Will short-form video content grow your small business?
Yes!
According to a Capterra study, 10% of small businesses that use TikTok go viral, and 78% have seen a positive return on investment.
Those are the short form video statistics you want to see when you have little to no marketing budget, and time is a precious resource.
The best part?
Your video doesn’t need to go viral to drive business success.
Every post can boost foot traffic, build brand exposure, and increase sales. The momentum adds up, even if it’s a little bump each time.
What you do need is consistency and a formula of short-form videos that work for your brand.
Keep reading to discover what’s working for other small business owners and how to steal their video marketing strategy to grab attention online.
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3 Powerful Short-Form Video Ideas That Can Increase Your Sales
There is a formula for creating engaging content. What works for one brand won’t necessarily work for yours. The trick is understanding your target audience and tapping into specific emotions while delivering value.
Here are some of the top ideas for small businesses that work for all the short-form video platforms.
1. Use Day in The Life Vlogs to Boost Brand Awareness
Are you chronically online and have a sweet tooth?
Then you’ve probably heard of Brooki Bakehouse.
Dubbed “the internet’s favorite cookies”, the small Brisbane bakery became an overnight sensation when its owner, Brooke Saward, started posting “day in the life of a bakery owner” TikTok videos.
After the first short-form video went viral (clocking up an impressive 3.2 million views), the hype around the small business is showing no signs of slowing down. Customers are lining up around the block, and her cookies are shipping worldwide.
@brookibakehouse Day in the life of a bakery owner 👩🍳 we sold out again, here’s what a full shift looks like on a Saturday #dayinmylife #bakeryowner #bakerylife #bakingtiktok #smallbusinessowner ♬ Lo-fi hip hop – NAO-K
The big takeaway for your small business?
People are curious.
Lean into it, peel back the curtain, and create behind-the-scenes content about what it’s like to run your business. This low-effort content idea helps you tap into powerful emotions that propel social selling and engagement.
It humanizes your brand (people buy from people they like), builds trust, and fuels aspirational desires.
Open up the comment section on Brooki’s “Day in the Life” vlogs, and you’ll find users saying things like:
- I want to own a bakery when I grow up.
- This makes me want to work at a bakery.
- I want to visit your bakery when I come to Australia.
Not only is she strategically building brand exposure and increasing foot traffic with her short-form videos, but she’s inspiring people to follow in her footsteps.
And even if you’re a brick-and-mortar shop, you can turn aspirational viewers from around the world into paying customers.
Brooki caters to these viewers by offering online masterclasses for making cookies and building a successful bakery business.
Cha-ching!
Read More: Getting Started On Social Media For Your Small Business
2. Create an Interactive Experience Between Your Brand and Audience
Looking for more low-effort, high-return, short-form content ideas?
Scroll through your comment section.
It’s a tactic that works exceptionally well for Peachy BBs, a TikTok slime account that has amassed 4.7 million followers and customers like Kim Kardashian.
Andrea and her team use comments to source video ideas by encouraging users to suggest slime ideas.
Why does this work so well?
1. It boosts engagement for the algorithm.
2. It shows off the product, which increases desirability.
3. It creates an interactive creative experience between the brand and the audience.
@peachyslimeComment a slime idea and I’ll make you a custom slime!!🤌 We restock this Friday at 7pm EST, don’t miss it👀♬ original sound – Peachybbies Slime
For your small business, think of a way to create something with your audience. The sweet spot is finding entertaining rinse-and-repeat short-form video ideas that will encourage viewers to interact with your brand.
Here are some ideas:
- Trying new flavor combinations for cookies or ice creams.
- A challenge (e.g. I bet you can’t style _____ and make it look good).
- Taking requests for what to paint next.
P.S. Another way you can use comments to create an interactive experience is to poke fun at trolls (if that’s part of your brand identity) or answer any questions you want to share with your entire audience.
Plus, don’t forget to scroll through user generated content to see what topics users are talking about in relation to your brand.
@peachyslimeMaking slime IS ONLY FOR KIDS 😡 – Wanna buy slime? Peachybbies.com restocks TONIGH at 7pm EST 🍑♬ Monkeys Spinning Monkeys – Kevin MacLeod & Kevin The Monkey
Read More: Using Videos For Small Business In 2023: Everything You Need To Know
3. Demonstrate Your Expertise with a Teachable Moment
Besides entertainment, one of the top reasons people use social media is for education.
You can use this thirst for knowledge to your advantage by creating short videos on things like:
- The problem you solve
- Your industry
- Your processes
Enchanted Scrunch, a six-figure company founded by Dasha Derkach in early 2021 when she was 13, is a pro at using teachable moments in her content.
One of Dasha’s most watched TikToks, gaining millions of views, is of her breaking scrunchies.
Why does this type of short-form content go viral?
Dasha is educating her audience on her quality control checks. The product won’t hold up in someone’s hair if the scrunchy breaks when pulled.
For the viewer, this builds trust and confidence in their purchasing decisions while teaching her audience something new and adding value to their lives.
@enchantedscrunch Replying to @nikegitter gotta break all the bad scrunchies to fix em up!! #brokenscrunchies #breaking #hair #shopping #scrunchielover #qualitycheck #holidays ♬ original sound – Enchanted Scrunch by Dasha
Another small business that is a master at this strategy is @bee.better.company. One of their top performing TikToks (7.3 million views!) is the owner breaking down the ingredients inside Kourtney Kardashian’s brand Lemme and explaining why it’s not a great product.
@bee.better.company A deep dive into the downfall of Lemme by Kourtney Kardashian, an interesting case of incredible marketing and terrible products. #kourtney #kourtneykardashian #kourtneykardashianbarker #kardashian #lemme #supplements #marketing101 #mba #business #deepdive #analysis #longvideo #videoessay #lemmesleep ♬ original sound – Bee better
This style of video works well on social media platforms because the owner is:
- Demonstrating their knowledge (he has a master’s degree in botanical medicine).
- Educating his audience on what to look for on labels when buying supplements (including Bee Better’s).
- Choosing a relevant pop culture topic (which can increase views), but backs up his opinion with facts and not emotion.
How can you apply this to your small business? Think about your audience’s concerns about purchasing from your company.
- What hurdles or pain points do you need to address?
- Are there any common misconceptions in your industry or around your product?
- Is there a trending topic or industry news you can relate to your business?
- How can you demonstrate what makes your product or service a cut above the rest?
Lastly, decide how you want to present this information.
Will product review videos like Bee Better’s make sense for your brand? Or is something similar to Enchanted Scrunch a better fit?
Tip: Turn your teachable moments into a series and create a playlist to increase views.
Read More: 10 Tips to Master Social Media Video Content and Boost Engagement
Use Plann to Make Staying Consistent on Socials Easy
When growing your small business online, your short-form videos should focus on quality and consistency over virality.
The more video content you can put into the ether that provides value (whether it’s entertainment, aspirational or educational), the more opportunities you create for your dream customer to stumble across your account and make a purchase.
Virality, on the other hand, isn’t a sustainable sales strategy. If you post one video that goes viral and then stop posting, your sales will also stall. Plus, it’s hard to know what will go viral. You could spend hours creating a short video that gets 150 views but spends just a few minutes making something that gains millions of views.
Instead, consistency helps you increase sales for the long term, and any content that pops off along the way helps to propel your success.
Sign up for a free 7-day Plann trial today and put your social media strategy on easy mode.
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