When you make video content for a living, your ideas tank sometimes runs dry, and then you’re faced with every marketer’s worst nightmare: an empty content calendar.
Lucky for you, we at Biteable spend all day thinking about making marketing videos and we love sharing our ideas.
We racked our brains for the most shareable video ideas and collected them all in one must-read video marketing mega-list. We’ve even included a few of Biteable’s best video templates to jump-start your creativity.
Choosing the right video marketing content for your brand
As you add some of these video ideas into your own marketing calendar, it’s important to think in terms of variety. Like the saying goes, variety is spice of life. The same is true for video marketing.
As with any other type of marketing, it’s crucial to use your videos to speak to different segments of your audience at different points in the funnel.
The most successful video creators work their magic across a wide range of styles. Not every video you create should aim to be a viral hit shared by a broad audience — although a few of these now and then won’t hurt. Your marketing calendar should strike a balance between viral videos (the fast food on the content world) and deep dives that serve a niche or existing audience.
Keeping that in mind, here are 31 video marketing ideas for your content calendar.
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Collaborative video ideas
1. Partner with another brand
Why go alone when you can go together? Partnering with another brand on a project means you get access to a new audience while also building a working relationship with a like-minded business.
Partnerships pack a bigger punch if you team up with an unexpected brand — like when Balmain partnered with H&M in 2015. Talk about an odd couple. But the partnership gave both brands something they needed (relevancy for Balmain and prestige for H&M).
In the content world, brand partnerships usually happen in the form of Instagram takeovers, where one brand introduces themselves and shares a narrative on the other brand’s social media channels for a set period.
A joint video project that streams across both of your platforms is also another great option.
2. Customer testimonials
Customer testimonials are video marketing gold. They can pull double-duty as advertising videos as well. There are a few ways to approach testimonial videos. The easy way is bringing written testimonials to life by displaying a roundup of your most glowing reviews.
Another option is to gather real customers and film them. This one is a bit trickier, but if you do it right, there’s no better form of social proof. As an example, check out this great testimonial video by the natural deodorant company, nuud.
3. Trivia night video
Who doesn’t love a trivia night?
A live-streamed trivia night is a great way of engaging people at the top of the funnel while adding a valuable activity to their social calendar. If going live isn’t for you, you can pre-record trivia segments with questions at the start, allocated time for guessing, and a run-through of answers at the end so people can play on their own time.
An easy trick for focusing your trivia night is to curate the question around a theme relevant to your brand. Selling cookware? Cooking trivia. Tourism company? Geography trivia.
4. Couple challenges
In our hearts, aren’t we all nosy Noras who want to see the gooey bits of a couple’s love story? Yes, yes we are. But couple challenge videos aren’t just for romantic pairings — best friends, twins, exes, and cousins are all legit duos who can make your couple challenge more unique.
There have been lots of couple challenges over the years (you might remember the “My boyfriend does my make-up” theme from a few years ago). The simplest version is the question challenge. Pose a series of questions (that are relevant to your brand) to each person and film their challenge partner as they try to guess the answer.
When planning this content, make sure you create questions that relate to your brand. For example, if you’re an athletic apparel brand, ask the couples questions about their workout routine. Or if you are a café or eatery, ask each person what the other would order from your new menu on different occasions like “What’s their go-to hangover brunch?”.
5. Interviews
In terms of content, video interviews are a treasure trove. From the raw footage, you can cut snippets for Instagram stories and make longer cuts for feed posts. Transcribe the interview itself for blogs, quote posts, and newsletter content.
Remember, interviews don’t have to be with big names. You can interview members of your staff or customers and ask them to answer FAQs or get to know why they chose your product or service. If gathering video footage isn’t feasible, do the interview anyway. Then, parcel out the answers into a video quotes series for your social media feeds.
How-tos and educational videos
6. How-to video
One of the best ways to endear your brand to your audience is to teach them something. It doesn’t have to be an elaborate four-week course in an obscure art form, mind you. A 30-second video that teaches something useful and practical is all you need.
Little snippets of advice that relate to your brand goals, like a luggage company sharing their tips for how to pack a suitcase to maximize space, can leave a big impression on your audience. But remember to break your how-to down into easy-to-follow steps with explanations and alternative approaches, too.
7. Did-you-know video
The relationship you build with your audience is a tricky one to balance. As a brand, you need to offer valuable content on your channels that goes beyond basic marketing and pretty pictures.
One of the easiest ways to create value for your audience is to share your knowledge. Did-you-know content, where you share insider’s knowledge relevant to your brand, is a great way to vary your content calendar and give something back to your followers.
But remember: the knowledge you share doesn’t have to be factoids from a textbook. Being informative and insightful about the way your brand works and its processes is also value-adding.
For example, the architecture firm Bjarke Ingels Group often treats their Instagram audience to an inside look upcoming projects. Their feed is much more than just pretty pictures — a lot of love and research goes into the content too.
8. Lifehacks
Life hacks have become a genre all their own. These quick and demonstrative videos can add a ton of value and clock up some easy SEO wins.
To find out what your audience wants to know, you can ask them directly or conduct your own keyword research, looking specifically for ‘how to’ phrases within your industry.
Choose something relevant to your brand and make sure you break it down into 3-4 easy-to-follow steps. This type of video content is perfect for a series, so design a format that’s replicable for future videos.
9. Myth-busting
Every industry comes with its own myths and fallacies that deserve to be busted.
A video series on the most common myths in your industry is a great way to show your brand’s knowledge and authority. Or, use this as an opportunity to change a few of those nagging misconceptions about your product or service.
Keep these short, under 30 seconds is best. Roll them out one-by-one in your email marketing, post them on your social feeds, or cut them up into little snippets for Instagram stories.
10. Trend reports
Trend reports are an easy way to show off your insider knowledge and set your brand up as a trusted voice. Use this as an opportunity to start a conversation with your audience by asking if they agree with your predictions.
If you’re really confident, you can even check back in with your previous trend reports to assess what you got right and what you got wrong — and why.
Holiday video marketing ideas
11. New Year’s Day
New Year’s is about two things: overindulging and immediately resolving not to overindulge. It’s a bitter cycle that leaves many people feeling bad about themselves. Change it up by asking your audience uplifting questions that have nothing to do with resolutions.
Things like: “What were you most proud to achieve this year? Where have you made progress? What were you doing and feeling on this day last year?”
12. Valentine’s Day
Ahhh, Valentine’s Day. For a video marketer, it’s a bit of a minefield. Take advantage of the content opportunity, but tread lightly. Walk the line between celebrating love while not isolating all the single ladies and gents.
It’s a good idea to broaden your definition of love so it doesn’t just cover romantic love — celebrate all kinds of love, including the love you have for your customers. Cheesy? Absolutely. But that’s V-day, baby.
13. International Women’s Day
Celebrating the contributions of women in your field is always more impactful when it comes from the source. Use this day to tell the stories of specific women in your industry and turn the spotlight onto the women themselves.
As a complement to your video, you could also collate book, article, or podcast lists by famous feminists and start a conversation with your audience about women’s rights.
14. April Fool’s
If you want to avoid cream pies and electrified door handles, use this day to celebrate playfulness instead. You can create great content, sans whoopee cushion, by:
- Asking your audience about the best prank they’ve ever pulled off
- List the best pranks in history (Google “1957 spaghetti harvest” for a good one)
- Ask your followers how gullible they are when it comes to pranks
- Create a video list of “prank ideas that won’t give grandma a heart attack”
15. Easter
Many people celebrate Easter, not just Christians, so aim for the common denominator — chocolate. Everyone loves chocolate. Try an Easter Egg basket reveal, craft Easter activities, or wear a Go-Pro on your head during the Easter Egg hunt and let your audience follow along. If binging on sweets doesn’t fit your brand, feature a healthy Easter recipe instead.
16. Halloween
You get extra points for creativity on Halloween. In the lead-up to Halloween, it’s all about outfits. What will you our your staff dress as, or what ideas do you have for your audience? What do you predict will be the big outfits of the year?
Take it to the next level and get your audience involved with a costume contest. Compile images of the best costumes into a quick-and-easy video montage announcing the winner.
17. Christmas
The lead-up to Christmas is almost as exciting as Christmas itself. Early in December, start with your own present guides. As Christmas draws nearer, create your own video content advent calendar of recipes, craft ideas, and FAQs.
You could even style a ‘12 days of Christmas’ giveaway marathon. And on the day, don’t miss out on the opportunity for the ultimate unboxing video — Christmas morning unboxing.
Social media video ideas
18. Before and after
There’s a reason the #taptotidy hashtag has blown up on Instagram. If you have any big renovations scheduled, spring cleans on the horizon, or even want to tidy up your desk space, make a little video showing the before and after. It gets people’s endorphins flowing to see the mess managed. This kind of content is perfect for Instagram stories or reels.
19. Day in the life
Who doesn’t love snooping around in someone else’s life? A day in the life video should follow someone in your company around for the day and show your audience how that person does, well, life. This could be the company CEO or founder, the marketing team, or just about anyone who has an interesting job and is game for the project.
But remember, only include the highlights. No one wants to sit through a boring meeting or your morning commute.
20. Outfit of the day
OOTD videos are easy snippets of video content, but you can take it even further by issuing outfit challenges for your team. Take some inspiration from TikTok when it comes to fun transitions between outfits; the jump-change is always a winner.
Do pay attention to the consistency of lighting and angles. Little changes accumulating across multiple transitions become distracting. And make sure you overlay some music on your OOTD videos — 81% of marketers say videos perform better with music.
21. ASMR
This one is a bit out there, but ASMR videos are becoming massively popular. ASMR stands for autonomous sensory meridian response, which is a fancy word for those shivers you feel when someone whispers into your ear unexpectedly.
ASMR artists aim to recreate that feeling in a whole host of ways, such as whispering into a binaural microphone, recording the sounds of hair brushing, or tapping and playing with objects like makeup brushes or packaging. Sounds weird, right? Maybe. But it’s surprisingly relaxing.
If you have the right audience, they might appreciate a relaxing ASMR video to help them drift off to sleep. You never know until you try, right?
22. Routine videos
Routine videos are of the same breed as how-to videos, but they’re a bit more demonstrative and cut across all industries. A routine video can range from showing a [screen recording video] of how you manage your social media processes, to a video showing the nighttime routine for a newborn baby. It all depends on your audience.
The crux of this type of video content is being honest and open about all the little bits and pieces, and inviting people to share how they do things differently and why.
23. AMA
Ask me anything videos are always engaging because the agenda is directly set by your audience. You’ll need a little prep time to gather questions from your channels and think about your answers. Or, if you have a strong enough following and like living on the edge, go live and face the questions head-on.
Afterward, don’t forget to post a recording of the live-stream video, broken up with bits of text like animated headings and captions.
24. Product review
Product review videos are an easy way to invite engagement from your audience. You’ll also get a little SEO bump if you embed a review video on your product page.
Ask your audience which products they’d like reviewed and what questions they’d like answered. This kind of content is perfect for serializing, so create a replicable format and pivot based on feedback from your audience.
Video ideas for your website
25. Case studies
If you aren’t careful, case studies can end up as a wall of text. Try a non-traditional approach instead and video-ify your case studies. Interview your clients or customers, show before-and-after shots of your work, and outline your process in easy-to-digest steps for your audience.
26. About us video
‘About us’ pages have become incredibly formulaic, don’t you think? Introduction, values, team. It’s a bit of a snooze-fest. Try something different with an ‘About us’ video instead. Show off your team and your workspace, then talk briefly about your values. It will be a much more effective way of connecting people with your company or business.
27. FAQ video
An FAQ video is valuable because your audience is already dictating the direction of the video with the questions they ask. These videos are great to collate into one long, segmented video for your website (remember to annotate the description so viewers can jump to their specific question) or break up into individual questions to share on social media.
If you don’t want to publish a video that’s just you speaking to the camera, pepper in some motion graphics to bring your answers to life or use a cartoon character as your FAQ assistant.
Under-the-hood video marketing ideas
28. Introductions
Make new team members feel welcome with introduction videos. Highlight the newbie’s specialties and what they’ll do in their role.
If possible, include keywords relevant to your industry to fully optimize your video for SEO.
29. Pain points
Pain points are usually internal concepts that drive where you spend your ad dollars. But they can also serve as the basis for potent video concepts. Address the pain points of your audience in the exact language they use (like “Why are most habit-tracking apps so expensive?”). This lets you subtly draw a comparison between your brand and its competitors without ever naming names.
30. Behind-the-scenes
Behind-the-scenes videos are a huge video content category. There’s no one way to show off the inner workings of your business but some options are a day-in-the-life of one of your staff, a tour of your office or desk, a tour of your team Slack channels, a lunch-time ride-along, or a tea-break Q&A with one of your colleagues.
Focus on showing some off-the-cuff moments. Don’t try to do a behind-the-scenes video and then over-curate it. A little polish, sure, but no make-up team on hand.
31. Quarterly review
Even if you don’t report to stakeholders, it’s good to check in with your audience now and then to let them know what’s going on under the hood. Try not to focus on sales stats. Instead, hone in on what’s relevant to your audience. Stats like audience growth, feedback on new products, upcoming launches, or inspirational stories make good content for a social-media-friendly quarterly review.
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