“Business decision-makers love online videos because it gives them the most amount of information in the shortest amount of time.” -Robert Weiss.
Marketers often use different strategies to draw the target audience’s attention and promote the brand. It includes but is not limited to billboards, podcasts, social media, content marketing, community building, word of mouth, and more.
But recently, video as a means of advertising has been gaining popularity.
According to recent reports, there has been a 263.4% increase in video uploads in the last five years. As of 2021, 86% of businesses use video marketing, and 94% plan on using it in the future. Nearly 67% of marketers reveal that social media video marketing offers them the biggest RoI.
It is because videos allow brands to share their story in an easy and impactful way. However, in order to reap the benefits of social media videos, your team needs to work behind the scenes to create an inspiring and high-quality video.
In simple terms, before you upload any video on social media, make sure it includes the following elements.
- An Intriguing Storyline
If your video contains an engaging tale, social media users are more likely to connect with it. A collection of eye-catching images is fantastic, but it can be constrained if that’s all the video is about. The content ought to be connected to your brand in one way or another.
Also, remember that users have limited attention spans (8 seconds); thus, they’ll quickly scroll past your content if it is not clear or have an engaging story.
Now, the question is- How can you ensure the story and message in your video is apt?
Well, watching the video without sound or text is a fantastic way to determine whether you have a solid tale. Moreover, there is also a possibility that users will watch the video without sound. So, you must prepare for that as well, ensuring the idea is well-understood even if the video is on mute.
Apart from this, use real graphics and audio when delivering your message to make the content authentic and interesting.
- Captivating Visuals
Stating the obvious, since you’re producing content for a visual medium, let’s suppose Instagram, the graphics must be captivating to draw viewers in.
Use the best image, text, or graphic to grab viewers’ attention right away. Then use your storyline to encourage them to watch the rest of the content. Of course, the video duration will play a significant role here. But that’s where the skills of your marketing team will come in handy.
If the platform where you are publishing the video requires thumbnails, such as YouTube, you need to use the best image for it. Use an editing tool to make some simple edits to your thumbnail file before sharing it, or choose the best default frame from your video to submit. Even so, it must indicate what your video is all about and influence viewers to click on it.
- Effective Use Of Texts
Adding text to your video ensures that the viewers understand the brand message even when the audio is off. However, if the text is long, complex, contains grammar mistakes, or isn’t displayed long enough for the viewer to read, it will affect the content engagement.
That’s why it is recommended that the text content should be long enough to be read twice. You must analyze the duration of your video as well as each dialogue to align the screen with the text. Don’t be afraid to use humorous, unusual, or controversial material that intrigue the viewer’s interest.
In order to add text, you can try easy-to-use graphic design tools such as VistaCreate and tune up your videos to make them more engaging. It will allow you to set the font style to match the brand theme, add animation to texts (if required) and even add a typography logo to bring the viewer’s attention to your brand.
- High Content Quality
In social media marketing, it is a general belief that you need to post regular content to keep your followers engaged. However, many brands often neglect the quality of the video over its quantity. Thus, they soon begin to lose followers and engagement.
Obviously, for marketers, it is pretty disheartening to see all their video marketing efforts go in vain. So, you must avoid it by focusing more on publishing quality content and not over-scheduling the low-quality or irrelevant content.
For this, you can use social media insights and learn when your audience is most active and publish the content during that time. This way, the content visibility will increase, and your message will get delivered to the majority of the audience.
However, if you still want to publish more content, you can create a series. It will ensure you are consistent with the posting of videos and keeps the viewers curious about what will happen next. And when the entire series is complete, you can compile it into one video and publish it as a long-form video on other platforms.
- Impressive Visual Effects
As video content is gaining popularity, your competitors will also be posting them. So, you also have to keep getting a lead over your competitor in the back of your mind.
Fortunately, one of the simplest methods to make your video stand out from the crowd is using some simple yet impressive visual effects. Adding a little extra makes a tremendous difference, whether it’s a basic lower third, brand reveal, or motion tracking for texts.
Apart from that, slide displays, infographics, credit sequences, animations, and 2D flash elements are all interactive and improve the production value of your videos. The best part, they are also comparatively simple to use.
- Excellent Technical Proficiency
Most outstanding social media videos follow the fundamentals of video production, i.e., clear, cohesive audio, steady film, and intriguing/unique viewpoints. In addition, they meet the requirements of the social media platform (Instagram, YouTube, Meta, and TikTok) and have the right aspect ratio, compression settings, and duration.
All these are the technical proficiency of editing a video. So, it would be best if you get well-versed with the upload settings for each platform and save time. It will reduce your video production efforts while ensuring quality content.
- Direct Call To Action
Lastly, branding is an important aspect of the video marketing process. That’s the reason why you are less likely to be a brand or artist publishing content without any means of getting in touch with them.
So, you must include a watermark and your other social media usernames when posting the video to these platforms. It protects your work against piracy and gives you a chance to make your brand prominently displayed throughout the video. Moreover, it will encourage the users to contact the brand using the CTA given.
To Sum It All Up
There is a high possibility that you might already be using social media for posting video content. However, if you include the elements discussed above in your content, it will turn your video professionals and derive results. Nevertheless, you must analyze every post and see what’s working for your brand.
You can take a step further by posting something different and creating a niche of your own. Whatever you may do, it must have a unique and engaging story to capture the audience and encourage them to stay with the brand.
Photo credit: Coworking London