Do you create videos for your website or YouTube channel?
Do you go live every week on Facebook or Instagram?
Perhaps you create videos for your membership site?
Whatever your purpose may be, creating videos takes a lot of research, hard work and time - which is why you should think about repurposing video content for social media.
To listen to the podcast episode hit play below, and read on more:
Marketers who release video content grow their revenue 49% faster than those who don’t use video. On top of that, viewers retain 95% of a message when they watch it in a video compared to 10% when reading the same message in a text (check out the stats here).
It’s no surprise that video content creators tend to put so much time and energy into creating their videos!
But how can you get a return on the time you spend creating fantastic video content? And how can you make your video content go further?
To show you how, I have created a video based on my podcast episode.
A great way to increase engagement is to create shorter clips of your video that you can share on social media.
Here are six tips for repurposing video content for social media...
1. Think about the PURPOSE of your clip
If you’ve taken a 30-second clip from a larger video to share on social media, you need to think about the ultimate purpose of that clip.
What do I mean by this?
Well, each clip needs a purpose, or else it’s just…pointless. You need to think about the action you want people to take when they see your content and choose a clip that will help invoke that action.
For example, if you’re repurposing video content for social media with the purpose of getting people to engage with your post, choose a clip that’s going to encourage them to leave feedback. Ask your audience a question that they can’t resist. Make it interesting, and you’re sure to get some engagement.
If you want people to watch the full video, you need to choose a clip that leaves them wanting more. For example, instead of sharing all five of your top tips in the teaser clip, share one and let them know there’s more waiting for them in the full video.
Here is an example of a clip I have taken from my video...
Think about what the primary purpose of the video clip is and try to choose one that helps fulfil that purpose. You could even have ten clips from the same video, and each clip can have a different goal.
2. Think about how your video looks WITHOUT sound
How many times have you scrolled through Facebook with the sound turned off? Perhaps you have a secret browse through your social media channels at work, and you’ve put your smartphone on silent mode!
We’ve all done this, which is why you need to think about how your video clip will look without any sound. When repurposing video content for social media, you should think about adding captions.
According to Facebook, 85% of their videos are watched without sound. So, if you burn captions onto your video, people are more likely to stop scrolling through their feed to pay attention to your video.
Here is another clip from my video, this time with captions:
Some social media platforms (such as Facebook) can auto-generate captions for your video, but they aren’t always accurate. I recommend sending your video clip to rev.com and letting them do the legwork. They create captions that you can burn directly onto your video clip. So, when you post the video on social media, viewers can watch with or without sound and still receive as much value.
3. Think about the duration of the video clip
Repurposing video content for social media in a way that will grab people’s attention often depends on the duration of your video clip.
Each platform has different maximum video durations that they accept, which is something you need to think about when repurposing video content for social media. Sites such as Facebook and YouTube let you post longer videos while Instagram has a maximum video length of 60 seconds. Videos posted on Instagram Stories must be 15 seconds or less. Twitter has a video length limit of up to 240 seconds (at the time of writing this, and the platforms do change these things rather often!).
We have brand new IGTV (Instagram TV) that went live recently, allowing 10 minute videos for the majority of people, and up to an hour for verified accounts. This is all brand new territory for everyone.
Consider this as well, just because you can post a longer video on a particular platform, doesn’t mean you should. HubSpot discovered the "ideal length" that videos should be if you want to get engagement on social media.
A quick overview of ideal lengths for video on social media platforms:
- Facebook – 1 minute
- Instagram – 30 seconds
- Twitter – 45 seconds
- YouTube – 2 minutes
TIP: If you’d like to put a longer video onto Instagram Stories or Snapchat then there’s an app to help you get around the 15-second rule, it’s called Cut Story. This app will edit and convert your video into a series of short clips for the platform you desire and you can then upload directly onto the platform. The result will be a series of short clips that flow together smoothly - sorted!
4. Think about the aspect ratio of your clip
The aspect ratio of your video clip is something that you need to address when repurposing video content for social media. When you film a video for YouTube, you usually have a standard horizontal aspect ratio. But when you bring this onto social media, you’ll often need to change it into a vertical aspect ratio. This is a hot topic right now, as Instagram have just released IGTV – long video content on Instagram in vertical aspect ratio.
Here is an example of how the aspect ratio should look for Instagram Stories (when the video goes onto Instagram Stories it will look perfect...it's streamed from YouTube here which is why you see the black bars either side!):
If you don't change the aspect ratio, you might find that the published version has been altered. The video may have been stretched out, or it’s zoomed in too much - what a nightmare!
So, if you want to edit the aspect ratio of your video clips, you can use a video editing software such as Camtasia, Final Cut Pro or Adobe Premiere.
5. Think about branding your videos
Add extra impact to your videos by adding text, colour, images, titles or captions. You can create a template that includes a space for captions, your company logo or the title of the video.
Take a look at the branded version of my video clip:
Use image editing software like Photoshop to create a branded template for your video. You can also use a website like Canva, which is my favourite! It’s easy to use and gives you the freedom to get creative with your template without making the process unnecessarily complicated.
Once you’ve created your template, save it as a transparent file. Then place it over your video as an image using video editing software (a few examples mentioned above). It instantly makes your videos look more professional and made for the platform.
6. Think about creating GIF’s from your videos
Everyone loves GIF. If you’ve been keeping up with the blog, you’ll notice that I include lots of fun gifs throughout my content.
If your video includes a funny moment, you can transform it into a hilarious GIF to share on social media.
Who knows, your GIF could even go viral!
In the past, I’ve talked about how you can create your own GIF’s using GIPHY. Creating GIF's is a great way to make all the time you spent creating the video go further by repurposing video content for social media in a way that grabs people’s attention and makes them want more.
Yes, I even managed to make a GIF from my video, you can too with a little imagination and sense of fun:
For detailed tutorials on how to do everything mentioned in this post, then head over to The Content 10x Toolkit, where I guide you through how to make your very own teaser and trailer videos and much much more!
In Conclusion
Don’t miss all of the splendid opportunities to repurpose your videos across popular social media sites. If you spent lots of time creating videos for YouTube, your membership site, your website…whatever your purpose, you may just have social media gold within those videos bursting to get out!
https://www.content10x.com/ thanks for the information
I like the idea of using editing software for your videos. I need to get a videographer who can shoot a promo video. We need something eye-catching for our store's grand opening.