Effective Video Content + Effective Social Media Funnel = Results
Most people spend way too much time scrolling on social media. Many people post on social media. Some people are sharing high quality video content. Few are getting actual results.
Is video content driving results in your business?
There are two important parts of the equation to get right in order to most effectively activate and profit from your video content on social media:
1. Effective Video Content – a video that generate a bunch of human eye balls to your social media profile
2. An Effective Funnel – a profile that tells a consistent story, points peoples’ attention the next step they can take in your customer journey, and effectively nurtures them closer to your desired end goal
In the ever-evolving world of digital marketing and social media, having an intentional funnel for your content to live within is critical for you to achieve success, however you define it.
Effective Video Content
For the purposes of this article we won’t focus as much on the formula for creating video content that works, we’ll focus mostly on the funnel. But why is video so important?
Organic video content works because of two reasons – first, the social media platforms that are available to us today are heavily pushing and prioritizing video content, which provides an opportunity for us to capitalize off their platforms to capture attention. They’re pushing video because that’s what people are consuming and want to see. So, let’s give the people (and the platforms) what they want.
Secondly,
people do business with people they know, like, and trust.
Can you think of someone you ‘know’ from TV or social media that you’ve never actually physically met in person, but you feel like you KNOW them so well? While it’s possible to achieve that via text, graphics, and other forms of content, video accelerates the ability for someone to really feel connected to you.
Video content works – and while we won’t deep dive into creating viral video content in this blog, here are a few questions you can begin to ask yourself in order to come up with some initial video ideas:
1. I want to put out content about ___.
(your product / service / brand)
2. This content is target towards people who are ___...
(what is your perfect ideal customer avatar)
3. …so that they can ___.
(what will your content help them accomplish, what value can you share, what problem does your product / service help them solve)
4. My goal with capturing this audience attention is to ___.
(what is the end goal of generating views on social media)
Being clear on those questions will not only help drive your content plan for video content, but it will also allow your marketing funnel to be targeted to the right people and point them in the right direction.
An Effective Funnel
The purpose of a funnel is to provide an intentional pathway for you to attract and engage with your target audience.
Social Media Marketing Funnel
Without this pathway intentionally set up, you are basically putting up a billboard with just your face and logo – they will see that you exist and potentially recognize you, but there’s nothing else for them to do.
The right funnel provides manageable next steps that someone can take where you are able to systematically add more value to the right people in your target audience. Let’s get started with the funnel, and check it out step by step:
1. Awareness
This is the top of the funnel.
Where are people first encountering and becoming aware of your brand?
Many people leveraging video content for brand awareness are achieving this through organic social media on TikTok, Instagram Reels, or YouTube Shorts. All three of those platforms provide a lot of exposure to people making quality content.
Of these three platforms, there are some differences:
- Instagram Reels – great platform for deepening relationships with your community and for having a solid ‘storefront’ for your business. A lot of people primarily follow people they already know on Instagram, but there is some reach available outside of your followers to get discovered, and many people will check out your Instagram page as a credibility check to find out more about you and your business.
- YouTube Shorts – great platform for providing content around or educating people on specific things that people are searching for. YouTube is one of the biggest search platforms available, but there tends to be less mindless scrolling.
- TikTok – great platform for top of funnel discovery. Many users are not just viewing content from people they follow, the whole platform is built around the ‘For You Page’ where people discover content the algorithm feels they would like, regardless of who it’s from. This makes TikTok an exceptional platform for creating awareness if you can crack the code of showing up in front of your target audience.
Other ways to create awareness can be through word of mouth, website (SEO), retail storefront, paid media and ads, or collaborations with relevant influencers.
2. Micro Commitment
Once you have gained awareness, the best way to engage your audience is through providing them with an opportunity for a micro-commitment. Some of these are built natively into social media (follow / subscribe), but what else can you offer to your audience?
One of the most common and effective ways of doing this is by capturing peoples’ email addresses in exchange for a free resource, often referred to as a ‘lead magnet.’
Rich has a clear call-to-action for people to make a “micro-commitment” by signing up for his newlsetter.
A down-side of building your audience entirely on social media is that you don’t own your followers. If you build a massive audience on Twitter, but then you take a controversial stance on a trending topic… oops! Your account gets deactivated. Now what? If you don’t have another way of communicating with your followers, your business is now on pause.
Creating a free resource that provides actual real value to your audience and allows you to capture their emails has a few benefits:
You gain the ability to communicate with your followers on your own terms. You can send an email to them at any time, instead of hoping an algorithm shows them your video the next time they log onto their social apps of choice.
They have taken one step towards you, beyond just liking your post. They have shown enough interest in your content to provide you their email, which means they are now even more qualified to be a potential customer.
They have gotten a free resource from you, so they are now spending even more of their time-consuming content from you in a different medium. If your resource is truly valuable, this deepens the trust you have with your audience provides them confirmation that they made a good choice by investing their time consuming your content.
One caveat – if you sell your audience on a resource that is void of value, and you use it purely to capture emails, you lose trust. When you provide a free resource to your audience, how will they respond after checking it out?
“Wow, this was extremely valuable. I can’t believe this was free.”
“You call this a resource…? This was a waste of time and was only used as an indirect way of trying to sell me something.”
Which of those two people is more likely to buy your product when the opportunity arises?
One of them has the law of reciprocity working in your favor – you gave them something of value, and they’ll be looking for an opportunity to repay you. And the other one no longer trusts that anything they consume from you will provide value. It comes with an asterisk that says, “this person is just trying to get you to buy from them and profit off them.”
Free resources and lead magnets have the potential to be a great next step for your audience – but only if you take the time to make it tremendously valuable and worth their time.
As Alex Hormozi says, “Make your free shit better than their paid shit.”
They’re extending you trust by giving you their email.
What you give in return should provide them confirmation that they made a great decision in trusting you with it.
3. Deepen the Relationship
At this point your audience has become aware of you, liked your content and probably gave you a follow, and then either subscribed to a newsletter or opted to give you their email in exchange for some type of valuable information.
You’ve basically had a great first date or two, and they’re watching to see if you’re going to continue showing up or if you just made a good first impression. Are you the real deal?
There are a lot of ways to deepen the relationship with your audience. Some of these include:
Consistently posting organic video content on social media
Newsletter
Podcast
Long-form YouTube video content
More free resources
Live Videos
Webinar
Free Consultations
It’s not important to do all of these (please don’t). At the very least, continuing to stay consistent with sharing valuable video content organically on social will keep you top of mind and allow you to keep adding value.
Some may crave an opportunity to get more from you, especially if your short-form video content and free resources have been extremely relevant to their problems and you’re already helping them.
There can be value in setting up a platform where people can get to know you even more than just the short blips on social, but that is generally the bare minimum. If they followed you because of value that you put out in the form of a short video, but you don’t continue providing valuable content, they will lose interest or forget about you altogether.
You may have another digit in your top-line vanity metrics, but your business failed to provide consistent value to your audience and as a result will have a decreased likelihood of converting them into consumer.
After doing these first 3 steps well, you’re ready to convert some of your followers into paid customers.
4. Conversion
When you have been consistently providing value to your audience, putting your face in front of them to build trust, the engaged members of your audience will be ready to purchase when you give them an opportunity and the offering you have promises to solve their problems.
Gary Vee with Mark Robinson (Brandtegic)
As long as you’ve built trust by delivering value when it was promised, and by consistently giving to your community, they’ll have trust that they buy from you will match what they’ve seen from you so far, and it will meet their expectations as well.
Gary Vee wrote a whole book on the concept of ‘Jab, Jab, Right Hook’ meaning that if you consistently provide value (jabs), you have earned the right to ask for the sale (right hook).
After consistently providing value and building trust, it's crucial to include a clear and compelling call to action (CTA) that prompts your audience to take the desired action. Whether it's to purchase a product, sign up for a service, or attend an event, make sure the CTA is specific, actionable, and aligned with their needs.
Once someone has purchased your product, service, event ticket, etc… it’s over, right? Mission accomplished?
Not so fast.
Don’t get discouraged, but that’s just the beginning. Value doesn't end after the purchase.
There’s an age-old saying that says it’s easier and cheaper to sell more to your existing customers than it is to identify and sell to a new client.
How do you turn your customers into a raving fan base that refers you business and keeps coming for more?
5. Community
You’ve built relationships and established your value, closed the sale, and now you get to deliver results.
If your community really likes you and you’ve provided them value and results, it’s likely they’ll be willing to refer you business and connect you with other people who would benefit from the value you provide.
Whether you have an official program for affiliates to send people your way, or you unlock the power of word-of-mouth by providing such a unique and exceptional service, you want to give people a reason to talk about you.
Capturing and tastefully sharing customer success stories is one of many effective ways to feed the momentum you have working in your favor. You may also want to host community events or provide exclusive benefits to people in your community. Identifying and executing ways that you can ‘surprise and delight’ your customers will make them feel appreciated, increase loyalty, and continue to overwhelm them with reasons to send business your way.
In Summary
It’s really easy to write (or read) a blog about all of this, and who doesn’t agree with under-promise over-deliver? It’s all simple enough, right?
Expect roadblocks, challenges, and complications every step of the way.
The video you think is going to pop off gets hardly any engagement. A client requests a refund. People unfollow and unsubscribe. Your friends ask why you keep putting yourself on camera. You’ll question yourself.
It’s all data, and it’s all part of the process.
As long as you’re not expecting this to all work perfectly with your next three pieces of content, and you’re actually committed to the process, eventually you will get there and it will work for you.
It takes time.
You might have to make 50-60 videos over a few months before you figure out what type of content really resonates with your audience.
And filming and editing and ideating video content – it all takes time.
You might offer a few different lead magnets before you find one that actually captures peoples’ attention enough for them to give you their email.
More time.
But ultimately, it will be worth it.
Once you’ve found a way to generate eyeballs on your brand, provide massive value to your audience, and provide them a paid service that they’re proud to tell people about, you will be glad you committed to the work of figuring it out.
Time, effort, and dedication – the key ingredients for unlocking the potential of your video content and creating a thriving brand.
Or anything worthwhile for that matter.
You got this.