We outline how some lesser-used social media platforms can help you reach your target audience.
Did you know there are social media platforms other than Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram? In social media marketing, we typically focus on the top four money-making platforms (five until Snapchat stopped being relevant). But there are other social networks out there, like Pinterest, Tumblr, Quora, Reddit, and even LinkedIn, that can help your sales grow when given a little love and care.
Brands often overlook these social networks for several reasons: They’re less straightforward, more niche-specific, and have smaller userbases. However, when utilized correctly, tapping into these lesser-acknowledged social networks can offer a wealth of new opportunities to engage potential customers—especially with video content.
Plus, “often overlooked” is also code for “exclusive territory.” It can be much easier to reach audiences on these lesser-used platforms compared to the more popular options, simply because there are fewer brands competing for engagement in the same spaces.
Today, we’re going to review the individual quirks of these platforms from a video marketing perspective, and share the tips and tricks we’ve collected so you can get the most out of your social media marketing.
1. Quora
Quora is a place where people ask questions and get answers from other users. When a user posts a question other users find valuable, they can upvote it, and the best answers (highest-voted) rise to the top. Answering potential customers’ questions that relate to your product or service is a great marketing tactic, helping you establish yourself as an expert and selling yourself based on your engagement in the industry. Your expertise is credible when you give great answers and don’t just post flashy advertisements.
After 2011, Quora made it possible to add embedded video links to both answer and question details. Then, Quora added a Video Answer functionality directly to their platform. By answering a question with a video, you’re more likely to stand out from other written answers, you can capture your audience’s attention in a more meaningful way, and if it’s highly upvoted, it can dramatically increase your SEO, especially if the question becomes very popular.
Example: You run a nutritional supplement company that specializes in protein powder and superfoods. Your potential customers are anyone who goes to the gym – and everyone who thinks they should. You go to Quora and find hundreds of questions about working out, supplements, exercising, and how to lose weight. Instead of writing out a generic answer, post an FAQ or interview-style video response. Make the video as in-depth and helpful as possible. Even if you don’t plug your product, (which you would be wise not to do,) you’re establishing yourself as an expert. If you become a go-to source, then your product or service will be top-of-mind the next time your customer needs it.
On the other hand, you can monitor Quora questions and reply with links to your existing web pages or blog pages that contain video. Rather than replying with video directly, you’re driving traffic to your website and gaining the benefits of video content there instead.
Additionally, you can target specific Quora users with questions and ask them to weigh in directly. Encourage followers of your answers to do the same!
Bonus Tip: You can keep on top of questions in your industry by following related questions and receiving notifications. You can also post your own content on Quora like you can on Facebook or LinkedIn, and spend Quora credits to promote that content to your community. And don’t forget to post a video in your user-bio for added SEO!
2. Tumblr
Originally billed as a micro-blogging platform, Tumblr has since evolved into one of the most active and engaged online communities there are. Much like the way Tweets are re-Tweeted, Tumblr runs off “reblogs,” which is how users share each other’s posts. If someone reblogs a video you post, it gets seen by all of their followers, and should anyone reblog it from there, the same.
Tumblr’s user-base may be smaller than that of Facebook, Instagram, Youtube or Twitter, but its engaged community manages to attract hundreds of millions of viewers to the site a month. That means the pieces of content generated by Tumblr’s tens of millions of users are seen by billions of Internet users a year—creating a vast opportunity to tap for your company’s video marketing.
Getting to know the community’s culture is a large factor to your marketing success or failure on Tumblr. Research the trending topics and hashtags, familiarize yourself with the popular cultural references, memes and inside jokes, and really try to understand who you’re trying to impress.
Pick a topic that resonates with Tumblr users, and use that to inform your video marketing efforts on the site. Tubular Insights found a great example of this on Lincoln’s Tumblr page, showing how they took advantage of the popularity of the hashtag #vintage and made a Tumblr of older models of their signature vehicles.
Bonus Tip: Images and GIFs in particular are incredibly popular on Tumblr. When you create compelling video content, consider turning certain screenshots or a series of frames into a shareable image to tease the video. Additionally, you can engineer a customer-content creation campaign and have your followers reblog their top favorite user-generated videos.
3. Pinterest
Pinterest is a social network with a fun central concept: Taking pictures and videos you like, and ‘pinning’ them to pinboards for you to look at later. With 291 million monthly active users as of 2019, it represents a vast community—one you don’t want to overlook when it comes to your social media or video marketing efforts.
When using Pinterest for your video marketing, there are two things to keep in mind. First, Pinterest is all about categorizing ideas, so when you create your video content, think about who your intended audience is and under what circumstances they might pin your video. Going through this process ensures that your target audience can actually find your video when it’s relevant to what they’re looking for.
Second, Pinterest users prefer content that is aesthetically pleasing, as they’re often creating mood boards for dream weddings, cool fashion ideas, DIY home goods, and anything that inspires them. Use this to your advantage, and take a few extra minutes to make sure that the thumbnails and other imagery for your content are visually appealing.
Pinterest ran an internal study to find out what type of video works bests for brands using their newly released Promoted Video feature, and reported that storytelling and how-to videos were the top successes. As Pinterest reported, regardless of industry, videos that told a story helped bring a company’s product to life, while how-to videos had inherent educational value to customers. Both video types fit right into Pinterest users’ current content pool.
Here’s a quick video from Pinterest showing how Lowes’ succeeded using video on their platform.
Beauty subscription service BirchBox has had great success tapping into pinboards that feature unboxing videos, and even launched their own board for tips and tricks. They both integrated into the community and provided a valuable contribution to current and prospective BirchBox customers.
Bonus Tip: Pinterest ran an internal study that found higher-quality content was an effective indicator as to whether a user would finish watching a video or not, so put your emphasis on making high-quality content, beautiful and compelling imagery, and highly relevant topics to your potential customers. Use contrasting colors, bright lighting, unique backdrops, exotic settings, or expressive faces to help catch and maintain your Pinterest audience’s attention.
4. Reddit
Reddit is an online forum featuring aggregated content, news, and conversations. The self-proclaimed “front page of the internet,” Reddit allows users to post text, links, videos, images, or questions. It’s kind of like a microcosm of every other social network all jammed together into one super-forum. With over 160 million unique monthly visitors, Reddit is the fifth most popular website in the United States and eighth across the globe according to Alexa, so it’s not one you want to miss.
Reddit is made up of thousands and thousands of smaller forums called subreddits, each about a topic or category of topics, and each one comes with its own set of internal rules and best practices. It’s important to be considerate of the Reddit community when posting branded content. This means you shouldn’t just post your product videos on threads with super promotional language, or try to impersonate a regular Reddit user—“OMG THIS IS THE BEST PRODUCT EVER!”—because Reddit users will see marketing BS coming a mile away.
Instead, be creative and pay close attention to how your content is received. Save your promotional stuff for your online ad campaigns. Instead, keep your Reddit content creative, educational or amusing, and valuable for your target community.
Let’s say you own a dog toy brand and you’re looking to tap into Reddit. You could go to the immensely popular subreddit /r/Aww and post a video or photo of a cute dog playing with one of your toys, like this tiny dog playing with a toy that’s just a tad too big.
Reddit is also a platform where you can really test what works and what doesn’t, and then reiterate over time. As we said earlier, each subreddit has its own spoken and unspoken “rules” and conventions, so you can really hone in on the right types of content for each individual subreddit over time.
Another way to tap into Reddit is through the very popular Ask Me Anything (AMA) posts, where a celebrity or expert with exceptional knowledge offers themselves up for questioning from Redditors around the world. You could offer your company’s top executives or CEO to answer questions about your industry in a video AMA. Or, you can pick one of the more upvoted comments and follow up with an explainer or how-to video. You could even link to an FAQ video on your homepage for those interested in more information about you or your background. Just read the room – if Reddit users get the sense you’re being too promotional or sales-y, they’ll shut you down quickly.
Bonus Tip: Reddit’s format is great for GIFs, so consider repurposing your videos into GIF content, as well. And if you’re planning on posting to multiple subreddits, (a process called cross-posting,) make sure you always change your headline, add attribution [x-post from y-subreddit], and let some time pass before reposting.
Conclusion
These are just four of the biggest alternative social media networking sites out there. No matter what niche online community you’re approaching, it’s important to get to know the community and the content they like before you try to engage them. Take your time, come to the table with something great to offer, and be respectful of their space. And remember: video content is one of the best ways to attract, engage, nurture, and delight audiences, no matter what channel you’re on – as long as you have strong content to back it up. Be strategic about the content you create and follow appropriate video ad specs for every channel so you can knock it out of the park!
Reach out today and we can help you design an awesome video package based on your marketing goals. Schedule your call with one of our creative producers here.
