How hard can it be to post video content on social media, right? It should be easy – you upload your video, hit post, and that’s it.
Well, not quite. It’s not rocket science, but it’s also not quite so straightforward. The reason for that is that there are so many different social media platforms nowadays. And then, even on a single video platform, there are usually a couple of different types of posts.
You also shouldn’t forget that you have to choose the best video size for social media, as well as the other video specs, such as file type, length and resolution.
But we don’t mean to scare you off! It’s really not as complicated as it sounds, especially if you follow our handy guide.
How to Post a Video on Instagram
As one of the most popular social media platforms, Instagram has long surpassed the 2 billion users mark. As in - a quarter of the planet’s population hangs out on Insta.
Almost all of those users – around 91% - watch videos weekly. Plus, as of now, only around 16% of content on Instagram is videos, according to Hootsuite. A savvy content creator could easily use this disparity to their advantage. (Jussayin’, wink wink, nudge nudge)
There are two ways to post a video on Instagram, depending on whether it’s a post or a story.
How to Post a Video to Your Story on Instagram
- In your Instagram app, press the camera icon or swipe right. This will pull up your camera view.
- Either record a new video by pressing the white circle button, or choose one of your pre-existing videos from your library. You can access the videos in your library by swiping up when you are in camera view.
- Find the option “send to” at the bottom of the screen. You will be presented with options for sharing, and all you need to do is choose to post to your story.
How to Post a Video to Your Feed on Instagram
If you want to post a video to your feed, follow these steps.
- Open the Instagram app and press the plus button at the bottom of the screen. From the options at the bottom of the screen, choose either “Library” to pick one of the videos from your phone, or “video” to record a new one.
- Press “Next” to edit your videos. One more press of “Next” will give you the option to tag other accounts or add a caption.
- After that, all that’s left to do is to post.
How to Post a Long Video on Instagram
Instagram is pretty restrictive when it comes to video length. Stories have a maximum length of one minute, and reels are only marginally better with a length of up to 90 seconds.
For longer videos, your best bet is to post the video to your feed. This way you can post videos that are up to 10 minutes long. If you want to post anything longer than that, you will need to cut it into shorter videos, and then post them in segments.
Subtitles on Instagram
Before posting, remember that Instagram still doesn’t have an option that allows you to add your own subtitles to your videos. Auto-generated subtitles are a recipe for disaster and most users just turn them off as soon as they see them.
A smarter way to go about this problem is to use a trusted app like Subly to burn in your subtitles before posting the videos.
You can upload your Instagram video to Subly, add subtitles, burn them in, and then export your video in a 1:1 aspect ratio that works best for feed videos or 9:16 for portrait videos for stories.
How to Post a Video on Facebook
Facebook is a great platform to post videos on, because it supports pretty long videos. You can upload videos up to 120 minutes long, provided the file is no bigger than 4 GB.
How to Post a Video on Facebook on Your Computer
To post a video to your Facebook feed from your computer do the following:
- Navigate to the top of the feed, where you will find the “What’s on your mind” box. Just under it, click on the button that says “Photo/Video”. Click on “Add video”.
- This will open a dialogue box which will allow you to choose a video file from the file system on your computer. You can add several videos while holding down the “Ctrl” button on your keyboard while selecting video files.
- Your next step is to specify an audience for your post, tag people, or add a caption if you want.
- When you click “Post”, your video will upload. This might take a bit, depending on the size of your file. Once it’s done uploading, the video will be posted to the feed.
How to Post a Video on Facebook on The Mobile App
Chances are, you are one of the 98.5% of people who use Facebook on a mobile device. If that is the case, read on to see how to post a Facebook video from your phone.
Open your Facebook mobile app and start a post by clicking “What’s on your mind”. Choose to post a video. You can then select one or several videos from your camera roll and post it (make sure that Facebook has permission to access it).
If you want, you can also record a new video by pressing the camera icon. Once you’ve recorded your video, click on “Use” to post it.
Subtitles on Facebook
Facebook captioning option supports external subtitles, which is always a much better option than auto-generated ones. Create your SRT file using Subly, and then upload it along with your video before you click “Post”.
How to Post a Video on Youtube
It comes as a surprise to absolutely no one that YouTube is the most versatile platform when it comes to posting videos. For a platform that hosts over 800 million videos, that makes perfect sense.
YouTube supports a huge number of file formats, resolutions and aspect ratios. It also allows you to post videos that are far longer than any other popular platform allows. You can even post videos that are 12 hours long, just make sure the file size doesn’t exceed 128 GB.
How to Post a Regular YouTube Video
To post a video, go to your YouTube account and make sure you are logged in.
- In the upper right corner, you will find a small icon that looks like a camera with a plus inside it. When you click on it, you will be able to choose between going live and uploading a video.
- If you choose the upload option, you will be able to select or drag and drop files from your file system.
- For the best performance of your video, fill out the fields for video title and description. Add it to your preferred categories and add some tags.
- Click “Post” to post your video immediately, or schedule it to be published later. And don’t forget to set your privacy settings depending on who you want to be able to see your video.
How to Post a Short Video on YouTube
YouTube Shorts are seriously moreish. It’s incredible just how much time you can burn to watch 60-second clips. That’s why they have been steadily gaining popularity among video content creators too.
If you want to jump on this train, here are the steps to posting a YouTube Short.
Open YouTube and log into your account. Click on the “Create” icon and choose the option “Create a Short”. The next step is to choose the length of your short - it can be up to 15 seconds long, or longer than that - up to 60 seconds.
Once you’ve chosen the length, record a short by pressing the circular button, and upload it when you are done filming.
You can also create shorts from your pre-existing videos by opening them in the Shorts creation experience, cropping them and adjusting the start and end time of the short.
YouTube Video Tips and Tricks
One thing that will make your videos easier to navigate and more attractive to the viewers is adding chapters.
You can do this by going to your YouTube account and, while signed in, choosing “Content” from the left menu. There, you can select the video you want to add chapters to.
All you need to do then is to add the titles and timestamps for your chapters in the description. Note that you need to have at least three chapters in a video.
Another thing that you should not be missing out on is the end screen. That is the perfect place to invite people to subscribe to your channel or to suggest a video you feel would engage them even more with your content.
Subtitles on YouTube
When it comes to subtitles, YouTube is once again head and shoulders above the competition.
Okay, so their auto-generated subtitles can have pretty hilarious effects (or tragic, depending how you look at it), but they more than make up for it by allowing you to upload your own external subtitle files.
And not only that, they actually support a dozen or so subtitle file formats, such as SRT, SUB, RT and VTT.
Not only does adding your own Youtube subtitles to the video ensure that you will be making your videos accessible to everyone, but you will also be giving Google some neat SEO fodder so that it can rank you better.
How to Post a Video on Reddit
Reddit supports videos that are up to 15 minutes long or up to 1 GB in size, in MP4 or .MOV formats.
The process of posting a video from your computer or from the mobile app is similar.
- Start by clicking the new post icon. On mobile devices, it looks like a pencil, and on the website, it’s the “+” button.
- Before you can upload your file, you need to choose one of the communities you are subscribed to. That’s where your video will be posted.
- Next, choose the video button on the mobile, or the tab called “images and video” on the web. Select the video you want to upload from your library. On the mobile app you can also opt to create a new video by pressing the camera icon.
- Then, when your video is ready, press the post button.
How to Post Video on Twitter
To post a video on Twitter, open your Twitter app, press the blue circle “+” button in the bottom right corner. You can then press the camera icon if you want to record a new video.
If you want to upload a video that is already in your camera roll, choose the gallery icon and select the video you want to post.
Twitter only supports posting a single video in one tweet. Once your video has been recorded or selected, you can click on the blue “Tweet” button in the upper right corner.
How to Post a Long Video on Twitter
Is it possible to post a longer video on Twitter? Well, yes and no. If you are a regular user, the length of the videos you post is limited to 2 minutes and 20 seconds, or 140 seconds.
That is why so many accounts post longer videos on Twitter by cutting them into shorter clips which fit this requirement. This means that you need to post your cut up video in separate, consecutive tweets.
Pro tip: Check out the video snippets option from Subly. You could be doing this super-fast, without affecting your master file. Crazy easy.
However, there is a way to post an entire video on Twitter that runs up to 10 minutes. This option is available for video ads, however only to advertisers who are eligible and request it.
Subtitles on Twitter
Twitter does not, as of now, support uploading SRT or any other external subtitle files. The safest option is to create your subtitles before uploading the video to the platform, and burn them in.
Even if you plan on posting your videos to multiple platforms, you will get the hang of it quickly. Once you have figured out how to post, you can invest all of your energy into creating engaging content and attracting your audience.
