It’s undeniable: videos work wonders when it comes to holding your viewers’ attention.
Not to mention they do an incredible job engaging the viewer while communicating your message clearly.
It’s why 86% of businesses leverage it for their marketing according to a study by Wyzowl. A whopping 93% of marketers using video also swear by its significance in their digital marketing strategy.
No wonder video marketing has been gaining popularity, particularly, for improving your social media engagement.
In fact, social media videos are the second most popular types of videos marketers create according to the same report. This explains why businesses are dedicating increasing resources to creating video content for their social networks.
But, it’s here that things get challenging. With more and more resources dedicated to social media content, it gets harder to stand out. Meaning: if you’ve been faring well with free video content so far, you might not be able to continue to do so in the future.
So instead of spending all your budget on costly video editing software alone, dedicate resources to getting a toolkit of video marketing tools for social media. These are tools that help with everything from production to promotion to stay on top of your social engagement.To this end, we’ll give you a list of all the video tools that you’ll need in this post.
The 5 kinds of video tools for social media you need
For an engaging social media strategy, you need to be pumping out stellar video content that speaks quality. This doesn’t mean you’ll have to pair up or hire a video production team. Instead, you can DIY the process with the right video tools for social media.
Here are the types of tools you’ll need:
1. Tools to monitor social media trends
Instead of taking a spaghetti on the wall approach to creating video content, be strategic. Plan and create content that resonates with your target audience. To do so, invest in tools to monitor trends that interest your followers. This way, you’ll have plenty of ideas to create video content that your audience wants to learn about.
2. Tools to create visuals
You don’t need to be shooting all your video content. Designing graphics and video screens with helpful tools can add flavor to your videos. With the right tools, you can also easily create an engaging video in minutes. Besides, you’ll also need these tools to create video thumbnails, which are essential for encouraging your audience to watch your video.
3. Tools to create and edit your videos
Next up, add video editing software to your list to polish your video content. This helps ensure all your video clips transition smoothly and imbue quality.
Looking to create social media videos that captivate? PlayPlay's tool empowers you to be a pro video-maker. Level up your social media videos with our user-friendly features and templates!
4. Tools to host your videos
With video production out of the way, you’ll need tools to host your videos. These platforms not only broadcast video content, but also give you essential analytics to study audience engagement and video performance.
5. Tools to schedule your social media posts
Lastly, with social media being a fast-paced marketing channel, you’ll require scheduling tools to keep up with the speed. Have a video social post ready? Kudos to you! Schedule it for publishing at a time when your audience is active (even if that’s the time when you’re fast asleep).
The best video tools for social media your organization needs
In this section, we’ve compiled a list of the best suggestions for each type of tools you’ll need for your video posts-based social media strategy.
- BuzzSumo
BuzzSumo is a content research and discovery tool, which helps identify what’s trending and popular with your audience on social. Simply type in a keyword, and the powerful software pulls out trends around it. Knowing which ideas are popular helps you easily create audience-relevant video content that gets great engagement. - Mention
Like BuzzSumo, Mention is also a social media monitoring tool. Use it to track keywords of interest and get alerts when someone mentions both your brand and pre-defined related keywords. In fact, if you’re gunning for creating a viral video campaign, you can do so with the help of this trends monitoring tool.
Canva is a DIY design tool that helps you create everything from thumbnails to social media graphics and Stories. The good news is you don’t have to design from scratch. The easy-to-use software offers numerous templates to make the job simple for you.
Linearity (formerly Vectornator) is an illustration and graphic design software that also happens to be free. If you're interested in designing completely unique visuals for your social media, Linearity is the tool for you. With 11 handy social media templates, you have full control of what your images look like at the end. While there is a bit of a learning curve involved, Linearity is perfect for those who're looking for a fun and creative challenge and a beautiful result in the end.
Adobe Spark helps you the same way Canva does. However, you’ll be more comfortable using it if you’re familiar with the Adobe ecosystem.
Lastly, Loom is a screen recording tool that gives you the option to record your screen, webcam or both – making it an ideal tool for making quick tutorials. The best part? Using it is extremely easy. You can also take a look at Komododecks which is very useful.
Of the three video editing software, PlayPlay is the easiest to use. It gives you pre-made video screens to speed up video creation. What’s more, it’s super simple to resize videos for each social media platform. This means you can instantly share a video on different social channels by simply resizing it.
It offers a wide range of video editing features. However, like Adobe Spark, you either need to be familiar with the Adobe suite of products or have technical video editing skills to be able to use it.
This tool is perfect for creating professional-looking content, making iMovie a great choice for Apple users. To be able to use it to its full potential though, spend some time learning its use before you can edit your videos to perfection.
YouTube
With two billion active users, YouTube can be a crowded video hosting platform. However, if you have know-how of YouTube SEO, you can quickly create an audience of engaged viewers.
Vimeo
Vimeo is a creator-focused video hosting platform that makes it convenient for you to create a customized channel. With this platform, you can focus on creating videos and building your audience. Vimeo, on the other hand, takes care of everything else – from offering customer service to your viewers to facilitating premium quality live streaming services.
Wistia
A third video hosting platform that’s worth the mention is Wistia. Like Vimeo, you can create a branded video channel and embed videos on site with this platform too. Compared with Vimeo, Wistia is on the pricey side of things.
Tools to schedule your posts
SproutSocial
Use the tool to schedule social media posts to go out at a time when your audience is active. SproutSocial is intuitive, it doesn’t take users long to figure out how to use it. Plus, you can easily review your social media analytics from the platform.
AirTable or Trello
Both of these are project management software that help visualize your social media content plan. Create cards to plan each of your social media posts. Make sure you add a due date to them. This way, you can plan an organized, time-bound social media strategy.
Luckily, both Airtable and Trello come with templates so you don’t have to start creating your social media strategy board from scratch. Use a template that meets your needs and you’ll have your content creation and publishing planner up and running in no time.
Ready to create engaging social media videos?
With this list of tools for making videos for your social media, we’re sure you’ll be pumping out high quality videos in no time.
Remember: creating videos for your social channels doesn’t have to be time-consuming. Simply sign up for PlayPlay, a social media video maker, to see how video making can be fun and easy.
Want to know more about videos on social media?
Melissa Francois
Head of Global Content & Comms
With over 10 years of experience in the wild world of SaaS, Melissa cares about building great brand stories and driving community engagement through engaging content. Off the clock, she enjoys long walks and a pint in a cozy country pub.
