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You don’t have to be a social media expert to know that everyone is consuming video online. As one of the most effortless and engaging mediums on any device, it’s booming in popularity across all ages - tell us you haven’t caught your grandparents watching those cute baby or cat videos on Facebook!
For marketers, video is one of the powerful ways to connect with an audience. For 66% of people video is the number one source of information, spending an average of 6 hours and 48 minutes a week watching videos. While it sounds like advertising through video is a no-brainer, there’s a catch — 2/3 of online users also say they opt to skip video ads (TechJury).
The moral of the story: to take full advantage of the potential video can offer, it all comes down to your strategy. And we’re here to help. Assemble has compiled 9 of the top tips to help you win at social video in 2024, and we’re sharing them with you.
1. Think About Your Audience
Your audience should be the very first consideration when creating any campaign. Their interests, behaviors, pain points, etc. will drive the entire narrative — from language and messaging to aesthetics and subjects. That means also thinking about where they’re likely to consume the video, whether it be on their phones, in an office, on their commute after work, etc. Have your market research department do their due diligence to develop the voice of your customers and make sure it shines through in your video creative.
The key is finding the balance between what you’re selling and what your audience is looking for. You want to draw attention for the right reasons. Let’s say younger demographics are shown to be more engaged with bright colors and quick movements, but for a life insurance company, that way could feel inauthentic. Similar to a high-end, luxury fashion brand trying to capitalize on a popular meme. Stray a little far from your brand image and you better be sure to have a solid strategy to back it up.
2. Know your Specs
It may not come as a shock, but every platform has its own specs. That not only means understanding the basics like Instagram Reels caters to portrait, while LinkedIn videos are landscape, but it also means knowing the exact dimensions of each. If you want to avoid those unattractive black boxes around your videos or the frustrating delays that come from error messages, know your specs.
Similar to the various design specs required of each platform, there are certain distinct display features to consider as well. For example, Facebook will only show a certain number of characters in the preview text before cutting it off with an ellipses. Not to mention, longer posts don’t perform as well (we’ll get to more on that tip later). On Twitter, videos will automatically play on a loop, so consider how the final frame and the first frame will connect to make it a smoother transition.
3. Remember Your Audio
Along those same lines of consideration is audio. The rules are different for each platform here too, so think about how that will affect your video design. If you’re running your campaign on a platform where the audio doesn’t automatically play, how will you make your intro compelling enough without it? Or will you rely on closed captioning?
Again, think about where your audience will be consuming your video as well. If it’s likely they’ll be on a mobile device in a public place, will they even have access to audio? Never assume your audio will carry the narrative — it may cost you.
4. Show It, Don’t Say It
When it comes to your campaign message, let the video do the talking! Users aren’t interested in reading a lengthy caption and watching your video. Their time is valuable. Make the ad copy concise and impactful. Decide on that one thing you want your audience to know, and say that. Create a sense of urgency, excitement, or intrigue that makes them want to learn more. Your copy should be the perfect complement to your video; not take away from it.
5. Keep it Short & Sweet
For the same reason you should keep your copy short, your video should be too: dwindling attention spans. For the average consumer, it’s down to just 8 seconds (Hubspot). That means you shouldn’t expect too much of your audience’s time while they’re scrolling through their favorite social platform. With the exception of YouTube, you won’t find a network that recommends a video any longer than a minute, while Reels, Stories, and Tik Tok videos recommend as short as 7 seconds (up to 15).
In addition to the platform, consider your message. Some content warrants more context than others, so find the balance between what your audience expects, where they are consuming it, and what will truly be the most effective for your objective.
6. Focus on the First 5
That being said — focus on the first 5 seconds! Let’s call this your video’s “elevator pitch.” What does your audience_ need_ to know before anything else? What will keep them watching in an overstimulating newsfeed? Think about the first thing they’ll see and how it can be enough to steal their attention for a little longer. Get creative, but don’t be misleading — unless you can really nail it.
7. Always Have a CTA
Like with most of your marketing initiatives, you need to push your audience to an action — enter the Call-To-Action. Even if your video ad tells a wonderful story about your business to support your brand awareness efforts; what’s next? That high VCR (video completion rate) is pretty meaningless if nothing ever comes from it. A CTA helps you capitalize on the emotions the user is feeling in that moment by directing them to the next step.
The trick here is finding the right balance. Nothing squashes those positive feelings faster than a salesy command. Keep the direction low-key and more conversational, so that it feels less like disruption to their viewing experience.
8. Work with an Expert
No, this isn’t a shameless Assemble sales plug. Most marketers simply aren’t production experts. But that’s one of the reasons production studios exist. They are trained to be well-versed on all the specs, placements, capabilities, and limitations of creating/utilizing videos in social campaigns and can guide you throughout the whole process.
This also comes in big for various video types, like animations. These techniques provide a whole different layer to social video that often significantly reduces production time, resources, and cost, while being just as cool and engaging.
Animation designers collaborate with marketers to bring their strategy or vision to life in the most effective way possible. Many in-house designers are far more accustomed to creating flat assets when it comes to video, so they can miss the opportunity that animations can offer. This is where the animation expert can step in to offer their insight on how to take it to the next level. Want to see some cool examples? Check out our Eye-Catching Animations Tips!
9. Be as Detailed as Possible
Whether you’re outsourcing your production needs or have an in-house team, the more detail you can provide throughout the process, the better. It seems like an obvious statement, but there are a lot of things to consider here. For starters, make use of that brand guide (and if you don’t have one, maybe this is a good excuse to create one). Keeping everyone in the creative process on the same page in terms of color palettes, logos, language, and more is essential to being effective; both in performance and cost.
Even if your vision isn’t concrete, provide competitor examples that you like and you don’t like, the key objectives of the campaign, voice over samples, previous campaigns, etc. If you’re ahead of the game with a storyboard, you can add helpful notes down to the specific scene. At this point, you should know platforms and placements, which means providing all the right working files (i.e., portrait files for an Instagram Story). Successful collaboration is all about being thorough — your designers want to know everything about your brand, so tell them!
If you’re interested in learning more about how you can win on social with next-level video campaigns, Assemble is always here to help. Contact us to chat about your goals for 2024 and beyond today.