If you are using social media to market your company (which you should be), it is wise to tailor your videos to make the most of the strengths and quirks of each channel. Here are a few things you should know.
YouTube
YouTube is by far the biggest video sharing site in the internet, with an estimated 300 hours of video content being uploaded every minute. There are “channels” on YouTube with over 50 million subscribers, and viewing audiences TV networks would kill for.
If you want to take full advantage of this, you need to know a few tricks that will increase your viewership. The first thing to understand is that if a viewer isn’t interested in the first few seconds of a video, they won’t bother watching the rest. so you need to start off with the hook of your video right away.
This doesn’t just mean the first few seconds of your video, this means everything from thumbnails, video description, metadata and playlists all have to be managed and tailored to fit your business. If the viewer likes the first video they see from you, and you haven’t set up a playlist to AutoPlay another video from you, you have just lost a viewer. So make the most of Youtube’s features to make sure your video is getting the views it deserves.
Facebook has emerged from a simple site for university students to a global media behemoth. Facebook has slowly introduced more video into news feeds, but this however means that you have about one second to hook in a viewer before they scroll on to something else.
Firstly you must consider that Facebook videos, by default play on mute, the user has to actively unmute it. So videos that have bold titles, subtitles will perform better on Facebook. As with YouTube, you need to select an appropriate custom thumbnail that will give the viewer a fair idea of why the video is about.
So the key adjustments to make to your video for the Facebook audience is to make sure you can still get your point across without sound, make captions available and keep it short.
Instagram began its life as a photo sharing app for smartphones but has now spread into short videos. As with Facebook, Instagram videos will Autoplay as the user scrolls down, giving you that brief seconds to capture their attention. Instagram originally had a 15 second limit to it’s video length, but this was recently extended to 60 seconds. However, we would recommend staying closer to the original 15 second limit as shorter is usually better at keeping eyeballs on your video. Instagram is primarily a smartphone app, so in your videos make sure that text is large enough to read on a small screen and close-ups will work better if you are filming a presenter.
Twitter itself can play videos natively, but often it relies on links to YouTube or other full-time video hosting services. As with Facebook and Instagram, Twitter also plays videos silently unless viewers choose to unmute. Large, easily readable text is again a key to getting attention, as is having an option to have a video in a vertical orientation, as the majority of twitter users will be on a smartphone. Twitter videos can be up to 140 seconds long, although as is the case with all social media videos, the shorter the better.
Social Media Customisation
When planning a social media campaign with video, it is really worth making several versions uniquely tailored to each social media platform’s strengths and weaknesses, and being aware of the limitations. Each have their own demographics as well, so the content might be tweaked slightly for each different video.
If you are looking to improve your video skills for social media, get in touch with Dream Engine today.
Ryan Spanger is one of Melbourne’s most respected and sought-after video production professionals. Ryan founded Dream Engine in 2002, and specialises in helping medium to large corporates, government departments, and the non-profit sector to connect with their audience more effectively by using video.
