Recently updated: February 19th, 2024
Short-form videos are one of the powerful practices for enhancing and promoting brand engagement in this digital era. Some platforms like Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, and Snapchat are viral for their short video format.
These apps allow online businesses to connect with their audience in a creative and impactful way. It also helps in popularizing trends and allows you to draw the attention of your audience in a fast and fun way.
About 75% of people prefer to watch a short-form video to know more about a product or service. Short-form videos have resulted in higher ROI than other social media strategies.
In this blog, we will explain the importance of short-form videos. We have listed the most important points on how to create effective short-form videos, and what types of content would work best on different platforms.
What are Short-Form Videos?
Short-form video is visual-based content that is almost 60 seconds long. You can make these videos to increase your brand awareness and for different purposes, such as:
- Educating your audience about your products and services
- Entertaining your audience through creative storytelling
- Building trust in your audience through testimonials or case studies
- Engaging your audience with questions or surveys
- Promoting your brand offers and discounts
Short-form videos are ideal for social media platforms, where users have short attention spans and consume content quickly.
Thereost popular platforms for short-form videos:
- TikTok: TikTok is the most popular go-to platform for short-form content. The audience is primarily in the age group range of 10 to 29 years old.
- Instagram Reels: Instagram has 2.35 billion active users monthly. It has a very famous feature called Instagram Reels that allows for 60-second videos set to music.
- YouTube Shorts: YouTube is a very well-known social media platform and it has an interesting feature called YouTube Shorts. This feature is for short video content with a video length of 60 seconds. This will help you attract people of all age groups and interests.
Benefit of Short-Form Videos
Short-form videos provide a medium for users to consume information in a short period. When you successfully create your video, it can help you build brand identity, and awareness, and lead to higher conversions.
Here are some benefits of short-form videos:
Promotes higher engagement
Short-form videos can promote higher engagement with huge targeted audiences, particularly the younger generations who are interested more in all other forms of content.
These short videos are often shared across different social media platforms. If you allow your users to give feedback and comments, then engagement and interaction will become stronger among your brand.
Easy to remember your content
Short-form content is easier to consume and remember and avoid excessive part that adds nothing to the message or theme of the video.
This, in turn, makes it more impactful and memorable for your targeted audience.
Ranks higher in Google search result pages
Your short-form video will be beneficial for your search engine optimization (SEO) by holding up the attention of users for a longer period. This will keep them on the platform, which can lead to higher rankings on search engines.
The Google algorithm works on the statistics of how much time users spend on websites, and positions these higher on search engine results pages (SERP).
Increases e-mail open rates
You can add short-form video content to your email marketing campaign, which will surely increase email open rates. Make sure to include the word “video” in your email subject line to create the best effect on your users.
Increase the visibility of your brand in front of your audience
In this digital era, users experience a declining attention period. Here, short-form videos can consistently fulfill user’s desires and provide the best results for online businesses.
By understanding these abilities and the importance of short-form content, you can move forward in the competition and engage more target audiences.
Creates community
Short-form videos can create a sense of community among all viewers.
For example, YouTubers can encourage viewers to try something new, share their insights, and participate in a competition that will offer giveaways or different trends.
By doing this, participants feel a connection with the brand and think of themselves as a part of the brand’s follower community.
Best Platforms for Short-Form Videos
Various platforms in the market are proving to be beneficial to brands that want to include short-form videos in their digital marketing strategies.
Here are a few best promising platforms that are beneficial for online businesses.
TikTok
TikTok is one of the leading platforms for short-form videos, with over 1 billion monthly active users. This app will allow you to make videos 3 minutes long, with various editing features, effects, sounds, and stickers.
You can use different and innovative hashtags, captions, and challenges to increase your visibility and engagement among everyone. This platform gains popularity very quickly as it gives your followers a dose of entertainment within a short time.
Instagram Reels
Instagram has one famous feature called Reels that lets you create and share short-form videos up to 90 seconds long on Instagram. You can use reels to showcase your brand’s overall features, behind-the-scenes, facts, trends, and so on.
You can also add sound, text, gifs, filters, and effects to make your videos more engaging for users to get attracted.
This feature helps you to promote your products and services faster than other platforms. Instagram’s algorithm is based on what viewers see, what they have already expressed an interest in and the accounts they follow.
YouTube Shorts
YouTube Shorts is a part of YouTube where you can create and watch short-form videos 60 seconds long.
You can use Shorts to share your experience, facts, reviews, and opinions related to any topic that you want to create. You can also provide giveaways for your audience.
YouTube shorts can also be created by adding multiple music, sounds, text, and effects in your video, which makes your video more relatable for your users.
How to Use Short-Form Videos
Short-form videos are very effective in promoting your brand and increasing organic reach for your business.
We have listed some ways that you can use in promoting your brand through short-form videos.
- You can showcase your brand’s features, benefits, and usage through short-form videos. This will help your brand to gain a full understanding of your product.
- You can create case studies or post testimonials from customers to show the valuable and positive results that your brand is offering in the market.
- You can use short-form videos to share valuable tips that are related to your brand. You can also make tutorial videos on how to create videos that can teach your audience about something new or useful that will benefit them in the future.
- You can use short-form videos to be part of trends or challenges that are relevant to your brand. These videos will easily attract audiences and help to engage more target users. You can also create your trends or challenges and invite your target audience to participate in the challenge that you offer.
- You can use short-form videos to collaborate with current influencers who have a large and engaged following across the platform. You can simply ask them to review your products or services and then create sponsored content or co-create content with you.
Best Practices to Promote Short-Form Videos
Be consistent
Always be consistent with your target audience and consider them regularly.
Identify which channels are most popular with customers and buyer interest, and learn what each channel is most likely used for.
This practice will help you determine where you need to work and for whom.
Select the right type of content
Choose the right type of video content that will fit a particular campaign. Identify what will serve your brand with the best result and consider leveraging any of the following successful types of short-form video.
- Brand challenges: Brand video challenges are inspiring, fun, and engaging.
- Customer testimonials: Include social proof and build brand trust using your short-form videos.
- Product or event teasers: Give viewers a preview of upcoming events or products to generate interest and intrigue.
- User-Generated Content (UGC): Share authentic user-generated content as a sales tool.
- Demos and how-to videos: Share product demonstrations, highlighting benefits and features.
- Behind the scenes: To connect more with customers and potential customers, share behind-the-scenes videos.
Be Concise
Conciseness is the key aspect of short-form content. You can talk about simple concepts to avoid losing the interest of viewers and let them know what the benefits of the information have for them.
Select relatable trends
When you are choosing any platform, always determine the trend culture of each and be selective based on your brand and target audience. You can also find a way to stand out and get noticed in the trending cultures of these social media platforms.
Proper alignment with brand and content
While creating a video, you have to make sure that all your videos are aligned with brand guidelines and the right strategy. Do not include things that are not important in your content.
Find a balance between your needs and what is currently trending and stay authentic.
Make high-quality videos
Whenever you make any video for your product and service, you must create high-quality videos. The quality of your video matters a lot when it is short and you only have a few seconds to showcase all the important features of your brand. That’s why production quality matters a lot.
Consider the emotions of the viewers
Create videos that will understand the emotions of your viewers, and they will be more likely to share them with others. Use unique and sympathetic marketing techniques to reach a wider audience and gain new followers.
Know platform specifications
Whether you create short-form videos for one platform or plan to upload them across different platforms, you should know the video specifications on each.
Add innovative captions
Adding interesting and relatable captions in your video can help you reach more people with your message.
Watch viral videos
Do research on what types of videos are successful on each of the platforms. You can learn more about your target audience this way and find ways to fulfill your content requirements more effectively.
Track the metrics of your video
To conclude how successful your videos are, track metrics to determine if they are fulfilling your company goals. These metrics include view count, engagement, sharing, click-through, and conversions.
You can conclude the results from this and create your next videos according to the results.
How to Create Short-Form Videos
Here are some ways to create effective short-form videos that help you boost your brand awareness and engagement.
Know your audience
The main base of your video depends upon which type of audience you are going to target for your video. Before you create any video content, you need to know the important aspects, the interest zones, and what your followers want from you.
This will help you produce your video content according to their needs and preferences.
Define your goal
You need to define clearly what you want to gain with your video content. Do you want to create videos to educate, entertain, or inspire your audiences? Or, do you want to increase your brand awareness or generate leads?
Having a definite goal will help you measure the effectiveness of your video content.
Choose your platform
You have to choose the right platform for your video content, depending on your goal and audience. Every platform has its unique features and algorithms that you need to follow.
For example, TikTok promotes creative and viral content, Instagram Reels favors trendy and aesthetic content, and YouTube Shorts shows more informative and valuable content.
Create your content
Once you choose your desired platform, you need to create your video content with proper alignment and the right process.
Here are some general tips that apply to every platform for making your video effective and impactful.
- Try to keep your video short about 30 seconds long.
- Use a catchy title with an interesting question, a surprising fact, or a compelling statement to hook them in.
- Your video should provide some value to your viewers. Whether it’s information, entertainment, inspiration, or engagement, make sure your video delivers valuable results.
- Your video should show your brand identity and positive values. Use a logo and different colors to make your video that will be memorable for your users.
- You should include a call to action in your video that will end with a clear message. It will tell your users what to do next and when. Your viewers may vary from people who only visit your website to or who have followed your account for a long time.
Conclusion
Today’s short videos are a great way to spread awareness about the brand among consumers. Users love to consume short-form videos as it is short and crisp with all important information.
Video marketing is expanding to more consumers than popular social media platforms. Brands use short-form videos strategically, which help businesses reach more audiences across various social media platforms.
Short-form content videos excel at creating interest, showcasing your brand features, and attracting new consumers when uploaded on platforms such as TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts.
