If you want to take over the world, you should probably start locally.
But recent algorithmic changes aimed at providing users with more ‘family and friends’ content in their news-feeds put local businesses at a disadvantage. If you’ve noticed a drop in your organic social media reach, or in the effectiveness of your product-centric lead generation campaigns, this is likely why.
Despite the recent data scandal that had some calling for a move away from the social media giant, Facebook had 1.47 billion worldwide active daily users in June. Year over year, average daily users increased 11 percent!
When you’re counting active monthly users by the billions, that kind of growth is hard to ignore. Europe combines for 279 million daily users. But the company’s largest user base is in the U.S. and Canada, where Facebook has 185 million daily users.
What’s more, Facebook’s entire suite of products (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger) has 2.5 billion unique monthly. That means fierce competition for news-feed space, leading to user feeds becoming bogged down with sales-heavy, clickbaiting content.
Facebook, like Google, is firmly cemented at the top of its market. Both platforms continue to make changes designed to improve the user experience. Those changes often make it more challenging for a business to attract new customers.
Something was bound to change.
To keep pace, small and medium-sized businesses must be creative with lead generation tactics. Facebook’s change does not signal decreasing use; instead, it’s meant to deliver a better experience for users. Businesses must adjust.
But, fear not.
The opportunity to reap the rewards of organic social media marketing remains strong. To get started, you’re going to need:
If you’ve got the phone and $9, we’ve got the right video marketing strategy.
When someone has a need, they go to a search engine; like Google. A strong AdWords campaign with localized targeting works wonders. Social media works in a different way.
Businesses use social media to generate brand awareness with cold audiences and nurture new and existing customers with posts containing content, offers, and coupons.
Content includes things like:
Facebook does offer paid advertising opportunities. Social media advertising targets users that meet defined demographic, geographic and behavioral benchmarks.
With Facebook, a business can post content for their followers, subscribers, and fans. It doesn’t cost anything. If you provide useful content, you get shares, comments, and likes. Shares give added reach to potential customers that aren’t currently following you.
According to Dennis Yu, “If one of your posts organically got 100 likes by itself and when [you] boost it to the right audience, the extra reach caused the algorithm to extend [the post’s] organic reach.” He calls this Facebook “throwing fuel on the fire”.
This is all trackable.
Remarketing is basically a method of reaching out to users that have interacted with you but didn’t convert. After all, some people need a few nudges.
But you don’t have to use their paid advertising features to benefit.
Imagine posting a video describing the best ways to prepare a home for the market. Let’s say that 100 people view this video over the course of a few days. Wouldn’t it be great to target just those people with a video offering sound advice on selecting a realtor?
You can.
Not only can you send them a specific piece of content, but you can also remarket to those that don’t open the new post. Remarketing is basically a method of reaching out to users that have interacted with you but didn’t convert. After all, some people need a few nudges.
Speaking to analysts at the end of 2016, Mark Zuckerberg made it clear:
“People are creating and sharing more video, and we think it’s pretty clear that video is only going to become more important. So that’s why we’re prioritizing putting video first across our family of apps, and taking steps to make it even easier for people to express themselves in richer ways.”
Facebook has been making video a top priority for nearly two years, and with good reason:
Say what you want about statistics, but the numbers are overwhelming. Here’s one more for you: A one-minute long video is worth about 1.8 million words.
That might sound a little high, but you can certainly convey a lot.
In fact, one of my partners likes to say:
“I sell better on video than I do in person because I can remove all of the variables. I know the most common objections I get on sales calls, so why not deal with those directly before ever getting on the phone with them? With video, I can do that.”
Video marketing is a big deal, and it’s getting bigger. One survey showed that over 70 percent of US marketers plan to use video marketing within the next twelve months. That survey was done in 2016.
If you’ve got competitors, chances are good that many are already using video marketing.
The 3×3 video marketing grid is the brainchild of Dennis Yu. Widely known as a social media marketing expert, Yu serves as Chief Technology Officer and Co-Founder of BlitzMetrics.
If you’re familiar with marketing fundamentals, you’ve probably heard of the know, like, trust principle. In a nutshell, it’s the basic idea that people prefer to do business with someone that they know, like and trust.
If you can get a viewer to know, like and trust you, using videos, you’ll be well on your way to scalable growth. Plus, it’s easier to get someone to know, like and trust a person than it is a business.
The 3×3 video grid is a remarkably simple, but very effective, method for creating:
This framework consists of 9 short videos. That’s it. The videos can be about a minute in length each, but not much longer. They’ll fall into one of three categories:
These videos aren’t commercials. If you’re picturing commercials right now, slap your wrist, forget them and move on! It’s much simpler than that (more on the non-commercial videos below).
Creating videos that fall into why, how and what categories will:
Doing this in order is essential. A person needs to know you before they can like you. Someone that likes you is more likely to trust you. Leads that trust you are more likely to buy from you. See how this works?
Your nine short videos are going to do this for you over and over again. This is what people call “evergreen” marketing.
The Why Videos
It starts with a good why video. For many businesses, this is where it all goes wrong. Nobody likes an unsolicited sales pitch, especially from a stranger. Creating posts that offer your product or service is ineffective.
In video form, it’s just a commercial.
Videos 1, 2 and 3 are why videos and this is how you’ll let people get to know you. Do it well, and they’ll start to like you. Why videos are personal, they’re not for selling. You’re going to tell stories.
The best why videos connect a viewer with you as a person, before you as a business. They help a viewer humanize your company. Some why video ideas include:
Remember, you’re telling a story; nothing more. Relax and do it naturally, like you’re speaking with a friend. Create three different videos, telling three different stories. Have fun with them.
Still need inspiration for your why videos? Check out this post for some examples!
The How Videos
Videos 4, 5 and 6 are how videos. This is where you get to strut your stuff.
How videos continue the know and like part of the process, but their real value is in building trust.
A good how video:
How videos must have value. They shouldn’t push a viewer to contact you. This is your opportunity to show prospective clients what you can do by teaching them to do it themselves.
Create three different one-minute videos. To continue the above examples:
Many things can’t be thoroughly explained in one minute, and that’s fine. You can make videos for those things, too. You can post long-form content on your YouTube channel or embed them on the resources page of your site; but, for your 3×3 video grid try to use videos that are 90 seconds or less.
Videos 7,8 and 9 are what videos. Now you can sell. After all, the only people that will see these videos are those who watch at least parts of two videos with you in them–or whatever sequence of videos you choose to show them before “selling” anything. That is the beauty of the 3×3 grid!
The biggest problem many businesses run into is they begin at “selling” and stay there. In reality, you should end with it. If your why and how videos are solid, you won’t need to work as hard to build rapport in the what videos.
Instead of mucking up your pitch with awkward cold trust-building tactics, focus on your service and what problems it solves for your customer. If your why and how videos are effective, customers have already started trusting you and are ready and willing to hear an offer.
People are always buying one of three things: happiness, results, or time. So why not show them how your product or service:
Don’t forget; these still aren’t commercials. Never commercials. Present your product’s features and show how they benefit the viewer.
Examples:
Chances are you offer more than one product or service, so be sure to create at least three different videos.
If you want to see how we did the 3×3 grid, go to our Youtube channel to see them!
Think of your nine videos on a tic-tac-toe chart, like this:
Why videos across the top, how videos in the middle row and what videos on the bottom. This will help you visualize the progression you want viewers to take.
You’ll want to start with a why video.
When video number 1 shows up in someone’s feed, two things can happen. They can either view it or keep scrolling. This isn’t a guessing game; you will be able to see who saw it and how long they watched it for.
Anyone that views video 1 will soon see video 4; the first video in the how level set. Those that didn’t watch enough of the first video will eventually see video 2. So, they stay on the why level until they watch enough of a video to move on to video 4 (or whichever video you decide to show them next).
The same principles discussed above would also apply to the how level and what level videos.
If you haven’t already, familiarize yourself with managing a Facebook business page and Ads Manager. Once you’re ready, it’s pretty simple:
See how this works? Soon you’ll have them all mapped out, and the grid can work indefinitely without much tweaking on your part.
It’s true. When you post as a business, only a small percentage of your followers see each of your posts in their news feed. But, the more people that interact with them, the more Facebook will show them. If they’re just scrolling by because your posts are not entertaining, don’t add value to your audience, or are always selling something, chances are you will have little to no organic reach.
But what if you want to reach more than just a portion of your fans? What if you want to reach new customers? This is where your $9 comes into play.
When you launch the individual posts, you’ll notice a boost button on the bottom. You want to boost because it opens up some powerful options for you – if done correctly.
The boost button turns your post into a sponsored post. It allows you to reach more people and to target posts to specific users like those custom audiences we discussed earlier.
Do you want to make sure your fans actually see your posts? No problem! Boost a post to people who are fans of your page. You can even target non-fans and cold traffic by demographics, location, and interests.
Depending on what you choose to spend, you could add hundreds or even thousands to your reach. It starts at $1 per day, per ad. For $9, you get targeted reach with a series of videos designed to funnel viewers into leads and leads into conversions.
Here are some general principles to get you off to a good start:
Dennis Yu offers a more in-depth tutorial covering the 3×3 video grid and his . He’s the person that taught me most of this stuff. If you’re more of a do-it-your-self kind of person, check it out.
If you’d like help creating a video marketing strategy for your business, schedule a call with us today. We can help you develop the perfect 3×3 video grid.
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