How To Create A Powerful Short-Video Strategy For Business

Consumers today spend hours every day consuming short-form video content on social media. These 30-60 second videos are taking the content and marketing world by storm.

58% of marketers mention short-form videos as the primary video format they leverage to promote content.

How can brands pivot their content strategy around compelling short-form videos to boost engagement and conversions?

Let’s find out.

What Are Short-Form Videos?

Marketing experts in Hubspot’s Video Marketing Report 2022 state that a short-form video falls within a 60-second duration.

An optimal timeframe, however, would be between 31-60 seconds. These videos work well because of the crisp communication approach that resonates with the audience and keeps them hooked.

6 Benefits Of Short-Form Videos In Marketing

When you compare long-form vs. short-form video content, the latter stands out, thanks to the ability to keep the viewers engaged. Short-form video content precisely caters to the shortening 8-second attention span of viewers.

Here are a few more reasons why short-form video marketing is beneficial for your content strategy:

1. High Engagement

Short-form videos generate high engagement owing to their length. People tend to share it widely and participate in other engagement activities like commenting or reacting.

It is one of the tried-and-tested methods for marketers, which is why the second quarter of 2022 saw 87% impressions for 30-second video ads and 13% for 15-second videos.

2. Easy to Repurpose

What would a movie be like if it didn’t have a good trailer?

Short-form video content strategy for a business can be a trailer, teaser, or even bite-sized informational video, giving the viewer a peek at the longer video. Nowadays, cutting, slicing and re-editing long videos and adjusting their dimensions is straightforward.

You can use these repurposed videos for different networking platforms and effectively reach your target audience.

3. Better SERP Ranking

Short-form videos help your SEO since they retain viewers on your site and keep you higher up on Google’s search results pages.

The Google algorithm gives websites like YouTube greater rankings on search engine results pages (SERPs) based on how much time viewers spend on them.

4. Digestible Format

Consumers don’t have time to watch long videos in a fast-paced world. However, they can squeeze in short videos with content as short as just a few seconds on the go throughout their day. This is an important reason why 15-second video ads saw a completion rate of 85% and creators are highly relying on short-form video trends.

5. Greater Return on Investment (ROI)

Short-form content marketing, if done well, requires only a few seconds to convince a customer about a product or service.

Hubspot’s recent survey in May 2022 found that 39% of marketers noted short-form videos to generate the highest ROI. Such returns are possible because of increased conversions and time spent associated with these videos.

6. Assists in Community Building

User-generated short-form videos enable people to bond over a common area of interest by making or watching videos around it. By doing so, participants bond with the brand and like-minded individuals.

7 Top Short-Form Video Use Cases

Short-form video formats are a great marketing tool only if you know where to use them. Here are the top use cases to consider for making your next short video:

1. User-Generated Content (UGC)

Consumers love user-generated content more than ones generated by brands or influencers. These videos generate a sense of trust and authenticity because they don’t aim to hard-sell to customers.

This is a winning brand strategy for brands because you use minimum resources and only require a minimum budget to publish these videos. The idea behind these videos is to be more conversational and evoke emotions around the product.

This is why we see fun, interactive short-form video platforms like TikTok videos, Instagram stories, Facebook stories, LinkedIn stories grab the maximum audience attention.

For example, one of the iconic short-form video challenges was leveraged by Chipotle in their 2019 #GuacDance Challenge to celebrate National Avocado Day.

 Source: Shortyawards

During its six-day run on TikTok, the campaign generated over 250,000 video uploads with the targeted hashtag. In addition, the offer led to Chipotle’s biggest guacamole day ever, with over 802,000 sides of guacamole served.

2. Behind The Scenes Content

A behind-the-scenes look at your business’s operations is like a sneak peek into your brand’s life. It shows your passion for the goods or services they use and the hard work that goes into making them.

Behind-the-scenes short-form videos are a step towards crisply humanizing your brand, as it shows the people involved and not an inanimate entity.

From key employees to even CEOs can play an active role in such videos as 70% of audiences, in a study by SproutSocial, consumers felt more connected to a brand whose CEO was active on social media platforms.

There are various angles you can take while creating behind-the-scenes videos. A brief tour of your facilities, an explanation of how your production or a team-building activity are some ideas you can try.

Short business videos, for example, businesses can experiment with humorous and relevant blooper reels.

3. Explainer Videos

Explainer videos are educational and informative videos that can help your customers with products, services and other areas where they might need help. These short-form videos can vary from how-to’s, Q&A’s, DIYs, explainers, etc.

A good explainer video can convert decision-makers into customers by focusing on users in the buying cycle’s decision-making phase.

Additionally, brands get a chance to focus on customers’ pain points and offer their products and services as solutions. Adopting explainer short-form video services are also a natural way to highlight the unique selling points of your product.

 

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Soy Yo Candles use short explainer videos to address customers’ common pain points while highlighting their product. 

Soy Yo Candle created this short-form video using this formula. Making candles last must be one of the significant challenges of candle ownership. However, the brand highlighted a problem and provided a fix. Moreover, they leveraged short-form video advertising to showcase their product in seconds.

The fact that this video appeals to both brand-new and seasoned viewers is another impressive feature.

4. Product Demos And How-To’s

Very close to explainer videos, product demos are more product-focused. These short-form videos are handy for products that need assembling, like electronics or water filters.

Customers find it tedious to sit through a long video to follow a demo. There is a high chance they’ll lose interest or even not purchase the product, considering how long it takes to understand its operation. Instead, a short video format helps in solving problems faster.

Source: Groupon’s demo video is an all-in-one package

The product demo video from Groupon is a masterclass in brevity. Groupon describes the function of its product and how to utilize it in just 30 seconds.

In addition to being brief, the video is remarkable due to its simple, uncomplicated design. Viewers can comprehend how to acquire discounts through Groupon with a few icons and screenshots.

Creating a series of product demos and how-to’s allows you to leverage a whole information library that demystifies your products and processes and makes your brand stand out.

5. Teaser Videos

Want your audiences to be excited? Gearing up for something big? Want more engagement on your long-form videos? Enter teasers!

Teasers are short-form videos that give viewers a preview of something coming up, be it a campaign, product or sale. According to Vimeo, teasers span between 3-30 seconds and should be about quality. Hence, leveraging a short video format for a teaser is ideal.

The best part about teasers is the hype they create. However, you also enjoy sufficient time to inform people about the event or product and ensure maximum exposure. During this time, you can get a pulse of audience responses, an essential insight for developing your final event.

Here’s an example of a product launch teaser shared by Baby’s Brew.

Source: Baby’s Brew’s teaser video builds up its upcoming product by offering glimpses.

6. Testimonials

Testimonial videos are a great way to capture customer reviews while creating trust in your larger audiences. These videos include clips about how customers liked the product and why they would recommend it to others.

Now you can have long testimonial videos. However, people tend to lose interest if a person keeps going on about the product. Short-form videos can be concise and concise in conveying the product highlights.

This testimonial video covers the customer’s problem and how the brand solved it, all in 30 seconds.

Source: Testimonial video by fitness brand Seriously Strong Training

The real-life clippings show the customer in action, adding to the authenticity of their services. You also see an emotional narrative that can have a connecting element with the audience.

7. Brand Challenges

Today, brands have the power to leverage their content, hashtags, quirky filters and music and promote them through short-form videos. How?

Brand challenges use one or more of the elements mentioned above to create short videos that customers will have fun watching and remaking their versions of it.

For example, for Mother’s Day, Colgate launched the branded hashtag #MakeMomSmile challenge. The goal was to put a smile on your mother’s or mother figure — a task open for interpretation. The challenge generated a whopping 5.4 billion views.

Source: Hubspot

Getting Started With Short-Form Video Marketing

Here are a few quick tips on how to create a short-video marketing strategy that can help your brand get more engagement and conversions:

1. Identify the intended audience

Your videos need to be audience-specific. You cannot use the Gen Z ‘lingo’ to convince a Gen Y to buy your product. Instead, tailor your content according to the platform and the demographics. For example, TikTok is primarily a Gen Z-driven platform. Hence the content must be customized accordingly.

2. Nail the objective and ensure alignment with brand messaging:

Your video can be all over the place if you don’t have a set objective, such as high engagement, awareness, or high conversion rates. Keeping the goal in mind, try establishing a unique tonality for your brand to stand out.

3. Decide the Video Format

Video formats range from landscape and portrait to understanding specific dimensions for specific platforms. Vertical videos are doing great nowadays as they fit into a mobile’s dimension and are also easy on the eyes.

Brands like Purple Panchi and Foo Tokyo used vertical shoppable short-form videos on their website to attract more engagement and conversions.

Source: Foo Tokyo’s vertical short-form videos improved customer engagement by 5X. 

4. Storyboarding 

Storyboarding is not just for long-form videos. Even for short video content, it is crucial to have every shot sketched or layed out visually. It helps the brand stay on track with the video plan, especially while editing the final draft.

5. Weave in Trends

Trends are the forerunners of short-form videos. When selecting a short-form video platform, consider its trend culture and be careful about your business and target demographic.

For example, the #GuacDance challenge discussed above would never fit in for an electronic brand like Samsung. You must also figure out how to get noticed in this trend-culture.

6. Involve Influencers and Creators

People love hearing from their favorite influencers. For short shoppable videos, you can have influencers try out clothes, share small testimonials about your products, and so on.

This helps you cover their audiences as well and reach a broader mass.

7. Post-production edits, captions, and rendering:

A video is incomplete until the final editing. Try adding subtitles even for short-form videos, and include other essential elements you deem necessary, like a brand logo. Always render the video in high quality, as the audience will lose interest if the video lacks visual appeal.

8. Track metrics:

Track metrics to discover if your videos are achieving your objectives. Include click-throughs, conversions, social sharing, view count, and engagement. Take notes on the outcomes and use them to improve on the upcoming videos.

You can start your short-form video marketing journey by following these easy steps. However, the key to short-form videos is always experimenting and catering to your audience. It gives your brand a unique point of view that customers can differentiate.

The Rise of Video Marketing Solutions

Vertical and short-form videos are just the ingredients brands need to boost engagement and conversion games. Short-form videos take the marketing world by storm and make brands rethink their content strategies.

In order to thrive in the highly competitive market today, brands need to intelligently power short-form video-led campaigns.

Firework helps brands grow with video. Ready to take your business to the next level? Schedule a demo today.