How to Optimize Your Marketing Video for Social News Feeds

Are you doing everything you can to get the most out of your marketing video? Are you optimizing for social media? If you’re not taking the appropriate steps or you simply don’t know how to optimize your marketing video for social news feeds, you could be missing out on organic traffic, social likes and shares.

Video content represents a powerful tool for connecting various audiences via social media feeds. Done right, it offers an efficient method of communication between your business and potential customers. However, although millions of visitors engage with video on social platforms each and everyday, if you’re just recording a video and throwing it on your Facebook page or Twitter, are you sure you’re getting the best results?

We want to make sure you’re leveraging social strategy to get the most from the competitive time that your potential customers are spending on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and other social feeds. Getting your content into your user’s feed, and viewed is one battle. Getting the audience to share, like, and generally accept the video is another.

Optimizing video for the audience ensures that social feeds represent your brand. You begin video optimization when you least expect it–in the very beginning of the creation, when the video concept is just starting to come to light.

Keep Auto-Mute in Mind

Most platforms today automatically mute social videos until the user manually adjusts his or her volume setting to hear what is taking place in the feed. Often times, the user will not adjust the volume and, if your video is not created with auto-mute in mind, this means the valuable information that you are providing goes unheard.

Consider all the ways that you can get your audience to stop, adjust the volume, and actually pay attention to what you have to offer. In adapting video for auto-mute, consider optimizing in the following ways:

• Show a title card during the first several frames of the video. Help the audience to know exactly what kind of words will be heard when they unmute the video.
• Include strong captivating visuals that intrigue your viewer and make them feel compelled to turn the volume up so that they can hear what is going on.
• Provide visitors something, some tidbit of information, that they cannot possibly scroll past without hearing.

Likewise, knowing that there is the potential for someone on the social feed to watch the entire video without any volume, you should optimize for this as well. Include motion graphics that help to build a narrative that makes sense and continues to deliver a compelling video message, even with a lack of volume.

Keep it Simple

Your message must be simple and to the point. Social feeds are full of content these days and you only have seconds to capture the interest of your audience. Once you’ve done so, don’t waste their time with unnecessary details. Keep the video simple and make sure your message is clear.

A well optimized video will include a single, strategic story, that progresses smoothly from one concept to the next without becoming overwhelming. Remember, you are battling things like a short attention span of the user, a lack of time to stay on social, interruptions, competition, and all sorts of other forms of branded content that are constantly coming up on the visitor’s feed in social media.

A simple, well planned message often makes all the difference in whether the message is shared over and over, or lost for good in the social abyss. Don’t forget to include a simple call-to-action to ensure your visitor performs the action you crave.

Optimize Video Format

Video formats come in various options. What’s best for social may not be ideal for the big screen. Landscape videos provide the ability to utilize more space to tell the story, but 1:1 video takes up 78% more real estate on the mobile newsfeed. For social media, 1:1 video almost always outperforms landscape videos.

There is nothing wrong with creating a landscape video, but it may not be ideal for your social feed. Consider the optimization options available to create short, energetic videos that maximize real estate in the social feed–this is how your brand will get maximum exposure and these videos are more likely than landscape videos to be liked and shared along the way.

If you’re using Instagram, consider the vertical video option to bring life to the Stories feature of your page. Bypass the traditional news feed and reach your most worthy viewers in the “Stories.” Optimizing for this key area of social real estate requires a short video of 10 seconds or less so be sure you’ve taken the above steps to keep the message simple. Vertical videos are an extremely valuable, 24 hour investment that remains active in social feeds and can later be archived as your “memories” for later viewing within the app.

Now that you know how to optimize your marketing video for social news feeds, what are some steps you are going to take to improve your feed?