Video content is a powerful tool to engage your audience, showcase your brand personality, and build trust and loyalty. But how can you use video content to create a brand community, where your customers and fans interact with each other and with you? In this article, you will learn some tips and best practices to leverage video content for community building.
Before you start creating video content, you need to have a clear vision of what you want to achieve with your brand community. Do you want to increase awareness, retention, advocacy, feedback, or something else? How will you measure your success? What kind of value will you provide to your community members, and what kind of value will they provide to you and to each other? Having a clear and specific goal will help you align your video content strategy with your community objectives.
In my role as a content coach, I guide my clients in the importance of setting a clear goal before embarking on their video content creation journey. Whether it's boosting visibility, enhancing engagement, promoting an event or program, or achieving any other objective, defining your goal is crucial, as it directly influences your call to action (CTA). Another essential aspect to consider is how your video addresses your audience's pain points. By maintaining a clear vision and delivering value, you'll foster the growth of a devoted and engaged community.
In my experience, always define your community goals clearly. What do you want to achieve with your video content? Is it increased brand loyalty, customer education, or maybe something else? According to a recent survey, 68% of marketers believe that video content is the most effective way to nurture their communities. Setting your goals right is the first step.
To build a strong brand community, you need to understand who your audience is, what they care about, what they need, and what they expect from you. You can use various methods to research your audience, such as surveys, interviews, analytics, social media listening, and user personas. Based on your findings, you can segment your audience into different groups and tailor your video content accordingly. For example, you can create different video series for different stages of the customer journey, or for different interests, preferences, or pain points.
Here are effective approaches for understanding your audience better: First, craft a customer persona. Second, employ polls to inquire about their needs, interests, challenges, habits, and objectives. Lastly, actively engage with your community on posts to deepen your connection. Demonstrating your commitment to delivering value and aiding them in achieving their goals will foster a strong brand community.
There are many platforms where you can host and distribute your video content, such as your website, blog, email, social media, YouTube, Vimeo, or dedicated community platforms. Each platform has its own advantages and disadvantages, depending on your goals, audience, budget, and resources. You need to choose the platforms that best suit your needs and that allow you to reach and engage your audience effectively. You also need to consider how you will integrate your video content across different platforms and how you will drive traffic and conversions from one platform to another.
I consistently advise my clients to select the platform where their audience is most active. It's essential to concentrate on your primary platform for at least six months, preferably a year. Maintain a consistent posting schedule, not necessarily daily, but on the same days and times to establish a posting rhythm that your audience can rely on. After building a solid community on your primary platform, you can repurpose your videos on other social media platforms, ensuring the aspect ratio suits each platform's native format.
The quality and relevance of your video content is crucial for building a brand community. You need to create content that educates, entertains, inspires, or solves a problem for your audience. You also need to create content that reflects your brand identity, values, and voice, and that showcases your unique selling proposition and competitive advantage. You can use different types of video content, such as tutorials, testimonials, behind-the-scenes, live streams, Q&A sessions, webinars, or user-generated content, depending on your goals and audience. You also need to optimize your video content for SEO, accessibility, and mobile-friendliness.
Many social media platforms prioritize short-form video content, typically lasting between 15 to 60 seconds. Begin with a captivating video hook, provide concise solutions (like three valuable tips), and conclude with a compelling call to action. By consistently delivering high-quality content that educates, inspires, and entertains your audience, community growth becomes inevitable. Additionally, remember that hashtags play a crucial role. Given that most content is searchable online, employ relevant and niche-specific hashtags to make it easier for your ideal audience to discover your content.
One of the main benefits of video content is that it can spark conversations and interactions among your audience and between your audience and your brand. You can use various strategies to encourage interaction and feedback, such as asking questions, inviting comments, creating polls, quizzes, or challenges, offering incentives or rewards, featuring user-generated content, or hosting live events. You also need to monitor and moderate the interactions and feedback, and respond to them in a timely and friendly manner. By doing so, you can foster a sense of belonging, trust, and loyalty among your community members, and gain valuable insights and testimonials for your brand.
Engagement is key! Encourage your community to participate, ask questions, and provide feedback. Did you know that 64% of users are more likely to buy a product online after watching a video? Respond to comments and messages promptly. Foster a sense of belonging. Remember, it's a two-way street.
Finally, you need to track and measure the performance of your video content and your brand community, and use the data to improve your strategy and tactics. You can use various metrics and tools to analyze your video content and your community, such as views, watch time, retention, engagement, reach, sentiment, conversions, or retention. You also need to collect and analyze the feedback and suggestions from your community members, and use them to create better content and experiences for them. By doing so, you can optimize your video content and your community for your goals and audience, and grow your brand community over time.
Data is your best friend. Regularly analyze the performance of your video content. Track metrics like view duration, click-through rates, and social shares. This data will help you understand what's working and what needs improvement. As per a recent study by YouTube, businesses that use video grow 49% faster than non-video users. Learn from your community's behavior and adapt your content strategy accordingly.