Get Smart with Social Media Videos

Ever felt like you had "missed it by that much" when it comes to your social media tactics? Here's a new strategy for you: videos! Videos through social media have the potential to become viral and remembered for months. Today, I'm going to show you how to "get smart" with social media videos by just using your smartphone! We'll also put the Spotlight on Apple, who helps us with accomplishing this seemingly-daunting task.

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6 Steps with Mike Bal

Mike Bal of the Social Examiner is going to be our resource of the day! In his article, he gives you great tips and tutorials on how to use your smartphone to create high-quality videos for your social media accounts. Here are six steps/tips for accomplishing that goal according to Bal:

"Choose Your Channel"

By this, Bal means picking your social media outlet for showing your videos. His top three recommendations are YouTube, Instagram, and Vine. However, Facebook and Twitter are also good options, especially with the new "Live" feature that Facebook has implemented recently. Snapchat is another really cool way to reach followers through shorter videos. Vine is also leaving us soon, but we'll talk more about that later.

"Choose a Video Style"

How are you going to shoot your video? Is it going to be a more casual or professional shooting? Will you use multiple takes, or just one? There are many different options here, but I would recommend using the method that best promotes your product/service and stays consistent with your company's image.

"Shoot a Stop Motion Video with Vine"

So, here's the rub. If you haven't heard, Vine is ending its services in the next couple of weeks. This particular tip takes a step-by-step approach on using Vine, since Bal wrote this in 2015. However, it can still be applicable to making a great video, and I still recommend taking a look at it. Vine will have an app, even after it leaves, that still lets you create Vine-like videos and gives you the ability to post them to Twitter. To read more about this recent development, you can read it on Vine's website. Even though Vine is leaving soon, its viral video style is still something to aspire to.

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"Shoot a Time-Lapse Video With Hyperlapse"

This is another step-by-step guide that Bal gives us on how to use Hyperlapse, which is an app created by Instagram. This app gives you the quality of Instagram, but allows you to change "your video's speed" (Bal). The ability to make a short video on Instagram faster or slower could be beneficial to your company, depending on what you're going for here.

"Shoot a Regular Video"

Sometimes, just having normal footage taken can make video magic happen. For example, if you're using Snapchat as a company, taking a normal approach can make your company seem more down to earth and personal. Make sure, however, that your video is still of good quality, even it may be more low key.

"Edit Your Video"

This is where your beautiful smartphone does its magic! If you have an iPhone in particular, you can use iMovie for editing purposes, which Bal recommends as well as I. This is where you put together your video if you have multiple takes, add effects, and put the finishing touches on your masterpiece. If you don't know how to use iMovie, Bal guides you through it in this article.

I think that this article has great info and step-by-step guides, especially for people who are not tech savvy. However, given that Vine is dissolving presently, I would say that he probably could've covered more social media outlets, such as Snapchat, in addition to the ones that he covered in this article. That way, he would've had more options to present in case such a thing did happen. Overall, though, it has good advice and guides that are still definitely worth looking at!

Spotlight

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Apple is one of the biggest companies of the present day world! They have created amazing technologies that only Trekkies dreamed about 50 years ago. Without them, the ability to do a lot of the things that we can do with social media would be impossible and probably wouldn't even exist.

If you've seen an Apple commercial on TV recently, you'll see that they use iPhone-created videos to promote their products. They show off their product by actually using their product in everyday situations! They also display these brilliant commercials on their YouTube channel, which is one of their bigger social media outlets that they post videos to. If you're looking for a great example of video for social media, Apple is the company to look to! Live long and prosper with your video-making!

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Pictures found through Google Images. I do not own these pictures, nor the Get Smart, Apple, and Star Trek trademarks and quotes. This is being used for educational purposes.