Why my small business social video got over 1 million views
When using social video to promote your small business, sincerity and individuality beat slickness every time.
After a few weeks of collecting footage, I quickly created a video of my uncle and his frequent visits to our shop, putting it online with the vague feeling that it may do well.
While it started off slow, over the following days, the views ramped up. The likes multiplied. Our follower count exploded. Even now, three months after I posted that piece, the majority of our likes, comments and follows continue to come from that one video.
As of today, we are sitting at more than 100,000 likes and 1.3 million views.
While this piece did surprisingly well, sometimes even the most carefully planned and filmed video flops and there’s no real rhyme or reason as to why.
I can’t guarantee I have the secret sauce to make your content go viral, but I can tell you what I think went right with my content piece that did.
It tells a clear human story
There is so much noise on social media, and while more pragmatic content about your business still has its place online, I believe human stories will always resonate most strongly with your audience.
Be observant about the people who work and visit your business and (with their consent) tell their stories.
As a team, we spend so much of our time and energy talking about our customers — who they are, what they do, where they’ve been. We’ve met new babies, heard about weddings and heard about heartbreak.
While I don’t condone consciously mining your customers or staff for content, there are those occasional stories that are worth sharing.
One of our young customers drew a picture of our shop for his godmother, one of our regulars.
We scanned it, had it turned into greeting cards and now we sell them in the shop, with some of the profits going to the little artist.
It’s moments like these that are worth documenting, as they show what’s at the heart of your small business.
It shows planning ahead and the passage of time
A repetitive montage is a really powerful way to create simple content. Filming the same spot once a month to show the changing of the seasons, filming the coffee you make each day and how the latte art changes over time, filming your outfit in the same mirror before you leave the house and sticking all those shots together just works.
It shows thought, foresight and the passing of time. It shows growth and change. All captivating elements of a story that audiences appreciate.
Take a moment and think — is there an action or process you perform in your business every day, but that’s slightly different each time you do it?
It’s a unique insight into our business
There are more than 25,000 cafes in Australia, a number which grows by 4% each year. Good storytelling should be part of every business’ marketing strategy, but especially when you’re in such a competitive market.
I often see small businesses copying and pasting the social media trends as they cycle through their content, but the most powerful tactic you can use is highlighting what is unique about your business in a way that doesn’t follow the trends.
No other business has our uncle come in every day with his two Greek-themed mugs. That’s a story that’s unique to us, one that shows family, love, and connection, and is an endearing piece of content that has resonated far and wide.
With most of my video content, I open by explaining that we are two sisters who have opened a cafe across the road from our childhood home — with one sentence, we share what is special about our spot, and what makes us different from all the other cafes in our local area.
This is your elevator pitch to your prospective customers — what is unique about you and why should I visit?
Is the video I posted perfect? Absolutely not. I look back at it with irritation that I placed the captions too low on the footage, that some shots are shaky, that I rushed piecing it together (show me a business owner that has time to make truly polished content in-house).
And yet it still works. Online audiences are discerning — they sense and appreciate genuine sentiment in content.
With all content you’re creating, keep this in mind — try to be clear and show the human side of your business. You’ll get more people on side if you do.
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