Videos are the best way to stand out on social media. However, it can be expensive and time consuming to consistently create new content on a weekly basis. Many people have asked me about the best ways to create social media videos effectively, such that they can sustain the strategy in the long run. I reckon it’s better to put everything in an article.
There are only 5 ways to create social media videos. This article can help you choose the right one for your business.
Method #1: Do it yourself
There are many online platforms to create video yourself. The main questions to ask yourself are:
- Can you create nice videos? Unless you are experienced with video making and visual designs, it is a specific skill set that takes a lot of time to learn. The videos made from these platforms can end up looking amateurish and may not reflect your brand image well.
- Is it the best use of your time? A 30-second video may take hours to create, from brainstorming to scripting and video editing. And you have to do this every single week. Is this something you want to spend your time on, or should you delegate the task?
Method #2: Hire a traditional corporate video production agency
Corporate video production agencies are great when you need to create a video you will use multiple times or a flagship corporate video. A project with such an agency will go through a process:
concept ⇒ storyboard ⇒ production ⇒ editing ⇒ revisions
This process is time consuming for the client and for the agency. It is necessary as each project is fully customised. Hence, a video project usually costs several thousands dollars. I know this well because I co-founded a successful agency: fewstones.com.
This process (and price) is probably an overkill for “consumable videos”. On social media, a lifespan of a post is pretty short, and you always need fresh content to engage your followers. The video production should be much simpler, faster and cheaper.
Method #3: Hire someone internally
Hiring someone internally to create social media videos can be a good option. The downside is that you are limited by the bandwidth and creativity of this person (unless you can hire a full team). It is also a fixed cost for your business, which can be quite significant. And when this person leaves you need to hire and train a new person.
In my experience internal videos teams are usually best for flagship videos rather than the frequent consumable videos.
Method #4: Hire a freelancer
Hiring a freelancer on a project basis can be a solution to address some of the limitations of hiring internally. It can also be a solution to complement an internal team. If you have the perfect freelancer already then that’s great. If you don’t you will need to go through a number of steps to find the right person and negotiate the right price for a given project. This freelancer will most likely also be working for other customers and therefore not always be available for you.
Method #5: Use a specialised service
If you create social media videos on a regular basis, you are looking for a service that is:
- Simple: you just submit a script and minimum guidelines,
- Fast: you get your videos in one to two days,
- Reliable: you get professional quality videos every time,
- Creative: the videos you get are creative and stand out,
- Affordable: you don’t need to pay top dollar or worry about extra costs.
This is why we created VideoBlast.io, an online service to create social media videos for you. Our creative team of editors will handcraft professional videos with minimum input from your side. Our team of script writers can even write the scripts for you so you have a fully done-for-you video marketing for social media.