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By Mitch Carson

Now that Twitter has launched its own native live video service, they are prioritizing video content on their feed. This means that, now more than ever, Twitter is an excellent way for a savvy marketing executive to reach potential clients or customers.

Reaching your potential client base is the most important function of marketing, of course, so it’s a good idea to learn more about the different styles of video upload allowed on Twitter, the various differences between them, and the ways in which you can use each of them to create more engaging content for your business Twitter account. This article will provide you with all the information you will need to start generating excellent video marketing content for your business Twitter.

The first option for generating a Twitter video for marketing purposes is to create a live video feed within the Twitter app itself. This allows the user to create content ‘on the go’, taking advantage of the live and in-real-time nature of Twitter. The live video feature is run by Periscope, but not to worry – you don’t need to download Periscope or have an account in order to use the feature. Note that this feature is only usable for public Twitter accounts.

To use the function, simply create a new tweet and press the ‘Live’ button. Once the camera opens, you may choose whether to film facing front or rear. You may also add a short description in the “what’s happening?” area, so that your viewers know what the video is about, giving them a reason to tune in. Once you have everything set up as you desire, tap the ‘Go Live’ button to start streaming.

While your viewers are watching your live broadcast, they can interact with you, leaving a comment or a heart emoji. You can even respond in real time, making the viewers a part of the broadcast. Once you have concluded your live video feed, simply swipe down and tap the ‘End Video’ button.

After your live feed ends, the video will appear as a tweet, and will remain in your timeline. This allows for repeated views of the same content, generating additional exposure for your business. The broadcast will also be available on Periscope, even if you don’t have an account. You will be able to see the difference between your live content and prerecorded content, by looking in the bottom left corner of the video. Prerecorded videos will have a video length in the corner of the screen, while live content will display the word ‘ENDED’ and the number of live viewers the video had at the time it was recorded.

Another popular method for video marketing through Twitter is by using prerecorded video content. Uploading content that has been previously recorded has several advantages. For instance, you can edit and re-edit your content until it is exactly the way you want it – one way in which live video feeds can be frustrating for marketers.

Uploading a prerecorded video is very similar in function to creating live video content. First you compose a tweet and open the camera icon. Then you choose a video file stored on your mobile device. This can be either MP3 or MOV format. The file may not be any larger than 512 MB, and cannot exceed 2:20 in length. This is fine, because if your video is too long, Twitter will prompt you to edit the length using their trimming tools. This function also works well for recording content directly through the Twitter app and then uploading it separately.

Simply record your content, and then add to it with a second or more recordings if you choose, then upload the entire video at once. The versatility of this method cannot be over stressed – you can use multiple clips to create one video, you can drag and drop various clips into whatever order you choose, or even remove a single clip altogether. Before you post your finished video, you can preview it to make sure it is the content you want, then simply click done and write a tweet to accompany the video.

Another method you can use for creating video marketing content for Twitter is by using video looping. Twitter recently removed the Vine app and replaced it with the Vine Camera app for iOS and Android systems. You can use this feature to create short video clips of up to six and a half seconds, which will then loop automatically. Simply hold your finger on the screen to record, and then upload the resulting video.

Just like with Vine, any video of that length or shorter will automatically loop, so you can actually use this function to promote your business across several platforms at once, such as posting short sections of video content taken from your Instagram and Snapchat apps.

Studies have shown that the most successful video content on various social media platforms play automatically in the viewer’s feed, play silently unless interacted with, and come in under fifteen seconds in length. With that being the case, it’s easy to see why looping short videos on Twitter can be so successful for marketing strategies.

Now that we’ve covered the different ways in which video marketing can be achieved on Twitter, let’s explore a few ways to get the most impact out of your video content. The first and most important thing to remember about video marketing on Twitter specifically is that it’s a mobile app, so you need to showcase your video with that in mind. Keep your videos short and to the point, to avoid boredom in your potential audience.

Also make sure to deliver the message in such a way that it will be understood without volume, as most Twitter users watch timeline-intruding videos on silent. In addition, remember that these videos need to be compelling within the first few seconds so that viewers will stop scrolling and pay attention. This can be achieved through the use of captions or text overlays on the video content.

Another great way to deliver video content to potential clients is to simply ask them what they want to see! This type of content is fairly difficult to quantify, but simultaneously easy to explain – there really is no explanation, because it is all dependent upon the type of business you are promoting.

Regardless, asking your potential customer base what content they would like to see can generate some surprising results. You can use a Twitter poll to ask your followers what they want to see from you, or you can even ask in a video promotion. Doing this will encourage people to keep paying attention, which will generate even more attention for your marketing campaign.

Another important thing you can do to promote your business using Twitter video marketing is to coordinate your video events with other marketing strategies. Timing a marketing campaign with several mixed media elements can be a bit of a hassle, but the real-time nature of Twitter makes it easy to coordinate the promotion of a particular video with real world events or other marketing notions.

In addition, generating video content that comes at the same time of day, or the same day each week, can help to create a following from people who eagerly await your next video offering. Much like a television show, this episodic style of content creation allows people to remain repeatedly engaged, and that directly translates into higher traffic and more people talking about your business.

Finally, an excellent use of Twitter’s video functionality is through answering customer questions, complaints, or problems, and also the use of ‘Welcome’ style video content for your new followers. You can use the Reply function on your video content to add a reply to your video, which means you’ll be able to update your video to reflect questions which you have answered. You can also collect all the various questions and then answer them all at once with a ‘FAQ’ style video.

Posting video content of this nature allows you to stay on top of any issues that might arise, giving you an edge when interacting with potential customers. Welcoming new followers with a special personalized video will make them feel included, and like you want them to be a part of what you are doing, which means you will have more engaging followers in the future.

By following these various methods, you can quickly and easily ensure that your video marketing content for Twitter is useful and brings you the added business you desire. Don’t forget, all content may not always be good, but having no content will always be bad, so get out there and start recording your marketing campaign now!

This year is more than a quarter of the way over, and many predicted
marketing trends—such as more video and increased interactive and
personalized content—have proven out.

Still, video remains the trendiest of the marketing trends.

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Join us at Microsoft Headquarters, and learn tactics and strategies
to conquer all your biggest communications challenges.]

Did you know:

· One third of all online activity is spent watching videos.

· Every minute, 5.5 million Facebook videos are watched.

· After watching a video, 64 percent of viewers are likely to buy a product
online.

These are just some of the stats that highlight how video has completely
taken over the web and powered marketers’ campaigns (while capturing their
hearts).

For more, check out the infographic below from Social Paragon:

How does a company that’s had a sterling reputation since the California Gold Rush in the 1850s sully its image after more than a century and a half of prudent and profitable operations?

The answer in the case of Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC), says Warren Buffett, is a combination of hubris and procrastination.

Warren Buffett, Chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. Image source: The Motley Fool.

« At Wells Fargo, there were three very significant mistakes, but there was one that dwarfs all the others, » said Buffett at Berkshire Hathaway‘s (NYSE:BRK-A) (NYSE:BRK-B) annual shareholder meeting. « At some point if there’s a major problem, the CEO gets wind of it, and the CEO has to act. They didn’t act when they learned about it. »

Buffett is talking about Wells Fargo’s fake-account scandal, in which thousands of its employees opened millions of fake accounts in customers’ names. The scandal came to light last September, when the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced that it had fined the nation’s third biggest bank by assets $100 million.

« Wells Fargo employees secretly opened unauthorized accounts to hit sales targets and receive bonuses, » said CFPB Director Richard Cordray at the time. « Because of the severity of these violations, Wells Fargo is paying the largest penalty the CFPB has ever imposed. Today’s action should serve notice to the entire industry that financial incentive programs, if not monitored carefully, carry serious risks that can have serious legal consequences. »

Wells Fargo’s executives knew of the illicit sales practices for years yet allowed them to go on. A report issued by its board of directors in April found that the sales abuses date back to at least 2002. I’ve opined that they probably go back to 1998. Either way, beginning in 2011, Wells Fargo began firing 1,000 employees a year for opening up accounts for customers without their knowledge or approval.

Yet despite ultimately terminating around 5% of its branch-based employees, Wells Fargo’s executives refused to address the root of the problem: the bank’s overly aggressive sales quotas. Employees were forced to work nights and weekends, not infrequently without pay, to increase their cross-sales. And when that didn’t work, they cut to the chase and opened accounts for customers without their approval to do so.

Since the current lineage of leaders took over following Wells Fargo’s 1998 merger with Norwest, they’ve put cross-selling at the center of the bank’s culture. They refer to its branches as « stores, » they proudly announced the bank’s cross-sell ratio on its quarterly conference calls, and they aspire to sell every customer at least eight of its financial products — checking and savings accounts, mortgages, car loans, and so on.

« Clearly at Wells Fargo there was an incentive system built around cross-selling a number of services per customer, » Buffett told Berkshire Hathaway shareholders on Saturday. « There’s nothing wrong with incentive systems, but you have to be very careful about what you incentivize. »

Image source: The Motley Fool.

Wells Fargo’s now-former chairman and CEO, John Stumpf, fumbled his first public comments on the scandal, laying the blame on low-level employees in a CNBC interview with Jim Cramer. Then, Stumpf, in Congressional testimony, came across as unprepared and unrepentant. « They totally underestimated the impact » of the issue, Buffett said of the bank’s response.

To make matters worse, after the sales scandal came to light, the media was awash with stories of whistleblowers inside the bank who had been bringing the issue to executives’ attention for years, sometimes emailing Stumpf directly. But instead of rewarding these employees, or at the very least protecting them against adverse employment actions, Wells Fargo engaged in a systematic effort to retaliate against them, generally firing whistleblowers in such a way that they had no chance of ever again getting a job in the financial-services industry.

Buffett is the first to admit that no company is perfect. And when you employ hundreds of thousands of people, as both Wells Fargo and Berkshire Hathaway do, it’s inevitable that inappropriate behavior will take place. « You’re going to have problems. We have around 367,000 employees, » said the 86-year-old billionaire. « People are doing something wrong as we talk about it today – there’s no doubt about it. »

To Buffett’s point, however, while a company’s executives can’t police everything its employees do, once they are made aware of inappropriate behavior, there’s a duty to stop it. That didn’t happen at Wells Fargo.