Written by Sarah Boland, Founder and CEO, Life Lapse

When you consider that 84% of people say that they’ve been convinced to buy a product or service by watching a brand’s video you know it’s time to jump on the new media trend. But for many of us, video content can seem intimidating without professional help. As TikTok continues to gain popularity and Instagram launched Reels, we’re seeing a shift in perceptions of video content.

Gone are the days of polished looking, scripted videos. Instead, we’re seeing platforms provide all the tools for you to create authentic, short videos natively in-app without paying an expert. Instagram is also known to favor video when it comes to their algorithm—a video post on Instagram will see 39% higher engagement compared to a photo post—so that’s all the more reason to start creating video content.

If you’re stumped on how to get started, I did the leg work for you. Read on for some video content ideas that will help to build your brand on social media.

Behind-the-scenes

Take your customers behind-the-scenes of building your business to turn them into your very own cheerleaders. While you might think that no one will care about the not-so-glamorous parts of growing your business, this actually gives you the opportunity to showcase more of your values and personality which resonates with today’s consumers. There’s no doubt that COVID-19 has shifted consumer behavior. In fact, a report found that customers are prioritizing trusted relationships over price when it comes to shopping with brands and “paying closer attention to the social activism, outreach and investments of companies during the pandemic.”

Show them the progress in building your brand, get to know the team that makes up your business or how you create the products or services you are selling. The more you show, the more invested they will be in your journey as a brand. Our behind-the-scenes content on Instagram at Life Lapse are some of our most engaged posts and it is incredibly rewarding that our users are also our cheerleaders. When we make announcements about new product updates or reach new milestones as a business they cheer us on.

Your videos don’t have to be staged or highly produced videos. Shooting on the fly in-app on Instagram for stories or reels or capturing a video with your phone will resonate with your audience—it’s more authentic. A great example is Marissa from @StilClassics. TikTok is also a platform where a number of businesses are blowing up because they are sharing the behind-the-scenes of their business like @ErinnDubs and @xxl.scrunchie.

Types of behind the scenes video you can post:

Show the process of how your products are made
Give an office tour
Introduce team members
Provide sneak peeks of what you’re working on or new products in the pipeline
Show your team packing orders

2. User generated videos (UGC)

Customers are 2.4 times more likely to view user-generated content as authentic compared to content created by brands. Having customers do an unboxing video, give a review, or show it in action is an incredible way to build trust for future customers. So how do you integrate user-generated video into your social strategy? Ask for it. Ask for it on social media, in your email marketing, and if you're a CPG brand, ask for the review in a nicely designed postcard that goes in your mailer.

UGC strategies:

When customers tag your brand in Instastories… restory, restory, restory! The more your followers are seeing you share user content, the more it encourages others to do the same
Get influencers to do a product review on YouTube which will help your search engine optimization because Google owns YouTube and will favor this content
Repurpose videos to different platforms and always be sure to give credit to the original creator. For example, a customer tags you in a video of them trying on your product. You can share this video to your Pinterest and link it to that product on your website while giving credit to your customer
Embed user generated videos to the product pages or throughout your website with customers permission

3. Product videos

Product videos are a great way to show the details behind your product and tell your product story but there are a couple of things to keep in mind when creating your product videos for social media:

1. Does the platform have a sound-on (ex. TikTok) or sound-off (ex. Instagram) environment?

2. You only have 1.7 seconds to capture your audience on social media as they’re scrolling

Our favorite type of video to showcase product is stop motion because the narrative is visual so you can tell your story without relying on sound and the content is short, loopable, and looks like magic to capture your audience within those 1.7 seconds. Plus, they’re easy to learn and create from your phone using this app.

Stop motion is also perfect for creating Facebook or Instagram ads and posting even posting on Pinterest. Yes, I said Pinterest! It is not just for finding recipes and planning your next home décor project. It has become a visual search engine and is a very underrated platform for driving traffic. In the past 30 days at Life Lapse, we had over 3 million impressions and 1.7 million views without any paid spend and our secret is posting stop motion video pins. Video views on the platform have increased more than 3 times in 2020 over the same period in 2019 while Pinners are also 2.6 times more likely to make a purchase after viewing brand video content on the platform too.

4. Educational content

Increase the lifetime value of your customer by keeping them engaged with educational and informative videos. I know you’re thinking, *BORING*, but hear me out. Educational content does not have to be boring. Glossier does this well by showing educational pieces on how to apply different types of beauty products in a fresh, approachable and informative way.

Our business has seen the impact of educational content first hand and the content has helped us grow our business year over year. Showing your customers how to use your product in different ways will leave them feeling confident and happy with their purchase decision. It will keep them coming back for more. Video tutorials are the most engaged pieces of content we have when we post to Instagram and it goes beyond the number of likes on our posts. We’re seeing people share these videos with their followers and bookmarking them to come back to later.

Educational videos perform well on social media but you can also repurpose the content for other uses including:

Email campaigns after your customer has purchased your product or service
On your website (product pages, FAQ’s, landing pages, etc)

5. Video direct messages

I’ve made so many valuable connections with customers, collaborators and even formed friendships through this method. It’s not the most conventional way to do business which is why it stands out among the crowd of DMs. I predict we’ll see more and more of this because of the impact of COVID-19. It’s another way to almost achieve that face-to-face interaction and as the world accelerates to a more digital life with remote everything, surprising and delighting customers and collaborators through video is another way you can inject a human aspect into your brand. An example of using video as a customer service tool is Mejuri and their digital styling appointments through video.

6. Thought Leadership Videos

I don’t know about you, but I personally love learning from people who have succeeded. Everybody has a wealth of knowledge and sharing your learnings from growing your brand can help build your brand story. Now you don’t need to start a YouTube channel, become a business coach, or share all your insider secrets, but keeping your business community up to date with short videos where you share learnings and achievements will keep you on the radar of potential investors, potential hires, mentors, and mentees. Think collaboration over competition! A great place to post this content is on LinkedIn and when you upload videos natively to their platform, it will get you 3 times the engagement compared to a text or link post.

Personally, I share the good, the bad, and the ugly with my entrepreneur journey at Life Lapse. We are living in a world where people are, for the most part, posting only their highlight reels. Even though I know it’s just the highlight reel, it can feel pretty disheartening when you only see other #bosses getting awards, expanding their teams, and living the high life. So I share my failures and I share them often in hopes of helping another entrepreneur prevent the same mistake I made. My vulnerability in sharing my failure on Dragons’ Den when I was humiliated on national television while pitching my business. This has gotten me many opportunities and has become a part of my success story.

7. Video Meetings

Your people make your brand and while this category might not necessarily be for posting on social media, how engaged your employees are will help build your brand on social media especially when it comes to what they’re sharing on their own platforms. I have been managing a remote team of workers for the past three years, so you can say that I was prepared for the shift to working from home. It’ll be hard to replace the in-office atmosphere with hallway and kitchen banter but video meetings will be your next best option for keeping your employees engaged and happy. You’ll know when they aren’t when you start seeing the trickle effect into your product, service, or brand growth as a whole.

About the Author

Sarah Boland is the Founder and CEO of Life Lapse, the easiest stop motion app empowering small business owners, creators and influencers to create eye catching videos for social marketing using their phone. As a former professional videographer and marketer, Sarah helped brands create and integrate video into their social media strategies. She knows firsthand how expensive video marketing can be and set out to help small brands create eye-catching videos using their phone by creating Life Lapse in 2017. Now, Life Lapse has over 1 million users from around the world.

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