Using Videos in Your Social Media Marketing - Part 3
This is Part 3 of a 3 Part Blog Series co-authored by Tara Garwood and Kristina Kury. In Part 1 of this series, we discussed general tips for using video in your social media marketing. In Part 2, we talked specifically about tips and technical requirements for Instagram and Facebook. Now we’ll switch the focus to Twitter and LinkedIn.
Twitter allows for widescreen (up to 2:1), square (1:1), and portrait (up to 1:2). Widescreen and portrait may be slightly cropped on mobile devices. The maximum video length is 140 seconds (sound familiar?) and the maximum file size is 1GB.
Video posts on Twitter will automatically begin playing as someone scrolls through. This helps them pause and watch and most likely stay to the end. In fact, tweets with video currently see 10x more engagement than those without. Including captions at the bottom is just as important on Twitter but studies show that less captions holds the attention of consumers more. So less = more for Twitter...pretty in line with their 280 character limit!
LinkedIn feed videos can be from 1:2.4 to 2.4:1, meaning they can be widescreen, square, or portrait. Your video can be from 3 seconds to 10 minutes long and the maximum file size is 5GB. In addition to .MP4 and .MOV, LinkedIN also accepts .ASF, .AVI, .FLV, .MPEG-1, .MPEG-4, .MKV, and .WebM files.
LinkedIn is a great platform for videos and your posted content has a longer shelf life than say Facebook or Instagram, so more time for people to land on it. Again, load up the important things in the first part of your video so you’re capturing the audience's attention. Add in captions, almost 90% of viewers have their sound turned off.
Most of the tips we’ve shared in this three-part series apply to other social media platforms, as well. If you want to get more in the weeds on video requirements for different platforms and video ads, SproutSocial has a fantastic always-up-to-date reference guide.
This blog was written with Kristina Kury, Founder & CEO of Sprout Creative, working with small business owners and entrepreneurs who are busy running their business, overwhelmed with marketing and whose growth has plateaued to turn their marketing into a more manageable, automated marketing machine.
You can follow her at @SproutCreativeLA on Facebook and Instagram.
This blog was written with Tara Garwood, owner of Banner Day Films. Tara is an award-winning filmmaker who loves to create videos that help businesses and nonprofits change the world! You can follow her at @bannerdayfilms on Facebook and Instagram.