Tips & Tricks For Creating Eye-Catching Social Media Videos

Social media videos are a great place to showcase your video creation skills. Whether it is YouTube, Facebook, or Instagram, video content has become the hottest marketing strategy. Apart from individuals, if we talk about marketers, 87% of them are highly invested in video content creation. This brings us to a question, what is required to create an amazing and engaging social media video? We have created some effective tips you can use.

Let’s dive in!

How to make a good social media video?

1. Add Quality Content

No matter how beautiful visuals are, if your content is mundane, no one is going to stick around. Social media is filled with a variety of content, and to meet your goals, you always need to drive quality with the type of content you share and post.

There are some tips you can follow for effective and high-quality video content:

I. Storytelling

Remember being read aloud the stories of Cinderella and Snow White? No matter what your age is, you still remember all those stories by heart. Stories are a major part of our nature. Whether it’s a movie, web series, people, or any other thing, we all connect with a story.

So, why not implement it into your videos. Storytelling is a perfect medium to engage with your consumers. No matter how well we know the Cinderella story, we would never miss out on a chance of watching its animated or live-action adaptation running on our screens. To humanely connect with your audience, you need to be a digital storyteller. But for that, you need to have a few answers prepared, such as:

• The hero of your story (product/service).
• The plot (make it nail-biting).
• An easy to understand video throughout (complexity is not a necessity).
• The prompt setting and conflict in the video.

II. Connect Emotionally

Simply being active and publishing regularly isn't enough to establish a connection with your audience. The most successful companies embrace emotional content to stand out from the competition and engage their customers. Produce videos with high-intensity emotions like surprise, bliss, admiration, learning, upskilling, etc.

2. Get Obsessed with Platforms

Slowly and steadily, video has taken over the marketing sector. Today, users have a number of platforms to choose from. Whether it is YouTube or Instagram, video marketing is the spectacular strategy that everyone around the globe is following. From companies to individuals, social media videos are doing an outstanding job, which wasn’t earlier possible with text or images.

Just like your textual content, visual content needs to be tailored. Remember, what works on Instagram can drastically fail on LinkedIn, which is why you need to first understand your social channels, and based on that create your videos. Along with the platform, understanding your audience is a must. Check a few quick tips to be correct with this step.

• Know where your target audience spends more time.
• Select the social media channels that engage your viewers.
• Analyze the right time for posting.
• Lastly, the essential step of making a social media video is knowing where you can post it.

Social media sites, like LinkedIn, are for B2B customers, so your goal should be to understand what time your audience is most active. However, before you start creating a social media video, ask yourself:

• Who is your target audience?
• What kind of videos do they mostly engage with?

If you are targeting a professional audience base, then LinkedIn is your answer, whereas, if you are creating videos for B2C customers, go for Instagram and Facebook.

When it comes to choosing a platform, there are a few things you need to remember:

I. Size of the Video

There is no one perfect size for all videos. However, if the file is too heavy, you will have to compress it, otherwise, it will make the webpage heavy and slow. Each platform has a distinctive aspect ratio, so before you create one you need to know the ideal video size format.

II. Optimize Video before Uploading

The purpose of social media is to generate traffic, so if you do not have an optimized video for each platform, it will not generate the buzz. This includes having a perfect cover shot for the video thumbnail, being mindful of the aspect ratio, maximum duration, size, and captions & keywords!

3. Attention-Grabbing Videos

There is no argument on how short our attention span is, especially when it comes to internet. Creating attention-grabbing content for social media might seem a little like hunting blindfolded. There is a lot of guesswork, it can take a long time, and there is no certainty that you will succeed with every content you post.

The videos act as a storyline that should keep viewers engaged from start to end, if your video lacks that message the viewers can scroll down within a sec. With such a competitive space, engaging viewers is difficult, but not impossible. Remember, a video is a complete journey, you cannot sit and relax by adding one creative liner at the beginning or the end.

So, there are some essential tips you need to follow when it comes to creating attention-grabbing videos.

I. Meaningful over Entertaining

Sometimes, entertainment can overshadow the message you want to deliver. So, you need to have a perfect balance. It's not only about communicating with your customers on social media; it's also about producing relevant and helpful films that encourage customers to convert. Your video should connect with the goals you're attempting to achieve as a brand, whatever those goals may be.

II. Short and Crisp

Short videos are the key to being visible, and TikTok videos have repeatedly proven this statement right. Keep your video limit to 60 seconds as much as possible. As people use social media as an entertainment source, having lengthy videos will not always benefit you. The plus point of short videos is they are easy to create and don't consume much of your data.

III. Don’t Miss Out Long Videos

On the contrary, long videos too have an effect, so you cannot completely rule them out from your social media video strategy. However, this completely varies from platform to platform. If we talk about Facebook, then 90-second videos get more views and shares, and on YouTube, 30-minute to one hour-long video can also work.

Going long is effective only when your content is high-quality and unique. Brands like Chevrolet and Cisco are known for their long-form video content that connects with the audience and intrigues them for purchase.

4. Mobile Optimization

User mobility has tremendously increased, so if your videos are not optimized for mobile view, you are about to lose big in the market. Year by year, video consumption on mobile is rising. A report from eMarketer states out of total video content consumed 75% of videos are viewed on mobile. Instagram is a mobile site, and with 1 billion active users, you can presume how much video content is consumed daily.

On the other hand, Twitter has a 93% of mobile view rate. The world is abruptly moving towards mobile devices, not only videos but also websites need to be mobile-friendly. You never know what medium your audience uses, so having optimized video content will generate the desired traffic.

Now that you know why mobile optimization is necessary, let’s cover the factors needed for optimization.

I. Streamline the Visuals

As mentioned above, size matters a lot. So, you need to ensure that your visuals look great on the small screen too. Remove noise, visual clutter, and any unbearable elements to boost the video’s intellectual capacity. Be bright, bold, and easily viewable (if using text). Also, before you post your video on social channels, make sure to test it on all the screens.

II. Don’t Over Use the Power of Sound

Well, well, sound is a major element of any video, but when it comes to social media, most people watch videos with sound off. Digiday report shows 85% of Facebook videos are viewed without sound. Thus, before uploading, assure that your video is engaging without sound too. You can add persuasive captions, video descriptions, subtitles, etc. to make it accessible for one and all.

5. Persuasive Call to Action

What is the purpose of a video if it doesn’t take you to the desired destination? No matter how interesting the entire storyline is, we all are prone to stick to beginnings and endings. Thus, you need to have a power-packed start and end of your video by keeping the same narrative throughout. People rarely watch the full video, so the first 5 seconds are crucial. 45% of people who watch your video for more than 3 seconds are likely to watch the entire video.

Inspire them, capture their attention, hook them in the first few seconds, otherwise they will jump on to the next offering better. As compared to other types of content, videos have a high engaging rate. Adding inspiring videos with persuasive CTA will increase your conversion rate.

Critical tips for your CTA:

• Understand what your end goal is, and then add a CTA accordingly.
• Include a clear CTA that narrates the next step your viewers should follow.

Creating a compelling CTA requires an understanding of your audience and the brand’s objective. For example, if you want more followers you can add a simple CTA “Follow us for more updates.” This is simple and defines your end goal.

Conclusion

Social media video content is evolving. So, you need to ensure that every video you add, you offer value to your viewers, otherwise, it won’t take much time for them to jump to your competitors.

Follow the above-mentioned tips and be bold and engaging with your video content.