Social media is a battleground between a host of companies trying to catch the attention of potential customers. Between cat videos, news updates, and posts from users’ friends, it’s not easy to engage with social media users on these platforms. However, with video traffic predicted to represent 80% of online traffic by 2019, the use of a compelling social media short represents an opportunity to catch the eye of social media users in a way that no other content can. That being said, creating a successful social media short is easier said than done. We’ve put together a list of some of the key elements of an effective social media short.
Length
A social media short is meant to be just that: short. For a variety of reasons, limiting the runtime of your social media content yields benefits. For starters, your audience only has a limited amount of time and attention for any content of any type that they come across on social media. If you take too long to get around to the message behind your video, you risk losing your audience. Not only does this represent the loss of those users who don’t watch the video long enough to be exposed to your message, it also teaches social media networks like Facebook that the content is not interesting, in turn demoting your video in the feeds of that user and any others like her.
Limiting the length of your social media short is not easy. US President once stated: “If I am to speak ten minutes, I need a week for preparation; if fifteen minutes, three days; if half an hour, two days; if an hour, I am ready now.” This principle applies more to video content, where you often have to jam in engaging visuals, informative graphics, and a complementary audio track. However, a useful rule of thumb is to cap your social media short at no more than 2:30, and to keep the runtime under 2 minutes if possible.
Audio
You may have noticed recently that all of your Facebook videos start to play silently as soon as you see them in your news feed. This function offers immense benefits to social media marketers, who get to expose users to more than just a freeze frame of their video before they click to see more. However, this also presents a notable challenge in that users don’t have to click through to the video to watch the content. This means that many viewers of your social media short will never hear the audio track.
With Facebook being the dominant social media platform, (to the tune of 1.94 billion users) it’s likely at the center of your social media strategy, and so is this challenge of audio. To address this challenge, it is imperative that your social media short not depend on voice over or music to convey your message. A simple music track that helps to complement the tone of your message strikes a balance where your audio track complements the message without being integral to the video and the perceived meaning for the audience.
Shareability
Ultimately, a social media short is most successful when users watch the video, and think it would be interesting and useful to share with one or more of their connections. This is the essence of virality. Even if your target audience is very narrow, and your goal is to reach a focused group of users, your video must be shareable in order to take advantage of the structure of social networks and spread among that target audience.
That being said, there is no clear element that renders a video shareable or unshareable. If there was, everything (and thus, nothing) would be worth sharing. However, engaging visuals, a powerful message, and emotion are all elements that exist in the majority of social media shorts. On the other hand, it’s important to avoid any upsetting images, offensive language, or political opinions in your content because the presence of these will often render your social media short unfit to broadcast to a wide audience. Ultimately, when you are crafting your social media short to be shareable, you must ask yourself two questions:
- Is this content appropriate for my target audience to publicly endorse by sharing it with their friends and colleagues?
- Will this content make my target audience think of someone else? (i.e. a family member, close friend, or coworker)
Making sure the answer to both of these questions is yes can help to fuel the success of your social media short, and ensure it reaches the whole of your target audience.
Seen any awesome social media shorts lately? Share them here in the comments section below!
