How to Leverage Native Video on FB, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram

How to Leverage Native Video on FB, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram

Native video is certainly a large part of social media marketing. However, not all businesses know the ups, downs, benefits, and examples of how native video can greatly influence one’s social media following.

Native video works differently on each of the four main social networks: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. For each social network, there are different ways to best leverage native video. We put together a guide full of great examples of how businesses and brands are using native video to get more followers and engagement on these social platforms.

Before we dive into the guide itself, let’s look at what native video actually is.

Native video is a type of video content that is uploaded directly to, or created within, a social media network and then played in the feed on that platform.

For example:  A native video on Facebook would be a video clip that is uploaded directly to Facebook via the status bar, rather than via a link shared from Youtube, Twitter, Vimeo, etc.

The best part of native video is that it doesn’t interrupt the user experience with extra navigation, clicks, or new windows. This means the video content is something social media viewers are more likely to engage with.

There are several significant benefits to using native video on these platforms.

By posting native videos to your respective social media platforms, those videos display in a more attractive and simplified format. Native video on most social media sites does not include the link box at the bottom of the video. This will create a much cleaner and slightly larger thumbnail, which is even more important when we’re looking at social media on mobile devices.

Social media networks also make it clearer that a video that has been posted and tends to have its own native video format that looks better than a linked video. When linking your video from YouTube, Twitter, or Vimeo, it displays the same components as a text link would: the main thumbnail, a link, and some text. When using native video, the social media platform inserts a play button over the top of your video and essentially leaves it at that.

Social media marketing campaigns strictly rely on accurate and detailed analytics for enduring success. By using video natively on some social media platforms, a brand is able to reap in a whole wealth of analytics.

For example: Facebook has an entire section specifically for video in its page insights, complete with detailed analytics including the number of video views over a few seconds and the most viewed videos with details of video engagement. Twitter has a comprehensive video analytics section too, with a whole host of different analytics for you to use.

Most social media platforms nowadays have a way for you to see the number of views on your video and how your videos have performed. This, like most other analytics, allows brands to improve and edit their marketing campaigns to get the absolute best possible engagement.

It’s pretty clear that native video has an advantage over third-party embedded videos. Search engines like Google and other social media platforms have their own algorithms that showcase the best results for a keyword search. This is the same for native video, especially when it has been uploaded to Facebook.

Native video posted to social media networks in a vast majority of cases will automatically play when scrolled over. This means that you’re going to receive more views automatically on your native video when you post it because it makes it so much easier to watch and requires less effort from the viewer. And the less the viewer has to do, the more likely they are to engage.

Autoplaying videos are also more likely to get the attention of casual mobile social media scrollers and not just viewer who know your company or brand.

How to Leverage Native Video on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram

As of now, these four social media platforms have the best native video presence online. They also tend to be the best when it comes to content marketing.

BuzzFeed is a popular social news and entertainment company. BuzzFeed cables its content on over twenty different platforms, but primarily on Facebook and YouTube. Its videos generate approximately one billion views per month, and only 5% of that comes from BuzzFeed.com. One video titled “Photos That Will Give You Flashbacks To Elementary School” has generated approximately 20 million views and over 256,000 likes in a single week. This simple collection of nostalgic images is a good example of content with universal appeal through native video.

GoPro is a brand that produces a series of versatile cameras which can be worn on one’s head or mounted on an object for more extreme stills and videos. GoPro’s Facebook page has around 8.3 million likes. One popular native Facebook video “Speedflying Doggie” is from GoPro’s “Video of the Day” series.

Oreo is known for its simple and often creative social media content, especially on Instagram. One native video subtitled “Open up with Oreo and share a new view on the world together.” is a great example of a fun video that works perfectly for the social media platform. While the sound doesn’t disappoint, it doesn’t require sound to make sense. This is a fantastic example of a brand taking advantage of native video’s autoplay feature.

A Facebook native video from The Washington Post several years ago showed a bunch of tumbling red pandas playing in the snow at the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden. The video was posted during the 2014 polar vortex. It’s a fantastic example of using social media video as a quick and fun diversion. The video has since received more than 1.2 million views and 20,000 likes.

LinkedIn doesn’t get enough credit for how useful it can be for native video advertising. For example, the brand Teach for America once posted a native video about alumni sharing their stories and experiences in only six words. With emotional music, the words popped onto the screen in brightly colored text, directing the audience’s attention towards the graphics. There was no narrator whatsoever, so this video’s message still translated without sound– using autoplay to their advantage.

Another Instagram native video that doesn’t require sound comes from Burger King whose mascot is quite famously silent. On the 199th anniversary of National American Sign Language Day, the mascot broke his silence on Instagram. In the video, the Burger King calls on their deaf customers to ask what the official sign for their famous burger The Whopper should be. The video encourages fans to submit ideas and engage via social media using a hashtag.

Coca-Cola Spain took advantage of Instagram’s native video by creating a three-second video and adding an emotional phrase saying goodbye to summer in which a great majority of the users identified with the brand. A simple personalized action like this one can help brands improve engagement and make their videos go viral.

Inspiring content tends to do quite well on social media, especially on Instagram. One Reebok video was clearly the work of professionals, which not every brand has the resources for. But the overall message, which was part of a much larger campaign shared across their website and other social media networks, is both beautiful and shareable. The message: “You have 25,915 days. What will you do with them?” Small businesses can easily use messages like this without professional video-making.

Old Navy posted a video to LinkedIn last year to promote their newest store in Orlando. In a mere four-second video, store employees cheered as they cut the ribbon to the new boutique. This was not only effective because its time limit was so short, but Old Navy also recognized the individual store employees in the video, which added a personal touch that resonated with viewers.

Another great example of native video comes again from GoPro. Much of their video content contains extreme sports shots using GoPro’s classic fish-eye lens. One video was different: Right from the thumbnail image before users could press play, it is made clear exactly what the video will be about The video’s first-person point of view gave users an intensely intimate experience that any business page would want to give to its followers– breaking the mold of what they would typically post.

The native videos BuzzFeed Tasty puts out on Instagram, as well as Facebook, are simply awesome for those two platforms: They’re visual, useful, shareable, fun, and simple. When one watches this video series, there tends to be a desire to save them so that one can refer back to them when cooking a new recipe. This is a great way to bring back potential customers throughout the campaign lifespan. There is no need for sound, but the accompanying music is quite pleasant. The team at BuzzFeed have published more than five hundred “Tasty” videos and they have been viewed 14 billion times, mostly via Facebook. However, these videos are absolutely ideal for Instagram’s more visual platform, too. Thanks to Instagram’s decision to extend video lengths to a full minute, BuzzFeed is now able to post full recipe videos along with a caption explaining exactly how it’s done. Cuisine brands, take note of this form of native video!

Most Americans have heard of the insurance company Allstate. They have proved through native video on Instagram that insurance brands are not limited to boring content. Allstate has always set themselves apart from the crowd with their entertaining commercials and social media content. However, they don’t just put out the same type of commercials or native videos on every one of their social media account. Instead, they carefully curate their content to the platform they’re publishing on. Their YouTube ads tend to lean on interactive commercials. Their Instagram videos tend to contain more entertainment and meme formats. This method of carefully curated content for each specific social media platform is an example of a brand knowing who their audience is and what they prefer to do on different social media sites.

If you’re excited about using native video for your own marketing plan, why not put the job in the hands of pros?

DrumUp is a content marketing and automation platform that discovers and helps you share amazing content to all of your social media accounts. With DrumUp, you can start meaningful conversations with your followers and build up your personal brand awareness through sharing content.

DrumUp curates the top viral or trending content in your respective industry by mining through thousands of pieces of content across the web in real time, using uniquely innovative algorithms to recommend top stories that are most relevant to your audience– including native video.

You can add multiple accounts (including our top four from this post!) to your DrumUp dashboard and customize their settings to your unique preferences. Monitor all of them in one spot to stay on top of your social media presence. You can also keep a managing eye on your social media engagement with DrumUp Analytics by tracking and measuring Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook engagement using our intuitive and innovative social media analytics.

Are you convinced about the benefits of using native video throughout social media? Tell us what you think about our guide in the comments!

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