A Marketer’s Guide to Achieving Quick ROI in Social Media Video Marketing

The end goal of every marketing strategy is to increase sales and revenue of a business. Without revenue, a business can’t operate and will eventually collapse. One of the best marketing tools for driving more sales is video.

A study found that 73% of customers are more likely to purchase a product after watching a video about that product. Another study suggested that for 52% of marketers, video is the kind of content that gives the best ROI.

You can put videos in almost all of your digital marketing campaigns like social media, email, and even blog posts. Just make sure to create videos based on those particular platforms to maximize the effectiveness of the results.

Today, we’ll talk about social video, which is the kind of video specifically designed to be posted and shared on social media.

Why social video?

Because it’s proven that 64% of users buy something from a brand after watching social videos about that brand.

How to Measure Your ROI in Social Media Video Marketing

This article contains several tips on how to create shareable and engaging videos based on each popular social media platform. But before we go deeper, let’s learn about how to measure your ROI first. Here is how you can run social media video marketing:

1. Set the Goals

The first rule in measuring your ROI is to make sure that everything is specific and detailed. There are so many social media platforms and metrics to be measured. The easiest path to get around this is to measure every campaign that you do. Pick one social media platform and set the goals that you want to track.

For instance, if your goal is to build brand awareness on Instagram, then you need to track the number of views, shares, and reach of the video. If you want to instantly boost your sales with Facebook Ads, then the number of people who purchase your product is all that matters.

One of the easiest ways to track your goals is by using Google Analytics. This tool is free, complete, and used by almost all the top digital marketers in the world.

2. Calculate the Expenses

After you’ve got the metrics figured out, don’t forget to calculate the cost of making the video to get a grip on whether you’re getting a positive or negative ROI. The cost here doesn’t always have to be about money alone, but rather a combination of several things like:

i. Time

There’s an old saying that time is money, which is perfect for this occasion. Calculate the time spent on each and every project that you make. Why would you waste your time on content that doesn’t work?

ii. Video making tools

Do you hire a professional agency to create the video? Or do you create it on your own using video making tools? Whatever you do, calculate the total production cost of making one video.

iii. Copywriter

Another thing to take into account is the copywriter. If you write all the copywriting on your own, then it will count into the time spent on the project. If you hire a professional copywriter to write your landing page and caption, add it to the total money spent.

iv. Social media management tools

If you’re running a one-man show business, sooner or later you’ll need the help of a social media management tool like Sprout Social. Remember to calculate the rental cost on a per-campaign basis. So, if your campaign lasts for two weeks and the tool’s rate is $50 per month, the cost of your campaign is $25.

iv. Advertising costs

If you want a quick ROI on your video marketing project, then setting up an advertising campaign is the route to go. Social media like Facebook and Instagram have features that enable you to set your own budget and easily track your video performance.

3. The ROI Formula

Now that you’ve got the number of both your metrics and expenses, calculate your ROI using this formula:

For example, you run a campaign for a month that in total costs you $50. During that month, your total revenue reaches $75. This means that your net income is $25, and your ROI is 50%.

You can change “net income” with any of your campaign goals. Let’s say that your goal is not to get revenue, but rather to make people sign up to your newsletter. You spend $100 in two weeks and get 75 new subscribers. It means that your ROI is 75%.

Do this simple calculation in every marketing campaign that you do, to give you an idea of which platforms and methods work best for you. If a certain platform keeps bringing in negative ROI, you can either lower your budget for that platform or cut it off altogether.

4. Video Marketing Tips on Social Media

Every social media platform is unique and has its own characteristics that make them different from the others. That’s why you need to create videos based on the platforms that you want to invest in. 

Here, we take a tour around the three most popular social media today: YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook. You’ll learn quite a few tips on how to achieve quick ROI using video marketing.

5. YouTube

When YouTube was founded in 2005, who would’ve thought that this platform would go on to become the biggest video sharing site, the second most visited website, and the second largest social media platform. 

With 1.9 billion active users, this platform is too big to miss. You can upload as many videos as you like and there’s no limit on the length. This makes YouTube suitable for longer videos like movies, documentaries, talkshow, concerts, and sports matches.

However, when we talk about video marketing, the ideal time length is about 2 minutes. Just about long enough to capture the audience’s attention and short enough not to bore them. Here are some other tips on YouTube marketing campaign:

• Create engaging titles and thumbnails that spark people’s curiosity and get them to click the video.
• Optimize the keywords in the video title and description.
• Include a clear CTA that directs the audience to your landing page, whether on the video or in the description.
• Be consistent in uploading high-quality videos to grow your channel, until you reach a certain level when you’re able to put ads on your videos.
• The quickest way to achieve ROI is by monetizing your videos with ads. Sure, you need a certain amount of subscribers and all that technical stuff to get it done, but it’s sure worth it.

6. Instagram

Instagram is the third most popular social network, just behind Facebook and YouTube with about a billion active users. Alongside Snapchat, Instagram is one of the pioneers in short vertical videos through Instagram Story. 

The normal post allows you to upload a video up to 60 seconds, while IG Story is limited to 15 seconds. It’s only recently that they allow longer videos through the launching of Instagram TV. Normal users can upload videos up to 10 minutes, while verified accounts have a special privilege to upload an hour-long video.

Because Instagram is the home of photos and short videos, you have to create content that is suitable for the platform. Here are some ideas on how to create videos for Instagram:

• The best length for an Instagram video is 30 seconds.
• Use Instagram to promote your longer videos on other channels like YouTube or your own website. Post a snippet or teaser of your full video on Instagram with the link to the original source.
• Instagram is good for promotion, but it’s great to build your brand and engage with the audience. The rule of thumb here is to post one promotional video every three branding-related videos.
• Work with influencers and accounts with major following to post your videos on their accounts. This way, you’ll gain more reach and visibility.
• If you’re looking for the instant way out, run Instagram ads. Start with a smaller budget to test your video first. If the result is good, you can add your budget to reach more people.

7. Facebook

By far, Facebook remains the most popular social network with over 2.3 billion active users all over the globe. And recently, videos are doing better on this platform than ever before. As many as 75 million people visit Facebook’s video platform daily and videos on Facebook’s main site receive 8 billion views every day.

When creating content for Facebook, keep in mind that this social network has a vastly diverse user demographic. And because of its large user database, a lot of businesses and marketers have already implemented their video marketing on Facebook. That’s why to be competitive, you need to do the following:

• Keep your video under a minute for a better engagement rate.
• A Hubspot research found that 95% of users watch Facebook videos on mute, so make sure that your video can visually get the point across without much sound.
• Don’t just post a link from YouTube, upload the video directly to Facebook because it’s proven to receive 478% more shares and 110% more engagement. 
• Create a video that instantly hooks in the audience in the first 3 seconds.
• If you run Facebook ads, make sure to target the right user demographics and don’t forget to send the audience to your designated landing page to view the full video.

Conclusion

Have you ever heard an investment philosophy of high-risk high return, low-risk low return? Well, it turns out that philosophy is quite applicable here. If you prefer the organic way, you won’t spend too much money on creating and promoting your video. However, your reach is limited and it will take a longer time in building your social media persona.

But if you want to achieve a quick ROI on your video marketing campaign, there’s no other way than running social media ads. These social networks are equipped with features that make it easy to track the performance of your ads. You can set your own budget and how long the campaign will last, so you can do an A/B testing first before going full in on the campaign.

With that being said, the success of your campaign still depends on the quality of your video. Good concepts and tools are just what you need to craft high-quality videos. While I can’t help you with the concept, I certainly can with the tools. We, at Breadnbeyond, recently spent a month to compile the complete list of video marketing tools and platforms. Click on the link to find out over 100 tools that you need to make a proper video.

Author byline:

Andre Oentoro is the founder of Breadnbeyond, an award-winning explainer video company. He helps businesses increase conversion rates, close more sales and get positive ROI from explainer videos. Find Andre on Twitter and LinkedIn.