Everything you need to get started with video for your business this year on Facebook, Instagram, and beyond
INTRO
Because youâre here, we assume you already know that thereâs enormous potential for growing your business through video marketing on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, and other social platforms.
But where do you even start?
Thatâs where we come in.
In the following article, weâll walk you through a series of questions thatâll help you put together a social video strategy for 2019 that ïŹts into your lifestyle and budgetâand will resonate with your target customer.

BUILDING A WINNING SOCIAL VIDEO STRATEGY IN 2018 - FREE DOWNLOAD
BONUS:
Social Media Video Cheat Sheet + Social Media Holidays Calendar
7 QUESTIONS FOR BUILDING YOUR SOCIAL VIDEO STRATEGY
When it comes to putting together a strategy for video marketing on social media, it may seem like thereâs a lot to think about, from what types of videos youâll make to where youâll post them, how much time youâll commit, what your goals are, and everything in between. But itâs easier than you think when you have a plan of action prepared.
These seven questions will walk you through all the necessary components for building your winning social video strategyâplus weâve included some useful tips and information along the way!
QUESTION #1:
WHAT ARE YOUR OBJECTIVES?
Weâll start things out with the question of all questionsâwhat are you hoping to get out of your year of incorporating video into your social marketing?
Facebook Ads Manager does a nice job of breaking out popular objectives into three stages of the customerâs journey: Awareness, Consideration, and Conversion.

Remember that you donât have to choose just one objective for the year, but keeping a tight focus will allow you to spend your time really optimizing your social video strategy to achieve the desired results.
And when it comes to creating individual videos, each one should focus on a speciïŹc objective in order to drive the best results. Some videos should drive awareness; some videos should drive engage-ment and views; and, of course, some videos should drive sales. But videos should be concise and when you try to do too much with one video, you may end up confusing your audience with what action you want them to take.
Pro tip:
When you’re starting out, objectives in the âConsiderationâ group are often easiest to measure.
QUESTION #2:
HOW WILL YOU MEASURE SUCCESS?
Take a look at the objectives you listed in the last question. Now, put yourself at the end of the year (or the end of a speciïŹc campaign) and think about what you can measure to determine whether or not you were successful in achieving them.
For instance, if you said youâd like to use video to drive traffic to your website, then youâd measure success according to how many new vis-itors hit your site as a result of your video campaigns. If you want to use video to drive engagement on your Facebook page, youâd mea-sure success based on reactions, comments, and shares.
You should also keep your overall marketing strategy in mind when coming up with your goals. For instance, if youâre just starting out, be-fore you even think about driving sales or traffic, the ïŹrst thing youâll need to do is commit to creating videos in the ïŹrst place. So, when youâre just starting out, it may be helpful to come up with some goals around this (i.e. to create 1 YouTube video a month or for 50 percent of your Facebook posts to contain video).
Pro tip:
Use concrete numbers and dates with your goals. âDrive traffic to my websiteâ is a nice objective, but itâs hard to measure without knowing by how much and by when.
A better objective would be to âUse video to increase traffic to my website from 10K monthly visitors to 15K monthly visitors by the end of 2019.â
QUESTION #3:
HOW MUCH TIME WILL YOU SPEND?
Once youâve determined your objectives and know how youâll measure them, itâs time to put some thought into how much time youâll spend on social video this year.
For this question, itâs important to be realistic. Youâve likely got your hands full with a myriad of other daily tasks and responsibilities. But know that you donât need to spend a ton of timeâcommit to what feels doable and build your strategy accordingly.
MAKING THE TIME FOR SOCIAL VIDEO
To keep yourself accountable, carve out some regular time in your daily or weekly schedule to focus on video. Whether itâs an hour each morning while you drink your coffee, or a couple hour block once a week, having this time reserved will help you focus on your video goals.
And you donât have to use this time for video creation alone. Keep it on your schedule as a dedicated time to learn, research, improve, and create. Here are some ideas:
- Save videos that inspire you as you scroll through the News Feed. Ask yourself, what is it about these videos you like? Try to replicate those elements in your own videos.
- Challenge yourself to quickly create and publish a video in one sitting. The more you practice, the faster and better youâll get.
- Look back at an old video that didnât perform as well as youâd hoped. Think about how you could change the video for the better and try again.

Pro tip:
Take lots of photos as you go about your day-to-day business. This will save time and make your life easier when you sit down to create videosâyouâll have a lot to work with!
QUESTION #4:
HOW MUCH MONEY WILL YOU SPEND?
Just like you likely have a budget set aside for other company-related expenses throughout the year, youâll want to plan out your budget for video marketing too. These expenses can include everything from production to targeted advertising on Facebook, YouTube, and beyond, but itâs not as expensive as you may think. To save money you can create videos yourself with photos and video clips youâve already got on hand, or shoot new footage with your smartphone, so most of your investment can be spent on getting your videos in front of the right audiences.
A NOTE ON ORGANIC PERFORMANCE
But wait! Before we get into paying to get results, a note on organic reach and engagement. Yes, you may be creating some videos spe-ciïŹcally to use as ads, but you should also be creating videos to post organically, as unpaid promotion, on your social proïŹles too, to en-gage with your fans and followers. This will also allow you to see what types of videos are getting the most engagement and reach so that you can spend against those.
DETERMINING YOUR BUDGET
Now, letâs get back to the question of how much youâll spend. Weâd recommend allotting $50 per video you create for advertising. If youâre planning to make one video a week, thatâll come to about $200 per month.
Remember: this doesnât mean you have to spend $50 to promote each video. Focus your spend on the videos that are performing best.
Pro tip:
To get more mileage from your paid reach, let your posts run for 1-24 hours to gain some organic traction before boosting them.

BUILDING A WINNING SOCIAL VIDEO STRATEGY IN 2018 - FREE DOWNLOAD
BONUS:
Social Media Video Cheat Sheet + Social Media Holidays Calendar
QUESTION #5:
WHO IS YOUR AUDIENCE?
The targeting tools in Facebook Ads Manager allow you to get incredi-bly granular with your targeting on Facebook and Instagram. Use them well and you can reach a relevant customized audience that your content, product, or service will resonate with.
So take some time to think about what deïŹnes your target customer (or customers). You can use it to create a Saved Audience in Facebook Ads Manager. This way, youâll be ready to go as soon as youâve got a video gaining organic traction that you want to boost.
HERE ARE 8 QUESTIONS HELP YOU FIND THE RIGHT TARGET AUDIENCE ON FACEBOOK:

QUESTION #6:
WHICH PLATFORMS WILL YOU FOCUS ON?
There are a ton of different social platforms out there at the moment, from the big ones like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube to LinkedIn, Snapchat, Pinterest, Google+, and beyond.
You know your customer and target audience better than anyone, so based on where theyâre currently spending the most time online, youâll be able to choose which platforms you want to focus on creat-ing videos for in 2018.
Pro tip:
Everyone and their mother (literally) is on Facebook. So paired with that fact, and Facebook Ads Manager’s insane ability to target ads, youâll deïŹnitely want to be using videos on Facebook in 2018. Instagram is also gaining traction as a must for advertisers.
Learn more about using video on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter from the Social Video Cheat Sheet on page 14.
QUESTION #7:
WHAT VIDEOS WILL YOU MAKE?
So what kinds of videos will you make? We encourage you to focus on content-driven videos over sales-driven.
What do we mean by this? Well, the videos you share should actually be useful to viewers. Instead of just telling people to buy from you, teach them something, entertain them, or inspire them. By doing so, you gain authority and trust so, when it comes time to make the sale, potential customers will have no doubts about buying from you. Of course, sometimes you will want to create videos just to advertise a product or service, which is okay tooâespecially for targeted ads. But weâd recommend that for every sales-driven video you create, you create at least two content-driven videos.
- BITE-SIZED PRODUCT INTRO
- EVENT RSVP
- EDITORIAL
- STEP BY STEP
- TOP 5 LIST
- BEHIND THE SCENES
Pro tip:
Start with what you have. Take inventory of the photos, video clips, and other assets youâve already got and see what videos you can create with them.
NEXT STEPS
Once youâve answered our seven questions for building your social video strategy, whatâs next? Itâs time to map out your strategy according to how you answered them. We suggest creating a document or throwing dates on a calendar to keep yourself accountable.
According to the amount of time you decided to spend on your social video marketing, how many videos will you commit to making each month? Each week? Mark them down on your calendar, along with what types of videos youâd like to try and which social media platforms youâd like to share them to.

BUILDING A WINNING SOCIAL VIDEO STRATEGY IN 2018 - FREE DOWNLOAD
BONUS:
Social Media Video Cheat Sheet + Social Media Holidays Calendar