Social video is fast becoming THE content of choice.

 

Video gets more shares, comments, and likes than ANY other type of content.

 

As a result, posting more videos on your company’s social media platforms will get you more visibility and better ranking.

 

Post more videos, get better engagement, rank higher, and get more business on social media.

 

But wait. It’s not that simple.

 

While video yields the best return on investment (ROI) over written content and all forms of content, there’s a teensy tiny catch.

 

It’s not enough that you post video content on your social media pages.

 

If your video is uninteresting, and your audience doesn’t click on it – or, they click and they don’t watch more than a few seconds – then that poor engagement is going to cost you.

 

You can’t just post videos for the sake of posting videos if you want to strengthen your social media presence.

 

In order to be worth your time, your video needs to be engaging.

 

Percent completion is key.

 

According to Buffer Social, if people are “watching 50% of a 30-second video and 50% of a 10-minute video, the 10-minute video will rank better in the News Feed than the 30-second video. That’s because the 10-minute video has to be more engaging than the 30-second video to keep people watching for five minutes (vs 15 seconds).”

 

The most obvious way to be more engaging with social video is to pour on the value. If your video isn’t adding value to your target audience, don’t even bother.

 

Your video needs to be informative, entertaining, inspiring, and/or easy to watch.

 

But aside from that, there are a few tactics you can implement to get better engagement.

 

Here are just a few simple strategies that will improve the engagement of your social media videos…

Get to the point quickly.

Research indicates that audiences online have an attention span of about 7 seconds.

 

Think that’s bad?

 

Get this – goldfish have recorded attention spans of about 8-9 seconds.

 

That’s right.

 

Humans officially have shorter attention spans than goldfish.

 

So what does this mean to you?

 

It means that your audience is going to decide very quickly whether or not if they want to watch your video.

 

And, it means you want to get people’s attention very quickly.

 

You should explain what hot topic you’re covering, or what burning question you’ll be answering as soon as possible.

 

And, it should be abundantly clear why your target audience should want to keep watching.

Offer value before making the ask.

There’s this trend nowadays where video content creators will make an ask – or issue a call-to-action – early on in the video.

 

Like… right after they introduce themselves.

 

They probably do this because statistically, audiences tend to disengage and stop watching social media videos at around the 90-second mark.

 

So, the content creator sneaks in their sales pitch or CTA right at the beginning.

 

I think this is a huge mistake.

 

Sure, you’ll squeeze your advertisement in, but at what cost?

 

You risk turning your audience off and losing them before you’ve barely said a word.

 

And, even if they do sit through your ask, it doesn’t mean they are going to want to comply with your call-to-action.

 

You’re way more likely to get your audience to do what it is you want them to do if you offer value first.

 

By throwing your ask in their faces before you’ve offered any value, you’re assuming they should want to give to you before you’ve given them anything.

 

Furthermore, even if they sit through your pre-emptive strike of a CTA, even if they sit through your content… they are going to forget all about your sales pitch by the time they reach the end of your video.

 

So, you’re just going to have to repeat your CTA again at the end of your video.

 

Why not just leave your call-to-action until the end, after you’ve offered valuable content?

 

You’ll always be more successful getting what you want if you offer value to the other person first.

 

It’s just basic human psychology.

Stick to one topic or answer a single question.

Don’t risk confusing your audience, and losing them entirely, by trying to cover too much information in a single video.

 

Your social media videos should be easy to digest, and the takeaways should be obvious and clear.

 

To keep your message concise and easy to understand, focus on only one topic.

 

Answer only one burning question.

 

Your overall message might have 3 or 5 bullet points, but they should all reference back to the original topic or question you are covering.

Add captions to your video

Most of your social media videos are going to be watched without sound.

 

On Facebook, 85% of videos are watched without audio (Digiday, 2016).

 

If your video makes no sense without audio, you risk losing your audience.

 

You will have far better engagement if you incorporate captions with your video.

 

Facebook and YouTube both have features whereby captions can be enabled at will, or if the viewing device has its audio turned off.

 

You can use a service like Rev.com to easily create a captions file (known as an SRT file) that you can then upload along with your video.

Add text to your video.

Some social media platforms – such as Instagram and LinkedIn – don’t have a feature that allows for captions to show up when necessary.

 

In these cases, your video will show up in someone’s stream and automatically start playing without audio. The viewer will then have to tap the video to get sound.

 

While a video automatically playing without audio is pretty good at making someone stop and take notice, you will get better results by embedding text in your video.

 

You will need a basic editing software to add the text to your video.

 

Incorporate subtitles or a catchy headline that will entice your audience to stop what they’re doing and watch/listen to your video.

 

Posting more videos to your social media platforms is a great way to improve your ranking and visibility. However, your videos need to be engaging in order to make a difference to your social media presence. You can easily get more engagement on your social media videos by getting to the point quickly, offering value before making a call-to-action, and sticking to just one topic per video. You can also add captions and titles to your videos to improve engagement.

 

If you’re ready to take your business blog to the next level, check out my FREE eBook, “How To Blog Like An Entrepreneur” here…