Social Media is the term that dominates the world and life today, embracing a vivid demographic range from 18- to 33-year-old as its major followers. This demographic is on constant change and rapid rise through the past few years. Whether it is for entertainment, social life, or business marketing, Millennials are captivated and engrossed in the aura of social media videos, posts, stories, and all of that.
According to surveys, it is believed that by 2030 about 3/4th of the global workforce will be led by millennials, where undoubtedly social media videos are going to take the front foot in marketing, business, social presence, etc. Personalizing the approach of your business focusing more towards online consumers is perhaps the latest trend embarking upon in social media videos these days.
Connecting with audiences, creating an impression, relating to their life and difficulties through a platform that is most accessed and relied upon is trending. However, whether you want to promote your business, be the next social media star or want to get TikTok followers, what matters is how you present yourself.
Engaging videos create an impact and impression and connect with your audience. Primarily you need to focus on a few strategic decisions before jumping onto making an engaging video like:
- Deciding the video posting platform
- Research about your target audience demographic
- Planning the content of the video
- Choose between short or long videos.
Once you are certain about these, you must learn some tips to make your social media videos engrossing and impactful. Here are five quick pointers to help you make your social media videos value-added and interesting.
- Grasp Attention
- Integrate Text Animation
- Quality Content
- Platform and Video Length
- Quick Tip
- Video CTA
Grasp Attention
Microsoft conducted a study that was published back in 2015 in Time magazine, where it was revealed that human attention span is intriguingly shorter than even a goldfish. Gen Y tends to lose their focus and attention within 8 seconds, and the span tentatively tends to get even shorter with Gen Z. This study plays a pivotal role in planning, designing, and presenting social media videos. Cutting out on the de trop, the first few seconds of your video must essentially nail down the coveted audience with undivided attention and curiosity.
To understand the enigma of implanting curiosity and taking the gear of attention of your audience in your hand, you can check out “Year in Search” short videos launched by Google every year. It controls your blink right away and gains complete attention and drives you to pull yourself through the entire video. You can infiltrate a few essential elements like:
- Captivating introduction.
- Interest articulating cover images.
- Integrate suspense and curiosity in the initial stage.
- Direct and intense titles and captions.
Integrate Text Animation
In a research conducted by MotionCue’s “The Video Marketing Landscape in 2020 – Marketer and Consumer Survey” over 500 consumers and marketers, revealed astounding facts about the overpowering addiction of social media. Moreover, about 80% of people feel they devote over 1/4th of their time to social media platforms watching videos.
It needs to be mentioned that people a significant percentage are watching social media videos in workplaces, public places, and commuting, etc. So, in these cases, they scroll through videos keeping their smartphones silent. Due to this, you need to sharpen your stroke of engaging an audience with content and presentation that is louder even while they are silent.
As the saying goes, “pen is mightier than the sword”. The pen is used to inscribe text, and text is the tool that can grab attention even without whispering. As was done in pamphlets, banners, and posters, use bold, colourful text that is intriguing and enthralling. It must catch the viewers’ attention immediately and create inquisitiveness. Once you catch their attention and interest in the initial few seconds, your video is ought to be played.
Quality Content
Well, capturing the attention of your audience does not essentially mean that the battle is won. The quality and usefulness of the content are equally important when it comes to social media posts or videos. If your content fails to impress, it will go down the scrolling list, neglected and without clicks.
In the case of social media videos, when you aim to get more followers, readers or viewers, the curiosity you invoke initially, must be triggered with an interesting piece of information, keeping the engrossment pulsating, finally concluding with a proposition. It is a kind of mind game, when you have a story that starts with a setup, builds up intense suspense and thrill, and ends with pacified emotions. Here are a few more pointers.
- Content should have something to convey.
- Presentation must gear up interest, feed suspense, and soothe emotions.
- Relate to your audience with realistic stories, problems, solutions, etc.
Platform and Video Length
The trends of the global market, its influences keep changing. According to a study operated and managed by Cisco by the year 2022, the online content globally will be dominated by video content, approximately 82%. Already the global marketing experts have realized the power and influence of social media in business and marketing, which is now perhaps estimated to be ruled by video content in the future.
Right at this juncture what becomes most essential is picking the right social media platform. Each social media platform follows its social video streaming strategies. Therefore, when you intend to design a good and influencing social media video, it is most important to fix upon the platform or platforms you choose.
- Instagram: Take, for example, Instagram, which offered a video of up to one minute. However, digging into the trends on Instagram, it has become evident that audience captivity is stronger with videos around 26 to 30 seconds even while the maximum length is 60 sec.
- Twitter: Twitter stretches the limit for its videos to up to two minutes and 20 seconds. But when it comes to the popularity of videos on Twitter, once again the buzz is created by videos with a length between 20 to 45 seconds. Particularly, it makes sense as people like to engage with crisp and short videos, relaying the message in a short and impactful way.
- Facebook: The most eye-catching trend seen on Facebook over the past few years is the obsessiveness of users to scroll, take a glimpse and move. But at the same time, users have also shown keen interest in long videos. Short videos, on the other hand, still arm for paid posts and organic videos. While Facebook allows 240 minutes duration video, the most engaging ones happen to be the ones within 1 minute. However, the real trick of hitting the bull’s eye on Facebook is getting a hooking introduction for your video to capture the attention within a split second.
- TikTok: Speaking of social media videos, one of the most popular platforms which took the youth in a frenzy, TikTok became a global hit when it was launched in 2016. Short videos of creative and unique content captivated minds and attention through all Android and Apple devices.
Well, as you know, different platforms allow videos of varying time durations. Accordingly, you must determine your video length, editing and offer an apt presentation.
Quick Tip
Social media is a vast space where social media platforms keep experimenting with their styles, video practices, rules, etc. However, one thing that is true for all platforms and industries is to make short and crisp videos with hammering inception, stunning creativity, and nailing-biting ideas and concepts. So, a thought-provoking short video can do the trick. Do follow the pointers below.
- Subtitles to reach out to the global market.
- Animations for your video.
- Create influencer videos with socially recognized figures.
- Market relevant content.
Video CTA
Now last but the most vital point which many brands miss out on is to propose a CTA. The success of your social media video depends a lot on your offering of call-to-action and how you propose it. Even though if you succeed to make an engaging conversation or a story to introduce your services or brand, it becomes pointless when in the end the viewer is left clueless with the action to take.
A CTA should not essentially be sales-driven, but your video content must let the idea flow quite seamlessly as a solution, the best resolution.
Conclusion
Creating impactful social media videos is a skill and involves a comprehensive blend of creativity, marketing tactics, social media understanding, and market research. Well, it is not easy to create dramatic and withholding videos just like that. However, there is no need to worry when you involve skilled and trained professionals to create and market social media videos. You can try your skills and talent with social media videos, but if you are planning it for your new brand or start-up, the best way to hit the market with a buzz is to get professional help.