The year 2020 was a great year for videos. According to estimates, as much as 80% of traffic on the internet will be from videos in 2021.
Most individuals must be aware that Facebook, as well as YouTube, can offer you dividends if you have the appropriate amount of traffic. What is more, there is also a high possibility for you to earn as an affiliate marketer or influencer that creates high-quality content.
Below are some of the ways you can do so:
• Getting ad revenues from attaining a considerable number of views;
• Affiliate marketing;
• Influencer promotion.
Best Types of Video Content for Social Media
Don’t forget that specific kinds of videos seem to have better performance on social media. However, something may be ideal for one audience and won’t be for another. In essence, when you are trying to go with a video idea, don’t be scared of mixing things up to see which of them will get the most response from your audience.
Interviews and Q&A Sessions
Sometimes, your audience would want to ask questions and get insights or clarification on issues, and one of the best ways to let them do that is through granting interviews or having Question and Answer sessions. It’s interactive and gives you the chance to sit, sometimes in the company of other members of your team—a customer, an analyst, or an industry leader. The questions to talk about could be prepared ahead of time, either in interview format or you could ask your fans to send in their questions.
Another way to carry out a Q&A session is to make an engaging solo video, which could be prerecorded or live, where you attempt to answer the questions your followers may have submitted or the things you think they might want to know.
Show Them What Goes on Behind the Scenes
Often it helps to make videos, organize a tour of your company, or give people a sneak peek of events going on backstage as a way of building trust, showcasing your company’s rich culture, or simply connecting with your audience. By letting them peep what goes on behind the curtain, you give them a sense of belonging and belief that they are a part of your journey and success story.
Product Reviews
In recent times, people often go online to read about a particular product they are interested in to know what others think or are saying about that brand before ordering it. There are many online channels and social media platforms like YouTube that people trust to provide different reviews of different products, and opinion polls and purchase patterns have shown that there are higher chances of people buying products if they have highly positive reviews.
YouTube is ideal for showing many products and services, partly because reviews on the platform have come to be trusted over the years, and also because videos are easier to relate to as it shows precisely what a product looks like, how things are made and how gadgets can be used.
Catch Up on Celebrity Lifestyle and Gossip
Over the years, people have been known to subscribe to tabloids, lifestyle magazines, and reality shows on TV to keep up with their favorite celebrities, and get news or gossip about their lifestyle and what is trending with them. Even now, with YouTube, it is not shocking to find people coming on the platform to get the latest updates or read about trending issues or gossips. It is essential, however, to point out that some of the videos are often made to be sensational and sometimes deliberately provocative, and you should be able to sift through and not believe everything put out there.
Engaging Vlogs
Blogs have diversified and evolved so much over the years, and it is easy to forget how the name even came about in the first place. Coined from ‘weblog,’ blogs are like the online equivalent of your diary where you record day-to-day experiences, giving people a peek into your life in writings meant to engage and enrapture your audience and keep them coming back for more. Vlogs, on the other hand, are blogs too, only they are in video formats and thus designed to be more engaging than regular blogs. These videos that mostly focus on a particular issue at a time are usually unscripted and therefore, let the viewers get the authentic views of the presenter. Vlogs can be put in the public domain on platforms like YouTube and depending on how engaging the contents are, can generate very high views and followership, just like reality television shows.
Unboxing Videos
It is not surprising to find that there are many people, especially today, who love to watch unboxing videos. There are videos where someone takes a new product they just purchased out of the box. In these videos, the viewer follows the buyer from the process of purchasing the product, unwrapping or unboxing it, setting it up/trying it out and writing a review about it. He or she participates in the feeling of anticipation and glee of the buyer, akin only to that of a child unwrapping his gifts on Christmas morning.
Unboxing videos are similar to haul videos, and with the right influencer marketer, they have a high potential to impact the buying decision of customers and improve sales for brands.
Live Videos
Live streaming of meetings, events, and sessions is a great way to let your audience in on what is going on without them having to be present physically to witness it. It is ideal for your interviews, behind the camera and Question and Answer sessions. What live streaming does is connect you better and engage your customers by showing you as being transparent with nothing to hide.
Deals and Promos Videos
You should occasionally offer your followers on social media the best price deals on your products and services as well run promos that are bound to draw them in and make them want to purchase more. Who does not love the best, affordable deals?!
User-Generated Content
Let your fans and audience take away the stress and save you some of the energy you would have used in creating contents, by allowing them to generate the contents themselves. You could sit back and let them share their stories, experiences, or their views and insights. Organize online opinion polls as a way of getting contents and feedbacks from your users. You can also liaise with other influencers.
Also, you could repost, retweet or share organic videos posted by your fans and be sure to tag or give due credits. It’s a win-win situation for both you and your fans as you have shifted the spotlight to them and made them feel special or that their thoughts matter.
Organize Contests and Giveaways
Videos are a great way to connect with your fans and occasionally organize interesting contests and challenges can get your fans more actively involved and eager to engage with you and your brand. Use videos to create awareness for the contests and offer giveaways to fans or viewers who engage very actively with your posts or videos. You can also make a video or show a live stream of you announcing the winners or giving away the prizes.
Big Reveals and Announcements Videos
Social media has become so popular in recent times and become the easiest and cheapest way to get information across to millions of people with one click. So, for that announcement and big reveals about a new product in the market or an expansion, social media platforms are your best bet and make an exciting and engaging video to that effect works perfectly in building excitement and anticipation in your fans and followers.
Events Showcasing Videos
There are many online options like Facebook Live or Instagram Live that allow you to give your viewers and fans at home a unique and exclusive view of your events as they happen. The fantastic thing about this is that often your viewers get to see some things that those in attendance cannot see at the time, like interviews with distinguished guests and speakers and some behind-the-scenes sneak peeks. You can also record the events and showcase later, giving the highlights of the occasion.
Share Breaking News
Many people, who constitute over 60% of adults in this 21st century, get most of their news and information on social media. Often when something happens, they tend to turn to social media to provide them with the news or details of what happened. Sometimes, particular issues will begin to trend and have everybody talking about them. You can make videos presenting breaking news, of innovations in your company, an important event, etc. since it has been discovered that most people check videos of trending or breaking news out first. Again, you could share topics that are trending as a way of igniting conversations around those topics.
Share Tutorials and Do-It-Yourself Videos
Tutorials and videos showing how to do things, say bake a cake, design a website, or cut wood, are among the items people search for most online, which have the potential to boost your success if done right. It is essential to make the videos engaging and interesting enough and keep them short as much as possible, as people may lose interest after a while if the videos are too long.
Create Online Courses
In recent years, the internet has become the biggest marketplace, library, and classroom in the world. Many people desire to learn or get new knowledge on subjects of interest without having to go to school to learn them. This is the void online courses try to fill, and many digital marketers are already leveraging on this advantage to make money out of their contents. It is indeed true that market online is growing and diversifying in significant ways and projected to rise to $325 billion by 2025. So, social media platforms like YouTube offer you the means to increase your earnings by offering satisfaction for people’s need to learn and providing the contents people want.
The good news about this is that to start earning high and drawing traffic to your page or channel; you don’t even need too much expertise nor experience.
There are online courses that teach you how to explore or leverage on your specialty and monetize your knowledge. This is one of the best and independent sources of steady income and beats having a sponsor who can decide to withdraw support at his whims.
Why Social Media Platforms?
Popular social media platforms like YouTube offer many advantages for users who want to sell their content online. In addition to letting you develop excellent video content and having fans and subscribers who are already engaged, the platform comes with built-in marketing features to expand your popularity and increase your views. And the best part is that selling courses online allows you to make money many times over just from a single content, as long as you keep sharing the link and describing your content.
Promoting Your Course on Social Media
Creating courses online is one thing; promoting those courses on your social media channels is another. Research has shown that many viewers would rather watch a valuable video preparatory to purchasing your main course than watch five-minute commercials for the same course.
For instance, a course on “How to Become a Better Graphics Designer” could start with creating another video first, giving aspiring graphics designers basic tips or skills they need to know about graphics design. Then you can invite them to take the complete course which gives detailed knowledge of becoming an expert graphics designer. Offer discounts, coupons, and bonuses, which can be in the form of downloadable e-books or a free consultation for the first 20 customers, to viewers who would buy the course through the video you created.
Above all, it is vital to ensure that you are offering value and not just selling for selling sake. Let your viewers have the feeling that they are getting an excellent and unique deal from you, and always appreciate them for watching your videos, for their continued support and patronage. Also, putting interesting course content out there allows you to have a better connection with your fans and ensures they are eager to check out new courses from you and increasing their chances of sharing and liking your content.
Why Create an Online Course?
There are many reasons different people decide to launch online courses. Although it is a lucrative venture and money is a prime motivator for many, there are other motivators, too.
They include:
• To impart knowledge: We all have things we are passionate about, skills, hobbies, and knowledge we want to share with others. Online courses are great ways to unleash, and you don’t need to be an expert at creating them.
• As a source of income: Social media channels like YouTube make it easy for people to make money full-time or part-time from online courses. All you need to do is to create well researched and engaging contents and try to be active and consistent with your viewers, and you would be on your way to making enormous profits off online courses.
• As reusable assets: The formats of online courses makes it easy for you to keep making money from them even in years to come. Once you create them, all you need to do again is to change the format to suit your new audience, and you can resell many times over.
• Offers greater reach: Online courses allow you to create easy-to-understand contents and reach millions of audience at a go. The courses are as simplified and engaging as possible, and you would be making an impact on many people’s lives.
• Gives you high return on investment: Since you already have your audience and have created your contents to serve them, online courses offer you a high return on your time or other investments.
• Allows you charge extra: Many people need the knowledge you are selling and are often willing to pay any price for what they want. This makes it easy for you to charge extra on your courses, especially if you are sure it is of high value.
You’ll agree that it’s been a long trip indeed. Shall we all alight and have a recap? Now listen, let me remind us what we have just done within this trip. We’ve succeeded in exposing ourselves to some of the many ways and ideas you can make money with the social media. Of course, there are quite a lot of other money-making options for you to explore, but keep in mind that it’s not so rosy for a starter and you wouldn’t want to start complaining after a few tries.
It’s a deal for entrepreneurs and not for happy-go-lucky one-off investors. Be ready to commit your entrepreneurial spirit, work hard, try, retry, and try again. But be strategic; concentrate on your expertise and strength; make a plan; set your goals; and work toward achieving them!