It’s no secret that social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram are goldmines for marketing, with a whopping total of 4.95 billion active users worldwide. 

Since 60% of the global population is on social media, it’s no wonder that almost 93% of marketers will leverage these platforms in 2024. 

While registering and setting up a profile on social media is easy, crafting content that goes viral amongst your target audience is a different story.

How can companies, especially smaller businesses, ensure their voices are heard by the right people?

The answer is to invest a lot of time and effort into creating social media engagement posts. 

Bear in mind that these aren’t your average posts that blatantly promote your products and services. 

Instead, they’re specifically designed to foster interaction and engagement with your brand – building brand awareness and establishing your brand as an authority figure in your industry. 

In this article, we’ll teach you how to develop exciting social media engagement posts that your audience craves, so stay tuned to learn 17 easy ideas for attention-grabbing posts. 

What Are Social Media Engagement Posts and Why Do They Matter?

A social media engagement post is a piece of content crafted to encourage maximum interaction on social platforms – such as likes, comments, shares, and clicks. 

Engagement posts are great because they’re a step beyond passive viewing. Instead of simply consuming your content, users are encouraged to engage with your brand. This usually takes the form of:

• Leaving a comment so the audience member can share their two cents on a topic (which you can encourage by saying something like, “what are your thoughts on the issue? Let me know in the comments!”
• Liking the post due to the quality and helpfulness of the content. 
• Sharing the post on their feed to expand your content’s online reach. 

The average user spends 2.3 hours on various social media platforms each day. 

That means if you want to reach your prospects, you have to be wherever they are, and they’re definitely on social media. 

Engagement posts are key to capitalizing on each prospects’ daily time on platforms like X, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. 

Here are the top benefits of social media engagement posts:

Increased visibility: Engagement posts signal to Google’s algorithm that your content is valuable, accurate, and high-quality. As a result, your content will start ranking higher on its search result pages. 

Build a community: Social media engagement posts lead to thought-provoking conversations, new relationships, and brand loyalty. Before you know it, you’ll have a loyal following of brand ambassadors (which means they actively promote your brand because they’re fans). 

Drive traffic and conversions: Engaging content will direct users to your website’s landing pages, increasing the chances of generating sales or sign-ups.

Boost brand awareness: Relevant, entertaining content that sparks discussion gets shared the most, expanding your brand’s online reach as a result.

Feedback and insights: One of the biggest perks of engagement posts is they shed light on what your audience views as valuable, which is extremely useful information for your marketing campaigns.

Enhance social proof: The more likes and shares you get, the more it’ll be clear to new prospects that your brand is the real deal. 

What’s the Best Social Media Platform for Engagement?

There are tons of social platforms out there, so which should you prioritize when creating engagement posts?

Surprisingly, Facebook is still the king of social media worldwide, with roughly 3.05 billion active monthly users during Q3 2023. 

 As a result, Facebook is also the most popular channel for marketing teams. A global survey showed that 89% of marketers used the platform to promote their business. 

While this is still more than any other platform, it’s down from 93% in 2021. That means the social media landscape is changing, which is something you need to consider. 

WhatsApp now ranks as the second most popular social media app in 2024. While initially known for personal messaging, the launch of WhatsApp Business in 2018 made it a powerful marketing tool for brands. 

As of June 2023, WhatsApp Business already boasts over 200 million monthly users.

Of course, we have to mention the elephant in the room, which is TikTok. 

While Facebook may have more active users, TikTok is the most frequently used app worldwide. 

The proof?

Android phone users spend an average of 34 hours a month on the platform, which beats Facebook’s monthly average of 20 hours. 

Also, TikTok has much higher engagement rates for its organic posts. In 2021, micro-influencers saw a completely unheard-of 17.96% organic engagement rate.

Yet, the social platform that you should focus on the most depends on your target audience’s demographics. 

Even though TikTok boasts more engagement and time spent on the platform than LinkedIn, the latter remains the preferred marketing channel for B2B companies (since LinkedIn has an older, more professional demographic). 

TikTok is the perfect platform if your business targets a younger crowd, as two-thirds of its users are between 18 and 34 years old. 

Not on all of these important platforms yet? 

We can help with that. HOTH Lock My Brand registers your brand name on all the top social sites in the world.

How to Write Engaging Social Media Posts

Just because you post something on social media doesn’t mean that it will receive engagement. 

Instead, it takes a special type of post that’s been handcrafted to foster engagement from your audience. 

Here are our top 9 tips for creating social media posts that get your audience talking. 

1. Know Your Platform

As stated before, the social media landscape is evolving, and marketers are now turning to new platforms. 

For this reason, it’s pivotal to understand the platform you’re currently using, as it may look different than it did just a few years ago (in terms of demographics, features, functionalities, etc.).

First, you need to know the type of engagement you’re trying to elicit. 

Do you want to get shares on Facebook or are you hoping to get duets and stitches on TikTok?

Moreover, you should educate yourself about the platform’s algorithm to learn how it decides which content to show to whom. 

After all, SEO is all about mastering Google’s algorithm to ensure better visibility, so why not learn the ins and outs of your preferred social platform’s algorithm to do the same thing?

For example, X populates users’ feeds with posts from the accounts they interact with the most, while YouTube makes recommendations based on topics the user likes. 

The more you know about a platform’s algorithm, the easier it will be to optimize your content for your specific audience. 

2. Discover What Works

Social media supports numerous types of content, from video campaigns to infographics and beyond. 

Because of this, you need to determine which type of content generates the most interest from your audience. 

Every demographic is unique, and the best way to find out what resonates with them is to track your posts’ engagement levels and then analyze the data. 

Most platforms have some way to monitor your metrics, such as viewing how many followers you have or how many users watched one of your videos. 

To dive deeper into data analytics, you can invest in a social listening tool. 

What’s that?

A social listening tool gathers information from various social platforms and websites online, including Facebook, X, Trip Advisor, and many others. 

You can set up custom listening campaigns for specific keywords and topics, such as:

• Your industry
• Your brand
• Your competitors 

From there, you’ll be able to ‘listen in’ on the entire social conversation surrounding things like your brand and industry, which is great for uncovering opportunities for engagement. 

Here are a few examples of popular social listening tools:

1. Hootsuite
2. Brandwatch
3. Sprout Social  

3. Develop a Brand Voice

Is your content formal and professional or casual and trendy?

Do you sound like you’re 25 or 55? 

Does your brand have a sense of humor?

Answering these types of questions will help you develop your brand voice.

A consistent brand voice aids with social media engagement because followers feel like they know you. 

You’re the funny friend, the helpful expert, or the stylish trendsetter who keeps appearing on their social media feed.

Also, ensure that your posts are as relatable as possible by sharing first-hand experiences, using humor, and even referencing movies and TV shows. 

That will show that your content was written by a human and not automatically generated by AI. 

However, your brand voice isn’t something you can create by yourself, as it should be based on what your target audience likes. 

Document the rules for your brand voice so that different employees can learn how to take the same tone in social media posts. In other words, you need to develop a style guide. 

4. Visuals are key 

Humans are visual creatures, which is why posts with images and videos foster way more engagement than posts with only static text and links. 

Social video accumulates 1,200% more shares than text and images combined, which is significant, to say the least. 

It should come as no surprise that 88% of marketers claim video is integral to their marketing strategies. 

Certain engagement posts naturally include images or videos, but that’s not always the case. 

If your post isn’t inherently visual, that doesn’t mean you don’t have to make it eye-grabbing. 

For instance, let’s say that you’re sharing a blog post through one of your social media accounts. Don’t just drop the link, as that’s too static and easy for people to ignore. Include a relevant, high-quality image that relates to the blog’s topic. 

This tiny gesture is enough to make your post stand out and entice your audience to click the link. 

5. Jump on current trends (carefully)

No matter your platform of choice, one fact remains true: social media runs on trends. 

A clever hashtag or challenge can fill up every user’s feed for a week or two—and joining the trend can boost your brand’s visibility. 

Try to find ways to organically (or humorously) interject your brand into a breaking news story or viral social media trend. 

Avoid getting too controversial here, as you should keep things light-hearted and fun. 

6. Listen to Your Audience

One of the best things you can do to elevate your brand is talk with members of your target audience – but more importantly – listen. 

The same applies if you’re interacting with your audience on social media. 

However, we’re not just talking about paying attention to what prospects have posted on your profiles and in your comments. 

Instead, we’re talking about mentions of your brand that occur outside of your profile, which is where the aforementioned social listening tools come into the picture. 

Of course, you could always simply search for your brand name on a platform like Facebook or Instagram, but that will only provide surface-level insights. 

Tools like Hootsuite and Sprout Social go far more in-depth with social listening, as you’ll have access to pretty much every mention of your brand that happens online. 

Whenever you find positive mentions of your brand, don’t just give yourself a pat on the back and call it a day. Instead, be proactive and reach out to the user to thank them for their kind words (to go the extra mile, you could even share some of their content on your profile). 

If the mention is negative, you should still reach out. 

However, instead of giving them an honest piece of your mind, you should let the user know that you appreciate the feedback and will consider it in the future. If they’re experiencing issues with a product or service, get them in touch with customer support and follow-up at a later date to ensure that everything gets resolved. 

Social listening is a powerful tool, which is why 71% of companies find value in monitoring social media. The valuable customer insights you gain from it will benefit numerous departments in your business (like sales, marketing, and even HR).  

7. Pay Attention to Influencers in Your Niche

Which creators and influencers are popular in your niche, and what are they posting about?

If an influencer is getting great engagement talking about products similar to yours (or posting content related to your industry), you should learn from their success.

Besides taking notes on what they did right, you can also reach out to them with the hopes of building a relationship. That way, they could potentially promote your products and services in the future. 

How do you do that?

The best way to start is to engage with their posts and share their content. After you’ve established a rapport (and hopefully received a few replies in the meantime), you can bring up the idea of partnering with them. 

This will also put you in front of their followers. If you find a creator whose content is likely to resonate with your audience, reach out to them about working together.

For example, Subaru reached out to multiple influencers with its #MeetAnOwner campaign (geared toward promoting the Impreza hatchback), which had fantastic results. In one instance, a popular YouTuber filmed himself and friends shooting off a slip-and-slide that propelled them off a 500-foot cliff (while highlighting the Impreza along the way). 

The video generated 1.3 million views for Subaru and provided serious entertainment value. 

8. Post at the Right Time

There’s no single “perfect” time to post on social media that guarantees success, but there are undoubtedly better times than others (depending on the needs of your demographics, of course). 

The best times depend on several factors:

Studies show that Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from 9:00 to 10:00 AM tend to see good engagement across most platforms. 

You should avoid late nights and weekends, as engagement generally dips during those times due to people sleeping, running errands, and enjoying time off work.

Here are the factors that influence the best times to post: 

Your target audience: Where are they located? When are they most likely to be online? Don’t forget to consider time zones because they can completely throw off your game. For instance, if your work is located in the central time zone but most of your audience lives in California, you’ll need to calculate the difference whenever posting content – or you could wind up posting two hours earlier than you intended. 

Platform: Each platform has its own peak usage times. For example, LinkedIn sees more engagement during business hours, while Instagram might be more active in the evenings. Most millennials admit to browsing social media whenever ads play on TV or streaming services, so the evening (after work hours) is a good time to post new content. 

Industry: B2B audiences may be more active on weekdays during work hours, while consumer-focused brands may see better results on weekends. However, you should confirm this with data first. Some audiences may limit their social media use on weekends due to traveling or errands, so you should never make assumptions. 

Your own data: Most social media platforms provide analytics, which you should definitely capitalize on. Track when your posts historically get the most engagement, and you’ll uncover the perfect times to post new content.  

9. Cross-promote social media profiles

At this point, most people are on multiple social media platforms (if not all of them). 

As such, don’t be afraid to post a “Follow us on Instagram” on X or vice versa.

Your followers may be more interested in engaging on one platform than another, so cross-promoting your accounts gives them options. 

Plus, you’ll be posting different types of content on each one, which increases your chances of seeing more engagement.

Also, your website is prime real estate for promoting your social accounts, so don’t forget to include social buttons where your audience can clearly see them. Most websites stick with the very top or left-hand side of the page since they naturally attract the eyes. 

17 Creative Social Media Engagement Post Ideas to Captivate Your Audience

At its core, a social media engagement post can be anything that entices users to interact with your brand. 

If that seems extremely broad, it’s because it is. 

Fear not, as there are some tried-and-true content formats for encouraging interaction. 

Here are 17 battle-tested ideas for engagement-boosting posts. 

1. Ask a Question

The concept is simple: you want people to reply to your post, so you give them a question to answer. 

It doesn’t have to be complex, but it’s best if it’s related to your industry or the habits of your target audience.

Why it matters 

• Generates comments. Asking a question is one of the most effective ways to get your audience talking in the comments section. 

• Discussions build a sense of community. Once you get your audience talking, it will start to build a sense of community amongst your fans. 

• Learn more about your audience. Ask the right questions, and you’ll learn a lot more about your follower’s preferences, needs, and pain points – all of which is valuable marketing information. 

How to do it 

• Stay relevant. Remember, your goal is not only to generate comments but also to learn more about your target audience. As such, your questions should remain relevant to your brand in some way. 

• Use a mix of open-ended and specific questions. To get a diverse mix of responses, try using both open-ended (“what’s your dream vacation?”) and specific (“If you could add one feature to our product, what would it be?) questions. Whatever you do, avoid simple ‘yes and no’ answers like the plague. 

• Make it easy. Avoid asking questions that are too complex or require a lot of thought. Your goal is to ask relevant, fun questions that you know your audience will want to respond to. 

Example

2. Poll Your Followers

A twist on the question post is the poll, and it’s equally as effective at generating interaction and comments. 

While polls can help you learn more about your audience, the best are typically lighthearted in nature. 

For instance, asking, “Do you like pineapple on pizza?” is more likely to elicit interaction than serious market research questions (yawn). 

Why it matters

• Builds brand awareness. Polls are extremely popular, and if you make a particularly interesting one, your audience will share it with their friends. This will generate more awareness for your brand, which is a plus. 

• Sparks conversations. Posts that include polls are excellent conversation starters, as your audience will want to justify their choices and debate others in the comments.

• Audience insights. Even if they aren’t super deep, polls will help you gain insights about your core audience. 

How to do it 

• Think of a fun question to ask that has multiple answers. The question you ask needs to have several available answers, and they should vary quite a bit. 

• Create a poll on your platform of choice. Nearly every social platform has the option to create a poll built-in, so you won’t have to worry about coding or using any external software. On Facebook, all you have to do is click Create Post and then select Poll from the list of options. 

Example 

3. “Caption This”

It’s no secret that memes are extremely popular on social media, so a great way to encourage interaction is to get your audience to create their own. 

Upload a strange or goofy photo and ask your followers to add funny captions. 

It’s a simple concept, but it can be endlessly entertaining and is excellent at building brand loyalty (you’re sharing laughs with your audience, which can build a lasting bond). 

Why it matters

• Great use of humor. Creating memes is undeniably fun, so your audience should have a blast coming up with captions for your photo. 

• It grants your audience agency. Instead of simply responding to a question or adding their two cents on a topic, ‘caption this’ posts make your audience the star of the show. Granting your audience this kind of agency will help you gain their loyalty. 

How to do it 

• Find a funny (non-offensive) photo. A ‘caption this’ post is only as strong as its source material, so you should hunt down a photo that’s funny, unique, or cringe in some way. 

• Let your audience’s creativity take over. Once you’ve got the perfect photo, your part is done. Simply ask your audience to caption it, and they’ll be off to the races. 

Example 

4. Go Live

Another great way to boost engagement is to go live, or ‘doing a live’ as Vin Diesel would say. 

Just like polls, most social media platforms enable you to stream live video without having to take any special extra steps. 

Why it matters

• • Audiences prefer live video. Users love this format, as 80% of consumers prefer to watch live videos instead of reading a blog. 

• You can chat with your audience on the fly. Whenever you stream live, DO NOT forget to interact with the live chat. Besides answering their questions, give individual shout-outs to each person interacting with you. 

How to do it 

• Brainstorm a topic to cover. You shouldn’t go live if you don’t have anything to talk about. After all, who wants to watch someone sit and twiddle their thumbs? Instead, pick one of the content topics you’ve researched (like for your blogs) and go from there. 

• Use your preferred platform to stream live video. Once you know your topic, all you have to do is start a live stream on a platform like Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, or TikTok. 

Example

A brand that makes excellent use of TikTok’s live streaming feature is McDonald’s, as they make frequent use of employee livestreams – like workers engaging in ‘fast food battles’ (which is where they try to outperform their co-workers). 

5. AMA (Ask Me Anything)

The AMA format was popularized on Reddit. It’s exactly what it sounds like—people can ask you any question, and you answer it. 

Why it matters 

• Your audience learns more about you. This engagement post is a twist on the ‘ask a question’ post, as your audience gets to learn more about your brand instead of the other way around. 

• It gets your audience thinking about your brand. If they want to ask a question, they’ll have to sit and think about your brand, which is what you want. 

How to do it 

• Create an AMA post. Just because Reddit coined the AMA doesn’t mean that they own exclusive rights to it. Regardless of your preferred social platform, you can create an AMA with ease. 

• Answer every question. Once the questions are in, don’t skip any. Instead, provide a thoughtful response to everyone who has a question. 

Example 

Online influencer and podcaster Steve-O recently did an AMA on Reddit, and the amount of interaction he got was impressive. 

6. Contest or Giveaway

There are two things that everybody loves: winning and free stuff. You can hold a giveaway for prizes, large or small.

It could be a contest, like a photo or video competition, or you could automatically enter users into a giveaway if they like you, follow you, or fill out a form. The important thing is that you clearly publicize the rules.

Why it matters 

• Contests provide incentives for engagement. There are plenty of users who will scroll past AMAs, question posts, and polls without skipping a beat. Their kryptonite? Any post that has an incentive like the possibility to win something free. 

• They position your brand as generous. Do your best to publicize the winners of your contests as much as you can, as that communicates to others that your brand is generous and cares for its customers. 

How to do it 

• Select a prize. Pick a prize (or prizes) that A) won’t blow your budget and B) are desirable enough for your audience to take part in the contest. 

• Decide on the rules. Will your audience compete for something, or is it a random giveaway (like giving the prize to the 1000th person to comment)?

Example

Canva’s Design Challenge is an ongoing example of a branded contest that fosters lots of engagement. 

They challenge graphic designers from around the web to come up with an impressive design (this week’s theme is a process diagram). 

7. Expert Interview

Film a video interview with an expert in a field related to your product. This is more interesting and authoritative to users than simply promoting your products.

Why it matters

• Audiences prefer video. We’ve already gone over how users prefer video to blogs, which is why you should film your experts instead of having them write a guest post. 

• Adds credibility to your brand. One of the best things you can do to build brand loyalty is to educate your audience, and expert interviews do just that. 

How to do it 

• Find an industry expert. It could be someone you know in the field, or they could be directly employed at your company. 

• Shoot a brief yet informative video. Without going too in-depth (as that’ll bore your audience), have the expert give a brief rundown on a topic relevant to your industry. 

Example 

In this example, a finance expert reviews BBC’s Industry to comment on the show’s accuracy (i.e., how well it depicts the financial world). 

8. Customer of the Week

Reward your fans by putting them in the spotlight. Feature a customer each week or month with a photo and a brief Q&A or story about how they use your product.

Why it matters

• Shows you care about your audience. The most loyal customers are ones who truly feel valued by their preferred brands, and choosing a customer of the week is one of the best ways to show how much you appreciate your audience. 

• Builds brand ambassadors. The customers you feature will likely become loyal brand ambassadors, meaning they’ll recommend your products and services to their friends and family. 

How to do it 

• Find your most loyal customers. An easy way to go about this is to look at the customers who frequently post about your products. 

• Reach out to them. Send your prospect an email and inform them that you’d like to include them as your customer of the week. Request a photo and a brief bio to include. 

Example 

9. Share a Review

If you’re getting good online reviews from customers, promote them on your social media.

But make sure you’re engaging with your audience. Thank the person who left the review and everyone else who’s taken the time to do so. You can also ask your followers to join the conversation.

Why it matters 

• It provides social proof for your brand. Positive reviews communicate to your prospects that your brand is high-quality and worth their time and money. 

How to do it 

• Gather reviews online. If you don’t have any reviews on your Google Business Profile, check third-party sites like Yelp, Angi, and Better Business Bureau (BBB). 

• Post them on your social channels. Create engagement posts highlighting positive reviews for your followers to see. 

Example 

10. Introduce The Team

Your followers like to know that your organization is made up of real, relatable people. In a post, feature your team or an individual team member.

Why it matters

• Humanize your brand. Without the occasional staff profile, your audience will have no way to associate a face with the name – so to speak. 

• Provide insight into your working environment. Besides getting to know the staff member, your audience will also get to peer into your work environment. 

How to do it 

• Select a member of your team to profile. Make sure the person you choose is comfortable with sharing their information online. 

• Take plenty of pictures and videos. Static interviews are boring, so include visuals like images and videos of your office. 

Example 

11. Ask For Recommendations

You know how your friends are always recommending new movies and TV shows to try out?

Well, you can mimic that dynamic on social media by asking your audience to recommend their favorite books, movies, TV shows, music, and more. 

Why it matters 

• Build rapport with your audience. By asking your audience for recommendations, you’re showing that you care about what they think. Also, do your best to respond to recommendations that you find interesting.

How to do it 

• Create a post asking your audience for their recommendations. This one’s pretty straightforward, as all you need to do is create a standard post and ask your followers for their favorite media (or whatever else you’re asking about). 

Example 

12. Offer a Social-Only Deal

Who doesn’t like a good deal? Promote a special offer that shoppers can only take advantage of if they like, follow, or comment on social media.

Why it matters 

• Expand your reach. There are some users that simply can’t resist a deal which will help you expand your reach to new prospects. 

• Engagement is guaranteed. Your followers will only receive the deal if they interact with your brand in some way, so you’re guaranteed to see more likes, follows, and comments. 

How to do it 

• Choose a special offer. First, you need to determine what type of deal you’ll offer your audience. It should be enticing enough to elicit interaction while not draining your budget (or affecting your profit margins). 

• Inform your followers of the special deal. Besides informing your followers that the deal is active, don’t forget to include detailed instructions on what they have to do to receive it (such as tagging a friend or commenting something specific). 

Example 

13. Share Something (Mildly) Controversial

We’re not recommending that you wade into the realm of political debates. You can stir up a little controversy while keeping it lighthearted and fun.

A funny “unpopular opinion” post is sure to get people talking, even if it’s about something trivial — like how winter is the best season.

Why it matters 

• Catch your audience’s attention. With a slightly controversial take, you’re more likely to raise some eyebrows and get people to stop endlessly scrolling. 

• Foster a lively debate. Another perk is that you can spark a lively conversation in the comments, as your followers will be eager to state their side (and why it’s right). 

How to do it 

• Select a hot take that’s not too hot. Keep things light-hearted but don’t shy away from truly controversial topics (as long as they aren’t too political). 

• Encourage your followers to take it from there. Once you’ve introduced the topic, your job is done. All you have to do now is monitor the discussion and add your two cents wherever necessary. 

Example 

Ben & Jerry’s are notorious for their stance on sustainable and organic food solutions, which is a controversial take – but also made their brand famous since they don’t skimp on quality and refuse to use artificial ingredients. 

14. Post a challenge

Do you remember the viral ALS ice bucket challenge of yesteryear? There are new challenges trending on social media every day, and they present engagement opportunities for your brand. 

Why it matters

• Challenges attract a lot of attention. Social media challenges blow up all the time, such as the infamous ALS ice bucket challenge. You never know when the next challenge you participate in will take off – so stay vigilant. 

How to do it 

• Monitor social media trends. Trends and challenges pop up all the time, and keeping up with them can feel next to impossible. Luckily, there are online resources like Slaying Social that keep up with the trends for you. 

Example

Chipotle makes excellent use of social media challenges, and they’re coming up with new ones all the time. 

A notable example was the Lid Flip Challenge featuring YouTube influencer David Dobrik. 

15. Post valuable content 

If you truly want to build an audience that sticks by your brand, you need to regularly publish content that informs, educates, entertains, and solves problems. 

Why it matters

• Builds trust. Your audience will appreciate that you always solve their problems, so your brand will be the first place they look whenever they experience a new issue. 

• Keeps followers coming back. Remaining consistent with your content efforts will keep your readers coming back for more. 

How to Do It

• Learn your audience’s pain points and interests.You should always be monitoring your audience’s social discussions to learn more about their wants, needs, and pain points. 
• Share industry insights, tips, and tutorials. The more accurate and informative your content is, the better. 

Example

16. Post timely content 

Don’t shy away from posting about time-sensitive events like new store openings, concerts, and notable news stories. 

The content may not be evergreen, but you’ll capitalize on viral news stories and generate more traffic. 

Why it matters 

• Boosts visibility. You’ll improve visibility for audience members searching for time-sensitive events. 

• The ability to participate in broader conversations. The world is a fast-moving place with tons going on at once, so posting timely content will enable you to participate in broader conversations. 

How to do it

• Hashtags. Follow trending hashtags and news relevant to your industry.
• Content based on trends. Create quick, reactive content (memes, image posts) related to trends.
• Consider holidays. Plan ahead for holidays and major events.

Example

17. Post high-quality photos 

The quality of your photos is extremely important, especially if you want to boost engagement. 

You should only use visually appealing images that are perfectly composed, feature impeccable lighting, and pertain to the topic at hand. 

Why it matters

• Catches the eye. Above all else, you want your followers to stop scrolling and pay attention to your content, and high-quality photos are great for that. 

• Boosts professionalism. Your audience will correlate the quality of your images with your brand (whether they realize it or not), which is why immaculate images are a must. 

How to do it

• Invest in good photography equipment or work with a photographer.  Original images will have more impact than stock photos, so look for a reputable photographer. 
• Use photo editing apps to adjust brightness, colors, etc. Taking a solid photo is only half the equation, as you’ll want to edit it to perfection. 

Example 

Final Thoughts 

These tips are your roadmap to creating social media content that truly connects with your audience. 

But let’s be honest – social media is just one piece of the puzzle. 

There’s SEO, paid advertising, content creation…a complete digital marketing strategy demands a lot!

Imagine having more time, resources, and expert guidance to amplify your digital marketing results across the board. Let us take those worries off your plate and simplify your SEO success.  

Schedule a call with a HOTH marketing expert today, and let’s revolutionize your social media presence! 

The post How to Write Social Media Engagement Posts (+ 17 Ideas for Attention-Grabbing Posts) appeared first on The HOTH.

If so, you should know that a newly proposed Senate bill (the RESTRICT Act) could ban TikTok for all U.S. users. 

Why is that?

Some American lawmakers believe that TikTok contains malicious spyware that leaks personal data from U.S. users to the Chinese government. 

There have also been claims of China using TikTok’s algorithm to spread inappropriate content & misinformation to its users. 

While the security concerns have been around for a while, the heat really began to rise in December of 2022 when it was uncovered that employees from parent company ByteDance were using TikTok user data to track two U.S. journalists. 

The Chinese company promptly fired the employees, but the damage was already done – as the talks of the U.S. government banning the platform began soon after. 

TikTok is an advertising behemoth, with its ad revenue still projected to surpass $6 billion this year. As such, many marketers rely on the video-sharing platform to promote their products & services to Gen Zers. 

If the U.S. ban does go forward, marketers will have to shift their efforts to other social media platforms. 

Stay tuned to learn more about the potential TikTok ban and what it could mean for your digital marketing campaign. 

Why Is There Talk of Banning TikTok?

FBI Director Chris Wray voiced his concern over the cybersecurity threats posed by TikTok in November of 2022. 

He mentioned the possibility that the Chinese government could use TikTok to control the data collection of millions of users or possibly control the recommendation algorithm – which they could use for ‘influence operations’. 

Not only that, but he also pointed out that Beijing could use the social media app to control software on millions of personal devices, granting the ability to ‘technically compromise’ them. 

These are real concerns that the federal government has for America’s national security, which is why they’re now drafting legislation that could ban the use of TikTok. 

Besides the FBI, Indiana’s Attorney General Todd Rokita has filed legal action against the platform for promoting inappropriate content to minors and for misleading customers into believing their data was protected from China. 

The United States already has an active ban on TikTok for all government-issued devices and at some universities. Beyond that, some members of the Senate Intelligence Committee have asked Apple and Google to remove TikTok from their app stores. 

It’s clear that the tensions surrounding the platform have been building for quite some time, which led to the proposal of the RESTRICT Act and the DATA Act.

What’s the RESTRICT Act?

RESTRICT stands for Restricting the Emergence of Security Threats that Risk Information & Communications Technology. 

It’s a bill that aims to reduce the risk of foreign technology by giving the government the power to identify & respond to emerging threats. 

It’s crucial to note that the bill doesn’t mention TikTok outright. 

Instead, the bill includes all foreign services that contain personal data from more than 1 million U.S. citizens. 

That means TikTok would definitely apply, as would apps & services from other adversarial countries, including China, North Korea, Russia, Cuba, Iran, and Venezuela. 

If the bill goes through, the Secretary of Commerce is responsible for creating processes to find and stop foreign technology products that pose a risk to national security. 

The Act would deliver a devastating blow to TikTok’s US operations, either outright banning the platform or cutting ties with American companies. 

ByteDance has continued to deny storing US data in China, going so far as to spend $1.5 billion on Project Texas, which is the company’s attempt to rebuild TikTok on U.S. servers. To do so, they’re partnering with software company Oracle to host U.S. user data, which should alleviate concerns about sharing data with the Chinese government. 

What’s the DATA Act?

The House Energy and Commerce Committee has devised another measure for banning TikTok, the Deterring America’s Technological Adversaries Act or DATA for short. 

How does it differ from the RESTRICT Act?

Instead of leaving things up to the Secretary of Commerce, the Biden administration would be in charge of sanctioning or banning TikTok if it’s determined that the platform shared U.S. user data with the Chinese government. 

The RESTRICT Act is a bit different in that it establishes systems to penalize & ban all foreign technologies that pose security threats, whereas the DATA Act focuses entirely on TikTok.

How Will Banning TikTok Affect Marketing Strategies?

If you rely on TikTok for advertising, a ban would mean having to rethink your strategy by considering other social media platforms. 

Even if you don’t advertise through TikTok, a ban means the competition on other platforms will suddenly become very fierce. 

Everyone that leaves TikTok will migrate to platforms like Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook, for instance. 

The good news is that many other social media sites have adopted the features that made TikTok so popular, especially for Gen Zers. 

So if you’ve been shooting short-form videos to market your products & services, you can migrate your content to Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, and SnapChat’s Spotlight tab. These platforms also thrive on quick videos that are 90 seconds or less, and you can add filters, special effects, and music – just like TikTok. 

YouTube (2.5 billion) and Instagram (2 billion) actually have more users than TikTok (1.1 billion), so it’ll benefit your brand to have a presence there as well – even if the TikTok ban doesn’t go through. 

Companies are doing more with less 

A majority of marketing teams aren’t able to increase their budget for this year, but they have more robust year-over-year growth goals than 2022. 

In other words, companies are trying to do more with less, which is why the TikTok ban couldn’t come at a worse time for some. 

Not only that, but with marketing budgets as scarce as they are, marketers aren’t eager to invest in creating content for TikTok due to the looming ban. 

After all, it would be a shame to waste precious marketing resources on creating TikTok videos only for the platform to disappear from app stores in the United States. 

The competition on other social media platforms will see a massive spike if the ban goes through, which will put an even tighter strain on marketing teams. Not only will they have to do more with less, but they’ll have to outdo more competitors than ever before. 

If you have an active Gen Z audience, it’s worth your while to start branching out to Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, and SnapChat’s Spotlight tab just in case things go south for TikTok. That way, you’ll already have a contingency plan, as your content will be on several different platforms. 

Rethinking your TikTok marketing strategy 

Many digital marketers use TikTok ads at every stage of their sales funnel, not just the bottom. 

While it’s common to think most TikTok ads are looking for transactional intent, that’s not always the case. 

Plenty of brands use TikTok videos to inform & educate their audience to generate leads and build brand awareness. 

That means if the platform does get banned, you’ll need to rethink your strategy for each stage of the sales funnel – and that usually means creating content for different platforms. 

Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube each have unique uses for your content strategy. By that, we mean that what works on Facebook won’t necessarily work on Instagram, which means you need to create specific types of content for each platform. 

You can use short videos on Instagram Reels to promote your products & services. You can also use longer-form videos to satisfy informational & educational queries on YouTube to generate leads. After that, a well-optimized Facebook Ads campaign can help you boost conversions for more revenue. 

Whatever approach you choose to take, it’s imperative to consider the advantages and disadvantages of each social media platform. For instance, releasing videos on Facebook probably won’t yield as many views if you upload them to Instagram or YouTube instead. 

Lastly, should the TikTok ban become a reality, you’ll want to remove the TikTok tracking pixel from your website. 

Why is that?

It’s because the tracking pixel is a third-party code that could potentially slow down your website. So if TikTok isn’t around anymore, needlessly keeping the tracking pixel will only hurt your loading times, so it’s best to get rid of it. 

Final Thoughts: The Potential TikTok Ban 

TikTok has been at the center of a lot of controversies lately, and there are now two formal bills proposing its ban inside the United States. 

This has caused growing anxiety among marketers that rely on TikTok for advertising, as the ban would force them to rethink their digital marketing strategy. 

Platforms like Instagram Reels & YouTube Shorts are TikTok substitutes, but a ban will mean the competition will grow in a big way. 

Do you want to ensure that your business stays profitable if TikTok should get banned?

Then you need to check out our managed SEO & managed content services at The HOTH. Our team of digital marketing experts is well-prepared for whatever will come, so you’ll be in great hands with us.      

The post How Would a TikTok Ban Affect American Marketers? appeared first on The HOTH.

If so, you should include TikTok search in your existing SEO efforts.

Why is that?

It’s because more and more Gen Z‘ers prefer to use TikTok over traditional search engines to find products, services, businesses, and even restaurants. In fact, nearly half of Gen Z (40%) prefer to use TikTok and Instagram. 

TikTok’s search engine is the new nut to crack for digital marketers targeting a younger audience. The tricky part is that TikTok SEO is such a new thing that marketers are still learning its ins and outs, including how to cater to its algorithm. 

Yet, that doesn’t mean you have to wait to start incorporating TikTok search into your SEO strategy to attract more young people. 

After all, by the end of 2022, TikTok is set to have 750 million monthly users, a vast audience you’ll miss out on if you don’t promote your business on the platform. That’s a ton of traffic, leads, and potential sales, which is why TikTok SEO is worth the investment. 

To help you, we’ve prepared this guide to master TikTok search in its current form. 

Read on to discover the most effective techniques for ranking higher on TikTok’s search engine. 

Why is TikTok Search Taking Over?

As stated before, more and more young people are using TikTok as their preferred search engine, and there are more than a few reasons for this. 

Even the SVP of Google, Prabhakar Raghavan, has noticed this trend, commenting that “newer internet users don’t have the same mindset and expectations that Google is accustomed to,” which has led the company to copy TikTok‘s model by including more visual results with an infinite scroll feature. 

It’s a clear sign that younger audiences’ search needs and desires are changing, as they prefer engaging, visual TikTok video content over text-based Google search results. 

Is that the only reason the TikTok search bar is taking over the world?

Beyond the engaging presentation, young people flock to TikTok because the content is socially validated by a community of like-minded creators and influencers. There’s a real sense of authenticity and a word-of-mouth vibe to TikTok‘s advertising, which users love. 

To the average TikTok user, they’d much rather discover a new restaurant through a short video from their favorite creator instead of a paid corporate ad. That’s because the former is based on real-life experience, while the latter is just self-promotion. 

There’s also a wide variety of content on TikTok, including:

• Memes
• ASMR
• Duets/dancing 
• Educational 
• Comedy 
• News
• Influencer vlogs 

These are only a few of the genres you’ll run into on the TikTok app. 

The good news?

You can create engaging videos in all these genres to promote your business – and you don’t have to go broke to do it. 

How to Optimize Your Content for TikTok Search 

Now that you know why TikTok SEO is worth the time and effort, it’s time to learn how to implement it into your digital marketing strategy. 

In essence, the best practices of TikTok SEO are similar to traditional SEO, albeit with a few tweaks. 

Here’s an overview of the process:

• Discover your target audience and their search intent 
• Conduct keyword research 
• Place the keywords in your video 
• Use hashtags 

So far, this is the most successful strategy for increasing your visibility on TikTok’s search engine. 

Since TikTok SEO is so new, marketers, gurus, and experts are bound to discover new techniques in the future. For now, following these steps are your best bet, so let’s take a more in-depth look at each one. 

Step #1: Uncover your target audience and their search intent 

First, you’ll need to do some demographic research on your products and services to discover who you’re trying to target. 

If you don’t have a customer persona, creating one is an excellent idea – as it will help you get to know your target customer personally. 

Who are you trying to reach with your business? Are you targeting makeup enthusiasts, gamers, skaters, or basketball players?

Also, it would be best if you determined the search intent of your users. Are they looking to make a purchase, or do they want to learn more about your service? Uncovering search intent will help you learn which type of content your audience is craving. 

Step #2: Conduct keyword research 

Just like traditional SEO, you’ll need to do keyword research for your TikTok videos. 

What are keywords?

A keyword or search query is what users type into a search engine to find what they’re looking for. You can use our free keyword planner tool to develop keyword ideas for your audience. Here are three components to look for in a keyword:

• Search volume. Ideally, you want to find a keyword that has a decent search volume. That means that many users are looking for it daily, making it easy to generate lots of traffic if you rank for it. 
• Relevance. This refers to how relevant the keyword is to your target audience. You’ll need each keyword you target to have high relevance to your audience to get the best results. 
• Keyword difficulty. A keyword’s difficulty (KD) score refers to how much competition exists for it. The higher the KD score, the harder it will be to rank for the term. 

The best keywords will have high search volume, high relevance, and low keyword difficulty. 

That way, you know that lots of your audience members are searching for the term, it’s relevant to what you do, and it will be possible to rank in the top results with some optimization. 

Step #3: Place the keywords in your video 

Now it’s time to place your target keywords in strategic spots in your videos – just as you would on a webpage. 

Instead of placing keywords in meta descriptions and the body of your blog articles, you should place your TikTok keywords in:

• The in-video text
• Captions 
• Speech 
• Hashtags 
• Auto-generated close captions 

You should place your keywords in all five spots to get the best results. 

#4: Devise a hashtag strategy 

Last but not least, you must list a series of hashtags for your videos. Here, you’ll need to use a combination of short-tail and long-tail keywords that pertain to your video. 

Do your best to cover all the bases in terms of the content of your video. Include not only the subject matter but also your target audience. 

For example, if your short video is about makeup, your hashtags could look something like #makeupenthusiasts, #makeuptutorials, #lookfabulous, etc. 

Final Thoughts: TikTok Search 

Since TikTok is becoming one of the world’s largest search engines (especially for Gen Z), TikTok SEO is now a must for most companies and websites. 

From e-commerce to entrepreneurs, TikTok has enough monthly users to cater to just about every type of business. 

Remember to research your target audience, uncover their search intent, and conduct targeted keyword research. Do that, and you should improve your TikTok rankings in no time. 

Do you need help developing an SEO strategy for your brand?

Then please don’t wait to check out our incredible managed SEO services at HOTH X.     

The post TikTok Search is Trending: Here’s How You Can Take Advantage  appeared first on The HOTH.

It’s easy to see why that is, as 93% of brands report acquiring new customers due to the videos they post on social media platforms. 

Speaking of platforms that feature video content, there are two that undoubtedly lead the fray – TikTok & YouTube. Both boast insane numbers for their monthly users (YouTube is over 2 billion, which accounts for roughly ½ the internet, and TikTok is now at 1 billion). 

As you can imagine, both video-sharing platforms are marketing goldmines for businesses of all sizes. 

Yet, there are some glaring differences, so how do you know which is best for your business? 

It will come down to your target audience, their demographics, and the type of content they like to consume. 

Beyond that, you also need to consider ad costs, ad formats, and their algorithms (to enhance the visibility of your content). That’s why we’ve put together this ultimate comparison pitting TikTok vs. YouTube to help you determine the best platform for you, so read on to learn more. 

Let’s get started!

An Overview of TikTok 

Starting in 2016 as the brainchild of Chinese internet technology company ByteDance, TikTok would drastically rise in popularity after acquiring/merging with Musical.ly (which began in 2014) – a popular lip-sync app. 

Musical.ly worked by allowing content creators to record short-form videos of themselves lip-syncing to popular songs and movies. It proved to be a phenomenon amongst gen Z’ers, which led ByteDance to acquire the company and merge it into TikTok in 2017. 

While TikTok continued to primarily feature short-form lip-syncing videos at first, it has since expanded its format. 

While still focusing on short-form videos, they bumped things up from Musical.ly’s 15-second limit to a 10-minute cap on content. Yet, a quarter of the highest-performing videos on TikTok range from 24 – 31 seconds in length, which is very short. 

Video topics have also matured over time, with TikTok expanding on short musical videos to include:

• Comedy
• Dance 
• Fashion
• Food 
• Education
• Business
• Vlogging 
• Entertainment 
• More 

In short, TikTok creators are only limited by their own creativity. Due to this versatility, using TikTok for video marketing has exploded recently. 

Marketers’ attention led ByteDance to create TikTok for Business in 2020, a platform exclusively for businesses creating videos on TikTok. It contains a wide range of resources for marketers, including case studies, analytics, and the ability to connect with influencers. 

Another reason content creators love to use TikTok is how simple it is to create videos. All you need is a smartphone that can record video, and the app can handle the rest. 

TikTok allows you to add background music, stickers, filters, and more with its editor. Theoretically, you could create a business TikTok video by yourself only using your smartphone, and it could wind up getting millions of views. 

TikTok’s rapid growth: is it now the king of all video apps?

It’s no secret that TikTok has seen explosive growth since acquiring Musical.ly in 2017. 

In the first quarter of 2020, TikTok broke records by becoming the most-downloaded app of all time in a single quarter, with over 200 million installs spanning both Android and IOS. 

TikTok’s viewer algorithm has also proven to be highly addictive, with users spending an average of 858 minutes on the app each day. That’s because TikTok is highly immersive, with a never-ending scroll of continuous content that makes it hard to stop, but it can also increase the chances of users discovering and consuming your content.

While YouTube remains the king of online video, TikTok is riding hot on its coattails, with no signs of slowing down in the near future. In fact, experts have forecasted that TikTok will exceed YouTube by 2024, which is only a mere two years away. 

It’s clear that the TikTok app is a true behemoth with an ever-expanding user base, user-friendly video editor, and addicting content loop – but is it the right choice for your business? Let’s take a peek at TikTok’s key demographics to learn more. 

TikTok’s user demographic breakdown

Like Musical.ly before it, TikTok’s primary user base consists of gen Z’ers, with 41% being between the ages of 16 to 24 years old. 

Why is the app such a sensation amongst younger people?

There are a few reasons why, with the first being how easy it is to create content for the platform. A 16-year-old can easily record themselves with their smartphone and use TikTok’s editor to add music, filters, and other fun effects. 

Not only that, but thanks to TikTok’s giant user base, picking up millions of video views on a 30-second clip is a real possibility. 

For instance, if a younger person has a talent, it’s quite easy to share it with the world via TikTok. 

Next, TikTok’s algorithm is designed to be as addicting as possible, especially for younger people who already have shorter attention spans. After opening the app, they’re treated to a never-ending scroll of raw, authentic, and engaging short-form videos, which is very appealing to gen Z. 

For this reason, TikTok should be on your radar if you’re marketing your products/services to a younger crowd. 

Yet, that doesn’t mean that young adults and older people are completely absent from the platform. While a majority of users are younger, 20.3% of TikTok users are over 40, and they also spend hours on the platform each day. 

What do users look for on TikTok?

As far as the types of content that perform the best on TikTok, the shorter (and funnier) it is, the better. 

Here’s a rundown of the most popular video types on TikTok:

• Entertainment. Many users turn to TikTok to elevate their mood and escape reality, which is why entertaining videos reign supreme. As such, funny or entertaining skits about your products/services are ideal. 
• Dance. Short, viral dance videos are TikTok’s bread and butter, and they continue to rack up millions of views. Creating a unique dance for your business is a great way to attract attention on the platform. 
• Beauty/skincare. If you sell cosmetics, TikTok will be a goldmine for you. There are tons of beauty influencers on the platform, and they rake in millions of views on the regular. 
• Life hacks. People love learning fun shortcuts and new ways to do things, which is why the life hack hashtag has over 50.9 billion views. If you can include a life hack or market your product as a life hack, TikTok is the perfect place to make and release a video about it. 

As you can see, short, fun videos work best on TikTok. It’s not the type of platform where you’d want to release an in-depth training video or guided tutorial, but it’s perfect for life hacks, dances, and quick skits. 

An Overview of YouTube 

YouTube began in 2005 and quickly grew into a worldwide sensation, which led Google to purchase the platform in 2006, only a year after its launch. 

The creation of YouTube marked a significant turning point in history. For the first time ever, anyone could record and upload video content that could potentially get seen by millions of viewers worldwide. 

It didn’t take long for marketers to take notice, as businesses have been making promotional YouTube videos and ads for many years now. 

YouTube ranks as the second most-visited website on the internet, only behind its parent company, Google. It’s also the second-largest search engine, playing second fiddle to Google again. 

The platform has proven to have serious lasting power, as it still remains the most widely-used video platform on the internet. That’s in large part due to YouTube’s:

• Ease of use and accessibility 
• A wide variety of content 
• Massive user base 
• Universal appeal (there’s something for everyone) 

YouTube is also no stranger to making changes to keep up with its competitors. Examples include introducing live streaming to rival Twitch and YouTube Shorts to mimic the success of TikTok. 

There’s also YouTube TV, which is an alternative to cable television, and YouTube Premium (formerly YouTube Red), which mirrors streaming services like Netflix. 

YouTube’s appeal to businesses 

Nearly every major company has a YouTube channel due to how easy the platform is to use and how many active users it has. 

No matter what your business does, there’ll be an audience for it on YouTube. Every niche is represented on the platform, from health and wellness to home renovations. 

That’s great news for businesses of all sizes, as you can reach your target audience without having to spend a ton of money on a video production team and distribution. 

Instead, you can use your webcam or smartphone to record commercials, promotional videos, training videos, and whatever else you need for your company and then upload them to YouTube in a few minutes. 

With some clever SEO tactics (YouTube SEO is a very real thing), you can increase your chances of going viral and generating loads of new customers. 

Unlike TikTok, YouTube places a lot more emphasis on long-form video content. By default, the video length cap is 15 minutes for unverified accounts. 

While it’s certainly possible to upload shorter clips (especially with the advent of YouTube Shorts), verified accounts are able to upload videos that are much longer in length and can even be up to 12 hours long. 

This extra length provides some wiggle room for companies that need to upload longer videos, such as training videos or virtual tours of the company. You can also create longer and more in-depth tutorials and guides for your audience, which can help you acquire new customers and leads.

Important YouTube stats 

While TikTok’s popularity is undoubtedly on the rise (and may surpass YouTube eventually), that’s not to imply that YouTube is doing anything wrong – or that they won’t be around in the near future. 

In fact, the statistics show that they’re doing everything right, and they’re still growing at a tremendous rate. Since 2019, the number of channels with more than one billion views has increased by five times, so the platform is definitely still relevant. 

YouTube Shorts is also giving TikTok a run for its money, especially in countries like India. As of 2021, the short-form video app boasted 15 billion daily views worldwide. 

As such, YouTube remains an excellent choice for long-form and short-form videos. The choice to go with TikTok tends to come down to demographics in most cases. Speaking of that, let’s take a look at YouTube’s primary age groups. 

YouTube’s demographics

While it’s been stated that TikTok appeals to the younger generation, the comparison of TikTok vs. YouTube is a bit more complex than young vs. old. 

It’s not that YouTube appeals directly to an older audience, just that it has a broader appeal that encompasses more age groups. Plenty of young people still use YouTube, with the platform appealing to 85% of teens. 

More adults watch YouTube than TikTok, with 81% of adults active on YouTube compared to TikTok’s 21%. 

The older generations also prefer Google’s video platform, with 83% of adults aged 50 to 64 report using it. Beyond that, 49% of adults over the age of 64 also use YouTube. 

While it is true that YouTube reigns supreme for older generations, they still hold clout with younger people, too. If your products and services are aimed at teens, YouTube is a great choice. 

What do users look for on YouTube?

Unlike TikTok, YouTube users flock to the platform to watch longer, more in-depth videos. Quick skits and dances are also popular but to a far less degree. 

For the most part, popular videos on YouTube tend to be more informative and educational in nature. Users also turn to YouTube to learn more about new products and services – with 90% reporting having discovered new brands and products from YouTube videos. 

Here are the types of videos that get the most attention on YouTube:

How-to’s (guided tutorials)

If you’ve ever found yourself stumped on how to perform a task, you’ve likely turned to YouTube to learn something new. Tutorials are insanely popular, and they should account for a significant chunk of your YouTube marketing strategy. 

Educational videos

Besides tutorials, educational videos are also prevalent on YouTube. They could be anything from teaching arithmetic to documenting historical events and more. A great lead generation tactic is to create educational YouTube videos related to your niche. 

Music videos

More often than not, the type of content that generates billions of views on YouTube is music videos. These include official music videos from top studio artists, as well as breakout indie hits. 

Comedy

Just like TikTok, people turn to YouTube to unwind after a long day of work. Stand-up comedy, sketches, and silly cat videos are staples of this genre, so take note of that fact for your future content schedule. 

As you can see, longer, more professional videos are more popular on YouTube than they are on TikTok. 

TikTok vs. YouTube: Ad Formats and Costs 

Do you plan on running ads on TikTok and YouTube instead of or in addition to creating regular content?

If so, check out this breakdown of ad formats and costs from both platforms. 

YouTube Ad Formats 

To run ads on YouTube, you’ll need to choose from one of the following formats:

• Discover ads. These show up on YouTube’s homepage. 
• TrueView (skippable) ads. These are the ads that play before videos (that you can skip after five seconds). 
• Non-skippable ads. These ads play at the beginning, middle, or end of a video – and don’t contain the option to skip. 
• Bumper ads. These are quick, 6-second ads that play before a video. 
• Overlay ads. These are banner ads that show up at the bottom of the page. 

As you can see, you have a lot of options and flexibility when choosing ads to display on YouTube. 

TikTok Ad Formats 

TikTok offers four ways to advertise on its platform:

• TopView. These ads appear at the top of the app once a user opens it. 
• In-feed ads. As the name implies, these ads show up in the middle of a user’s feed. 
• Branded hashtag. A specific hashtag that companies promote creators to make content for. 
• Brand takeovers. This type combines all the ad types above into one. 

While there are fewer options than YouTube, TikTok still has a wide variety of ad formats you can use. 

YouTube Ad Costs

YouTube ads operate on a cost-per-view basis – which means you won’t get charged a dime if nobody views your ad. 

Rates tend to be reasonable, as they range from $0.10 to $0.30 per view. You can also set up an advertising budget that you input into YouTube, and it will cut you off once you reach it, which is a handy way to ensure you don’t overspend. 

TikTok Ad Costs 

TikTok has a different model than cost-per-click, known as cost-per-mile. 

What qualifies as a mile?

One thousand views count as a mile on TikTok, and it starts at $10, which is pretty reasonable. 

TikTok vs. YouTube: The Judge’s Scorecards 

By now, we’ve gone over the primary features, demographics, and ad formats of YouTube and TikTok.

Before we deliver the verdict, it’s crucial to note that the platform you choose should vary based on your target audience and type of content. 

If you’re targeting gen Z’ers with cosmetic products, TikTok is undoubtedly the way to go. The same is true if you target a younger demographic and create shorter, more entertaining videos. 

For businesses targeting adults and other companies, YouTube is the best video marketing platform for your needs. You can create in-depth educational videos, tutorials, and tours of your company. 

Who wins the matchup?

To us, YouTube is still the king of all video apps. It simply has it all; an extensive user base, an easy-to-use interface, longer-form content, and YouTube appeals to all ages. 

Do you need to incorporate a winning video marketing strategy at your company?

Then don’t hesitate to check out our spokesperson video service.  

The post TikTok vs. YouTube – Choose Your Marketing Fighter appeared first on The HOTH.

The platform is fairly popular among digital marketers as 55% of marketers are currently using YouTube as a part of their digital marketing strategy. 

In fact, only 9% of small businesses are on YouTube and only around 0.25% of all YouTube channels are making money. That means many small business owners aren’t reaping the benefits of video content as much as they could be. 

With that said, the remaining content will teach you how to make money on YouTube, show you how the pros do it, and everything else you need to know in order to generate revenue on the platform. 

Are you ready to start earning some passive cash? 

Keep scrolling! 

How to Start a YouTube Channel

Let’s start with the basics, just in case you’re a beginner. You first need to start a YouTube channel. 

If you don’t already have a Gmail YouTube account, you need one to create a channel.

Step 1: Sign in to your Gmail account on the YouTube Platform

Step 2: Click your profile picture and click on “create a channel”

Step 3: You’ll be asked to create a channel

Step 4: Check the details (with your Google Account name and photo) and confirm to create your channel

Add details to the “about” section, begin customization, and you’re halfway there! 

Creating a YouTube channel is free; however, you may need to invest in filming equipment which could cost you a pretty penny. 

Now that you’re a YouTube creator, how do you get subscribers? 

How to Grow Your YouTube Channel 

Before we jump in, please understand that this process will take time and effort. On average, it takes over a year to get to 1,000 subscribers on YouTube. 

You will also need to upload around 160 videos. These uploaded videos need to have target keywords that will drive enough traffic to your channel but aren’t too competitive that you can’t rank. 

This process can take more or less time depending on your YouTube SEO efforts and other factors. 

Here are a few helpful tips for growing your channel: 

Write engaging and entertaining titles

YouTube marketing is really all about presentation. 

Titles are the first thing a viewer sees and it’s usually a make-or-break when it comes to your video’s performance. Ask yourself: are you presenting must-see content? 

The key here is to make awesome titles that grab your audience’s attention from the get-go without resorting to shady clickbait headlines. People like entertaining content and they also want to know what your video is about just from reading the title. 

For example, you can take a page out of the playbooks of YouTube channels like Slapped Ham: 

These videos heavily rely on listicles, insane, scary, or intense content. 

These types of videos rack up hundreds of thousands of views. We can’t all be Slapped Ham or Buzzfeed, but you can definitely use strategies such as theirs for your videos. 

If you aren’t sure what to title your videos, give The HOTH’s Title Generator a try! 

Optimize your videos

Did you know that YouTube videos show up for 70% of the top 100 Google search results? 

You can even see for yourself. Any given “how-to” search on Google will return something from Youtube:

Let me explain, YouTube is the second-largest search engine in the world next to Google. Just like how people search on Google to problem solve, the same rings true for YouTube. 

Think of it this way, your YouTube videos are like any other piece of content that needs to be optimized for SEO. You need keywords, tags, and other basic SEO strategies. 

To be able to boost your chances of showing up in search results, you’ll want to follow some of the best practices for YouTube SEO:

• Include target keywords in your titles and descriptions
• Mention keywords in your video
• Engagement
• Use categories
• Add tags to your videos

Know your audience

With any type of content you create, you always want to make sure that it matches up with what your audience wants to see and their search intent. 

Given that 62% of YouTube’s users log into the platform daily, YouTube has no problems with engagement and retention. Still, the majority of users use YouTube for entertainment rather than to find brands. Businesses still have a long way to go on the platform. With that said, a helpful tip would be to try and find a balance between entertainment and advertising. 

If you’re just starting to learn how to promote your channel, take a look at what your competitors are doing in regards to videos in your niche. 

Look at what videos they have that they got the most views and engagement on. That will give you some ideas of what topics your audience wants and what style of videos they like to see. 

Additionally, you can take a look at your YouTube analytics if you’ve already uploaded a couple of videos. YouTube gives you some detailed information on your audience, watch time, demographics, engagement, and other metrics. 

Engage with comments and the YouTube Community

Although YouTube isn’t considered a social networking platform like Twitter or Facebook, it does however have a thriving community where users are always engaging with content. 

As I briefly mentioned, any kind of interaction with your audience is seen as a positive signal to YouTube’s algorithm. 

Similar to Instagram or even Google reviews, you need to respond to comments and engage with your followers. Even something as simple as liking or pinning a top comment can be engaging with a personal touch. 

Create custom thumbnails

One of the best ways to promote your channel is to create custom thumbnails. Think of your thumbnail as a way to grab a user’s attention right off the bat. 

YouTube automatically captures a screenshot from any given video and uses it for the thumbnail. That snapshot can sometimes appear blurry or even display an awkward moment in the video. 

If you aren’t a graphic designer and don’t have access to a freelancer. You can always use Canva to help you create a custom thumbnail that will boost your engagement. 

As I briefly mentioned, Google shows a video thumbnail next to a search result about 26% of the time, and users are more likely to click that listing. 

Additionally, emotions are a huge driving factor in people’s behavior and choices. Video marketing statistics show that videos with emotional thumbnails tend to get more clicks than those without. 

How to Make Money on YouTube by Monetizing your Videos

First, you need to make sure you meet the requirements which are gaining 1,000 subscribers and having 4,000 hours of watch time. 

To check and see if you’ve already met those requirements click on the icon picture on your YouTube account. 

Click, “Monetization.” 

If you are eligible, it will send you to steps to monetize, if you aren’t you will see something like this:

You will then want to click, “notify me when I’m eligible.” 

You will then be sent an email when you have met all of the requirements and are ready to begin making money on the platform. 

Once you do, here are some tips for earning cash: 

Enable super features: super chat, super stickers, super thanks

If you’ve ever watched a live stream on Youtube, then you may have noticed that some chat messages stand out and are highlighted with stickers. 

Those are called super features. Youtube lets creators enable super chat on their live streams. This feature lets your audience give you anything from 1 dollar to $500, just to get their message featured.

In addition to super chat messages, instead of buying messages to be seen, users can also buy and share fun stickers. These stickers are pinnable to the top of the chat and tend to grab the creator’s attention. 

Finally, a super thanks feature lets people show appreciation by donating a small amount. Users will then receive a featured comment in chat as well as a GIF. 

Ad revenue

The most traditional way you can earn on YouTube is through their video ads. If you’ve joined YPP, you can turn on ad views for individual or multiple videos. 

Keep in mind that your videos need to meet YouTube’s advertiser-friendly content guidelines to be able to run YouTube ads. However, there are a few different ways you can add ads to your video with YouTube’s ad formats. 

Additionally, you will need Google Adsense to be able to begin receiving funds from the ads. 

How to Join the YouTube Partner Program

The first step is monetizing your channel or individual videos. The second step is applying for the YouTube Partner Program. 

• Sign in to your YouTube account
• Click your profile picture in YouTube Studio
• Click “Monetization“
• If you’re eligible click “Done” on the “Review Partner Program terms” card

The difference between the YPP program and YouTube monetization is the difficulty in joining. It is much harder to gain access to the YouTube Partner Program whereas monetization only requires a certain amount of subscribers and views time. 

Here are the minimum eligibility requirements to join:

• Reach 1K subscribers
• Follow all the YouTube channel monetization policies
• Live in a country/region where the YouTube Partner Program is available
• Have no active Community Guidelines strikes on your channel
• Have more than 4,000 valid public watch hours in the last 12 months. 
• Have a linked AdSense account

Here are the benefits of joining YPP:

• Access to Creator Support teams 
• Access to the Copyright Match Tool 
• Access to monetization features

You can also create channel memberships: 

Channel memberships

Channel memberships give users the ability to join your channel through monthly payments that get members-only perks. YouTube creators can give exclusive offerings to the channel such as product discounts, live chats, or other high-quality exclusive content. 

As always though, you need to meet the requirements: 

• Have 1k subscribers
• In the YPP (YouTube Partner Program)
• 18 years or older
• Live in the available locations
• Your channel must have a Community tab
• Your channel isn’t meant for kids
• Your channel doesn’t have a large number of ineligible videos (such as videos for kids or music claims)
• You have agreed to comply with their terms and policies

How do YouTubers get paid?

Data from Forbes shows that the top video creators earn 50% of their income from YouTube ads on video views. As I briefly mentioned, you need to set up an AdSense account and be monetized once you create a channel. You can only get paid once you reach a minimum of $100 on your AdSense account. 

AdSense pays per view which is anywhere from $0.0004 to $0.016. That means if your channel receives 1,000 views, it’s worth $18. A YouTuber would make (on average) $9.90 per 1,000 views. YouTube then takes 45% and the content creator gets the rest. 

Let’s use PewDiePie as an example here:

The Money Nation estimates give PewDiePie an average salary of $12 million per year, which equates to an hourly rate for a 40-hour week of $3.400 per hour. He has over 111 million subscribers. He earns an average of $20,000 from each of his videos.

Now, most businesses and brands aren’t going to make it where PewDiePie is today with YouTube views, however, it is possible to earn an extraordinary amount of money on YouTube if done correctly. 

Sell Products or Merchandise

The easiest way to start selling your merchandise is to link your shop in every YouTube description. However, you can also use YouTube’s Merch Shelf or sell T-shirts and other merch using print-on-demand services like Redbubble. 

How you begin to sell merchandise:

• Pick brand-appropriate Youtube merch
• Start with best-selling items
• Design mockups
• Poll your subscribers to see what merch they want

Use Fan Funding

YouTube Fan Funding is a process of asking your fanbase to support you on crowdfunding platforms. Whether your channel is big or small, fan funding is a model you should be aware of. 

Here are a few popular platforms where this happens: 

Patreon

Patreon allows content creators to make money by offering premium content that supporters can pay for on a monthly basis. Creators have the option to set up multiple tiers at different price points so they can appeal to people with different budgets. 

Brand partnerships as an influencer

Brand partnerships are a mutually beneficial relationship in which creators get paid to market a company’s product/service. In addition to direct payments, creators may also get free products/services. For example, many video game developers will contact video game streamers and give them a free video game key. This helps promote their game while also sharing a percentage of their profits from that game with the influencer.

Affiliate marketing, such as Amazon Associates,  is also another common way that YouTubers can make money. Through this form of marketing, influencers receive a portion of a brand’s or product’s profits on any sales that they helped generate. This is typically tracked through a unique link or code.

Now You Know How to Make Money on YouTube

If you want YouTube to become a passive income stream for your brand or company, you need to create engaging content that brings viewers to your channel.

You need 4,000 hours to become monetized which isn’t easy using only product placements. 

Looking for more digital marketing advice? Don’t forget to sign up for free and check out some of our free SEO tools and guides! 

The post How to Make Money on YouTube appeared first on The HOTH.

YouTube is the world’s second most visited website, with more than 14 billion visits each month – topped only by Google. 

It’s also the world’s second-largest search engine, once again, only surpassed by Google. 

That’s why the platform is invaluable for digital marketing and SEO. If you aren’t leveraging the power of video to promote your business, it’s never too late to start. 

But what if you don’t have Hollywood-par equipment to make YouTube videos?

That’s not a problem. You can create an engaging, high-quality video by only using a smartphone and some basic video editing software in today’s age. 

Videos are fantastic for improving customer engagement and retention. In fact, 94% of marketers say that videos helped their users better understand their products and services. 

YouTube content can also bolster your SEO efforts by placing videos in your blogs. For example, including a step-by-step instructional video with a blog post will make the content more robust and more likely to rank higher in the SERPs. 

If you want to learn how to film your first video, you’ve come to the right place. 

In this post, I will teach you how to make a Youtube video using only basic equipment that you likely already have.

Why Video Marketing Isn’t Going Anywhere

The popularity and prevalence of video content only continue to rise. Even while YouTube is 17 years old now, the platform continues to lead the fray for video creators. Here are a few eye-opening statistics that prove this point:

• By 2022, online videos will account for more than 82% of online traffic. 
• 694,000 hours of video stream live on YouTube each minute. 
• 81% of all internet users have used YouTube. 

Okay, so it’s clear that YouTube is a video behemoth that isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. There are plenty of reasons why that is, too. 

One of which is that people prefer to watch videos instead of reading text. It makes sense if you think about it – why spend 15 minutes reading an article when you can watch a brief 2-minute video explaining the same subject?

Forbes even reports that 59% of company decision-makers would rather watch a video than read an article or blog post.

They even go so far as to claim that one minute of video content is the equivalent of 1.8 million written words. So if you have a particularly urgent or powerful message to get across, consider making a video. 

The impact of video on marketing campaigns

Well-made videos can provide incredible value for your search engine optimization. In fact, nearly 25% of all Google searches have video results. 

Do you struggle with your dwell time and bounce rate? If so, you should know that video can drastically help with both. 

Video marketing will also work wonders for brand recognition and customer loyalty. 

• Videos are memorable and will stick in customers’ minds.
• If you regularly update your YouTube channel, it keeps customers coming back for more.
• 99% of YouTube users have accounts on other social media platforms – so they can share your content. 

Here’s another fun fact – videos on social media generate 1,200% more shares than text and images put together. 

In short, if you’re running a modern digital marketing campaign, you can’t afford to ignore the power of video content.  

Yet, there’s a catch to all these mouthwatering statistics – mastering video production doesn’t happen overnight. 

Shooting and editing a good video can be a daunting task for beginners. You’ll also need to set aside a budget for creating videos and maintaining your YouTube channel. 

The good news?

Learning how to make a YouTube video does not have to be complicated or expensive. You can shoot everything on an iPhone (or Android), edit it in iMovie, and still get great results. 

That’s because the quality of your script and the relevancy of your topic matter far more than the video’s resolution or production quality. 

Let’s learn how to write, shoot, and upload videos on YouTube without further ado. 

Step 1: Brainstorming Topics for Videos 

Most video creators find the first step the hardest. For them, topic creation means sitting in front of a blank word processor for hours while their brain slowly melts and turns into soup. 

Luckily, coming up with topics doesn’t have to be difficult (or painful) at all – especially if you have an existing website that already has blogs. In that case, an effortless way to come up with topics is to repurpose your most successful blog content into videos. 

All you have to do is identify your top-performing blogs – and voila – you already have plenty of topic ideas. Not only that, but blogs tend to be pretty easy to turn into video scripts. 

To start, use a tool like Google Search Console to discover which blogs are getting the most:

• Organic Traffic
• Customer conversions
• Shares on social media

The blogs that show up at the top are your top video candidates. If the content already found success via text, imagine how popular it would become in video form?

The writing is already there, so all you need are some visuals to go along with it. You could choose to include voiceover narration or use live actors in your videos. Either way, your goal should be to capture the spirit of what made the most successful. 

If the blog was informative, your video should be too. If it was more entertaining, the video should follow suit. 

Creating videos to accompany existing blogs 

Another way to generate topics is to create videos to go along with existing blogs instead of replacing them. In this sense, the video is an accompanying piece, not the main focus. 

Do you have any blogs explaining how to do something or use a specific product?

If so, they are golden opportunities for videos. In particular, you can create a simple tutorial and step-by-step videos to accompany your blog. 

Creating videos like this serves two purposes. For one, it boosts the SEO for the blog post – as a video will increase your ranking power. Secondly, it’s a new video that you can add to your YouTube channel, increasing your chances of ranking on YouTube’s SERPs. 

By optimizing your video for YouTube, you can increase the number of hits you receive on the platform. That’s all the more advertising and recognition your brand will receive due to your videos. 

That’s why you should look for any opportunity to create a simple video educating your audience – and existing blogs are a great place to start. 

Do keyword research on YouTube

If you don’t have any blogs yet or are looking for other ways to come up with topics – you should do YouTube keyword research.

Since YouTube is technically a search engine like Google, its users find videos by entering search queries or keywords.  

As such, researching what your audience searches for on YouTube can spark some topic ideas. You can use Ahrefs’ YouTube Keyword Tool to find what your customers are looking for the most. 

Once you find some hot keywords related to your niche, look at the top-ranking videos. Not only will that help you come up with topics, but you can see where the highest-ranked videos fall short. 

For example, let’s say that you sell acoustic guitar strings and accessories. You do some digging and find the keyword ‘guitar strings acoustic’ works well for you.

The top-rated video covers how to change strings on a guitar. 

How can you outdo that?

Why not create a video breaking down not only how to change strings – but also the name of each string, the types of gauges, and the difference between steel strings and nylon strings. 

Now not only do you have a great topic in mind, but you also know how to outdo the competition with entirely unique content. 

Humanize your company/organization with vlogs

Sometimes, a simple vlog is best if you’re stumped and have zero YouTube video ideas. After all, vlogs will humanize your company – as they grant your customers a glance inside your operations.

You could start with an intro video letting your audience know who you are and what you do. 

From there, you could do a weekly vlog series where you or someone from your company films their daily routine. These ‘day-in-the-life’ style videos are very popular, and they help your audience empathize with you.  

The best part?

You don’t have to spend time storyboarding or writing a script! Vlogs are spontaneous and capture a slice of life, so you don’t need to write them. In fact, a scripted vlog will come off as inauthentic, so flip the camera on and let fate take the wheel. 

Step 2: How to Write an Engaging Video Script 

Now that you have some topics in mind, it’s time to write the script, so your videos actually have content. 

If you’ve never written a script before, there’s no need to be intimidated. 

There’s no right or wrong way to write the script for a YouTube video. You won’t need to submit it anywhere, so formatting factors like fonts and margins won’t matter. 

What will matter is nailing the tone while providing ample information for your viewers. 

When it comes to writing dialogue, it’s best to follow the KISS philosophy or ‘keep it simple stupid.’

There’s no need to get fancy with dramatic monologues or large words. Instead, aim for an organic, natural tone that’s highly conversational. Speak to your audience like you’re talking to a friend.

Also, you don’t want to come off as condescending, so be as down-to-earth as possible. 

You also probably won’t need to script out every single word. For most videos, a simple list of bullet points will suffice. That way, your presenter can speak naturally while ensuring they touch on all the most important topics. 

Yet, if you’re writing subtitles for voiceover, you’ll want to write out every word while being as specific as possible. 

Tone

Take your target audience into account when coming up with the tone for your video. 

What type of content do they enjoy? While being conversational is essential, it’s also crucial not to ignore your demographics. 

For example, if you’re selling products to an older crowd, you’ll want to take on a more professional tone. If you’re targeting the youth, you can be laxer with your copy and even include emojis/modern slang. 

Consistency in tone is also a must for your YouTube videos. If your videos all vary drastically in tone, you’ll have difficulty building an audience. 

Once you’ve settled on a tone, stick to it like glue. The more consistent you are with your audience, the more they will trust you and see you as a thought leader in their field. 

Video length

Your script will dictate the length of your video as well, so be mindful of that. As a rule of thumb, it’s far better to have a shorter watch time than a longer one. 

Why is that?

It’s because viewer engagement begins to fade after 2 minutes. 

To avoid losing your audience, do your best to create concise scripts that get straight to the point. 

Avoid being too wordy or padding your videos for length. If your video is only 30 seconds, great! There’s no need to make a video longer if all you’re after is length. Instead, only add content if it’s integral to the information already provided in the video. 

Here’s a helpful tip: In general, one page of a script translates to one minute of screen time. Going by this formula, you should try to make all your video scripts two pages or less. 

Provide a detailed call-to-action (CTA)

Okay, so now that you’ve provided your viewers with value, it’s time to tell them what to do next. After all, the point of creating videos is ultimately to convert, so you can’t forget to include a clear call to action. 

Before including one, ask yourself what your goal was when you created this video. 

Did you hope to sell more products or get more newsletter sign-ups? 

Knowing that will dictate how you go about creating a CTA. An example would be including the link to your newsletter sign-up page in the description and reminding viewers about it at the end of the video. 

“Don’t forget to check out our newsletter, which is provided in the description.”

Or you can encourage viewers to check out your website to learn more about your products. 

“Like what you see here? Don’t wait to head over to our products page to learn more.”

That’s all it takes to include a helpful CTA informing viewers how to take the next step. 

Step 3: Shooting Your Videos 

Lights, camera, action! 

Or maybe not. It’s no secret that video production equipment runs on the expensive side – especially prosumer cameras and gear. 

It’s not uncommon for cameras to cost hundreds of thousands, and the rental rates are also through the roof. So how can you expect to take your YouTube account to the top without Hollywood-grade production gear?

The truth is you don’t need any of that stuff, especially if you’re only a beginner or have a more than modest budget.

Popular YouTubers have been proving this for nearly two decades now. Some of the most popular creators on the platform only use a simple webcam and basic audio equipment. Countless others use smartphones and free video editing software – yet still rake in millions of views. 

In today’s age, nobody expects YouTube videos to have feature film quality visuals, nor do they need them. 

After all, if you’re looking for a tutorial or educational information, it’s not likely that you’ll care if the video was shot on an 8K digital camera. As stated before, it’s the content that counts. As long as the tutorial lets you know how to use your new washing machine, it doesn’t matter how it was shot. 

Not only that, but the quality of phone cameras has gone through the roof in recent years. Your average iPhone camera can shoot in stunning 4K resolution – which is more than enough. 

DSLR cameras are also relatively affordable and provide amazing visuals. In fact, many short films and TV shows shoot on DSLRs for this very reason. As a point of reference, a Hollywood camera can cost $100,000, while an exceptional DSLR will only run you a few grand (or less). 

Selecting your talent 

All right, now that you have your camera situation worked out – you need to decide who will physically appear in the video (if anyone). 

If you can’t hire anyone and are particularly camera-shy, you can choose to provide voiceover only. 

If you’re going to use people, though, you’ll want to plan that out beforehand. You don’t need to scout for local actors, either. Most of the time, yourself or some of your coworkers will more than suffice. 

You just need someone comfortable enough to read the lines conversationally. 

Also, don’t worry about reading the entire script in one take. Instead, the beauty of video is that you can combine multiple takes into one at the end. 

All you’ll need to do is memorize a few lines at a time and then deliver them to the camera. Once the shooting is done, you can compile and assemble the pieces into one seamless performance. We’ll dive more into the editing process in just a bit. 

Your talent should stay energetic throughout the read. The last thing you want is for your talent to read your lines with little to no enthusiasm, as that will bore your audience to tears. Instead, make sure your talent is pepped up and ready to deliver the lines with a lot of energy. 

It may take a few takes to get right, so don’t get frustrated. Instead, remain calm and stay positive with your talent. If they don’t have high energy, offer them a cup of coffee or an energy drink. 

Once you get the hang of it, you’ll be off to the races. It’s something that takes practice to nail, so don’t be shy about creating your first video. 

Composing shots

Great talent is only half the equation in creating a good video. You’ll also want to incorporate a few competent filmmaking techniques to make your video engaging. 

If you’ve never shot a video before, there are a few things you’ll want to keep in mind. 

Remember to hold the phone horizontally if you’re shooting with your iPhone. That ensures that your video will take up the entirety of the screen on YouTube. If you shoot vertically, you’ll wind up with a ‘portrait-style’ shot – where the sides of the screen will have black bars. 

That doesn’t look good, so always shoot horizontally. 

Beyond that, you’ll want to keep the phone as steady as possible. Try leaning your phone up against something to keep it still during shooting. That can be as simple as using the edge of a book once you find the perfect angle. 

When shooting people, you’ll want to frame them properly. In particular, you’ll want to make sure each subject has ample headroom. 

That means leaving enough space above their head in the shot. There’s a sweet spot here, roughly an inch of headroom. Too much, and it’ll look awkward – as their head will be toward the bottom of the screen. Not enough headroom, and you’ll end up cutting off your subject at the top of the screen. 

A medium shot will work best if your subject is speaking to you head-on. That’s where you frame your subject from the waist up. 

You can shoot from behind each person’s shoulder if you’re filming a conversation. That’s known as a shot, reverse shot setup. 

Step 4: Video Editing 

Shooting is done, which means it’s time to enter post-production or the editing process. There’s a real art to video editing, and it can either make or break your video. 

The good news is there are plenty of free programs you can use that are user-friendly.

If you’re an iPhone user, iMovie is all you need to edit basic videos, and it comes included with your iPhone or Mac. 

So what is editing all about?

In short, it’s how you handle the transitions from shot to shot. In other words, videos are made up of multiple takes, and the editing process is where you string them all together. 

The end goal is to create a cohesive recreation of your script by choosing the strongest takes. 

Yet, you’ll soon find that you need ways to hide specific transitions and smooth out other ones. 

An example would be when you cut to a different shot of the same person in the same place. This is known as a jump cut, and it was once considered a grave mistake in filmmaking. Yet, jump cuts have become far more prevalent in today’s age – thanks in no small part to YouTube creators. 

Yet, they don’t always look good, so you’ll want to have a way to avoid them. 

That’s where B-roll comes into play. B-roll footage is anything extra you capture to enhance your video and hide transitions. 

B-roll can be all sorts of things – stock footage, scenic landscapes, buildings, etc. What’s important is that your B-roll relates to the main video in some way. As long as it does, you can use any type of footage that you want here. 

Breaking down the editing process

Here are the basic components of video editing:

• The Script. You’ll need a copy of the script on hand at all times when editing. It’s what will keep you on track when cutting all the different takes together. Without the script, it’s very easy to get lost. 
• A-roll. The A-roll is the central part of your video, where your actors are reading the script to the camera. Any shot that’s part of your script/original vision is an A-roll shot. 
• B-roll. Your A-roll breaks up the A-roll footage and enhances it. B-rolls can be images and infographics as well. 
• Background music. Most videos are too static if they don’t have any type of music. Bear in mind that you won’t be able to use copyrighted music here, so it’s not a good idea to select tunes from your car’s playlist. Instead, either use stock music or hire a freelancer to create something original. 
• Optional. If you lack the budget to shoot B-roll, then you could always use stock footage from sites like Unsplash, Pexels, or PikWizard.

Cutting and assembling footage

In the past, editors had to physically ‘cut’ the footage together – which was an incredibly cumbersome and time-consuming process. Luckily, modern video editing software has made that a thing of the past – and now all you have to do is drag and drop files:

1. The first step is to import all of your footage into the program. Go to File > Import, and then select the folder containing all your footage. 
2. To stay organized, upload your A-roll first, so you don’t get your footage mixed up. Scour through each take and mark the ones that are best. Remember, you want high energy in the delivery and clear audio. 
3. After that, bring in the B-roll footage. This is where you can decide where you need B-roll the most to cover transitions and add to the atmosphere. 
4. Last but not least, add your background music and any other audio that you want to include. 

You’ll be able to tweak the length of each clip, as well as when it cuts to another shot. Do your best to make each cut appear seamless. When a video is edited well, you shouldn’t even notice it. In other words, your goal when editing is to become invisible.

Pro tip: When cutting from one angle to another, try to cut during motion whenever possible. That’s because cuts that occur during movement appear far more seamless.  

Once you’ve got your cut the way you want it (complete with an attractive video title containing your target keyword) – you’re ready to export the file. Go to File > Share to do so. 

Step 5: How To Upload To YouTube

The last step in learning how to make a YouTube video is the uploading process.

Luckily, this is a straightforward process once you have an account. All you need to do is click on the camera icon with a + on it that says ‘Create.’ Once you do, you’ll have two options:

• Upload a video
• Go live

If you want to upload videos, select Upload video. If you’re going to do live streaming instead, hit the ‘Go live’ button. 

Also, DO NOT forget to fill in the infoboxes for your video – as that’s how you’ll use incorporate SEO for YouTube. 

Keep the following tips in mind:

• Tags. You’ll want to load up your video with as many relevant tags as possible. Of course, you’ll want to include your keywords here. Long-tail keywords tend to work best here, so keep that in mind. 
• Title. Your page title is the most crucial spot to include your primary keyword, so don’t forget it. 
• Description. The sweet spot here is 150 words that contain relevant keywords and tags. If it’s a repurposed blog post, you can include a link to the original post in the description. 

Once these areas are all filled out, you’re ready to hit upload and go live with your video content. Don’t forget to embed the video on any related blogs, so you receive a boost in traffic. 

Concluding Thoughts: How to Make a YouTube Video 

Video content should be on your radar if you plan on starting a digital marketing campaign. By now, you should understand how to create high-quality videos on a low budget. 

Need help with your digital marketing needs? Book a call with us today, or check out our other resources.

The post How to Make a YouTube Video in 5 Easy Steps appeared first on The HOTH.

Or that 95% of people have watched explainer videos to learn more about a product or service? 

So if you aren’t leveraging the power of video for your marketing campaigns, now is the time to create a video marketing strategy. 

It’s the framework that will help you determine which types of videos will work best for your marketing goals. 

For example, do you want to attract a larger audience, better engage your viewers, or generate more sales?

Once you know your goals, you can begin forming your strategy around them. 

But what if you don’t know the first thing about video production? How do you budget for videos? What resources do you need?

You’re certainly not alone if you’ve been asking yourself these questions. That’s why we put together this extensive guide on putting together a video marketing strategy for your business. 

Also, don’t forget to take advantage of our full-feature HD video service as a source for your video content.  

Let’s get started!

Step #1: Ask Yourself the Right Questions 

Before you do anything else, sit down and ask yourself what your marketing goals are for video creation. In other words, what do you hope to achieve? 

To come up with your goals, you’ll need to start by asking yourself the right questions. Try starting with these five:

• Who is your target audience?
• Which stage of the marketing funnel are they in?
• How can you solve their pain points?
• Which marketing channels are you using to reach them?
• Which metrics and analytics will you use to measure your success?

In particular, answering the first three is the most crucial, as these questions are necessary for any type of marketing campaign. 

Above all else, you’ll need to identify your target audience and nail your messaging. Otherwise, your video will fall on deaf ears, and you’ll wind up with nothing to show for the money you spent creating videos. 

Who is your target audience?

You need to know who you’re speaking to when creating videos. If your business doesn’t already have a target audience, niche, or buyer persona – you’ll need to find one now. If you do, then you’re all set for this section. 

Your target audience is the people whose problems you solve with your products and services. They’re also the people most likely to find your video content interesting. 

If you sell gardening tools, your target audience would be gardeners and landscapers. If you provide relaxing massages, you’ll want to target people that are tense and stressed out. 

You’ll want to ask yourself three questions about your audience:

• Who is your product or service for? 
• What’s the purpose of the video? 
• Where do your target demographics spend time online? 

Answering these three questions will identify your buyer persona, pinpoint the stage of the marketing funnel, and teach you where to distribute your video. 

As an example, let’s say that you sell guitars online. Your target audience is guitarists, and your goal is to reach more of them. 

That’s when you decide to make animated videos breaking down popular songs on guitar to engage with a broader audience. (The Attract level of the funnel – more on that below). 

You share the video on guitar forums, guitar-related social media pages, and guitar Reddit groups for distribution. 

As you can see, simply answering those three questions did a majority of the work in coming up with an audience and subject matter for your videos. 

Attract, engage, nurture, or delight?

Once you have your target audience in mind, you’ll need to pinpoint the goal for each video that you create.  

In general, most video marketing strategies fit into one of the following four categories:

• Attract. If you want to heighten your brand awareness and reach potential customers (like the example above), the video’s goal is to attract. 
• Engage. Do you want to educate your prospects on new products, services, and concepts with your videos? If so, then your goal is to engage. 
• Nurture. Your videos aim to nurture if you want to increase your conversion rate and convince customers to make purchases. 
• Delight. If you want to thank your existing customers with entertaining video content to ensure they keep coming back, your goal is to delight. 

Your goals may only touch on one or a few of these categories, or they may include all the above. 

What are your goals? 

It’s best to be as detailed as possible when clarifying your goals. 

An actionable goal should have a target metric and a specific date, such as:

“Our goal is to increase our click-through rate by 200% in 12 months by including videos in our email marketing campaigns.”

Now you have a goal that will hold you accountable for the end result. Not only that, but you have a clear timeline in place (12 months) – and you know what you have to do to make it happen (include videos). 

If you want to see improvements at each stage of the funnel, you should make videos for each category (Attract, Engage, Nurture, Delight). That way, you’ll actively attract new customers while engaging, nurturing, and delighting existing ones. 

Yet, you may only require a few videos from each category. It will also depend on the budget you have set aside for video creation. If you can only spare the funds to create a handful of videos, make sure that they go toward the most important category for meeting your goals. 

Once you’ve determined your primary goals, you can get far more detailed with your video marketing strategy. 

As soon as you’ve got everything set, you can use the user-friendly one-page template that we designed to help you create the perfect video strategy. 

Step #2: How to Nail Your Messaging and Storytelling 

Now that you have clearly defined goals for your videos, you’ll need to decide what stories you want your videos to tell. This is where it helps to sit down and clearly define your messaging. 

Here are the core components of your messaging:

• The pain points of your target audience and how you can solve them. 
• The values and mission statement of your company. 
• Specific language and terms that you use. 
• The tone of voice that you use in your videos. 

Now that you’ve got your messaging down, you’ll need to incorporate the primary elements of storytelling. 

How to tell a great story 

In a nutshell, your story structure will be identical to that of a Hollywood movie – albeit with a few marketing tweaks:

• Start by identifying your protagonist. Instead of Luke Skywalker, the hero of your story is someone from your target demographic – an ‘every person that relates to your audience (i.e., a fitness guru if you’re in the health and wellness niche) 
• Next, no story is interesting without a conflict. In the case of video marketing, the conflict is your customer’s problem. 
• The conflict gives way to the quest, which is introducing your product or service that will save the day. The quest includes educating your customers on how your products and services work. 
• Lastly, putting your product or service into action will provide the resolution to the story. 

Don’t forget to include emotion

Nobody likes to watch robotic corporate videos that have no semblance of humanity.  

So if your video marketing strategy is to film talking heads spewing out tired business diatribes – you’re going about it the wrong way. 

Just as with film or television, people respond to emotions above all else when watching video content – and there’s plenty of evidence to support this. 

The Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science found that videos that exhibit high-arousal emotions ‘cut through the clutter’ and are most remembered by viewers. 

So if you want your video to have a powerful impact on your viewers, you should decide which emotions you want to elicit from each video. For example, injecting a fair amount of humor into a video aimed at widening your audience can help you break the ice with new prospects. 

Conversely, if you’re raising awareness for a nonprofit that’s doing crucial work to end poverty – you may want to elicit empathy from your viewers by making them confront a hard truth.

P&G’s ‘Thank You, Mom’ Campaign  

Here’s an example of the power of emotion in video marketing. 

In 2010, Procter & Gamble wanted to create a video ad campaign for the upcoming Olympics that was in line with their brand mission – to touch people’s lives and form an emotional connection with customers. 

To do so, they focused on celebrating the mothers of Olympic athletes with their ‘Thank You, Mom’ campaign. The video was a touching thank you to the moms of athletes and moms everywhere. 

The campaign proved to be the most successful ad campaign in the organization’s 175+ year history. The video ad campaign generated $500 million in global sales, created 76 billion media impressions, and was viewed over 74 million times. 

As you can see, eliciting emotions from your audience is a potent tool that you shouldn’t ignore. 

One study even found that customers with emotional connections to brands had a 306% higher lifetime value than those who were only satisfied. The more you can get your customers emotionally invested in your brand, the better – and videos are an excellent way to do just that. 

Step #3: Develop a Detailed Roadmap for Your Videos 

Video production is a process that demands structure, so you’ll need a timeline and a roadmap to navigate its waters safely. In fact, you’ll need to keep track of several timelines for each video. 

For example, movie studios track the progress of films according to three timelines, and you should too:

• Pre-production (2 – 3 weeks). This phase involves creative planning, scriptwriting, storyboarding, and creative approval processes. Everything you need to do before the camera starts rolling falls under the umbrella of pre-production. 
• Production (1 – 2 weeks). As soon as the lights go up and the camera turns on, you’ve entered the production phase. You’ll want to incorporate the tightest planning here, as this is the most expensive part of the process. For most digital marketing videos, you should be able to knock out the production phase in about a week. 
• Post-production (2 – 3 weeks). Once all the footage is shot, and the crew wraps things up, you’re now in post-production. During this phase, you will edit the footage and decide if re-shoots are necessary. If you discover any missing pieces, you may need to re-enter the production phase briefly. If you’ve got everything you need, you’ll be ready to distribute the video once the editing is complete. 

You should keep track of these three timelines for each video you produce. That’s the most reliable way to stay organized and meet all your deadlines. Also, at any given time, you’ll be able to see which stage each video is in (i.e., this one is going into production while another product video enters post-production). 

Mapping it out 

Besides a timeline, creating a roadmap will help you visualize the goals of your overall video marketing strategy. 

In other words, the roadmap contains all your plans for videos that will attract, engage, nurture, and delight. 

When married, your roadmap and timeline will look something like this:

#1: A brand video for the attract phase – an entertaining intro to your company and the problems that you solve. 

• Planning, writing, and scheduling: 2 weeks
• Shooting the content: 1 week 
• Editing, exporting, and distributing: 2 weeks 

#2: A how-to video for the engage phase that demonstrates how to use a new product. 

• Gathering materials, casting, and writing: 2 weeks
• Shooting the video: 2 days
• Editing, exporting, and distributing: 1 week

As you can see, this is an easy way to keep track of which videos you’re producing and how long it will take to create them. All you have to do is check the boxes as you complete each stage of the production process for each video. 

Step #4: Don’t Forget Your Budget

For startups eager to hit the ground running with video content but don’t have the budget for it – guerilla filmmaking is the way to go. 

You can create successful YouTube videos by only using your iPhone and some basic editing software in today’s age. Granted, you’ll be pretty limited in what you can pull off, but it’s still doable. 

For larger companies, you’ll want to pump some money into your video marketing campaign, but how much?

If you want to create detailed explainer videos and how-tos with crisp visuals and professional graphics – you’ll want to hire a video production company. 

You should also consider hiring freelance editors, sound designers, and composers to do additional work on your videos. 

How much each service will cost will depend on the scope of the video and the talent/reputation of the company. Prices can range from $1,000 to $500,000 – as there is no set price for video production.  

That’s why it’s best to shop around here and compare prices to find the best deal. 

According to Smart Insights, $20,000 is the average budget for a video marketing campaign. If you aren’t sure what’s right for your business, you can use our free business valuation tool. 

Step #5: Decide Which Type of Video to Make 

Testimonial Videos

A customer testimonial video carries a lot of clout amongst customers. After all, 93% of customers say that online reviews influence their purchasing decisions – and a testimonial video is a review you can watch. 

That’s because people will trust the words of an actual customer more than any self-promotional tactic. 

These videos are powerful because they prove to your prospects that your products and services do what you say they will. 

If you’ve done any recent case studies on customers, now is the time to use them. Focusing on a single case study is an excellent technique for creating a testimonial video. Here are a few more tips for shooting testimonials:

• Capture something authentic. People can tell if a moment is genuine or not. If you have the chance to film customer reactions to trying your product for the first time, their authentic positive response will do all the selling legwork for you. 
• Include the results. If you’ve changed a customer’s life with your product or service, you should include the results in the video. Before and after shots work particularly well here. 
• Focus on the buyer’s journey. Remember to take your viewers on a journey by telling a complete story. Your case study is your protagonist, so be sure to show how you resolved a conflict in their life. 
• Production quality matters. A testimonial video aims to make your company look as good as possible. As such, you want to reflect a professional image by producing a high-quality video. 

A well-produced testimonial video serves two purposes. For one, it reflects staunch professionalism in your company, as you clearly care about quality. Secondly, customers are more likely to trust a professionally made video than a low-quality one. 

Including all these components will ensure that you wind up with a testimonial video that has a powerful effect on your prospects. 

Commercials 

If you’ve spent any time watching TV or YouTube, then you’re more than familiar with commercials. They’re brief video ads that primarily serve to attract new customers. 

In particular, the goal of any commercial is to stick in people’s minds above all else. 

You’ve won half the battle if you can get someone to remember your catchy jingle, logo, or tagline. 

That’s why commercials are so effective at widening your reach. 

In today’s age, commercials appear on social media channels like Facebook and Tik Tok, YouTube, streaming services (Hulu and Netflix), and good old television. 

So if you want to gain more followers or break into a new demographic, you should invest in producing commercials. 

Besides using paid channels, you can also run your commercials on your homepage and website for some free advertising. 

Here are some tips for producing memorable commercials:

• Use bold visuals. This is where it helps to have the help of a video production company. Commercials aim to entertain with striking imagery ranging from the beautiful to the macabre. That’s why the quality of your visuals matters so much for a commercial. 
• Don’t forget the music. Your audio is equally as important as the video (or even more so). Some of the most memorable ad campaigns of all time featured simple, catchy jingles. If your commercial doesn’t have any music, you should hire a composer to change that.
• Include a clear call to action. There’s no need to hide the intent behind a commercial, as everyone knows it’s an advertisement. You’ll want to include bold calls to action that will let your prospects know what to do next. You can encourage them to check out your products or visit your website to learn more. 

Commercials are still a powerful marketing tool, especially when you include all the tips you see above. 

Explainer/How-To Videos 

Are you looking to engage with your audience? If so, you’ll want to produce at least one explainer video. 

What’s that?

An explainer video lets your audience know how your products or services work and demonstrates the problems they solve. 

A how-to video is similar but different in that it primarily focuses on teaching viewers how to do something in a series of steps.

The ideal explainer video briefly introduces your company and then gets straight to the point. In other words, you demonstrate a customer pain point and then explain how your product or service solves it. 

An example of an explainer video 

Let’s say you sell a water bottle with special insulation, so the liquid inside stays cold for hours – and you want to create an explainer video for it. 

To start, you open on a jogger running during the day’s peak heat. Sweat pours down their face, and they reach for their water bottle. After they take a swig, they spit it out because it’s as hot as a cup of coffee. 

That’s when you introduce your product and quickly demonstrate how it works. A spokesperson takes a minute or two to explain the technology. After that, you show the same jogger during the heat of the day – only this time – they have your special water bottle. They take a cool and refreshing drink, and the video ends. 

That’s an example of a successful explainer video that incorporates the story elements that we brought up before. It demonstrates a customer pain point, explains why your product is the solution, and then shows the resolution to the conflict. 

Social Media Content 

As of 2022, there are 3.96 billion users on social media platforms worldwide – and they’re all exposed to video content. 

In the early days, social media was primarily text-based. Now there’s Facebook video, Instagram live, Snapchat, and others. Then, of course, there’s the behemoth that is Tik Tok – a platform that thrives off short-form video content. 

If you’re serious about your video marketing strategy – you’ll want to include videos on your social media accounts. 

That goes beyond paying to run video ads on Facebook and YouTube. Instead, you should create videos primarily to embed and share on social media. 

These videos should be SHORT, so aim for a minute or less. 

While they’re shorter in length, the principles of video production still apply here. You’ll want to use consistent messaging, tell a story, and elicit emotions from your viewers. The catch is that you’ll have less time to do it. 

Visuals matter more than audio for social media videos. 

Why’s that?

It’s due to the features of platforms like Tik Tok and YouTube. They have muted autoplay and video looping, so you’ll want your visuals to do most of the work. Including subtitles with your video is also a good idea, as prospects can watch your video without sound and still receive its core message. 

Product videos 

Lastly, product videos are quite popular, especially for eCommerce stores. A product video will show your product in action while breaking down its features and selling points. 

A well-made product video can be compelling for customers. That’s because they get to physically see your product perform its functions in real-time – which is a lot more potent than simply seeing images of it. 

It’s best to keep product videos concise, so you don’t lose your viewers’ attention. The sweet spot tends to be 30 seconds or less. You should quickly present your product, list all the reasons why it rises above the competition, and then provide a CTA, so your prospects know what to do next. 

Where should you distribute your product videos?

You can use paid advertising channels such as YouTube or Google Ads or post them to your website and social media channels. You can even use product videos in your email marketing campaigns. 

Fun fact: 8 out of 10 customers report buying a piece of software or an app after watching a product video. 

Step #6: Decide Which Style of Video to Use 

A video’s style differs from its type. In particular, the style has to do with the way you present your information. 

For example, will you use actors, animation, studio sets, or live locations? 

Let’s say that your type is a product video. The style could then be animated, acted out, presented with graphs, and more. 

You can also choose to tell a narrative or a documentary-style of story. 

Here’s a look at some of the most common styles for video marketing. 

Narrative Style

Do you want to tell a story the same way that Hollywood movies do? If so, then you’re seeking the narrative style of video. That’s where you tell a fictional story with characters, conflict, and resolution to promote your brand. 

What kind of narratives can you tell?

It can be anything from telling your brand’s story to a day in the life of a made-up superhero. 

There are no limitations on which kinds of stories you can tell, so feel free to use the full force of your creativity. 

The narrative style works best for commercials and social media content. You won’t have much use in telling a narrative story inside a product or explainer video. 

Like commercials, narrative videos work best during the attraction phase. They’re great for introducing new prospects to your brand. 

What should go into your narrative stories?

• Relatability
• Solving customer problems
• Eliciting emotions (sadness at the pain point, joy at the resolution achieved by the product)
• A protagonist that relates to your target demographic
• Entertainment and fun

These components will help you form an engaging narrative video that sticks in the minds of your customers. 

Documentary Style

You’re shooting a documentary if you aren’t making up a story but are following a real story. The goal here is to capture real life in its natural form with as few interruptions as possible. 

The documentary-style works wonders for testimonial videos and case studies. 

Since you’re showing real-life success stories, it’s best to represent them in a documentary format. 

Trademarks of the documentary style include shooting on location, conducting interviews, and shooting dramatic recreations. You can and should include all of these components within your testimonials and case study videos. 

For example, if your product revolutionized how your protagonist did their job during the day – you can include a dramatic recreation. That’s where you film them performing their daily tasks at work while showcasing how your product helps them out and saves time. 

It’s best to keep your documentaries short as well. If you have hours of interview footage, condense it to the essential soundbites. A one or two-minute documentary is long enough to hold customers’ attention, especially if it’s well-made. 

Instead of resolving conflict, you don’t have to worry about a three-act structure with a documentary. Instead, you just need to answer three questions: what, why, and how? What is the focus of the video? Why does it matter to the customer? How can they learn more?

Animation 

Animated videos are incredibly versatile – as every style of video can work in an animated format. From product videos to explainer videos, animation can pull them all off with ease. 

Animated content also tends to be less expensive than other forms of video. That’s because it doesn’t take much in the way of human resources or costly equipment. 

The catch?

The animation will take nearly twice as long to produce due to the technical and time-consuming nature of the process. So if you’ve got animated videos on the docket, you’ll need to allow extra time for the production phase. 

Yet, animated videos can captivate audiences and retain their attention better than most. A successful real-world example is Compare the Market’s Meerkat campaign. These animated videos sparked a phenomenon and contributed to 70% of the company’s market growth in the UK. 

Step #7: Use a Reliable Video Production Company for Professional Shooting

If you do any research on the costs of video production equipment, you’ll soon realize how unbelievably expensive it is to buy cameras, tripods, and editing software. A modern digital camera can cost $100,000+, for example. 

For most companies, it’s unrealistic and would be a waste of money to keep Hollywood-grade camera equipment lying around only to shoot online video. 

Instead, it’s far more cost-effective to hire a high-quality video production company to do the shooting for you. The great thing about these companies is that they have all the expensive equipment, so you don’t have to buy anything. 

Moreover, they’re trained professionals and know how to use the equipment properly. 

The power of working with a video production company 

If your staff has no experience shooting videos, it’s best to leave it to the pros. They will know how to achieve crisp, clean images that won’t take too much space. They’re also used to the challenges that pop up during production, something that can prove to be overwhelming for beginners. 

For more elaborate videos, production companies will know how to create shots that cut well together, as well as using complicated visual effects and lighting techniques. 

Production companies will also know how to compose shots, white balance the image correctly, and deal with continuity errors. 

Another perk is that they can often handle both production and post-production. 

That will significantly reduce the amount of work your staff has to do, which is a plus. All you’ll have to take care of is writing the script and distributing the video once complete. 

Forming a lasting relationship with a production company

When forming a relationship with a video production company, your goal should be to be in it for the long term. It’s best to have the capacity to create a ton of video content instead of only producing a commercial that you run once. 

The more video content you can create with the company, the more value you’ll get for the money you spend. 

That’s especially true for videos that will accompany your blog content. While SEO takes some time to get going, once it does, its effects will last far into the future. 

That means the videos you work on today can continue to make money for you tomorrow. As long as your posts and videos continue to rank on page #1 of Google and YouTube, they’ll continue to generate organic traffic for you. 

Bear in mind that it’s likely that you’ll only outsource production for the most crucial videos that you’ll share on your homepage and landing pages. 

When it comes to creating videos for social media marketing, you don’t have to worry about the quality as much – so it’s usually fine to shoot these yourself (i.e., company vlogs). 

Yet, you’ll still want to make sure your vlogs and quick social media videos have consistent messaging and elicit emotions from your viewers. The message is what counts here, not so much the cinematic quality of the visuals. 

Pro tip: If you’re engaging in a video ads campaign specifically for social media platforms – it can be worth outsourcing to a high-quality video production company to make sure that you nail the look and tone of the content. 

Step #8: Tailor Your Video Content for Each Goal 

By now, you should have clearly defined goals for your video marketing strategy. You should also have a timeline, budget, type, and style of video picked out.  

The final step is to align your planned videos with your marketing goals and tie them to each funnel stage. 

To make things easier, here’s a guide breaking down which videos work best for each stage of the funnel:

Attract Stage

• Commercials
• Industry videos 
• Educational videos 
• Product or service videos 

Engage Stage

• Brand videos 
• ‘Day in the life vlogs and consumer lifestyle videos
• Testimonial videos and case studies
• Explainer videos, tutorials, and how-tos

Nurture Stage

• Social media videos, short videos, Tik Toks
• Customer spotlight videos (highlighting a customer success story) 
• FAQ videos (answering consumer questions about your products and services)
• Product review videos (reviewing your products or third-party products and services)

Delight Stage

• • Thank You/Welcome Videos: welcoming new visitors and thanking customers
  • Bonus tutorial: a free video explaining how to use one of your products
  • Pro tips and tricks: insider content that teaches viewers new skills and shortcuts
  • Event videos: these are highlights and recaps of your corporate events 

  
  Do your best to diversify your content so you’re not constantly repeating the same thing. 

  An ideal video marketing strategy will combine all the content and video styles you see above – especially early on. That allows you to monitor and test each video type to see what sticks with your target audience and helps you achieve your goals. 

  Check out our learning hub for more on content marketing and how to use video. 

  Step #9: Optimize Your Distribution Efforts

  Okay, so now you’ve got a boatload of excellent video content, but where do you show it off? Where can you upload it so that the right people will see it?

  That is known as the distribution part of the process. Here, you’ll need to decide where you can afford to show your videos and on which video platforms. 

  Which distribution platforms are best?

  The short answer is any that you can get your hands on! 

  Your goal should be to distribute your video to as many places as possible, or at least that you can afford. 

  There are three primary types of distribution that you’ll run into. There is owned distribution, earned distribution, and paid distribution. Here’s a brief rundown of each:

  • Whenever you upload videos to online properties that you own (i.e., your website, landing pages, blog, social media accounts, etc.), it’s owned distribution since you own the distribution channels. 
  • Did someone feature one of your videos on a guest blog or share it on social media? If so, it’s a form of earned distribution. These refer to all the efforts you put in place to distribute your work to other channels without owning them or paying for it. (It’s similar to earning backlinks or using organic SEO to rank higher on a search engine). 
  • Whenever you pay for your video to show up on platforms (such as YouTube, TV, or Facebook), it’s a form of paid distribution. It’s the equivalent of using PPC campaigns for SEO). 

  How do you know which of these distribution channels is right for your business?

  It can be tough to tell, as there’s no one answer. Many variables are involved, such as your budget and the breadth of your reach. 

  The good news?

  Our team created a resource identifying the eight most reliable online distribution channels for video content. 

  Step #10: Monitor Your Success, Tweak, Rinse, and Repeat 

  All right, you just pressed the button to upload your videos into cyberspace. You’re finally getting the chance to share the videos you’ve worked so hard on with your target audience. 

  … Now what?

  It can be daunting to know what to do next after you upload your content. Do you just sit back and pray for good news?

  Should you stay glued to your screen, monitoring your watch time and total video views?

  Nope! 

  In fact, your view count typically isn’t even the most important metric to pay attention to measure your success. The metrics you’ll want to monitor will depend on your marketing goals. Here’s a list of the essential KPIs for video marketing to make things easier for you. 

  

  Concluding Thoughts: Getting Your Video Marketing Strategy Off The Ground 

  Closely follow this guide, and you’ll have everything you need to create, develop, and put into action a successful video marketing campaign. 

  Video marketing both gets easier and trickier once you start rolling. The good news is that by knowing your KPIs, you can tweak and adjust your strategy accordingly. As long as you pay attention to the hard data – you can experiment with trial and error until you find something that hits big. 

  It will take a fair amount of experimentation to discover the winning formula for your business, so it’s crucial not to get gun-shy after a video doesn’t perform the way you’d hoped. 

  Need more digital marketing advice? Go ahead and schedule a call to speak with one of our digital marketing experts today.   

The post An In-Depth Guide to Getting Your Video Marketing Strategy Off the Ground appeared first on The HOTH.

There’s money to be made on YouTube!

Worldwide, this video content platform has 2.6 billion users and is the second large social media app behind Facebook. 

YouTube is also part of the Google family, meaning you can leverage your current SEO and PPC strategies to generate more revenue. 

If you’re new to this app or you’ve never heard of it before, this article will share some key YouTube statistics and explain how businesses make more money by beefing up their video content.

Keep reading to learn everything you’ll need to know about this popular platform.

Fun Facts About YouTube

Let’s start off by sharing some interesting facts about YouTube:

• YouTube earns $15 billion per year
• 500 hours worth of video content gets uploaded to YouTube every minute
• Around 37% of all mobile traffic goes to YouTube
• Google purchased YouTube for $1.65 billion in October 2006
• YouTube’s user base expanded during the COVID-19 quarantine
• YouTube Kids went live in 2019
• Users can subscribe to channels and create playlists
• Businesses have the option of live streaming on YouTube

It’s easy to see how exciting it is to be on YouTube. 

From 2005 until now the app has grown into a go-to source for information and entertainment. 

With billions of hours of content now available, we can still go back to answer this basic question: when was the first YouTube video uploaded?

On April 23, 2005, Jawed Karim posted the first YouTube video ever made called “Me at the zoo.” The video featured him at the San Diego Zoo talking about elephant trunks. 

Now it has over 232 million views and he holds the first YouTube account ever. To this day, “Me at the zoo” is the only video on his account. 

Interestingly, Karim was one of the co-founders of YouTube. Besides him, who created YouTube and why?

Jawed Karim, Steve Chen, and Chad Hurley created YouTube together.

Why was YouTube created? All three men were former employees of PayPal and thought ordinary people would enjoy sharing homemade videos.

They founded YouTube on February 14, 2005, and the company is headquartered in San Bruno, California. 

In its first year, YouTube earned about 30,000 visitors per day but when YouTube became popular in 2006 it grew to 25 million views.

As of today, YouTube is now 17 years old and only continues to grow!

So, who was the second YouTuber?

That video, an 11-second clip about snowboarding, was called “My Snowboarding Skillz.” This was the first video uploaded by a non-YouTube employee, a snowboarder named Matt Michael Wright.

Another huge milestone for the company was the first YouTube video with 10 billion views.

The popular children’s music video, “Baby Shark Dance” from Pinkfong, was the first to be watched over 10 billion times. “Baby Shark” is also considered one of the most viewed YouTube videos.

YouTube Usage Statistics

There are a lot of interesting YouTube statistics that can help you to better understand the platform before opening your own account. 

Here are some of the basics:

How old do you have to be to have a YouTube account?  

You must be at least 17.

What are the most popular categories on YouTube? 

Commentary, product reviews, and tutorials are the most watched content on YouTube. Gaming channels also continue to grow rapidly. How many gaming channels are on YouTube? Over 40 million and the  amount continues to grow every year.

How long is the average YouTube video? 

Video lengths vary based on category but the average video size is 11.7 minutes. It’s also important to note how long a YouTube video can be: a maximum of 15 minutes, unless you have a verified account.

How many views does the average YouTube video get? 

The amount varies based on the type of video content but how-to videos, for example, get an average of 8,332 views. If you’re wondering how YouTube counts views, the play button needs to be pressed by  a verified user and they have to watch a video for at least 30 seconds to be counted as a view.

What YouTube channel has the most videos?

Roel Van de Paar has the most videos uploaded to YouTube. He’s an Australian creator who uploads about a video every minute. Van de Paar has over 82,000 subscribers and he’s uploaded 1.9 million videos. His posts are typically how-to videos that are 5 minutes or under. 

How many YouTube channels have a million subscribers?

A little over 23,000 channels are estimated to have 1 million+ subscribers. 

There are many different categories of YouTube videos. Above we listed the top three categories but there are other popular ones like online challenges, comedy sketches, movie clips, interviews, music videos, sports highlights, and so much more. 

The top YouTube channels in the USA include PewDiePie, WWE Fan Nation, 5-Minute Crafts, and Justin Bieber. 

PewDiePie is a Swedish YouTube artist who posts comedic sketches. And how many total views does PewDiePie have? Over 28 billion! 

Have you ever heard of the Korean musical group Blackpink? They are a pop group with the most YouTube subscribers worldwide with over 74 million. 

Gaming is also huge on YouTube. What percent of YouTube is gaming? Approximately 15% of YouTube videos are about gaming. 

The Basics of YouTube

YouTube offers so many opportunities for businesses to educate and attract potential customers. First, you need to understand how it works so you can easily navigate this highly popular app. 

Most beginners ask how many YouTube accounts you can have. Because it’s part of the Google family, YouTube runs through Gmail and single accounts can only have up to 50 channels. 

Therefore, you’ll have one YouTube account through the Google suite but you can create multiple channels in seconds. 

Once you open a new account, you’ll probably wonder: what do the numbers next to subscriptions mean on Youtube? 

Most people think these numbers indicate your total number of subscribers but rather they represent how many uploads you’ve done that week. 

You can start tracking your total subscribers on the channel dashboard or in the YouTube Studio under channel analytics. The app allows you to view recent subscribers or all subscribers. 

Creating and uploading a YouTube video is incredibly easy, and the app provides you with some editing tools to make the best content possible. YouTube Studio allows you to add music, sound effects, subtitles, and to trim content. 

The studio is also the place to create playlists, reply to comments, or look at analytics, which is important so you can find out the best times to post on YouTube. 

Beginners typically don’t know the best day and time to post on YouTube. It also varies based on your channel and what categories you target. 

So what is the best day to post on YouTube? Studies have found that Thursdays to Saturdays are the best days to post. And, as for what time to post, it’s recommended to schedule your uploads for 9-11 a.m.

Of course, checking your analytics is the best way to pin down an exact day and time. 

Once your videos go live, it’s time to sit back and see how many views you get. Users wonder, how often do YouTube videos update but veterans know they change between 24-48 hours. 

Who knows, you may have the most-viewed YouTube video in a month.

And here’s another tip: avoid using YouTube on your mobile device. Does YouTube use data? Yes! And if you’re on a smartphone it could be draining your data. 

Research has found that YouTube uses around 562 MB of data per hour when streaming at standard definition. 

Uploading videos to YouTube and engaging with other users is a lot of fun and can help your business grow, but be careful of content burnout. Veteran YouTubers leaving YouTube often say they can’t keep up with the sheer volume of content creation.

Make sure you set a realistic and sustainable goal for yourself. 

How Big Is YouTube?

Is it worth opening a YouTube account? Is all of the effort worth it?

First, let’s look at how many views YouTube gets a day.

Over 5 billion videos are watched on YouTube daily. That means there is plenty of room for your videos to be part of that mix. 

How many hours of YouTube are uploaded every minute? 400 hours! 

Of course, with a brand new YouTube account you have to establish yourself before you get a ton of traffic. 

The average views on the first YouTube videos are a few hundred. That could increase to the thousands as you start to catch on. 

The average YouTube channel growth rate is about 1,000 subscribers in 22 months. 

Another big question: how many YouTube searches do people make everyday? There are over 122 million active users daily. Those are people searching for content that could match what you have to offer. 

Here is more data to show the size of YouTube:

• YouTube revenue was $19.7 billion in 2020
• The app enjoys a 25-30% growth rate year over year
• How much is YouTube worth? An estimated $160 billion
• How many people work at YouTube? There are 2,800 employees
• Here are some interesting YouTube binge-watching statistics: 37% of users 18-34 binge it daily

Over the years this app has expanded its services. YouTube Red is a monthly subscription service that allows users to remove advertisements. 

If you’re wondering how many accounts on YouTube TV can be used at the same time, they limit your usage to three devices. 

Another perk of this service is offline viewing.

The number of YouTube Red subscribers is $50 million but the company has now started referring to it as YouTube Premium. 

For young people, YouTube is more popular than TV and by that we mean traditional cable packages. Sixty-eight percent of people surveyed said they watch more video content from YouTube than anywhere else. Many others only watch Netflix.

So what is YouTube Premium revenue? At $12 per month for the service, YouTube generates around $600 million. 

That’s only a tiny percentage of YouTube revenue. When you consider YouTube premium vs. ad revenue, there’s no comparison. YouTube brought in $28 billion in 2021. 

The YouTube Partner Program even helps creators by paying additional revenue to them based on the number of people watching their content. How many YouTube partners are there? More than 2 million, according to a company announcement. 

Now you’ve probably heard of another popular video app called TikTok. It’s giving YouTube a run for its money but when you examine YouTube vs. TikTok stats you can see that YouTube has 1 billion more users.

How Much Do YouTubers Make?

Now that you’ve learned all about YouTube, now comes the exciting part! How much do YouTubers make on the app?

And, more importantly, how much can you make off of YouTube?

How much do YouTubers make per view? Once your account is up and running, you can get between $0.01 and $0.03 per ad view. 

It may not sound like a lot at first but it builds up quickly. Just starting, you can be earning between $3-5 for every 1,000 video views (that’s how many views on YouTube get paid). 

You’ll need to get at least 1,000 subscribers and have 4,000 watched hours in the past year. That’s how many subscribers before YouTube pays you

The average YouTube ad revenue is around $18 per 1,000 ad views, which is a different metric. Top talent can earn up to $5 for every 1,000 video views. 

Can you see why it’s so important to create engaging videos?

Here’s the best part, how much is a YouTube channel? Absolutely free! The only thing you may need to invest in is production equipment. But that only depends on what type of videos you want to create.

Of course, a percentage of those earnings will go to YouTube. New businesses on YouTube ask us what percentage of ad revenue does YouTube take?

Advertisers start paying after 1,000 views and YouTube generally takes 45%.

Wondering how much money would you make from 1 million YouTube views? The average amount is over $2,000 but the sky’s the limit (this is also the YouTube monthly income for someone with over 100,000 subscribers). 

That’s how YouTube pays.

To start earning money directly from YouTube, creators must have at least 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours in the past year.

Partners and influencers make good money on the platform. MrBeast, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, is YouTube’s most paid influencer. He earned $54 million in 2021. His channel specializes in recorded stunts.

Besides MrBeast, the other most profitable YouTube channels belong to Jake Paul, Markiplier, and Rhett & Link. 

Another option for your brand is vlogging. This is creating video blog posts for subscribers. How much do YouTube vloggers make? They make the same income we described above.

What Do People Watch On YouTube?

The secret to being successful on YouTube is to know what people are watching. 

Here are some numbers to consider as you plan future content:

• How many YouTube channels are there? 51 million+
• What’s the fastest-growing YouTube channel? Comedian & gamer AddictedA1 grew his channel by 199% in 2020
• What’s the most subscribed video on YouTube? T-Series, an Indian music network, has 206 million followers, the most subscribers in the world in 2022. 
• The “Baby Shark Dance,” referenced above, is the most watched online video on YouTube.

What can you learn from all of this? For one, comedy and gaming are the most popular YouTube categories. Music videos also make up some of the most popular videos. 

It’s also easy to check YouTube watch stats on videos to see what’s popular and what’s not. 

As you devise a content strategy, think about the YouTube Top 10 Videos:

1. “Baby Shark Dance” by Pinkfong (10.6 billion views)
2. “Despacito” by Luis Fonsi feat. Daddy Yankee (7.8 billion views)
3. “Johny Johny Yes Papa” by LooLoo Kids (6.3 billion views)
4. “Shape of You” by Ed Sheeran (5.7 billion views)
5. “See You Again” by Wiz Khalifa feat. Charlie Puth (5.4 billion views)
6. “Bath Song” by Cocomelon Nursery Rhymes (5.3 billion views)
7. “Phonics Song with Two Words” by ChuChu TV (4.5 billion views)
8. “Uptown Funk” by Mark Ronson feat. Bruno Mars (4.5 billion views)
9. “Learning Colors – Colorful Eggs on a Farm” by Miroshka TV (4.5 billion views)
10. “Masha and The Bear – Recipe for Disaster” by Get Movies (4.5 billion views)

Check out some of these videos and you may find some inspiration for your content. 

YouTube Content Creator Statistics

Are you ready to join the creator community on YouTube?

How many YouTube creators are there? About 1 million professional creators are earning a living by posting their videos.

Here are the YouTube top 10 creators: 

1. Ryan Kaji
2. MrBeast
3. PewDiePie
4. Dude Perfect
5. Rhett and Link
6. Markiplier
7. Preston Arsement
8. Dream
9. Jeffree Star
10. SSSniperWolf

It can be helpful for you to check out these top YouTubers and get some ideas for your content. 

You’re probably wondering how many subscribers does the average YouTuber have? Data has shown that 96.6% of YouTube accounts have 10,000 or less. 

Pink Fong’s “Baby Shark Dance” is the account who has the most streams on YouTube, but Psy’s “Gangnam Style” had achieved it beforehand, and remained on top for longer. 

Women are also making strides on YouTube.

Yuya, a Mexican beauty vlogger, has over 24 million subscribers. You can be successful with any topic as long as you understand your target audience and produce content that resonates with them. 

Another common question is who has the least subscribers on YouTube? There are several accounts with 100 or fewer subscribers in the categories of travel, healthcare, and news.

The fact is that the 1 million content creators on YouTube are all different and all have unique content to offer. The secret to being successful is finding your niche. 

YouTube User Statistics

Let’s dive a little deeper into audiences on YouTube

How many viewers does YouTube have? Over 2.6 billion in 2022.

That’s a lot of eyes to watch your content. 

To understand the prospective audiences, here are some YouTube audience demographics:

• YouTube age demographics: 77% of 15-25, 70% of 45-64, and 77% of users are 26-35
• YouTube gender demographics: 45.8% of YouTube’s audience is female and 54.3% is male
• YouTube target market: The 15-35 age demographic are the biggest users of this app
• YouTube users by country: India is the top user with 467 million users and the United States is in second place with 247 million users. The next three are Indonesia, Russia, and Brazil
• YouTube viewer demographics: 85% of teenagers in Gen Z use YouTube (the most popular app in that age group) and 70% of Millennials (the next age group up from Gen Z) watched the app to learn something new
• The company’s Premium service has a YouTube user count of 20 million
• How many subscribers does YouTube TV have? Over 4 million
• How many people watch YouTube a day? 122 million active users
• What percentage of video views on youtube come from mobile? With 70% accessing YouTube on mobile, your content needs to be ready

The best way to determine YouTube demographics by channel is to use the analytics tools available in the app. While studies have shown certain trends in audience demographics, you should nail down your exact audience using the data available to you. 

And don’t think that YouTube is losing popularity, the opposite is true. How many people have downloaded YouTube in 2022?

Over 10 billion people have downloaded YouTube since it first launched. 

More recently, the YouTube Music app had 3 million downloads in Google Play and 1.3 million in the App Store. 

Conclusion

Phew! That was a lot of information about YouTube. Things are really exciting on this app and businesses like yours have an opportunity to generate revenue on it. 

Your key takeaways from this data piece should be that YouTube is the second largest social media app (behind Facebook), is video-based, has over 2.6 billion active users, and can help you to boost your brand recognition. 

Opening a YouTube account may seem overwhelming if you don’t have video content experience but not every successful user has expensive production equipment. You can post highly-engaging videos using a smartphone camera. 

Do you need help creating video content for your website or YouTube account?  Give us a call if you have any questions!

The post How Much Do YouTubers Make? (And Other YouTube Statistics) appeared first on The HOTH.

It may not have as many active users as dominant social media and advertising platforms like Facebook and Twitter yet, but such fast growth implies that it’s quickly becoming an important place for brands to start advertising.

That said, TikTok has several ad types. To succeed on TikTok, it helps to understand how each one works and see a few successful ads.

In this article, we’ll explain the types of ads TikTok lets you create on the platform, then go over a couple of examples of each one to inspire your own.

What Are TikTok Ads?

TikTok is a video-sharing app that lets users make short-form videos up to 10 minutes long. It originally launched with 15 seconds as a maximum length but extended that limit several times until it eventually reached 10 minutes.

In some ways, TikTok is a blend of video platforms like YouTube and text-based social media like Twitter — it’s a video-only platform, but designed for shorter content and attention spans.

Naturally, it can be a potent marketing channel. In fact, the average monthly time spent on TikTok in 2021 was 19.6 hours. That’s equivalent to almost 40 minutes per day, every single day. 

Thus, users are tuned in to their feeds. As a result, brands can take advantage of these high engagement levels with TikTok ads.

Now, most assume teens are TikTok’s largest demographic. That’s true to a large degree.

But contrary to popular belief, TikTok’s user base has a wide age range. Your target audience need not be young people to succeed. Here’s the age range breakdown as of September 2021:

• 10-19: 25%
• 20-29: 22.4%
• 30-39: 21.7%
• 40-49: 20.3%
• 50+: 11%

That said, an ad that appeals to the 10-19 age range may not appeal to the 40-49, and vice-versa. Knowing your audience is vital.

Benefits of TikTok ads

TikTok offers plenty of benefits to those who master its ad formats:

• Explosive user growth: TikTok has seen explosive user growth over the past few years, creating a huge potential audience.
• Influencer marketing: Influencers have the spotlight on TikTok. They can grant immense social proof to your products if they use them.
• High engagement levels: As mentioned, TikTok has amazing user engagement. That makes it easier to catch a user’s attention.
• Chance to go viral: TikTok is one of the easier social media platforms to go viral on. Combine this with high user engagement, and TikTok ads can be immensely beneficial.
• Wide age range: You don’t need a teenage or early 20s audience to benefit from TikTok. A surprisingly wide range of age groups use TikTok.
• Several types of ads: TikTok provides several types of ads, giving you more options for creating a great campaign.

The 5 Types of TikTok Ads

TikTok developed five specific types of ad formats. Each one offers specific features and advantages.

Here are brief explanations of each TikTok ad type:

Brand takeover

Brand takeovers are short ads that appear right away the moment a user opens the app. They start by taking up the whole screen for 3-5 seconds upon launching the TikTok app, then turn into in-feed ads.

Since brand takeovers are full-screen video ads, it can maximize brand awareness. Plus, the entire ad is clickable, reducing friction and maximizing traffic to your landing page.

Branded effect

Branded effects allow brands to create custom filters, sticks, and lenses based on their branding. 

This gets the user involved. They get to have fun and exercise some creativity while spreading your brand name far across the platform and increasing video views.

These can last for up to 10 days, giving users plenty of time to create their own videos using your branded effects.

Branded hashtag challenge

Branded hashtag challenges also get the user involved. You create a hashtag associated with your brand, then create a “challenge” for users to perform, such as some activity involving your product. 

Users can click on your branded hashtag and land on a page filled with other users’ TikTok content within the challenge.

Branded hashtag challenges are a great way to get customers to do your marketing. You get plenty of user-generated content, helping you market your products with videos.

In-feed ads

TikTok in-feed ads are types of video ads that show up directly in a user’s newsfeed. They look like regular TikTok content, automatically playing as users scroll through their newsfeed and run into them.

As a result, in-feed ads blend in well with the rest of the organic videos on a user’s newsfeed, making the user more likely to give your ad a watch.

TikTok allows these ads to be up to 60 seconds long, but they suggest keeping them 9-15 seconds in length.

TopView ads

TopView ads are similar to brand takeovers in that they’re the first thing a user sees. However, they don’t take up the full screen — instead, they take the top spot in a user’s feed after 3 seconds of the user logging in.

These ads can be 60 seconds long, giving you some flexibility in your messaging.

Since these ads snag the top of the user’s newsfeed, they’re less likely to scroll past it accidentally, helping you capture more traffic. In fact, according to a TikTok study, 71% of users said TopView ads grabbed their attention.

10 TikTok Ad Examples To Inspire Your Own

Now that you understand TikTok’s advertising potential and the available ad formats let’s look at some great examples of TikTok ads in the wild.

Below, we’ll cover two of each TikTok ad type. That way, you’ll have some inspiration regardless of which format fits your goals best.

1. Brand takeover: Too Faced

Brand takeovers take over the user’s app for a few seconds. They can afford to look more like an ad.

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Too Faced takes full advantage of that here to advertise their cruelty-free lip plumping gloss. The ad alternates shots of people using the product with images of the product itself accompanied by benefits.

Each shot cuts quickly to keep the user’s attention and cram everything into the short ad time to maximize video views.

2. Brand takeover: PepsiCo

Here, we have Pepsi’s Australian launch campaign for Pepsi Max. Since Pepsi is launching a product in a new market, a brand takeover can help maximize attention and website traffic.

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They present a high-quality image of three delicious-looking Pepsi Max flavors that takes up much of the screen.

Below is some concise copy urging readers to discover what flavors will be available, along with a prominent “Learn More” CTA.

Clean and simple but attention-grabbing content can make for a good TikTok launch campaign.

3. Branded effect: Netflix’s #TribesChallenge

Branded effects go along well with brand hashtag challenges, as Netflix shows here with its #TribesChallenge campaign designed to promote Tribes of Europa.

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This campaign allowed users to “choose their tribe” from the show, and each tribe had special TikTok stickers and filters to add some flair.

The “choose your tribe” pulls in users by letting them identify with a certain tribe from the show — then, users put the hashtag in the post, which spreads the campaign even further.

4. Branded effect: PUMA

PUMA offers another example of a branded effect accompanying a branded hashtag challenge with its Future Flash launch campaign.

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This TikTok has a person decked out in PUMA future flash gear doing some tricks with a soccer ball before kicking it at the camera. Toward the end, PUMA puts a custom sticker for their Future Flash brand on the screen as the soccer player dances to some music.

It’s clean and simple, helping to spread awareness of the new product line without losing the viewer’s attention. Plus, the use of someone skilled at various soccer tricks adds a bit of social proof.

5. Branded hashtag challenge: American Eagle’s #InMyAEJeans

American Eagle combined hashtags with the power of influencer marketing by recruiting social media influencer Addison Rae for their #InMyAEJeans campaign. Rae launched the campaign, and it spread like wildfire from there.

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The challenge was simple enough — do a dance in your American Eagle jeans and use the #InMyAEJeans hashtag. Naturally, tons of people wanted in on the challenge to try and go viral, providing a ton of brand awareness for American Eagle as school started back up and students shopped for new clothing.

6. Branded hashtag challenge: #ASOSFashunWeek

ASOS recruited several popular influencers for its #ASOSFashunWeek campaign. This campaign did two things at once.

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First, ASOS used Hashtag Challenge Plus. This allowed users to browse ASOS products right in the TikTok app and maximize conversion rates. What’s more is that the influencers each provided coupon codes in their posts to encourage purchases.

Beyond that, though, users were able to strut their stuff in their own ASOS outfits and use the ASOS hashtag and branded effect — spreading brand awareness.

7. In-feed ad: Lancaster University

The key to succeeding with in-feed ads is making them not look like ads. 

This Lancaster University ad is a great example — in particular, its use of UGC.

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Lancaster University got a student to make a TikTok doing a dance, combining the powers of social proof, a filter, and the “dance challenge” trends that TikTok is known for.

Plus, it lasts a mere 16 seconds. This and the other elements mentioned make this ad blend in with the rest of the feed and convey the intended message without losing the user’s attention.

8. In-feed ad: Beetology

Millennials and Gen Z — TikTok’s largest user base — are also pretty health-conscious, according to 2019 data.

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So Beetology created an effective in-feed ad to market their organic beet juice drink. 

The ad features a mix of colorful shots of the product with personality-infused copy and shots of people drinking it. The latter, in particular, looked like regular customers drinking the Beetology drink, giving it a UGC feel.

The transitions are quick and eye-catching, and there’s a CTA button at the bottom for viewers to click on and shop.

9. TopView ad: Balenciaga

TopView ads need to cut to the chase since they’re at the top of the feed. Otherwise, the user might scroll past it to see what else is on their feed.

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This ad from Balenciaga does it well. It immediately shows a nice video of a Balenciaga bag before pasting the brand name on the screen. There’s no other text or unnecessary video.

Then, at the bottom of the ad is a clear CTA button users can click on to go shop for their very own Balenciaga bag.

10. TopView ad: Experian

Experian does the TopView ad well. They used their campaign that features John Cena and the purple cow that’s in many of the Experian commercials.

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But they adapted it to TikTok by cutting the ad down to a few seconds. In just a few words, Cena conveys the biggest benefit of Experian Boost. Plus, the TikTok cuts to different shots quite fast, which can grab and hold the viewer’s attention.

Experian included CTA buttons to download the app on the Apple and Google Play stores. This shows that they understand TikTok users primarily use the app on mobile devices, not desktops.

TikTok Ads: Effective For Certain Types of Products

TikTok’s high engagement rates make it an excellent social media channel for brands to connect with their audience — and not just Gen Z, as the data shows.

The key is to master the ad formats TikTok offers and find relevant influencers on the platform to include in those ads if possible.

Unless you’re selling an eye-catching consumer product, driving sales from TikTok can be tough.

If you want to put your brand and products in front of purchase-ready customers, Google Ads could be a better idea. The HOTH’s PPC experts can help you get started on that. Schedule a free consultation today to learn what The HOTH can do for you.

The post 10 TikTok Ads Examples to Help You Advertise on the Platform appeared first on The HOTH.

Although written content has been the basis of content marketing for several years, times have changed. Many would rather watch a video than read pages of content. 

In fact, a report from HubSpot suggests that 85% of marketers are using YouTube, making it the most widely-used platform for video. Additionally, thanks to our easy access to smartphones, the average person spends approximately 50 minutes a day watching online videos. 

These numbers are certainly impressive, but how do they apply to your content marketing efforts?

Below, we’ll walk you through the steps of starting your YouTube channel, and provide you with additional tips to set yourself up for success. 

Why You Should Make YouTube Videos for Your Content 

There are almost 2 billion active monthly users on YouTube, which gives you an enormous opportunity to gain visibility and spread brand awareness.

Successful channels are even eligible to make money from advertisements and monetization. Although YouTube gives a content creator 55% of this revenue and takes 45% for itself, it’s still worth having extra income from advertisements. You may even have the chance to gain sponsorships and begin affiliate marketing which provides an additional source of revenue for your business. 

Even if you decide not to use YouTube for money directly but only for branding and video marketing, you still need subscribers. They boost your play count, watch time, and user engagement. These are all super important for signals to YouTube’s algorithm. 

However, the largest benefits come from implementing video content into your website. Video content is easily shareable, engaging, and memorable. With it, you can increase dwell time and boost your SEO, while also enjoying more traffic to your website.

Step 1: Create Your Channel

The first step to starting a successful YouTube channel is creating it!

In order to do this, you will need a Google account. YouTube is owned by Google (this is why YouTube is so instrumental in boosting your SEO), so you will use your Google account to access and manage your YouTube channel.

Once you’ve got your Google account information ready, all you have to do is head over to YouTube and log in with that information.

Once you’re logged in, click the account thumbnail icon in the top-right corner of the screen to open the drop-down menu. From here, click the settings icon to go into your account settings.

In your account settings, there will be an option to create a channel.

It will ask for your name, but if this account is for your business, you’ll want to choose the option that says Use a business or other name.

You will then be prompted to enter the name of your YouTube Brand Account. Use the name of your business or something similar. Remember, this is how audiences will identify your channel and the people behind it. After you have confirmed your account name, your YouTube channel has officially been created!

Step 2: Customize Your Channel

After creating your YouTube channel, the next step is to customize it to make sure that your channel stands out from the rest.

You can upload photos to your channel and your account icon, making it easy to identify your brand at a glance.

After choosing some photos that fit your channel, click the About tab to add more details.

In the About tab, you can add a description of your channel. This is a great opportunity to tell your audience what you’re all about.

You can also add contact information or links to your website, which will give prospective customers the resources they need to easily reach you.

Step 3: Verify Your Account

Once your account is created and customized, you’ll want to verify it so you have full access to benefits like custom thumbnails and the ability to upload longer videos.

To verify your account, click on the account icon to bring up the drop-down menu, then click on Creator Studio. 

Or use this link: www.youtube.com/verify to verify your account using your phone number. 

From here, click on Channel and then Status and features.

Then, all you have to do is click the Verify button!

Step 4: Upload Search Engine Optimized Video

Now that you have your channel set up, it’s time to start uploading your YouTube content. 

With YouTube, uploading videos is as easy as clicking the upload button and dragging your video onto the screen. Using the best editing software for your videos is also an important factor for branding and video quality.

As your video uploads, you’ll have the chance to add a title, description, and tags to the video.

These details are incredibly important for YouTube search engine optimization and ensuring that your content reaches its intended audience. Here are some tips for helping your video rank:

• Title – Your video title should be 5-10 words long. It should also include a keyword at the front of the title, which tells YouTube what the video is about. With this information, YouTube will suggest your video when people type your chosen keyword into the search bar. Adding other relevant information, such as the year or “how to”, can also help.
• Description – Your video description should be about 150 to 200 words. In order to rank your video higher on YouTube, you should include the keyword that you used in your title multiple times throughout the description, especially in the beginning. You can also link back to your website in the description, which increases the chance that your viewers will visit your website.
• Tags – The tags help YouTube categorize your video and suggest it to viewers who are watching related content. You should use your keyword here, too. You only need about five tags, any extra tags will only confuse YouTube. In addition to your main keyword, you should include a few alternative keywords that are similar to your main keyword. Then, include a few broader terms that relate to your keyword.

Step 5: Embed Videos to Your Website

Once you’ve begun creating content and uploading your search engine optimized videos, you’ll want to embed them on your website to further increase your traffic and your rankings.

Don’t know how to embed a video on your WordPress? It’s simple!

First, log into your WordPress dashboard and either create a new post or navigate to the post that you would like to add your video to.

Then, click the plus sign in the top-left corner to add a block to the current page.

Here, you will have the option of inserting a Video block, or a block specific to YouTube.

…or a block specific to YouTube.

After inserting the new block, you will be able to embed your video using its YouTube URL.

It’s important to use the URL here instead of uploading your video directly to your site. If you upload directly, you won’t get any SEO benefits!

The presence of links between your website and your YouTube video is essential for driving traffic and increasing your rankings.

How Do You Get Followers on YouTube with a New Channel?

You might feel a bit of an urge to buy Youtube subscribers, especially if you are a new channel just trying to reach that 1K mark. Youtube Analytics may also help you keep track of your metrics and which piece of content gets the most engagement and views. 

Let me tell you why it won’t work. The truth is that video creators behind Youtube’s top channels don’t spend time, effort, and money on growth schemes. Because bought subscribers don’t engage, they look shady to any real audience you have, and you risk getting caught by Youtube’s fake engagement policy. 

With that said, let me give you some great advice for earning free (real) subscribers for your new Youtube channel:

Create awesome Youtube video thumbnails

Thumbnails don’t affect your SEO or video ranking, but they certainly encourage people to click on your video instead of the videos above or below it. Visuals are such an important part of creating your own Youtube channel brand. 

They can also boost your channel name and brand. The best way to grab someone’s attention is using a custom thumbnail. Adding text, images or other elements to the thumbnail can make your video look much more appealing. 

Not only will you want to create great video thumbnails, but you’ll want to create awesome channel art, which includes a good channel banner. As a quick reminder, the appropriate size for a Youtube banner is a 2560 x 1440 pixel image.

So, how do you create awesome thumbnails? Use free websites to help you design your thumbnail graphic art such as Canva. You can also use Canva to help you design your infographics, your Youtube banner, and much more! 

Custom thumbnails tend to be more successful than random copyright-free images. Backlinko also suggests using bright colors in your thumbnails such as yellow, green, and orange tend to stand out more. Use your personality, your creativity, and your color palette! 

Use youtube’s clickable subscription tools

Youtube offers built-in tools that are clickable to help you encourage viewers to subscribe. Such as an end screen and a brand watermark. These methods work both for new videos and existing content. 

At the end of your video, you can remind people to subscribe to insert your call to action before Youtube moves on to the next video. You can add an end screen to videos during the uploading process as long as the video is around 25 seconds long. You can update any existing videos with an end screen as well. 

To add an end screen to an existing video, click on “content” in the left menu of Creator Studio, then click the video you want to update. Click “end screen” on the right side and add a “subscribe element” to your video. 

If you want to add a branded watermark you can always click “customization” in the left menu of Youtube Studio and then 

Create playlists for your videos

Playlists are a good way to increase your channel watch time which affects your ability to monetize. The neat thing about Youtube is that it will autoplay your playlist to your audience in the order you want. 

So, for example, if you created tutorials for beginners to the advanced, you can place them in the correct order for your viewers. Using playlists can also help your audience break down some of your information without watching hours of video. 

Collaborate with other creators

Outreach is a great tactic for any SEO from blogging to Youtube. Building a community can be a great way to gain subscribers. 

Use your connections to reach out to other Youtube creators to ask if they would like to collaborate with you so you can both leverage off each other’s viewers. Your audience trusts your brand, and their audiences trust theirs so collaboration can be a win-win for both of you! 

Once you begin to expand, you may even find that your audience may suggest different collaborations, so keep an eye on your comment section for ideas. You can ask for suggestions as well, which may also help you encourage engagement for your viewers. 

Be consistent when posting videos

Most Youtube SEO experts agree that posting a video once a week to start with, then increasing to 3 to 4 videos a week as your channel grows. 

The concept is that the more videos you post, the more your audience will grow. But, the goal is to prioritize quality over quantity. 

It would be best to focus on quality and consistency before banging out a ton of underwhelming content on your Youtube account. You can also use programs like Hootsuite to help you schedule your videos for publishing. 

According to a study by Boosted, the best level of engagement on Youtube happens on Fridays, Saturdays, and Wednesdays. On most days, the best time to publish your content is around 5 p.m., however, you can also post anytime before 9 p.m. with some level of success. 

However, keep in mind each social media platform has different days and times that perform the best so research is key here. 

Use a call to action (CTA) phrase

Ask your viewers to subscribe, it might sound simple, but there’s a reason every Youtuber adds a “hit like, share, and subscribe” bit after every video! Encouraging engagement is a great marketing tip for new channels. 

In fact, a good CTA phrase encourages high value with low risk to your audience and the average click-through rate across every industry is almost 5%, which is higher than Google ads. 

Try to remind your viewers why your channel is worth subscribing to. Make sure you ask for a sub after you’ve given them some new or useful information. Asking too often or too soon may result in sounding too salesy which can be a turn-off for some audiences.

That’s It! 

Like any marketing strategy, you need to be consistent in your efforts in order to achieve the best results. Upload videos regularly to keep your audience engaged and continue to enhance your SEO benefits.

You might even want to consider creating a custom intro for all your videos on your channel to help with branding.

Don’t forget to sign up for free and check out some of our other SEO tools! 

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