Besides making sure your video’s quality is top-notch, there are a few things you can do to make sure you’re reaching the right audience, racking up views, encouraging meaningful engagement and ultimately charming your viewers into taking profitable action. We’ve compiled our top nine tips to help B2C and B2B companies boost video views.
Let’s start with two scenarios.
Scenario 1: Your boss comes to you with a “cutting edge” idea to get your brand noticed: “We’re going to make a viral video!” she says, both excitedly and with a straight face. And lucky you–you’re in charge of making it happen.
Scenario 2: You’ve taken the lead on a corporate initiative to produce a handful of industrial videos targeted to both internal and B2B audiences (think employee interviews and b-roll footage of your manufacturing machines in action). You’ve spent the money to produce the video and now it’s time to prove the cost was worth it.
Now, as a marketer, having a video “go viral” and earn a billion views is the stuff your dreams are made of. But you also know that we can’t all be Psy, Keyboard Cat, or The Annoying Orange (unless you’re Delta, then you can be all of the things). So how then, do you make sure your video stands out among the rest of the videos online? Besides making sure your video’s quality (both visual and content-wise) is top-notch, there are a few things you can do to make sure your videos reach the right audience, boost video views, encourage meaningful engagement and ultimately charm your viewers into taking profitable action.
Boost Video Views For B2C Marketers
Utilize Playlists
Whether you’re using YouTube or Facebook to host your videos, both sites offer options for creating playlists. Playlists are a great tool because they give you a bit of control over the way the user navigates through your videos; if you have a series of episodes, they will be able to easily find the next video in that series.
It also helps keep viewers on your page because while they may have come to your page or channel for one specific video, the playlist feature will encourage them to stay a while and check out what else you have to offer. Lastly, it helps with your videos SEO. Having a playlist targeted at your keywords will help your playlist (and thus videos) show in search results.
When making your playlists, be sure you group videos in a way that makes sense. People that are watching your video on how to throw a perfect spiral are probably going to be more interested in other ways to improve their game and less interested in the history of the football helmet.
Optimize Your Title and Description
Ah, the age-old question: If a video is uploaded to YouTube and there is no description to explain it, does it get viewed? What many people might not realize is that your description and video title are major factors in your video’s rank in YouTube and in Google. In other words, you could have the best video ever created, a real work of art, but if it isn’t named and described well, the people of the internet won’t be able to find it, and probably wouldn’t watch it if they did.
Choose a title that is not only captivating, but one that accurately describes the video. When writing the description, give a bit of background and make it clear what viewers will get out of watching it. Will they learn a skill? Will they laugh until they cry? Let them know what they’ll be missing if they decide not to watch. The description is also a great place to link to your website so viewers can buy your product, sign up for your service, or get more information.
Use a Clear Call to Action
Having viewers share your video to their friends and followers on social is an advantageous way to boost video views. This requires a call to action within your video, calling on viewers to share this on their social networks. With SocialToaster, you can simplify this process by sending your video directly to your fans and they can share it to all of their networks with the click of a button.
Paying that Green
The dirty secret of “virality” is that to boost video views, you usually have to put some coinage behind the video to get that initial bump in views. Once that bump happens, you start trending, landing on homepages and lists, and the “free” views come in. But before that, it’s all pay. YouTube, Facebook and other video platforms all have paid options.
You can also pay to have your video promoted by influencers in your market. Not only is your video being put in front of a target audience, it’s being communicated to them by a proven, trusted person, thus increasing the credibility of the push and the likelihood of a view.
Broadcast Your Video Everywhere
You put in all the money and effort to make a great video so you know you can’t just cross your fingers and hope people find it. You need to put it out there on every available channel. Be it Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, your brand’s blog, or website, these are the places your fans go to interact with your brand and content, so make sure it’s available for them wherever they may be.
Boost Video Views On B2B Videos
Get Your Fellow Employees In On It
Getting employees to share your video to their personal social networks helps increase your reach and boost video views. It also adds a human element to your brand, which helps build trust with current and potential customers. When new audiences see that the people behind your brand truly believe in and trust enough to share your content, it makes them more likely to trust you as well. If your company doesn’t have any kind of employee advocacy program, we highly recommend instituting one and know just the folks who can help you with it!
Pair Your Video With A Case Study
Your potential customers want a clear picture of the kind of results you can help them achieve. One way to do this is to give them the quick and dirty of a case study and provide a link to a video that delves deeper into it. By doing this, you are able to make a bigger impact and a longer connection than if they just read a paragraph or two on your website and move on.
Caption it
85% of videos in Facebook’s News Feed are watched without sound. Adding subtitles or closed captions to your video not only allows people who don’t have the ability to listen to sound at the time of viewing to follow along, but also allows those who are deaf, hard of hearing, or who speak other languages to fully experience your content as well.
Pay Per View
As with B2C, you can boost video views by sponsoring or promoting your video. Utilize Facebook, YouTube and other third party advertising networks to broaden the reach of your ad. When targeting a B2B customer, it’s critically important to focus your campaign targeting parameters on that audience. Want to go the extra mile? Create custom audiences using your prospect list to target prospective clients with your videos.
Use Influential Fans To Broaden Your Reach And Promote Your Content
Whether you’re selling to individuals or to other companies, one of the best ways to broaden your viewership organically is to have your biggest, most influential fans share it for you. At SocialToaster, we know all about these fans; from where to find them to how to leverage them, we’ve got you covered.
Drive Video Views With SocialToaster
If you’re interested in learning how to use your brand’s influencers to boost video views for your organization, contact our experts by email or phone (855.62.TOAST), or request a free demo today!
