How to Utilize Short Form Videos in Your Marketing

With the ever-changing sea of social media trends and posts, getting your message across can be difficult. For marketers, using shareable, snackable bites of information with short videos such as TikToks and Instagram Reels may be the key to marketing successfully on social media.

Short videos have redefined the way we consume video content—we want all the information, and we want it fast. A 2022 HubSpot survey identified that short-form video has the highest return on investment of any social media marketing strategy. This is a great opportunity for marketers to drive brand engagement since viewers are able to provide immediate feedback through views, likes and comments. For this to be successful, short-form videos must be easy for the audience to engage and connect with and can be consumed quickly and easily. It is also important for this content to be highly shareable—the more people that like your content, the more people share it.

In order to use short videos as part of your marketing strategy, it is first important to understand how this will fit with your brand. TikTok sounds and trends are constantly ebbing and flowing, so it’s crucial to understand the context of whatever trend you’re following and how it aligns with your overall brand strategy. Trends can change every three to five days, so you must be regularly engaged to understand what is currently popular.

Let’s look at a few examples of brands that successfully capitalized on short-form video content.

GoPro: Combining User-Generated Content and Video

GoPro is a brand of small cameras – mainly used for action such as skiing, surfing, or biking. They utilize user-generated content combined with short-form videos to show off their product effortlessly. It’s not hard to be mesmerized by someone doing a backflip off of a cliff with a handheld camera – the footage speaks for itself. GoPro encourages like-minded individuals to share their content as well, which is great for visibility, as each video shared by a consumer is basically a commercial for the brand. GoPro utilizes their own short-form videos as well, and combined with user-generated content, it’s a match made in adrenaline lovers heaven.

Watch GoPro “Best of 2020” Reel:

Buzzfeed Tasty: “Snackable” Content

You’re scrolling through Instagram, and a 30 second video of someone making a delicious batch of cupcakes pops up on your feed. Do you scroll? Chances are, no. They’ve already managed to capture your attention in the first few seconds, so what’s 20 more? Buzzfeed Tasty is a blog and popular account on Instagram that has mastered using short-form videos for marketing. Spanning anywhere from 10 seconds to 3 minutes, viewers can enjoy watching people make delicious recipes (with some not-so-subtle product placement). It’s informative for those who love to cook and entertaining for us who love to eat.

Need help with dinner? Watch this short video:

@tasty We combined two Korean classics- corn cheese and spicy ramen- to make this garlicky, spicy and cheesy dish 😝 Click the 🥕 for the full recipe #koreanfood #spicyramen #cheesecorn ♬ original sound – Tasty

Duolingo: Tapping into Humor

Duolingo is a language learning app that is constantly on top of trends on TikTok. They let their social team take creative liberty, and it pays off. Duolingo’s account is also very active in commenting and replying to creators’ videos, other brands, and their commenters. They tap into Gen Z humor and have created a memorable mascot: the Duolingo owl. This also led to the creation of the trend and hashtag #mascottok encouraging other brands to do the same. Currently, Duolingo has 4.1 million followers and they continue to grow as they post hilarious and memorable content.

Have a laugh:

@duolingo when you only know 4 words in Spanish but gotta get that A 😩 #Duolingo #elmo #balsamicvineguh #DuaLipa #comedy #trend #workplace #brandtok ♬ BaLsAmic VINAGAUGh – Da Garbage Prince Hans

Most importantly, the content you produce through short videos must be authentic, relatable, and genuine. You want to give viewers an insight to who you really are as a brand and how you use your voice to get your message across. It’s fun to create this content, so enjoy it!

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