Videos have become an important part of digital marketing these days. With more online platforms creating a space for video content, it is a great option for businesses to leverage this medium and gain publicity. Social media videos can do so much more than what traditional marketing could achieve.
Let me back my statement with some statistics. YouTube videos gain more viewers than any cable network from the United States of America. Facebook has reported that over 100 million hours of video content is being watched every single day. Snapchat says they get 10 billion views daily. These are huge numbers that prove that videos can reach millions of viewers.
And it’s time businesses adopted social media marketing, as they are more engaging and prove to create higher conversion rates. But how do you know that your videos are reaching the audience in the right form? With the help of a video production company in the USA, we are here to help you strategize your videos for social media.
Optimise videos for social media | Video production company USA
With millions of videos being uploaded every minute, a good strategy needs to be employed to stand out among the buzz of other social media content. Let’s look at some general rules that you can follow to create an impression, then move on to platform-oriented strategies that work best.
Here’s how you can increase engagement with your audience and gain followers.
Capture your audience’s attention at a glance
There is an interesting fact about browsing on social media. Typically, social media users scroll through their feeds with their phone and the issue with this is that they have a long feed on a small screen. This urges them to scroll faster in order to cover everything and this means that your post will only get a short period of visibility. So, it’s important to catch their attention in that small time period where they see your post. The first three seconds of your video determines if they want to watch the rest. So make it captivating
Give importance to thumbnails
With the help of autoplay, people can watch the first few seconds of your video and decide if they want to watch the rest. But what if this option was disabled? Then the only means to grab their attention would be to have an attractive thumbnail. So choose your thumbnail wisely to engage with your audience better. Many video production agency in Los Angeles provide multiple variations of thumbnails to choose from.
Choose the right aspect ratio
Different platforms prefer different aspect ratios. For example, using a 16:9 would be a suitable aspect ratio for platforms like YouTube but recently vertical videos are on the rise. Since a lot goes on in a feed, social media platforms like Instagram and Snapchat have enabled vertical video viewing mode to allow the users to watch on-the-go without having to rotate their phones. So make sure your videos fit the right aspect ratio to enhance the viewers’ experience. Most video production services in the USA will tailor the videos they create to match the different platform requirements. So all you have to do is let them know which platform you prefer to use it on and they will do the rest.
Sound should not be a necessity to understand your video
Social media platforms offering autoplays don’t accompany sound, so there is a high chance that your video’s sound remains turned off throughout. Research shows that about 85 percent of people don’t turn on the sound. So if your video cannot be understood without sound then the battle is already lost. Therefore, it’s important to create a video that can deliver the message just through eye-catching visuals. You can obviously use the automated captions that these platforms provide for your benefit. Another option is to use kinetic typography in your videos. This form of video uses texts on the screen to relay information. Any video production agency NYC can get your typography video done.
Keep the video short
Research conducted by Wistia shows that the optimum duration for a video that promises higher engagement is 2 minutes or less. When there is a longer video, people are less likely to watch it. So sticking to a 2 minute video duration can help you gain engagement while keeping your video concise and to the point. When you look through any professional video production company’s website, you will see only short videos in their portfolio. This is because they know the power of conveying information succinctly.
Track your video analytics
Tracking your video analytics is essential in understanding your audience. It will help you determine the kind of content that people are interested in. This will allow you to invest in the content that performs well and ditch the ones that don’t. With the help of different analysis, like retention rate and device data, you can tailor your video to gain traction.
Video strategies for different platforms
Now that you have the general idea of what works on social media, let’s dive deeper into how you can optimise the strategies for specific platforms. If you’d like to know more about the process of video creation, then check out one of the best video production company websites like PitchWorx.
Upload a video directly on Facebook (aka native video) rather than sharing the YouTube video link. This can help you gain organic views as the Facebook algorithm favours native videos. Besides, people tend to avoid videos if they have to shift pages. Also give catchy descriptions for your videos and stick to the 2 minute video mark. The description acts like the headlines and if it is highly compelling then it piques the viewers’ interests.
Instagram provides a lot of different video features than you can use for your benefit. They have stories that disappear in 24 hours, which can be used to advertise a limited time deal. Reels that are like vine videos, IGTV where videos can be as long as 15 minutes and Live videos that can be an hour long. IGTV videos are suitable for explainer videos and the Live can be a great way to personally interact with your audience. Instagram videos gain 49% more engagement than static photos so find out which format will enhance your video better and go for it!
For Twitter, native videos that are as short as 6 seconds to as long as 140 seconds work best. Internal data from Twitter states that native videos gain 2.5x replies, 2.8x retweets and 1.8x likes than linked videos.
Snapchat
Snapchat is a mobile-only platform, so using videos that are in portrait mode is the best option to optimise your video.
Conclusion
Social media has grown far from the days where it was just about the photos. And as a business it’s time to harness this new age of social media where videos are all the buzz. So hire a video production company USA to create your very own video that is optimised to suit all your social media platforms.
