How to Make Social Media Work for Your Business

How to make Social Media work for your business

From Commercials to Social Media

A mistake that is often made among small businesses is treating social media platforms such as instagrams as a place to upload advertisements to when, in fact, the dynamics of social media are dramatically different from those of creating a commercial. In traditional commercials, viewers are often forced to watch through the entirety of a commercial or have strong incentives to do so (eg. finding out the ending to the episode of a TV show). However, when posting to social media the viewer must make the active decision to keep watching and not scroll past to an endless sea of entertaining videos. To reap tangible rewards from social media posts you have to ensure it is something that can not only grab attention but also hold it and, most importantly, entertain the viewer.

How do Video Production Companies Fit into Social Media?

A lot of businesses make the mistake of hiring a video production company to create 1 or 2 videos, adding those videos to an account that has otherwise only posted information about food specials or some mediocre photos of their new menu and then expect those videos to drive tons of followers to their account. Video production alone, as much as we’d like it to be, is not a magic bullet. The main job of traditional video production companies is to be the most effective form of communication between a brand/business and its customers. For these videos to be effective they need to go out through established channels that already have consistent viewers. This is where we set ourselves apart. Lumetrix Creative, while we are still primarily a video production company, we also try to be a one stop shop for clients who can’t afford to hire social media managers, photographers and video production companies.

How to Keep Audiences Engaged?

There are multiple different strategies that can be employed to drive traffic to your reels but there are a few that have delivered consistent results.

1. Founder-led marketing (or Founder story)

Something that has become increasingly more common, especially within smaller businesses, is founder-led marketing. At its core, founder-led marketing has the primary goal of developing a personal connection with your brand/business by sharing your story. Specifically reels that share founders’ life stories, challenges they have faced along the way and even what their day-to-day life looks like have been taking off. The primary reason this strategy works is because it humanizes businesses and to a certain extent it ties the perception of the business with the perception of the founder. Additionally, as people become invested in your story, it makes launching new products in different sectors or re-branding to service a higher end market much easier.

2. Viral hooks

There are tons of these viral hook online that you can find and they involve starting your video with said viral hook and the content you film will continue the actions in that hook somehow. These are often less professional than other methods but it seems to be a strategy employed by many different companies (if you want a great example of unprofessional marketing that works check out this reel by the U.S. Air Force https://www.instagram.com/reel/C92ZHQwuzJ_/ ).

3. Episodic series

Increasing in popularity, episodic series bring consistent viewers to your videos as people are always interested in seeing the continuation. The most common form would be a series on something that is progressing with time such as the rollout of a new dish or a construction of a new location. These also build up hype for launches as people get to experience the behind the scenes. Don’t have a project in the works? No problem. Some of the best video series are just repeated videos in the same style such as bts on a different product every week or bi weekly “day in the life” videos.