Marketers are increasingly using videos to engage audiences on social media. Videos are easy for social media users to consume and they are favoured in algorithms to appear ahead of other content types on your various news feeds.

We’re seeing a greater volume of videos across all social media platforms so it can be quite easy for your video to get lost among the rest. We’ve put together some tips to help you create an engaging and entertaining social media video.

1. Video Length

Video length is crucial on social media. A video that is too short might not convey the full extent of your message, and a video that is too long will bore your audience.

An Animoto survey found that two-thirds of consumers prefer social media videos that are under 60 seconds in length. To maintain your audience’s undivided attention, we recommend a video length of 30-90 seconds.

2. Call-To-Action

What do you want to achieve with your video? Is there a landing page you want consumers to visit? Do you want them to call you?

By using clear, actionable language, your audience will understand exactly what you want them to do by the time the video is over.

Your call-to-action can be as simple as:

  • Find out more
  • Learn more
  • Discover more
  • Call now
  • Shop now
  • Sign up here
  • Register today

You also need to give your audience good reason to take out an action. What is the value proposition? Tell them how taking the action will benefit them.

3. Platform/Device Specs

Each social media platform and each type of device all have different size requirements. Before you film your video, you need to take into consideration what platforms it will appear on and what devices it will be watched on. There is an increasing number of users watching videos on a mobile or tablet, as opposed to a desktop or laptop.

Something to consider when producing your video is whether it will be watched with the sound on or off. Is your user going to be sitting on the train on their way home from work, or are they in the comfort of their home where they can turn up the volume as loud as they please? Subtitles are a great way of dodging this issue. In fact, Facebook reported that captioning a video increases the average watch time by 12%.

A video description will also help the user understand what the video is about and why they should watch. There’s no harm in telling users in your description or post that they should have the sound on while watching.

If you need assistance in producing or managing social media videos, give us a call on 1300 29 77 16.