I made a video everyday in September and here's what happened

If you follow me on social media, you may have noticed I recently started posting videos.

As a Founder and Director of an inbound marketing and HubSpot agency, my time is split three ways. I help coach the inbound marketing team, visit clients and also speak with prospects.

This role puts me in a good position to know what marketers are asking, struggling with and how they're succeeding. I believe by documenting this through short videos, I could add real value to marketing professionals - but how do I get started? 

Well, I thought the easiest way would be to set myself a challenge. Can I do a video every other day and, along the way, run an experiment to see what reach you can get on each channel by using simple videos WITHOUT any marketing tips or tricks?

So that's exactly what I did. I uploaded 15 videos throughout September across LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube.

Some notes on the test

No marketing tricks

So every other day, I recorded a video on my mobile, trimmed down the start and endpoints then posted natively to the channels. That's it.

There was no:

• Hashtag research.
• Video editing.
• Resizing videos per channel.
• Transcription.
• Captioning.
• Building/sculpting audience on the channels.
• Headline optimisation.

My social following is pitiful

Another side note - I've invested no time into my 'personal brand.' So my follower count of these social channels are low, just what has happened naturally by my usage on them (which isn't much in most cases).

I posted to my channels, not the companies

I don't run our company social channels, so I didn't want to mess up all their hard work with my rambling and unpolished videos. Instead, I posted to the channels I control (my own) and knew if it went badly, no one would care.

On this note, I totally omitted Facebook as I don't use it for business at all. It would freak out my family and friends if I started posting videos about marketing on there.

What I talked about

My role allows me to speak confidently about three things - marketing, general business and personal growth - so I stuck to these categories.

Ok, so what was the outcome?

Top-level stats

• 13,251 views.
• 883 views per video.
• 78% of views came from LinkedIn.

Social reach by channel

Organic reach - followers vs. average views

Learnings:

LinkedIn algorithm is still giving amazing organic exposure. I suggest you make the most of this while it lasts.

Instagram also has great organic exposure. In fact, it's only 2% less than Instagram and four times more exposure than Twitter. If you build an audience on this platform, you'll be seen.

TikTok has insane exposure. This was the first time I had used the platform. I had no followers and I didn't use any of the hashtags which could increase views dramatically. It's still extremely early days and a very young audience, but I still got views.

Also, don't bother with YouTube unless you'll seriously make the marketing effort.

Everyone can get traction posting video on social. With the right mix of content and channels, you can have huge reach with little effort.

What's next?

I'm going to do the same experiment again, but with everything I know about marketing and video editing to see what the change in results is. It'll require much more time, so it'll be interesting to see if the time vs. results is positive.

I really recommend that you use video where possible. You don't need fancy equipment, expensive microphones and top-of-the-range lighting kits to get started. I filmed all of my videos from my smartphone, so it's pretty easy.

But if you want to know more about the benefits of using video and the amazing results you can achieve for your business, then you should check out the resource below.

See how video can transform your business

Videos are taking the marketing and sales world by storm. Whether you're looking to build rapport with a prospect, increase landing page conversations to improving internal efficiencies, video is leading the way.

To see how you can include video in all areas of your business click the below, and remember you don't have to create a masterpiece, make an impact!