As a brand or agency, there is no way of ignoring the importance of video contents and social platforms in order to connect with targeted audiences while including active engagement.

The opportunity to meet, talk, work and partner with businesses, brands and online channels has given me a tremendous learning insight and experience on what many advertisers tend to fall flat on when it comes to engaging with their audience.

There are infinite ways how a successful video can be used in communicating a brand’s message that can maximise our reach, however I would like to point out some important factors that could be considered in order to connect better with the right consumers.

It all comes down to knowing thy audience! And knowing where to find them.

So how do we find the right audience online?

It is important to consider who our audience is and what message we want to communicate; having a clear knowledge about our audience and identifying them will help massively in engaging with them. There are a number of social media platforms, which can help us in building the bridge between our audience and ourselves. We also need to identify which platform we need to use for our video content marketing to reach our targeted audience with an effective impression and engagement.

Now how should we use social media for content marketing?

The answer is here:

The best platforms to choose for content marketing

• Facebook:

Facebook is currently the busiest social media where half of the world hangs out. It can be one of the best places to share your content. When uploading a video of our contents, it is important to make sure that it is going to be boosted by the audience we have marked. The duration of the video would be only 5 seconds without sound. That is the only time we get to make our impression. It needs to be very visual with a strong message that can attract the audience.

If we have a very popular page on Facebook with maximum likes, then we can keep enhancing the content. We should keep uploading and upgrading the content. If the people like it, then they will tag their friends or share on their walls. And this will definitely boost our content. But if we have just started and our page has fewer likes, then Facebook alone will not help in this regard. We have to look for other options.

• YouTube:

If we are targeting the youth, we can surely go for YouTube. The past and present records of YouTube clearly show that it should be considered for video marketing campaigns. It is the most visited site and people go there every day. Our video needs to be owned by Google and it ensures the index of the video content.

We can also boost our videos using Google’s own tools. It is the right approach for all kinds of people. If we are uploading recipes, games or anything educational, we must make sure that we are using the key words for the search engine optimisation.

• Yahoo/ AOL/ Daily Motion:

There are some people who only need clear-cut information. Simple content without any illustration can drag them closer to it. For that kind of audience, we can use Yahoo or AOL or Daily Motion. If our target audience is over 50 years old, then nothing can be better than this. Basically, these people like traditional and simple contents, which will carry the information. We need to focus on the internet and find out which one would be the best to crack the deal with the audience.

• Other Content Distribution Companies:

Along with these websites, we can also distribute our contents through the companies who take the contracts. Their people will do our work and we will only have to pay them. But we have to bear in mind that these traditional ways will not pay attention to the kind of work we want. They will just create it and distribute it everywhere. Their editors and reports will decide what should be delivered in front of the audience.

• Buzz feed:

It is the best place if we are about to target all kinds of people. Currently, Buzz feed has won millions of hearts through their videos. It has around 30 different video properties, which will help in generating the video marketing. We might know that the last top 20 most watched videos in the last 90 days were generated by Buzz feed.

It has funny videos, tutorials, recipes, interviews, and interesting moments of people. It is an exception if we want to share our content videos. It will reach to everybody because they have young and old people together. We must make best use of it and grab our audience.

Just remember that we must concentrate on the Internet. We must decide whom we are talking to and find out the key to the platform. We must be generic to the audience and let them gulp our brand.

To sum it up about platforms, here is an interesting video in which I had the opportunity to film one of my colleagues Philippe Ladvocat at AOL, who gives us the overview from a channel’s perspective.

Now if we want to boost online video, there are three types of content that a brand can consider using.

3 types of content: sponsored by brands and agencies

• Advertisement contents

• Branded content

• Pure contents

1. Advertisement:

This content is very simple and traditional. We can refer to TV advertisements. It is more like the promo before the real content shows up. We will have only 20/30 seconds to promote the content for the desired audience. We can use different types of advertisement contents but the basic and major types of branded contents are: Concept ads, Content ads, and Commerce ads.

2. Branded Contents:

If we want our consumer to benefit, branded content will help us with this. It serves the brand and helps them in achieving their objectives. But most of the cases it is really heavy and explicit. It’s like plastic. People do not get to see what they want to see. Product brands, service brands and business brands are the types of branded content.

3. Pure contents:

People get the real information here. It also becomes more reliable because we can use a popular brand to sponsor the video. We can release any popular series or promos with the touch of the brand. If people get to know that their favourite brand is supporting any video content, they will surely watch and share it.

Above all, we can come to the conclusion that if any brand or agency needs to connect their targeted audience, they need to know the types of platforms, which can help them in marketing their content.

But if you want to know more, you can watch the video on content marketing by one of my colleagues Philippe Ladvocat, at AOL. Don’t miss out on the opportunity to get his tips and here you go: