Step by Step Guide to Make Engaging Videos for Social Media
If you scroll through the feed of any social media platform, you will realize that most of the content out there is video. Not just that, you will realize that the most engaging content is also video. It becomes necessary to find the right agency for social media management and for consulting on the right video content to produce.
But what if you can’t afford to hire an agency’s services? You might have to work on your video creation and social media strategies on your own.
Besides that, not every video drives engagement. Creating engaging videos needs skill and focus. This article will give you step-by-step guidance on creating videos on social media that will get noticed:
#1 Understand the Social Media space
While planning the topic of the video, be aware that the attention span of social media users is very short. This is because the scroll rate of the feed is very high. It makes the video content space very competitive.
Your video needs to capture the audience’s attention during the first few seconds to achieve a high engagement rate.
List down all the ideas to make a video relatable to users on social media. To make it stand out, think of ideas to add emotion. Emotions can include happiness, calmness, anger, humor, and sadness.
#2 Ideate to Make the Video Relatable
Social media users gravitate towards user-generated content more than professionally created material. Even if your company can afford it, creating a powerful professional video may not work, although you expect it to succeed on these platforms.
Many popular creators don’t even depend on social media management but create and manage their content. Take advantage of this behaviour and create content that meets these criteria.
Another thing to keep in mind is to create content that has a high chance of being shared. Make some basic analysis of most shared video content on social media. It will give you a starting point to experiment with this aspect.
#3 Plan the Production to Include Trends
Social media platforms heavily depend on artificial intelligence (AI) programs to determine what videos to direct to each user. They observe the scrolling pattern, where the viewer pauses in videos, and videos where the user takes action.
You can use these patterns to determine videos that a viewer may like.
Keeping this in mind, it is not difficult to guess that trending videos get the most views. Marketing is all about showing the brand message where there are most views. Make videos on topics and themes that are trending for maximum engagement.
#4 Record with Good Equipment
Gone are the days when good equipment for producing a video meant state-of-the-art cameras and lenses. Though professional video camera gear makes a huge difference, you can now record using your smartphone camera too.
Always use an external microphone, especially while recording with a phone. A smartphone’s microphone does not have the same kind of audio quality that an external mic has.
There is usually significant editing work that needs to be done to put a sharp video in place for social media. Tools like movie maker online software make it easy for beginners to create incredible videos.
#5 Add Subtitles
Platforms like Facebook auto-play videos as users scroll through their feed. While autoplay is turned on without checking the user’s preference, the sound is off by default. Unless the user turns on the sound, the videos in the feed continue to play in “mute” mode.
The best way to improve engagement in this situation is to make videos with subtitles and captions. Many social media platforms give an option of adding subtitles using their AI systems. However, if you want the subtitles to be accurate and relevant, always add them as part of your video production.
#6 Publish Your Videos on all Leading Social Media Sites
There are millions of videos that vie for a few seconds of a viewer’s time. To win in such a situation, you need to have the right content and format for your videos. Below are a few social media platforms and the common formats they support:
For optimal engagement, upload the video on Facebook directly instead of adding a link to the video hosted on a different site. Videos that are uploaded directly into the Facebook service buffer faster. Facebook can also share some powerful analytics about the videos you post.
Keep the videos to a maximum of 30 seconds for Instagram. Shorter videos of 15 seconds also perform well on this platform. If using text or subtitles, make sure to position them closer to the centre. Instagram uses the space at the bottom for displaying meta-information about the video.
Instagram videos loop. When creating very short videos, this looping can be smartly used to make the user view the video more than once. Well-made looping videos double the engagement from users.
YouTube
As the largest video platform in the world, YouTube enjoys maximum popularity on the Internet. Long-form videos work better on YouTube as the monetization features are better suited for this format.
The optimal length of a video made for YouTube should be at least five minutes, although much longer videos also do well. YouTube provides one of the most comprehensive sets of tools to edit and upload videos. Use these to make your videos engaging for your target audience.
LinkedIn is fast gaining popularity as a video hosting platform. Like all social media platforms, LinkedIn sees some of the highest engagement rates on video formats. When creating videos for LinkedIn, ensure that the videos are created vertically and cater to a more formal audience in a corporate setup.
#7 Share and Promote the Video
Once the video is produced and published, you move to the next stage of getting as many views as possible. Getting views needs you to be active on the social media platform and actively promote through stories, live videos, Reels, etc.
During the sharing and promotion stage, aim to improve engagement with your audience. Higher engagement will increase the chance of your audience sharing your content with their followers. This will accelerate the broadcast of your video faster.
Conclusion
Making social media videos is easy and fun. To make the videos engaging on social media, you need to be on your toes as a content creator. Understanding the latest trends, music, and topics will help you make relatable content for your audience. Whatever the strategy, keep a close eye on engagement analytics and keep tweaking the content for the most return on investment (ROI). If you don’t want to do all the work yourself, you can find the right YouTube and Facebook marketing agency to handle your content.
