Forbes recently published a ranking of the world’s most popular social platforms based on membership statistics and daily content activity. The results are fascinating. While Facebook remains king – with a whopping 47.4 million US users – its place is under threat from TikTok and, to a lesser extent, Instagram.
The research behind this ranking took into account factors like membership size, active users, and engagement with posts and ads. Keep reading for a complete breakdown of the results.
1. YouTube
With 145.55 million monthly active users as of Q3 2019, YouTube is the largest social platform in terms of membership. It’s also the most popular one globally, according to TikTok. That makes it the perfect place for marketers to develop and test online marketing strategies.
It should come as no surprise, then, that almost every major brand and company in the world has a YouTube channel. What is surprising is how many different strategies these brands and companies have used to grow their audiences on this platform. Here are ten tactics that companies can use to gain maximum exposure and make the most of YouTube’s platform.
Content Calendars
The first and most essential step to a successful YouTube campaign is to plan your content ahead of time. Doing this means you can coordinate your videos’ schedules and ensure they always coincide with trending topics on the platform. If your target audience is busy chatting about one thing, you can bet they’re also Googling things related to what they’re discussing.
Keeping up with all of this can be difficult. That’s why you might want to consider investing in content calendars from a brand like HubSpot. With these, you can establish weekly or monthly publishing schedules and align your content with what’s popular on the platform. You can also use these to monitor your video’s performance and identify key metrics like views, engagement, and conversion.
Vlogs
Vlogging—or video blogging—is growing in popularity on YouTube, so much so that it spawned a whole sub-genre on the platform: dog walking videos, house renovating videos, and cooking videos.
These are fun and creative ways to engage with your audience and get your brand name out there. It’s an excellent choice for businesses that want to establish their authority in a largely unregulated space. Because they’re easy to create and can showcase your brand, vlogs are a great choice for those just getting started with marketing.
Live Videos
Just like with blogs, live videos let you engage with your viewers in real-time via Twitter. While a typical video might only receive a few hundred views, a live video can attract thousands.
This is the perfect choice if you want to engage with your audience via Twitter but don’t have the budget for a traditional webcast. Or if you want to broadcast your weekly sales meeting to a national audience.
Product Demos & Reviews
Product demos and reviews are two more ways businesses can engage with their audiences via YouTube. While consumers have long been able to find information about a product on sites like Review Miner and Real Review, many companies aren’t yet comfortable doing product demos on a major social media platform. That’s why you might want to skip this tactic for now.
Interactive Quizzes & Contests
Online quizzes and contests are a great way to engage with people on their level. If you’re looking for a quick and easy way to get some engagement, you can create a short quiz about a product or service and give away $100 to $500 in prizes to your subscribers. Just remember: These are usually time-consuming to create and may require a substantial budget.
How-to videos
As the name suggests, a how-to video will teach viewers the steps to accomplish some specific task. This could be anything from applying mascara to creating the perfect cake recipe. How-to videos can be a bit pricey to produce, but they can also be quite lucrative. Professional makeup artists and photographers can charge thousands of dollars for a single how-to video tutorial.
Re-posting Content From Other Platforms
If the content you’re re-posting already exists on another platform, you can bet that thousands—if not millions—of your audience will already be there. This can be a great way to gain a following, provided you do it right.
The first step is to determine which platforms are most relevant to your target audience. Then, look for content that’s already available on those platforms. For example, if your audience is mostly made up of fashion aficionados, you can find a curated collection of fashion how-to videos available on TikTok. Or if your target audience is students, you can find a curated list of university tuition-related how-to videos on YouTube.
Content Collections
Let’s say you’re a baker and you’ve decided to start a YouTube channel to share your recipes. This could be something as simple as making cake or as complex as developing your own unique dessert. The important thing is that you’ve decided to create a space where you can share your expertise with the world.
You might want to consider creating different collections of content to be featured on your channel. For example, you could start by creating a cooking channel and then branch into a makeup tutorial channel. Why? Because your first audience will be a bit more skeptical of your expertise if you haven’t yet demonstrated it. But once you’ve started creating content, you can then decide which recipes you want to share and which you want to keep private.
Video Explainer Series
With video explainer series, also known as branded short-form videos, you can educate your audience about a particular product or service. Think of a video series explaining how the different lenses in a camera work or an explainer video series for your social media accounts.
You can use these videos to showcase your expertise and drive sales, especially if you’re including them in your marketing campaign. For example, if you sell cameras, you could create a video series explaining the different types of lenses available and their respective uses. Or if you sell financial planning software, you could create a video series demonstrating how the software works. These videos don’t necessarily have to be long; even a few minutes can go a long way.
Short-form videos
The rise of TikTok and other short-form video platforms has made it possible for businesses to create and share videos in a way that was previously difficult. In addition to making it easier for businesses to video explain their products or services, this platform has also made it easier for creators to get their content out to the world.
Although the format itself can be quite engaging, many businesses and brands have chosen to go the extra mile and create short-form videos specifically for marketing purposes. If your target audience is on TikTok, you can bet they’re regularly engaging with short-form videos. Those looking for quality content can find long-form videos elsewhere on the platform or on other platforms like YouTube or Instagram. If you’re looking to create short-form videos for marketing purposes, now is a great time to do it.
Tagging
With tagging, you can connect your brand’s name to an entertaining or informative video. For example, my Instagram handle is @adamkelly, and whenever I post a video of my dogs, the video’s title—in this case, “My adorable dogs”—is automatically filled in with “@adamkelly.”
This feature is a great way to build and engage with your audience. As with many other social platforms, the more you post, the more people will notice you. And once they’ve noticed you, it’s easy for them to remember you and engage with your content in the future. This is why you should consider tagging whenever you post a new video.
Video Content Calendar
One of the most effective ways to ensure your content always coincides with trending topics is to plan out a Video Content Calendar. Doing this requires a bit of research into popular topics on TikTok and other platforms, as well as a calendar app like DayOne that can help you plan out weekly and monthly content themes. Using this tool, you can map out the ideal schedule for your videos and ensure your content always fits within the most popular topics on the platform.
The better your content calendar, the more you can ensure your content always corresponds with popular topics and stays fresh in the eyes of your audience.