much to make. They take up more time and resources to put together.”

 

True.

 

While video does require more investment, it’s important to realize that the returns are far greater.

 

In fact, according to HubSpot, 51.9% of marketing professionals worldwide name video as the type of content with the best ROI (return on investment).

 

Here are just a few reasons why every entrepreneur needs to be making videos to promote their business on social media…

People like watching videos on social media.

People like video.

 

A lot.

 

According to HubSpot, 53% of people want to see more video content from marketers.

 

And, Insivia says that 59% of executives agree that if both text and video are available on the same topic, they are more likely to choose video.

 

Give your audience what it wants.

 

When it comes to consuming content, video just feels more natural and easy for most audiences.

 

Video is an excellent communication and teaching device – it makes learning easy.

 

In fact, according to a report by Insivia, viewers retain 95% of a message they receive via video content, compared to 10% when reading it in text.

 

And, this is important to realize because, as a business owner, you don’t just want people to observe your content, you also want the message to stick – right?

 

When content makes sense and sticks, it gets shared – because it’s seen as valuable.

 

This is why videos go viral.

 

In fact, whenever you hear of some kind of content going viral on the Internet, it’s usually a video, isn’t it?

 

According to Responsive Inbound Marketing, social video generates 1,200% more shares than text and images combined.

 

That’s a lot more sharing.

 

A lot more engagement.

 

And that means, you are more likely to have an audience follow your call-to-action – such as, subscribe here, or download this, or click on that – if they are told to do so by a video.

 

Hack social media algorithms by creating video content

Uploading videos to social media will automatically get you a wider audience.

 

Social media algorithms tend to favor video content over all other types of content – because the people who create and run social media know their audience favors it.

 

This is especially true for native video content.

 

Native video is video that is uploaded directly to a social media platform, such as Facebook, as opposed to being shared on Facebook via a link to another platform, such as YouTube.

 

Native videos on Facebook get 10X the audience than shared links.

 

Again, this is because of the Facebook algorithm, which wants you to use the native platform as much as possible, instead of going over to YouTube or other platforms.

 

Whenever you upload a video natively – whether it’s on Facebook, or LinkedIn, or Twitter, or whatever – you will get more visibility (and therefore more views and engagement) than if you link to third-party social media platforms (often YouTube).

Increase your dwell time by posting videos.

The other factor to consider is dwell time.

 

Dwell time is how much time someone spends on your social media post.

 

Social media algorithms use dwell time as an indicator of how good a post is.

 

If people linger on your social media content for a long time, it must be good, thinks the algorithm.

 

If they click-click-click but then turn away quickly, it must be clickbait, thinks the algorithm.

 

If it gets a few clicks, but people give up on it in less than 3 seconds, it must be lousy content, thinks the algorithm.

 

If the algorithm thinks your content is clickbait or just not very good, it will bury your post. Your ranking will be poor. Fewer people (if any) will see it.

 

Now, video is great for improving dwell time.

 

Your video still has to be good, and provide value, but your video is more likely to have a more impressive dwell time than your written blog article.

 

According to HighQ, 65% of video watchers watch at least ¾ of a video.

 

Most audiences tend to drop off around the 90-second mark, but they will stick around if they like what they are viewing.

 

And, the algorithms will notice.

 

If you create longer videos, and viewers stick around for a good portion of it, the algorithm will reward you with more visibility.

 

On Facebook,“percent completion” is what’s most important.

 

According to Buffer Social, if people are “watching 50% of a 30-second video and 50% of a 10-minute video, the 10-minute video will rank better in the News Feed than the 30-second video. That’s because the 10-minute video has to be more engaging than the 30-second video to keep people watching for five minutes (vs 15 seconds).”

 

If you want your business to make an impact on social media, you need to create video content. Video is the format that is preferred by most audiences: it is easier to absorb, engages better, gets more shares, and converts better than text media. Furthermore, social media algorithms favour video content over text content. And finally, video improves your dwell time, and the social media algorithms will reward you for this with even more visibility.

If you’re ready to take your business blog to the next level, check out my FREE eBook, “How To Blog Like An Entrepreneur” here…