Video is the hottest thing on social media right now. Businesses and organizations of all shapes and sizes are relying on video to better connect with their target audience, delivering their messages in new, user-friendly mediums that are engaging and dynamic.
There is, however, a lot that goes into video creation– more so than just uploading images or conventional text posts. Video takes longer to create, and you have to consider factors like the best length, formatting, and much more. It’s no surprise that sometimes small-but-crucial details get overlooked.
One of these details is social video thumbnail images.
Many social media platforms that have native video allow you to set an image that will be displayed before the video starts, including both YouTube and Facebook, and every business, brand, or marketer should be taking advantage of this.
If you aren’t sure where to start (or if you’re looking for some new tricks!), keep reading; we’re going to take a look at 7 easy design tips for social video thumbnails that will increase your clicks.
YouTube has content that’s been created from bursts of creativity alongside carefully calculated strategy. People come to watch videos meant to entertain them and educate them alike, and brands put an endless amount of effort into doing just that.
There’s a gap in YouTube marketing, however, that many marketers and businesses are missing, which is weakening their overall effort, and that’s their YouTube descriptions.
Even though the focus is geared towards the videos you’re creating on YouTube, the descriptions still matter a great deal and for several different reasons. In this post, we’re going to take a look at the best YouTube description template you should be using, how to alter it to fit your channel, and description tips to get more views.
Back in the good ol’ days, brands only really needed to worry about one image on social media: their profile picture. Images were used in posts, but not often, and header images either didn’t exist yet or weren’t popular.
We’ve come a long way since then, and header images are now a must-have for all businesses and organizations using social media. Profiles look downright empty without them, and the last thing you want your audience to see when they visit your pages is “wow, they’re not really trying all that hard.”
Designing the perfect cover photos for social media isn’t all that difficult with the right tools and ideas in place. In this post, we’ll take you step-by-step through the process so that you can immediately give your profiles a visual and branding boost.
Your Facebook videos require a lot of creativity and a lot of time to make, especially once you start looking at creating multiple videos back to back. They’re easily worth it, as 71% of Facebook users increased their social video viewing in the last year, and 60% more are expected to do within the next. Native videos are also prioritized in the algorithm more than other content, and are given much higher reach than outbound links or potentially even text-only posts from your Page.
We’re enormous fans of Facebook video marketing here at Snappa, but we’ve always noticed that after all the work it takes to create a great Facebook video campaign, there’s one place that businesses often forget to pay attention. That’s the video ad format.
In this post, we’re going to take a close look at the best Facebook video format that you can use, why it matters, and how to get the best results from your videos every time. [continue reading…]
My entire career wouldn’t be possible if it wasn’t for the gig economy. I work full-time from home, running my own business, selling writing services to clients literally all over the world. I’m far from the only one, and as the gig economy continues to thrive (which it will), we’re going to see the number of people making money online continue to skyrocket.
Plenty of sites and companies have caught onto this, and offer platforms and services that are designed to help independent creators find new ways to make money off of their work– even if they aren’t selling it directly to someone else.
Patreon is one of these sites, which allows account holders to offer paid subscriptions to interested users who love what they’re doing. Everyone from poets to video game streamers to podcast hosts to nonprofit organizers have set up Patreons, with the goal of earning enough income from interested users that they can spend more time creating great content without the need to bog their viewers/listeners/readers down with annoying advertisements.
Patreon therefore offers a valuable chance for semi-regular, predictable streams of income that allows the creators to keep doing what they love, all while getting sponsored. It goes without saying, however, that most people won’t part with their money so easily, so having a solid channel that looks reputable is almost as important as great content. And of course, the Patreon banner is an important part of that. [continue reading…]
YouTube admittedly takes a little more work than most other social media marketing platforms. Here, long-form video content, similar to IGTV, dominates, and video takes a significant amount of time to plan, create, and edit, even before you factor in things like keyword research or adding in closed captions. With so many big details to tackle before you can even upload a single video, it’s easy to overlook one tiny detail that may seem inconsequential but that actually has a big impact on your content: the best YouTube video format.
With YouTube supporting so many different file formats, it’s easy to overlook this detail and just choose the first option that looks good, but this can impact the quality of the video once uploaded. We don’t want your content or your campaigns to be negatively impacted, so in this post, we’re going to take a look at the best YouTube video format and everything technical that you need to be keeping in mind. [continue reading…]
Twitter video has been booming. Not only is video Twitter’s fastest growing ad format, but there’s also about 1.2 billion video views every day on Twitter. Considering that Tweets with videos get about 10x more engagement than those without, it’s clearly to see why marketers and advertisers are prioritizing video on the platform more than ever before.
A lot of these marketers, businesses, and advertisers, however, are a little in the dark about how exactly to get the kind of results they want with Twitter video. They aren’t sure how long their videos should be, what type of file format they should be using, and even what size video dimensions to upload.
With so much potential for Twitter video, we don’t want you to leave any potential engagement, clicks, or conversions on the table. In this post, we’re going to go over everything you need to know about the best Twitter video format and technical requirements that you need to know. [continue reading…]
Photography has always been an integral part of design. Unfortunately, we’ve grown accustomed to seeing cheesy stock images of people in suits shaking hands. Not only are a lot of these stock photos tacky, but they cost a lot of money.
Thankfully, there’s been a growing number of websites with beautiful stock photography popping up all over the web. Best of all, they’re free!
In this post, we’ve curated a list of awesome websites for free stock photos. [continue reading…]
When Instagram Stories first rolled out, I remember actually saying out loud “but what’s the point if it disappears in 24 hours? No one will want to use this.”
I was very, very wrong.
Instagram Stories–which were a copycat of Snapchat’s classic disappearing-after-a-day content– became a wildly popular feature, and it was so successful that Facebook eventually rolled out their own version, and they both moved from mobile-only to mobile- and desktop- friendly. Stories have developed rapidly on these platforms in the past few years, offering “Swipe Up” links, Story Ads, interactive stickers, highlight covers, and even Shoppable content that allows users to purchased tagged products.
If you’re wondering why you should use them, it’s not just about the fact that Stories have become more high-tech than we ever expected; it’s because users love them. Consider the following statistics from Embed Social:
One third of the most viewed Instagram Stories come from business accounts
96% of marketers surveyed plan to continue using Stories Ads over the next six months, which means that it’s currently working for them
The biggest challenge with Stories for many brands isn’t getting engagement on their content; it’s reliably coming up with enough ideas to be posting consistently. In this post, we’re going to look at 7 different types of Story ideas that you can use to build up your brand and engage your audience across social media. [continue reading…]
Social media is one of the best ways to connect with your target audience. It’s often one of the first touch points users might have with your business, introducing them to your brand and what you offer, and it’s an incredible way to build long-term relationships with interested users who can eventually become customers.
This doesn’t just happen instantly, however, and social media marketing for businesses requires more than a few random posts with philosophical quotes attached; you need to have a strategy in place to help you brand and represent your business in a meaningful way. Branding on social media involves a series of decisions that will help you stand out, connect with your audience, and make a big (and strong!) impression.
In this post, we’re going to take a look at 3 crucial elements of social media branding: the voice, the visual, and the awareness strategies you need. [continue reading…]
