1) Reply to Comments

As your videos gain traction on social media, they’ll likely attract comments from viewers. Maybe a viewer has a question related to a video’s subject, or perhaps a viewer simply wants to thank you for sharing an informative video. Regardless, when a viewer leaves a comment, you should reply to him or her.

It only takes a few minutes to craft a response, but doing so promotes a more genuine and credible brand image for your business. Viewers will notice that your business is active on social media and, more important, that your business cares about its audience. As a result, replying to comments compels viewers to share your videos with their friends or followers.

2) Add Captions or Subtitles

Consider adding either captions or subtitles to your social media videos. According to Facebook, over four in five viewers watch videos with the sound turned off. By default, Facebook, as well as other social media networks, mutes autoplay videos. Viewers can still hear the audio, but they’ll have to click the video or its unmute button. To ensure viewers can understand your videos without the need for sound, add captions or subtitles to them.

Both captions and subtitles are a transcription of a video’s audio. The main difference between them is that the former includes all of a video’s audio, such as music, sounds and dialogue, whereas the latter consists only of dialogue. On Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other social media networks, you can add either captions or subtitles to your videos.

3) Go Native

You’ll experience better results when using native videos on social media rather than embedded videos. According to a Quintly study, native videos published on Facebook generate ten times as many shares as embedded videos.

For obvious reasons, Facebook strives to keep users on its platform, so it prioritizes the display and rankings of native videos in users’ news feeds over embedded videos. When you publish an embedded video on Facebook, you are essentially sharing a link to the video’s original location, such as YouTube or Vimeo. Therefore, embedded videos don’t generate as much visibility as native videos, resulting in fewer shares. Whether it’s Facebook or any other social media network, always use native videos when given the option.

4) Share Under Your Business’s Account

Don’t make the mistake of publishing videos to social media under your personal accounts. Except for Twitter, most social media networks offer two different types of accounts: personal and business. Personal accounts are used for recreational and leisure purposes, whereas business accounts are used for commercial and business purposes.

Publishing videos under your personal social media accounts will restrict their reach. Your friends and family members may see them, but when you publish videos under a personal account, they won’t reach your business’s audience. Additionally, Facebook may close your personal account if they discover that you use it for commercial purposes to promote your business.

5) Choose an Attention-Grabbing Thumbnail

Choosing an attention-grabbing thumbnail will make your videos stand out on social media and, therefore, attract more views and shares. Social media networks automatically generate a thumbnail for videos by pulling a screenshot, but you typically aren’t required to use it.

Most social media networks allow you to either choose a different thumbnail from a list of screenshots or upload your own image to use as a custom thumbnail. If the default thumbnail looks cluttered, dark or otherwise fails to grabs viewers’ attention, choose a different thumbnail.

Attention-grabbing thumbnails often feature some of the following elements:

• Use a contrasting layout that includes dark and bright colors.
• Avoid highly detailed thumbnails with many small visual elements.
• Each thumbnail should be relevant to the video with which it’s used.
• Avoid blurry or grainy-looking thumbnails.

6) Evoke Positive Emotion

When creating videos for social media, you should try to evoke a positive emotional response in viewers. Whether it’s happiness, compassion, joy or humor, positive emotions boost engagement. They connect with viewers on a visceral level and compel them to take action, such as sharing the video with their friends or family members.

Videos that evoke a negative emotional response may experience high viewer engagement rates, but they come at the cost of a negative brand image. If a video evokes sadness, for instance, viewers may begin to associate that negative emotion with your business’s brand.