Introduction
With 86% of online advertisers employing social media videos in their marketing campaigns today, these films are still breaking new ground. On the one hand, this tendency aids customers in comprehending the goods and services offered by the company. On the other hand, it aids businesses in boosting sales, following growth, and traffic to their social media accounts.
Additionally, videos increase social interaction by strengthening relationships between businesses and their clients, fostering brand loyalty, enhancing lead generation, and inciting pertinent dialogues.
How recently have you used social media to watch videos?
On social media, especially on mobile, videos are becoming more and more popular. People now spend four times as much time per day watching Facebook Live and eighty percent more time per day watching Instagram videos than they did a year ago. Facebook advises producing 15-second videos if you want to make interesting social media content.
Sound simpler? But where do you even begin?
You’ll find detailed instructions on how to make quick social media videos in this manual, which can be anything from a few seconds to a few minutes long. Several tools and examples have also been provided to aid in your beginning.
How to make engaging social media videos
More difficult than writing a blog article or developing a picture can be making a video. But it’s not as challenging as you might have thought. Here’s how you may quickly and easily make engaging short social media videos:
1. Conceive
To come up with concepts for your videos, start by brainstorming. Here are three easy methods for coming up with tons of ideas:
View your most popular blog entries:
If you create a blog like ours, you’ll probably have a ton of great content ideas. The blog pieces that connect with your readers will definitely make excellent video content.
To locate your most popular posts, use Google Analytics. View all pages by going to Behavior > Site Content. You ought to see something similar to this:
Top posts in Google Analytics
Increase the date range to a month in the upper-right corner. A month or a year is acceptable as well.
Google Analytics: Period
Change the number of rows displayed to 100 by scrolling to the bottom of the page.
Rows in Google Analytics
Voilà! You now have a list of the top 100 blog entries from the previous month (quarter) or year (year) as well as a ton of ideas for your video’s content.
Look into the most popular content.
Your most popular blog pieces may not always receive the most shares. However, they aren’t always. You can discover your most popular content by using a program like Buzzsumo. Additionally, you may locate the most popular information on any subject!
Enter your blog URL on Buzzsumo to see which blog entries have received the most shares.
You’ll receive a list of your most popular blog entries, arranged according to the number of shares.
Buzzsumo: The most popular
The results could also be sorted according to the major social media networks. You can sort the list by Facebook engagements, for instance, if you want to make a Facebook video. You now have a list of the blog entries on Facebook that received the most shares, likes, and comments.
View well-liked videos from related companies
Finally, you may browse social media to see what themes are trending right now. You may quickly view the most popular posts from your favorite or related Facebook Pages with the help of Facebook’s Pages to Watch feature.
Go to your Facebook Page > Insights to see Pages to Watch. The section is located at the very bottom of the Overview tab.
The top postings for the week are displayed when you click on any of the Pages. You should have some ideas for video content from the postings. It will be great to keep an eye out for posts with videos in particular.
To find the most popular tweets from any Twitter account, use Social Bearing. You could try using the plan for Instagram.
2. Plan
You can begin preparing for it once you’ve gathered your content ideas and chosen one to focus on.
I like to either write a script or make a storyboard while planning a video. Both urged me to consider the video’s overall structure and key ideas. A storyboard also aids in my ability to picture a shot, which will be helpful when the recording comes around.
Here are some planning suggestions from Facebook for making successful videos:
Grab attention early:
Videos on most social media platforms auto-play to grab users’ attention right away. You have a better chance of stopping a viewer when she scrolls through her feed if you grab her attention in the opening few seconds of your video. Facebook suggests creating compelling post copy, starting with your most enticing components, and adding your brand message and identity early.
Keep it simple when you speak:
The question “What is the most crucial message I need to express in this video?” is one that Facebook invites you to ask yourself.
Design for silent viewing:
According to Facebook, mobile video viewing occurs everywhere—at home, at work, on the bus, etc.3 They frequently wouldn’t want the sound, which is possibly why mobile videos are made to play silently. 85 percent of Facebook videos are played without sound, according to Digiday4. Incorporate captions or text to visually tell your tale.
Try other sizes:
More than 50% of videos are now viewed on mobile devices5. Additionally, when the phone is held vertically, square and vertical films occupy more screen area than landscape videos. In our tests, we discovered that square videos on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter fared better than landscape videos in terms of average engagement and views.
We hope the information in our subsequent post has answered any questions you may have concerning the video specifications of all the main social media platforms, including the maximum length and default audio status.
3. Record
Now, the fun part — recording!
With just a few basic tools and techniques, you can produce interesting, high-quality videos thanks to technological advancements (hello, cellphones!). Here are a few ideas we have:
Utilize a smartphone:
To get started, you don’t need any expensive video equipment. Your smartphone—one of the most effective video tools—is conveniently located in your pocket. Today’s smartphones can generally record videos with excellent visual and audio quality. You may also find a ton of mobile video editing apps, which we’ll cover more about in this piece.
Use a tripod to stabilize your phone so that the video seems more professional:
Tripods are commonly accessible and reasonably priced on Amazon. For instance, a 50-inch lightweight tripod costs $13 while a tiny tripod for phones is around $11.
Speak into a microphone:
It’s preferable to record your video in a quiet area. For around $20, you can get a lavalier microphone to further enhance the sound quality. Simply connect it to your phone and press record.
Find decent lighting:
One of the greatest lighting options for your videos is natural light. If you can’t find that, lighting also works well. Make sure to face the light source when capturing your video so that the light covers your face equally.
This “Lighting on the Fly” instruction from Wistia is fantastic if you prefer a more complex lighting setup
Find or make a background for your video:
Find a nice background for your video to finish. A plain-colored background is a wonderful choice since it helps viewers concentrate on you and keeps them from getting sidetracked by background activity.
You could make your background if you are unable to find an appropriate one. You may put a sizable foam board behind you that you get from Amazon or a stationery shop. Alternatively, if you are recording a small physical item, you may construct your lightbox.
4. Edit
Well done on the video snippets you’ve captured! Let’s combine them right away.
Here are some of our preferred video editing programs:
Animoto
We adore using Animoto to make video slideshows. It enables us to quickly put together video snippets, stock footage, images, and text to produce succinct entertaining videos. In just a few clicks, music can also be added to the video. Brian Peters discovered 13 excellent backgrounds for additional music options. Other tools like Animoto: Adobe Spark Video, Promo, and Wave.
5. Share
You’re now prepared to share your video!
While there are various ways to distribute your films on social media, we believe using Buffer’s Tailored Posts would work best for you.
You may effortlessly schedule or upload various movies to each of your social media profiles with Tailored Posts. simultaneously, from a single location. Additionally, videos will be directly posted to social media channels.
I am aware that initially, making videos can seem a little frightening. I was also filled with inquiries. What information ought to include in the video? How much time should pass? What kind of music ought I to play?
I hope you get some inspiration and learn the solutions to your questions from these suggestions and brief social media video samples.
