Using Short Form Vertical Video Content In Your Social Media Strategy
We are already adapting our content strategy on social, producing vertical, shorter videos, and we are excited to see how the shorter format performs. TikTok has forced other social media giants to adjust what kind of content appears in their users’ feeds...and that is overwhelming the short-form, vertical videos. Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube are taking a page out of TikToks playbook, creating a place for short-form videos within their respective ecosystems of other social media giants.
You can even use the same short-form video and publish to multiple social media channels easily, making few if any changes to the video. If you have a piece of high-performing, non-vertical, long-form content, repurpose this content into shorter, vertical videos that you can share on all your social media platforms.
Long-form, horizontal music videos are still a significant type of content; but you should also adopt shorter, vertical videos in order to capture strangers’ attention. The short, vertical video is ideal for using for outreach, because the short is brief, grabs attention, and gets to the point. We know by now that using a short vertical video format is an easier way to drive awareness before they even make a move to view the longer video.
Musicians should also begin incorporating vertical short video formats into their marketing plans. The vertical video format is taking over -- and building awareness for your music through Tik Tok and Reels is so important. While there are three possible formats you can use for marketing, vertical videos are rapidly becoming one of the most popular formats.
Recent data shows that video content is one of the most powerful forms of marketing. As noted, informative and entertaining video content is a way of building a brand following. Educational videos are a great piece of added content because they can provide value for viewers as they go about their daily lives.
However, live video content is also the most underused kind of marketing content businesses are pushing. With so many options these days for short-form video, there is very little reason to not embrace it.
As YouTube continues to grow as a video content destination, YouTube hosts everything from short-form promo videos to feature films and featurettes. In addition to usage, YouTube has also added YouTube Shorts, a new short-form video experience directly within YouTube for creators and artists looking to make short, engaging videos using nothing more than a mobile phone.
Marketers and social platforms are finding that while long-form videos are not going anywhere, consumers cannot seem to get enough of the shorter-form videos. While you may get away with videos if two or five minutes, you are not going to have the same level of success with shorter videos capturing passive scrollers attention. It is worth noting that most of all videos (60%) are under two minutes.
Under two minutes seems to be an optimal length for videos, which get the highest levels of engagement. At the shorter end of the spectrum are the videos from TikTok, ranging from 15 seconds to a full 3 minutes.
YouTubes horizontal videos favour longer viewing times, and videos of up to ten minutes work particularly well. One key characteristic to note if you are looking to repurpose video content between platforms is that videos uploaded from a different source of files, as opposed to recorded in TikTok, may last longer than 60 seconds.
When used in the right platforms and shown to the right users at the right times, vertical videos are consistently more effective than horizontal ones. Alongside the popularity of smartphones, vertical videos became increasingly popular, so much so that they are now superior in every possible way over horizontal ones.
All these platforms let you upload a short form video as a perpetual post, with only Instagram restricting you to a one-minute duration (unless you are trying to publish to IGTV), and Twitter restricting you literally to a defined short-form video max of 2 minutes, 20 seconds. A lot of these short videos are this way, because if a photo is worth a thousand words, then a few seconds of video is worth ten thousand. If pictures are worth a thousand words, videos should be worth millions.
So, if an agency is going to further target the people that saw that short video with the longer-form video and convince them to go on YouTube and watch the music video then they’ll try sharing a shorter, vertically-oriented teaser on social media, linking to the full version somewhere else. We would always recommend sharing more than one teaser clip of longer videos, if possible.
In fact, shorter videos are becoming crucial if you are looking to engage younger consumers. With music and shorter form videos playing a critical role, marketers need to embrace these as a narrative element for their videos.
Since the main social media platforms and short-video platforms share a similar type of ad or template, you can develop a strategy that works across them.
Useful Links:
https://www.yansmedia.com/blog/vertical-video-statistics
https://blog.rkdgroup.com/the-beginners-guide-to-short-form-vertical-video-content-for-nonprofits
https://grin.co/blog/short-form-video-ideas-for-social-media/
https://nealschaffer.com/short-form-video/
https://www.colormatics.com/article/best-short-form-video-production-trends/
https://sproutsocial.com/insights/social-media-video-specs-guide/
https://repurposehouse.com/why-vertical-video-is-a-must-social-media-strategy/
https://www.kubbco.com/10-tips-to-boost-your-social-media-content-strategy-for-vertical-video/