Building a successful video-on-demand brand requires much more than just stellar videos.
The competition is intense for video entrepreneurs these days. Just on YouTube, there are 500 hours of video uploaded every minute! And that’s just free content.
To get people to invest in your content, you have to do more than just create fantastic videos.
You need to build a strong brand behind it. This creates a loyal audience that not only purchases from you but also shares your content with their friends. ?
But what does that even mean?
Building a brand is more than building a website or slapping a logo on something. A brand is the how, what, where, when and whom of your business.
It’s the sum of everything your business stands for, the audience you service and the value you provide to them.
This post will show you how to use your social media presence to build your brand and have folks scrambling to click “buy” on your amazing content.
Establishing Your VOD Brand
Social media is the perfect place to build and strengthen your brand but first, let’s make sure you have the elements of a strong brand lined up. (Feel free to refer back to this list.)
1. What is Your Mission or Purpose?
As Simon Sinek says, “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.”
2. What is Your Brand Promise?
As in, what results or desired outcome are you promising your audience will see through your videos?
One of the most famous brand promises is Geico’s “15 minutes or less can save you 15% on car insurance.” Yours doesn’t have to be as catchy but you should have a clear idea as to what you’re delivering.
3. Who is Your Audience?
This should be crystal clear. You’re not for everyone (no one is) but you should be clear on who your videos serve. If you haven’t created an audience persona, now is the perfect time to do so. This post outlines how to create an audience persona.
4. What Are Your Brand Values?
What do you stand for and believe in? For example, one of Zappos’ core values is “Create fun and a little weirdness.”
5. What Qualities Would You Associate with Your Brand?
Are you humorous and lighthearted? Are you direct and motivating? How do you want your audience to feel when they interact with you?
6. What’s the Personality of Your Brand?
This will help you shape your tone and voice for your messaging. Are you humorous and sarcastic, like Chipotle?
Are you welcoming and warm, like Starbucks?
7. What Are the Visual Elements of Your Brand?
This is where graphic design comes in! You get to brainstorm the perfect colors, fonts and imagery to go with your brand. Just remember: consistency is a huge part of establishing your brand and in the visual world of online marketing.
Once you are clear on the elements of your brand, it’s time to amplify it with social media. Social media is the best place to start reaching prospective customers because, let’s face it, everyone is on social media. That’s not an exaggeration either! 45% of the world’s population is on social media!
But how can you go about sharing your brand on social media? What will make your brand stand out to your audience and attract them to follow, engage and buy from you?
It’s all about establishing that Know, Like and Trust factor.
What is the Know, Like and Trust Factor?
The Know, Like and Trust factor, which we like to refer to as KLT, is an age-old business principle that people buy from those they know, like and trust.
Let’s note that order here!
- They need to trust you to buy from you.
- But they can’t trust you until they like you.
- And they can’t like you until they get to know you.
So in order for someone to buy from you they need to first know you, then like you and then trust you.
Now, in the pre-internet days, sales people would be setting appointment after appointment, going door-to-door trying to establish KLT.
But, we’re lucky because we don’t even have to leave our houses to establish KLT because we can turn to social media.
By creating different types of content and consistently showing up and engaging on social media, you can establish that KLT factor and start turning those followers into loyal brand ambassadors.
The Know Factor
To establish The Know Factor, you need to focus on building your audience, reaching the right people and sharing your story on social media.
First the basics. Create accounts on the platforms where your audience is most likely to be active.
Certain platforms are better for certain audiences. Younger generations and millennials, for example, are more active on Instagram and TikTok, while older generations prefer Facebook.
If you have a B2B or professional brand, then you should look at using LinkedIn. When in doubt, go back to the audience persona you created.
If you know anyone who fits that persona or if you already have customers, ask them what platform they are most likely to use. Once you are set up on the right platforms, you can create “Knowing” content that introduces you to your audience.
1. Build Out Your Profile
Make it clear who you are and what you stand for. Use keywords for your niche too.
Brittany of Eating Bird Food, a health coach and food blogger, keeps her Instagram profile clear and direct. You know exactly what content you’re getting if you follow her.
Pat Flynn takes a different approach by sharing his brand values in his profile. He mentions his companies and brands but he leads with how he operates.
2. Create Content That Shares Your Story
Storytelling is a powerful tool in business. Messages delivered as a story can be up to 22x more memorable than facts.
There’s no better place to start telling stories than with your own!
People want to know about you and your past. What got you here? What made you start your business? You can use the “about” page of your website to tell your story, like MeetEdgar founder, Laura Roeder, does.
And you can use social media to share parts of your story with your audience. Carly and Danielle, founders of TheSkimm, share their own story building their business through #TBT posts that share their lessons learned in their journey.
3. Get On Video!
This should be easy for you if you’re building your brand on a VOD platform – you’re already used to being on video! 😉 And video often wins the algorithm – consider this:
- On Facebook, engagement is highest on posts with video
- Tweets with video see 10x more engagement than those without.
- Video posts get more engagement than any other post on Instagram.
Your audience will also get a better sense of who you are when they see and hear you on video. Video can elicit emotion better than text or images and it gives your audience a chance to get to know you.
4. Use Hashtags to Reach the Right Audience
75% of social media users use hashtags so if you find the right ones, you’ll be able to find your audience and see the types of content they are sharing or liking.
You can use hashtags in your posts to increase engagement and followers and you can also search hashtags to engage with other people sharing similar content.
5. Get to Know Your Audience!
This is a two-way street!
Use engaging content, like questions and polls, to find out more about them and what they like and need from you.
Amy Porterfield did this by simply asking her audience what they are up to right now in one of her Instagram posts.
The Like Factor
As you start to grow your audience, you can start incorporating content to strengthen your connection or get your audience to “like” you.
It’s not enough to just have an audience anymore on social media. They need to engage with you. Here’s a few ways you can get them engaging by adding content designed to increase the Like Factor.
1. Always Engage Your Audience
As we noted before, social media is a two-way street.
You can’t just sit back and wait for the comments and shares to come rolling in. Make sure you’re responding to comments and engaging with other accounts.
Even if you just take 10 minutes a day to reply to comments and share or comment on other people’s content, you’ll see a big difference in your engagement rates.
2. Go Live!
Live streaming has become increasingly popular since it launched a few years ago. In fact, 80% of audiences would rather watch a livestream than read a blog post.
Live streaming connects you with an audience because it creates a conversational space. They can ask you questions and get real-time answers. Live streaming is also as real as it gets on social media.
There might be technical glitches or pets or children wandering into the camera. It shows your humanity and is relatable content that makes your audience feel connected to you.
3. Share Behind the Scenes Content
Behind the scenes content is another way your audience can relate to you.
The days of Instagram perfect scenes are over.
People relate to the realness of our messy worlds.
Whether it’s a cluttered desktop, crying children, or late nights working on content, sharing these behind the scenes style content snippets gives a window look at the heart of your business and your life.
Fitness trainer, Katrina Scott, for example, shares the real behind-the-scenes look at her life to connect with her audience.
4. Use a Value-First Approach
You need to give before you get.
Use your social media to provide value and teach what you know. Give tips, offer sneak peeks, or even quick how-to’s.
This content shows you are an expert in your niche and it establishes good will between you and your audience.
If you’re giving value away for free, they know you’re not just in it for the sales and that you really want to serve and help your audience to the best of your abilities.
Business coach Janet Murray will share a variety of tips on building a business on her social media pages.
5. Be Opinionated!
Share your opinions and don’t be afraid to be a little controversial! However, don’t chase controversy for controversy’s sake but don’t shy away from sharing how you feel about an issue because you want everyone to like you.
The best example of this type of content is Gary Vaynerchuck. Gary shares his beliefs wholeheartedly. He doesn’t care if he offends people with his cursing or his strong opinions. He knows he’ll attract the right followers who will love him even more for staying true to who he is.
6. Get Real With Your Sense of Humor
Memes, anyone?
Is there anything more likeable than realizing someone shares your sense of humor? Share memes or GIFs increases the like factor but also they increase the share factor.
If you share something that gets your audience laughing and feeling good, they’re more likely to share it with their audience and friends.
The Trust Factor
We’ve covered how to grow your audience and increase the engagement of that audience with Knowing and Liking content but you’re not done yet! You need to also focus on increasing that trust with your audience.
1. Be Consistent
The best way to establish trust is by being consistent with your social media and marketing messages. How can anyone trust your videos if you’re active for 2 weeks then go completely dark? Try batching your content and creating a month’s worth at one time and using a scheduling tool to help keep you consistent.
2. Share Results of Your Work
People don’t invest in videos because of the actual video. They invest because of the desired result that video promises. Share those results with your followers. It doesn’t have to be from a current customer either. If you’ve seen results from your efforts, share that story.
3. Encourage and Share User Generated Content
User generated content (UGC) is any content – videos, images, reviews – that is created by a person rather than the brand itself. UGC gives your brand credibility.
Audiences are 2.4x more likely to trust user generated content over brand generated content. Audiences want to know what they can expect when they invest in your brand and studies have shown 84% of consumers trust peer recommendations above all other advertising.
Don’t be shy about asking users to share their UGC!
Create a branded hashtag and encourage users to share their experiences using it. Ask in your emails or in their purchase confirmation. You can also run a contest or giveaway to encourage more UGC.
Create Content For Each Stage of the Journey
Now that you understand the types of content you need for each factor in KLT, you need to understand how to balance sharing all of this different types of content.
Let’s go back to our relationship metaphor.
Everyone is at a different stage of their relationship with you. Some people are just getting to know you, while others are really starting to like you and others are establishing a sense of trust with you.
That’s why you need to have different social media posts that address each of the Know, Like and Trust factors.
So no matter what stage of the relationship someone is in with you, they’re getting the content they need to strengthen it and move to the next one.
We recommend using a category based scheduling system to balance out all of these different messages to give your social media presence a well-rounded approach that consistently grows your audience, engages them and builds trust with them.
A category-based scheduling system is easy to manage and it will ensure your sharing all of the different types of content you need. All you need to do is choose your categories and when you want to post to that category.
For example, one of your categories might be “Questions/Polls” which is liking content. Another category could be “User Generated Content,” which is trust content, and another category could be “Live Streams,” which is knowing content. Then you’d place each category into your social media schedule.
Here’s an example:
- Monday – Questions/Polls
- Tuesday – User Generated Content
- Wednesday – Live Streaming
- Thursday – Tips & How To’s
- Friday – #FridayIntroductions
- Saturday – Testimonials and Reviews
- Sunday – Memes and GIFs
This way, you’re consistently sharing content that hits every factor in KLT!
Start Building Your Social Media Brand Today!
With social media, it’s never been easier to build a strong online voice for your VOD business!
As you begin your new-and-improved social media journey, remember, above all, you want to use these platforms to build a connection with your audience.
By developing your one-of-a-kind online voice and mastering the ever-powerful Know, Like and Trust factor – you’ll be there in no time!
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