Marketing on Social media can be a burden right? Here’s an approach for those who want to take it seriously, who know it comes with costs, but want to find ways to make sure their spend comes with serious VALUE. By the end of this article I guarantee you’ll be inspired by just what’s possible.

As a small business owner there’s a few words that probably stand out when it comes to your social media marketing. DIFFERENTIATION is one - just how do you stand out from your competitors? VALUE is another, because when you get to the end of a quarter and see your expenses listed on your spreadsheet, you’ll only be happy if each one made good use of your MONEY and your TIME. Well, with a bit of lateral thinking you can hit the ground running when it comes to creating great content affordably - read on!

If you’re still reading - I’m going to guess you’d love your social feed to be jammed packed with great looking effective content, but this takes time and money. For this reason, many social feeds contain a line-up of snaps and stories made and published on a phone by business owners and their staff. No doubt it’s honest and engaging - because - like all of us - they’re passionate about their business – but it just doesn’t stand out from competitors (who are probably taking the same approach!).

So what can you do to stand out? Well, there’s good news and bad news. Firstly the bad news – if you want pro looking content, sometimes you need to well – hire a pro. And they don’t come for free.

But here’s the good news – in just a few hours working with a good content creator, you CAN capture tonnes of quality content that will last you for yonks, some of which you can even use multiple times. You just need to think creatively and laterally, and what’s absolutely critical - plan thoroughly. And of course much of this comes down to finding the right supplier who knows how to deliver great value - in fact they are the ones who should lead the way to capturing more content than you think is possible from just the one booking.

So if you decide to bite the bullet and pay a content creation pro to get you some cracking material for your social media – here’s one way to create maximum VALUE from your spend.

Understand you can say A LOT with a little

They say a picture says a thousand words. But a great picture tells a story. What’s more, punchy video imagery doesn’t have to be on screen for long to make an impact, people are drawn to video content on social media feeds. But they don’t stick around for long, especially when it comes to ads. You need to ask for little time, but inspire them to remember you in the time you have. So, don’t go into a video shoot thinking this will be one great video - think this will make a great series of videos. Just how extensive your line-up is depends on your planning.

What you’re after is a shelf of ULTRA SHORT videos (15 seconds or less!) ready to go, that slot into your social media planning. These - supported by a few editing tricks, great music, and some snappy copy - will catch people’s attention as they scroll, but won’t ask for much of their time. Check out this quick clip to see what I mean.

The great news is you can shoot a lot of high-quality ultra short videos in a small amount of time - giving you tonnes of great pro-standard content from a relatively short shoot. It all hinges on two things - the footage you capture must be EVOCATIVE - and secondly you must, must, MUST PLAN THOROUGHLY. Read on to see how you can achieve this.

So, just say you’re a retail menswear store and you want to showcase your amazing service. Find a customer (or recruit a friend) friendly to your cause and set up a scene where you help them choose a shirt. Film lots of great EVOCATIVE MOMENTS - smiles, laughter, interaction with your product and guess what - this isn’t just one strong piece of video content - it’s at least three.

1.

A big happy smiling customer on screen for 3 seconds is the basis for a fantastic fb ad – no other video is needed. Audiences love smiling faces - it’s a fundamental of screen production. It’ll grab their attention just long enough for you to communicate your message - the story (aided by copy) of the typical customer experience in your store. You can get as creative as you like withe your copy - but just having that one well-shot, big, happy human face is super-strong social media ammunition.

Great for showing off your happy customers

2.

Flip the camera around and grab a solid shot of you smiling and offering great service? Post #2 right there – this one all about your friendliness and how ready you are to help, or perhaps a ‘meet the staff’ post - the possibilities are endless if the shot is strong!

Fopr when you want to post about how much you love serving customers

3.

The customer looking down and comparing items of clothing? Voila - a short sharp story about your range perhaps. The site of a customer engaged with your product in a manner everyone can relate will spark interest in your audience and open up various angles for embellishment with the right copy.

Let’s do the maths - there’s thee pieces of content above. The whole scene should take an hour to shoot leaving you with 3 pieces of pro-content. Get a videographer on site and shoot for 5 hours, and you could end up with at least 15 standalone great looking pieces of content from that one shoot. AT LEAST!

But there’s two things you need to make this approach work. Firstly – you have to shoot it well, nice lighting with great composition is a must (slo-motion is always a winner) – otherwise the shot will be weak and the meaning will get lost and what’s more - it will look lame which is social media death. You could spend ages trying to shoot this yourself on your phone, or you could hire a pro who won’t just bring camera know-how, but will be thinking forward to the edit - making sure they get exactly what they need to deliver sensational and flexible content.

The second thing you need to do to make this happen brings us back again to the three rules of any successful shoot – plan thoroughly, plan thoroughly, and plan thoroughly. Again - lean on your videographer here, anyone who has spent enough time in an edit suite knows just how far well-shot footage can go and how to max the amount of useable content from a shoot.

There’s a million tricks up any decent videographer’s sleeve - this is just one.

If you’d like to bounce some ideas around about what may work for your business, click below and I’ll be more than happy to have an obligation free chat about what could work for you!

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HACK YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA VIDEO SPEND

Understand you can say A LOT with a little