2025 started off with many abrupt changes both offline and on social media. Although the fate of TikTok is uncertain and some Meta users stayed off their accounts, social media is still a part of the marketing content mix, especially when it comes to video.
Social media is always changing and during times like these it’s important to evaluate your content and how you create it. While you might not be able to predict the future of social media, you should always be thinking about the different channels you use to distribute your videos and asking if the content aligns with your brand’s storytelling. Instead of treating social media as an afterthought, make it a part of your marketing strategy and content production by asking yourself these questions before you start filming:
How will you use this video on social media?
Once a video is completed, it’s a good strategy to post the video everywhere, right? Posting a video on social media with the right hashtags and at the time with the most engagement doesn’t guarantee it will be a hit. Posting a video just to post a video isn’t an effective strategy.
Instead of thinking of social media as a bulletin board where you can post any announcement or idea, think of it like a party. You know the guy who is constantly bragging about themselves or showing off everything they’ve done? That guy is usually a turn off. That’s what treating social media as a bulletin board does to your brand. Suddenly, your brand becomes the friend or family member that constantly posts and everyone unfollows them because they’re obnoxious. Don’t be that guy.
If you’re the person at the party that takes the time to meet people and share a story that relates to their experiences, things usually go much better. When you treat social media as a way to tell stories instead of only promoting, you’ll get a more engaged audience. They’ll want to learn about your brand and support you instead of unfollowing you.
Your video should work the same way on social media. When your video has a storyline that resonates with your audiences’ experiences, challenges, and questions, it will perform better because it connects with people.
Before your production team starts filming, ask yourself what purpose you want the video to serve on social media:
What story do you want to tell?
How can you personalize your story?
What makes your video’s story relevant to your social media followers?
What action do you hope they take and how do you want them to feel after watching the video?
Take the time to answer these questions so you know how you want to share your story and what you want to get out of it.
What content resonates the most with your social media followers?
Understanding the kind of content your audiences like on social media is important to figure out how they want to connect with video. While an explainer video is relevant to your brand, it might not be as meaningful to the person watching it on Instagram or YouTube. Most often, videos that perform best are not the ones with perfect transitions or animated logos and illustrations.
Videos that often perform well on social media are those that are more organic and have a less-polished look. Sometimes the videos that don’t have the highest budget are the ones that resonate the most because they are relatable. Just ask beverage startup Yesly who discovered their most popular video was one that cost $90.
That’s not to say that you shouldn’t have a more polished brand video. Having these kinds of videos are important for audiences to understand what you do, but you also need to have shorter and more casual videos to compliment the brand video in a way that helps people understand who your brand is and your purpose.
So, how can you figure out what kind of videos your audiences like on social media? Spend some time on your analytics and see what types of videos connect with them. Also, don’t be afraid to experiment and try something different. What you find might surprise you.
Once you understand what’s connecting with your audiences on social media, use this information to help you determine other moments to capture when filming your brand video. This could be content such as:
Moments behind-the-scenes showing the making of your product (or your shoot)
Additional less formal Q&As with interviewees
Turning the camera over to staff members
Short-form videos that tap into relevant trends
Funny mistakes or lighthearted moments during filming
Short clips that can be used on their own or together as loopable moments for GIFs
The entire set-up process for a time-lapse
Once you’ve figured out additional content to capture for social media, it’s crucial to make sure it’s a part of your budget and production schedule. You may or may not use this content in your brand video, but it’s better to have the content than be caught empty-handed when you ask yourself what you’ll post on social media.
Where are you going to post this content?
The answer to this one might seem obvious, but in my experience companies often overlook it and forget that audiences use social media for personal reasons. Social media was started for people to connect with their family, friends, and others like them, not for brands to constantly promote their latest products or services. When you enter the social media space as a brand, you need to establish your persona so audiences can feel like they're talking to a person, not a company. Your videos should feel the same way.
Your videos should also reflect the fact that people use each channel for different purposes. Not all social media channels were built the same or for the same use. Because LinkedIn is all about professional pursuits, it’s more formal and the place where audiences go to learn about a company and what they’re up to. In my experience, successful brand videos on LinkedIn are about partnerships, staff, or thought leadership. Since Instagram is where people go for visual inspo and personal enjoyment, these kinds of videos won’t perform as well.
It’s not only the purpose that makes social media channels different, it’s also the kinds of CTAs each channel allows. LinkedIn, Facebook, and YouTube allow clickable links, making it easy for people to visit your website. Instagram does not allow active URLs in captions. This impacts how you want to engage audiences after they watch your video. Will you ask people to share their thoughts? Do you want them to re-post in their Instagram stories? Understanding how you want people to respond after they watch your video is something you should consider before ever setting up a shoot.
Determining where you’ll post your video helps answer all of these questions about goals, style, and CTAs. After putting in all of the work to produce a brand video, you might conclude, “I’ll post it everywhere.” Videos focused on your brand or business might be great for someone browsing your website hoping to learn more about you, but the same approach might not work on social media. Take the time to figure out where you’ll share this video before you jump to the conclusion that everything, everywhere all at once is the most effective direction.
How are you framing and composing your shots?
Although most traditional platforms stick to horizontal orientation, social media throws any kind of tradition out the window. Because of cell phones, 72% of people are watching social media videos in vertical formats.
I recommend avoiding the assumption that people will turn their phone horizontally if they find your Instagram video. In a world where people are endlessly scrolling and selective about the content they consume, you need to be able to grab their attention. What this means is that when you film, you’ll want to decide if you’ll film vertically and horizontally or film with wider shots so you can crop the horizontal shot for vertical. You may also need to be flexible when editing and try arranging shots into diptychs or triptychs, adding graphics to the background, or using effects like a gaussian blur.
In addition to format, you also need to think about how much white space you’ll need for elements like supers, motion graphics, and captions. You can’t ignore these details as 92% of audiences watch videos on social media without sound. Do a quick scan the next time you’re on public transit and you’ll see how people are using their phones. Everyone will most likely be wearing earbuds and holding their phone vertically as they scroll through their social media. If they have their phone turned horizontally, they’re probably playing a game. Make sure you create content in the way people want to consume it. If you ignore them, they’ll ignore your brand’s video.
How are you going to measure success and how will it inform future projects?
The best way to determine what kind of analytics to track is to understand what action you want audiences to take after viewing your video. Before jumping to goals like increasing sales by 200% or engagement by 50%, I recommend you take a deeper look at your analytics and see what’s realistic for your brand. Increasing website traffic by 2-3% might be a huge success. Small increments like that aren’t a failure. In a world where audiences are saturated by content, it’s important to be realistic about what you can accomplish.
Another thing to consider is how you’ll use audience feedback to refine future adaptations of video on social media:
How will you use results from audiences’ reactions to repurpose content or use shorter clips of the video on social media?
How is your video performing across the different social media platforms?
How will you optimize your video content in the future so it resonates across the different channels?
Whether TikTok is permanently banned or BlueSky takes centerstage, diving into your data and considering these questions are essential to make engaging video content.
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