Want to know a 30 second secret to creating marketing videos that work? The kind of videos that smash your KPI’s and bring in the truly valuable traffic? It’s even more simple than you imagined. All you’ve got to do is learn a handful of tricks our beloved social media channels have been hiding from you. Until now.
Luckily, we’ve got friends on the inside! Turns out each social media channel plays favorites with its preferred size and shape for videos that’ll attract future customers. Get ready for a break down of where your audience is hiding, how mobile-centric they are, and which video dimension will work best to achieve your marketing goals.
Fun fact: Our Ratio tab will make creating videos in every shape and size super simple.
A mobile world means fitting into a format
Before we start to dig into the details, it’s important to understand why the format of your video plays such an important role in how your video performs in terms of reach, total view time, and engagement. This new trend of fitting into a square or vertical format comes from the continuing rise in mobile use. Believe it or not, over 50% of online activity occurs on a mobile device. You may even be reading this on your handheld right now. That means every business today needs to deliver videos considering the mobile viewing experience first, in order to get the best possible results.
The best videos for Facebook
Everyone and we mean everyone, is on Facebook these days. Small businesses and big brands take up real estate right next to your best friend from 3rd grade and grandma on your dad’s side. It’s the best place to catch a large, eclectic, and captivated audience that already watches over 100 million hours of videos on the platform daily–and more than 92% watch those videos on mobile.
To reach and engage this video-loving, on-the-go audience, use square videos. It’s the best dimension for Facebook sincesquare videos take up 78% more screen space on the newsfeed than landscape. People are also 67% more likely to watch the full length of a square video than a horizontal one. Plus, square videos seem to attract more traffic for less money, 7.5% less to be exact. So, if you want to be in a place where over 2 billion people spend their days and save money on your marketing spend at the same time, then creating square videos for Facebook will literally be one of the best choices you can make.
The best videos for Instagram
Instagram values visual storytelling. It’s a place where amateur photogs feel like the pros and where the pros find a larger stage on which to communicate their creativity. It’s also the first of all the most popular social media networks to be truly mobile-centric and requires a square format for your content. Talk about trendsetters!
As one of the world’s most popular social networks, Instagram hosts over 800 million users on a monthly basis, most of which are teens and young Millennials between the ages of 18 to 29 years old. For businesses and brands that appeal to this age group and value beautiful images, high-end graphics, and understand the power of the #hashtag, Instagram is no doubt the place for you.
On the platform, you can create stunning square videos that not only fill an entire screen but invite viewers to engage given the autoplay feature. You can also tap into the power of Instagram Stories with a live vertical video that can have more of a sales approach than the native videos you post on your company’s profile.
The best videos for Twitter
Twitter jumped into the video revolution by focusing on new apps (Vine and Periscope) and making their original platform way more video friendly. So much so, that videos on Twitter are 6X more likely to be retweeted than photos and 3X more likely than GIFs.
Twitter, the home of microblogging, hosts 330 million monthly active users worldwide and, much like Facebook, those users include anyone from Katy Perry and world leaders (like presidents and prime ministers) to your local real estate agent and high school sweetheart. It’s a diverse place to follow major trends, connect directly with influencers and businesses, and stay up to date on current events.
If you’re looking for a great place to get in front of this info-hungry, connection-driven audience, then flex your creative muscles and post either square or vertical videos. You can really experiment here and see what works best for you because 93% of Twitter users watch video from mobile. That means both square and vertical can work well considering they both fit perfectly on mobile screens and make it simple to engage.
The best videos for your website
Video is not only the newest, most popular kid on the social media block, it’s the king of the content marketing throne. Video helps all of your channels see better results and make a significant impact. So, if you have a website, blog, and landing pages (which you should because it’s 2017), adding video is essential. Users spend 88% more time on websites with videos and landing pages with videos can increase your conversions by 80%. Need we say more?
But, when it comes to the right video dimension, there’s actually not one clear winner. It all depends on how much of your traffic comes from mobile. If your web assets are optimized for mobile only, then go with square videos. If your assets are mostly accessed by users on their desktop devices, shoot for landscape videos (and make sure your videos, websites, blogs, and landing pages are at least mobile responsive).
Let the results speak for themselves
When it comes to great marketing videos, it’s all about your audience and video size. With those two pinned down, you can create videos that increase engagement, reach, and conversions dramatically.