[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Social media platforms are full of content; threads, text posts, polls, static images, and more, making it even more challenging for marketers to set their posts apart. In this case, you need more than an appealing type of content to grab users’ attention and make your posts stand out. You need compelling visual content that can make them stop scrolling and click on your content.
That’s where social videos come on the scene.
Whether it’s explainer videos or how-to videos, these engaging content are more appealing for audiences than text posts or static images, and they provide a new way to deliver your message quickly.
You can also say that video marketing is essential in the current age of social media because it’s simple, easy-to-produce content that will capture peoples’ attention quicker than any other type of post on social media
That said, if you want to increase their engagement and conversion rates, you must be able to strategically plan and create videos that captivate the viewer’s attention. In this article, we’ll break down some best practices you can use to create “thumb-stopping” social videos for your business.
Keep It Short and Concise
Short videos perform better on social media platforms. Remember, social media users have short attention spans. You need to capture their attention within the first few seconds of your video.
Keep videos between one minute and two minutes in length, or shorter if you can’t come up with a clear message within that time frame. It’s important to know what you want people to take away from the video before creating it so the content matches this goal.
Elicit Emotions
Viral social videos are ones that elicit emotions — evoking genuine emotional reactions from viewers. This can be achieved by including a compelling story, interesting facts, or something surprising. It’s important to make the viewers feel something; happy, joy, motivated, inspired, even sad.
For example, in a video about doggy daycare, it’s not enough to talk about the great amenities for pet owners; you also need to show scenes of joy from pups who are playing happily together with their friends and families.
That might seem like a no-brainer, but those emotion-evoking scenes can affect how viewers would react to your social videos.
Make the Videos Mobile-Friendly
Do you know that 99% or 3.92 billion social media users access networks using a mobile device? These staggering numbers just show how “mobile” social media platforms are.
One thing is clear now: you need to make your social videos accessible for mobile users to expand your reach. Make sure you add captions, make your points short, consider the file size, and use relevant hashtags.
Create Engaging Thumbnails
Thumbnails are the first thing social media users see when they find your video on their feeds. It’s safe to say that they’re a bid deciding factor whether they’ll view your video or not.
The best way to create a great thumbnail is by making it visually appealing and capturing the essence of what you’re trying to say in one image. This will also help them relate more with your content in a glance and tempt them to click on the video and watch it all the way through.
You can use thumbnail makers like Canva, Adobe Spark, Crello, Visme, etc., to make more visually appealing thumbnails.
Choose the Right Social Media Platforms
You might think that posting your social videos on all social media platforms will give you a higher chance to boost your videos. In fact, doing so will only cause you a lot of confusion since it would be more challenging to track and monitor the video performance on each platform.
No social media platforms are created the same. Each of them has different demographics, users’ behavior, and more. The key here is to understand where your target audience hangs out and host your social videos there.
For instance, if you aim to target younger crowds using videos, Instagram or YouTube can be an ideal place. If you create more formal social videos for professionals, then no platform is better than LinkedIn.
Final Thoughts
Videos have now become a go-to type of social media content for marketers to attract more potential customers and engage them. From Facebook to LinkedIn, marketers make sure they have thought-provoking videos to make their posts stand out among the rest and deliver their brand messages faster. With those five best practices mentioned above, you can create videos that will attract social media users and generate more leads — which can lead to more sales for your business.
Author
Andre Oentoro is the founder of Breadnbeyond, an award-winning explainer video company. He helps businesses increase conversion rates, close more sales, and get positive ROI from explainer videos (in that order).
Twitter: @breadnbeyond
Email: andre@breadnbeyond.com
LinkedIn: Andre Oentoro[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
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