Techies used to mock people who shot vertical videos on their smartphones because they often looked tiny and amateurish on televisions or computer monitors. Now, as so much of our online usage has shifted to mobile devices, vertical video can be the smartest way to grab attention on social media, with a few caveats.
Why Vertical Videos?
The main reason to use vertical videos in social media marketing is a simple one: It’s how people hold their phones. One oft-cited study confirms what you can see with your own eyes: People hold their smartphones vertically 94 percent of the time. Even larger tablets are used that way nearly half the time. Browsing social media is rapidly becoming a mobile-only activity, with studies showing that more than 80 percent of social media consumption is now done on mobile devices. Vertical videos fill the screen, avoiding distraction and capturing the viewer’s full attention. When confronted with having to turn their phone sideways to watch a horizontal ad, many users simply won’t.
Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter, and other social media sites have optimized their sites to accommodate vertical videos. Snapchat, in particular, focuses stories around vertical video, claiming double the attention rate of other platforms. Other social media sites, including Facebook and Twitter, have stopped putting the distracting black borders around vertical videos. And when people hold their phones vertically, they can effortlessly interact with your videos with one hand, sliding their thumb to like or share clips, which is one of the main goals of social media marketing.
How to Create Effective Vertical Videos
All social media marketing should match the medium and be in the moment, focused around people, and brief enough to keep people from moving on to the next item. Video is no exception.
Consider short, punchy videos such as the behind-the-scenes looks at your business and the people who work there, live-streaming special events, or having your employees or customers talk directly to users. The more your video is like the social media content your audience goes to a site like Facebook or Instagram to see, the better.
Other tips for creating effective vertical video include:
Don’t reformat horizontal video. Editing horizontal video originally created for television or other uses can be done, but the end product is often unwieldy.
Shoot video vertically. In particular, shooting video using the same smartphones they’ll be seen on can convey spontaneity.
Focus on faces. While some video content is a better fit for a horizontal approach, faces are vertical and fill the screen.
Add social features. Most social media platforms all users to add special features, including stickers, animated text, and special effects to their videos. Find ways to take advantage of this interactivity without overdoing it.
Remember, one size or shape doesn’t fit all. While vertical video is ideal for many types of social media marketing, the horizontal format that dates back to the earliest days of movies and television is still in use for a reason. Longer-form videos and those that are not a good fit for quick social sharing should still be shot in landscape mode.
