Things Your Video Agency Won’t Tell You

Are you currently working with a video production London agency? If you are, it’s a good move considering that video marketing has this year once again come out on top of all the digital marketing tools for both popularity with organisations and its ability to retain consumers’ attention. If you aren’t working with a video agency, it’s definitely the time to consider it!

Did you know that in the UK alone our online consumption has doubled in the past 12 months (BBC)?

What this means for your organisation is that it’s imperative to establish a strong digital presence to place you at the forefront of your industry. Read on to learn 4 secrets to successful social video marketing that your agency won’t tell you:

People’s Attention Spans Are Changing

Probably the hardest challenge when it comes to generating interesting, engaging and relevant video content is the ability to grab your audience's attention.

Our attention spans are dropping. In 2000 research showed that the average human attention span was 12 seconds, in other words- you had a luxurious 12 seconds to gain your customers attention. A similar study was conducted in 2020, and found that the average attention span had decreased to 8 seconds (Griffon Webstudios). In just two decades, our attention span has fallen to one second lower than a goldfish!

What this means for your organisation's video is that the challenge for generating attention-grabbing content is much more difficult not only due to the sheer volume of videos online, but also that you now have less time!

The First 3 Seconds

If you thought 8 seconds was tight for time, research into videos on social media has shown that you might even have as little as 3 seconds to gain your customers attention. Your audience will decide within the first 3-8 seconds of your video whether they will continue watching or keep swiping. In fact, 65% of people that watch the first three seconds of your video will watch it for at least 10 more seconds, and around 45% will watch it for a further 20 seconds (Facebook).

This means it is crucial to ensure that the first few seconds of your video is especially engaging and attention-grabbing. Due to the sheer volume of organisations investing in video marketing, it is imperative to avoid the trap of making your video predictable. Predictability leads to boredom which leads to a loss of attention, and next thing you know your audience are watching a competitors video. Grab your audience's attention with an eye-catching opening shot, try leading with a question or an interesting piece of knowledge to get them invested!

Silent Video

Facebook is one of the social video giants, and should absolutely be used in your social media strategy. Most consumers admit to spending a significant amount of time watching online videos on Facebook, over 85% of consumers claim to watch Facebook videos with their sound off (HubSpot).

A study conducted by The Social Network found that 76% of video adverts require sound to be understood. This poses a significant challenge for organisation’s- how can you make your video highly watchable without sound?

Facebook quickly cottoned onto this trend, and in an attempt to keep the frequency of organisation’s ads and organic video high on the platform, they developed the closed captioning feature for their video. This auto-captioning tool can be automatically added to videos via settings, which Facebook claims boosts the view time on a video by 12%.

Videos Alongside Written Content Perform Best

Keeping up to date with the best video practises is crucial to staying ahead in today’s video climate. Recent trends for 2021 have shown that posting inspiring and engaging video content isn’t enough, posting your video alongside a caption ensures maximum engagement with your audience.

A recent study by InstaPage posted a series of videos both with and without accompanying captions. They found that average video views were lower when not accompanied with a caption, by an average of 4%. However the longer the video, the more the gap widened. Be sure to maximise your video’s engagement by posting videos with a relevant and punchy caption.

Here at Ideal Insight, we're all about providing bespoke and commercially focused video content at affordable prices. Our team of creative experts are passionate about inspiring your audience, monopolising on the latest video marketing trends to generate engaging, attention-grabbing and inspiring video content.