9 Ways to Improve Social Sharing on Business Videos

Creating a video is a great way to showcase your business or service. The time and effort you put into this marketing material can really pay off — if people watch it. So how do you tap into the power of social sharing online?

To find out, we asked nine members of Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) the following:

“What is one tip you have for getting more social sharing and views on business videos?”

Here’s what YEC community members had to say:

1. Use Three Cameras and a Good Editor

“Of course you want a snappy title to generate views, but the simple touch of having different camera angles and a smart editor makes a world of difference. This could be the difference between someone watching your video for 30 seconds versus three minutes.” ~ Rob Fulton, Exponential Black

2. Be Informative

“Remember, most people share not to help you so much as to help themselves. So, how can you make people share your video in their own best interests? Make it informative and helpful. If the video has good insights and information, and the person can help their followers by sharing, they’re likely to “be the hero” and share it with others.” ~ Andy Karuza, Gossip App

3. Cultivate Community

“If you haven’t built up a community, don’t expect anyone to care unless you pay for it. Even then, it won’t get much. Build an online community around your niche. It will help you in the long term. Note: When creating a video, make sure that it grabs the attention of the viewer every 3-5 seconds. We have short attention spans and get distracted easily.” ~ John Rampton, Host

4. Highlight Your Expertise

“You’ve made a video about your business, which means you have a target audience in mind and an attention grabbing idea behind the effort. What else would they find useful? Provide actionable insight to their issues so that when they come across your content, they will be more likely to share it with others and spread positive feedback.” ~ Stanley Meytin, True Film Production

5. Keep It Brief

“In most cases, your video should never be longer than a few minutes. Get to the point quickly and immediately show the value your video will provide. If you can’t cover everything in one video, create a series.” ~ Andrew Schrage, Money Crashers Personal Finance

6. Promote Your Video

“The best way to get more social sharing and views on a business video is to promote it. Many businesses focus on content creation so much that they forget about content promotion. If people aren’t aware that your video exists, they can’t share it. Get creative: Share it during Twitter chats and share with your strategic partners, but — and this is important — explicitly ask your social network to share it.” ~ Sean Kelly, HUMAN

7. Be Interesting

“Make it interesting. There’s no substitution for great content. One way we’ve done this is through variable data in video. A company called Switch Merge came up with this technology and we love it.” ~ Justin Gray, LeadMD

8. Feature Concise and Clear Benefit Statements

“The end user wants to know “What’s in it for me?” in order to watch and share your video. So make sure you clearly outline that.” ~ Daniel Wesley, DebtConsolidation.com

9. Add Pre-Made Sharing Links

“Though YouTube already makes it easy for you to share a video you just watched, as a viewer I might also turn to the description section to learn more about the video and then share it with a quote from that description. Use services such as Click to Tweet to get your audience to share your video more often and watch your views count climb.” ~ Firas Kittaneh, Amerisleep

Source; http://smallbiztrends.com/2014/

What Twitter’s Mute Button Means for Small Businesses

My remote’s mute button and I are best buddies. We tag team the task of watching a show and muting the commercials — all from the comfort of my favourite recliner. Why do I mute commercials? It’s simple: They’re usually annoying or irrelevant. When the program I’m interested in returns, I’m able to un-mute my TV, and life is good once again.

This May, Twitter caught on to the beautiful idea of muting and introduced a new Twitter mute button feature to its users. Basically, muting on Twitter hides an account’s tweets and retweets from your Twitter stream so you’ll no longer receive push notifications from that user. However, muted users can still favourite reply to, and retweet your tweets. You just won’t see any of that activity on your timeline.

While this mute feature is great for blocking your overly opinionated cousin, it’s not so great for businesses. If a business is muted, its engagement will be hindered because customers won’t see any live tweets of industry events or responses to questions or complaints.

So what can you do to prevent your small business’s account and tweets from being muted? Below are five key tips to consider:

How to Avoid Being Muted

Tell Followers When You’re Live Tweeting an Event

Live tweeting an event is a fantastic way to gain followers, showcase your knowledge, and offer tips and tricks. However, live tweeting overwhelms certain followers. To avoid this, announce the times you’ll start and stop live tweeting beforehand so users can mute and unmute as they see fit.

Keep Your Content Focused

Identify the content that attracts followers to your account and track the activities that also may have caused a drop in followers (like frequent event tweeting).

Use Analytics

Turn to your Twitter analytics to see follower growth and user engagement. Build on the messages and the activity that drive growth and engagement, and cut out those that hurt it.

Have a Defined Twitter Personality

The Twitter mute button makes it easier for followers to silence your voice. So it’s even more important to pay attention to the narrative of your tweets. Make your followers want to read your tweets.

Create Visual Content

Tweets with visual content are read, shared, and liked more frequently than text-only tweets. Add meaningful images such as screen shots, photos, infographics, or videos to complement the rest of your tweet.

Businesses can begin to determine whether their tweets are being muted with link-tracking tools, such as Bitly. While these tools won’t tell you directly whether you’re being muted, you can deduce that if your clicks had a 3 percent CTR and then dropped to 1.5 percent, you may have been muted and should adjust your strategy.

Likewise, if you’re seeing “unfollows,” you may have been muted prior to being unfollowed. Businesses should track the number of unfollows to see what types of content are driving followers away.

How to Win Back the Muters

Though being muted is an unfortunate occurrence, there are ways to win back the muters. Businesses can reach these audiences via Promoted Tweets, Twitter retargeting, and email marketing.

One retargeting tool, Perfect Audience, allows businesses to deliver ads to users who have visited their website. Businesses should also tap into the power of email marketing in concert with their Twitter ads to remind followers of all the great tweets they’re missing out on.

Although the Twitter mute button is successful at cutting out the excess “noise” on Twitter, it can be harmful to businesses. However, small businesses can avoid being silenced by posting relevant and engaging content — but not excessively.

If you do find yourself on someone’s muted list, remember that you can always work to win them back via Twitter or email marketing.