iazam

Lets talk tactics; did you know that according to Adobe mobile video consumption has gone up by 233% since 2013? How about the fact the video consumption on mobile has overtaken desktop as of Q4 2016? That 80% of people watch Facebook videos without sound? These are just a few examples of information that helps us to make better decisions. Its a moving target but if you want your video content to perform its clearly better to be informed. Which brings us neatly to subject of video format. Specifically which format of video is best when posting on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. As consumption of video on social is predicated by its ability to stand out on social feeds its long been suspected that larger square videos (1:1) perform better than smaller landscape video (16:9). In actual fact square video is a massive 78% larger than landscape and its this piece of information that led to the good people at Buffer and Animoto to partner up and run a series of experiments to try and settle the debate around best practice video format. The Experiment In total Buffer created 80 videos using 4 formats (1:1, 1:1 letterbox no text, 1:1 letterbox with text, and 16:9 landscape), spent $1500 A/B split testing them across Facebook and Instagram and organically across Twitter. In order to get as close as possible to a standardised testing environment only the Buffer social media accounts were used for posting. The Questions Its a comprehensive, well research and fascinating piece of work that answers the following questions; Which format performs best overall? Does format impact the cost of advertising? Does the device (desktop or mobile) impact performance? Does the social network make a difference? How do ‘talking head’ videos compare to ‘text only’? Are the ‘first 3 seconds’ significant? Do longer videos suffer from drop off rates? The results are not exactly what you might expect.

Does your agency know that in 2017 83% of businesses will be spending more money on social video content? That's right! 83%! Of that 83%, 28% intend to spend more money on YouTube, 31% on Facebook video and 22% on Snapchat. Its as clear as day; video storytelling is a huge opportunity for agencies to add value to their clients in an increasingly competitive industry.

Snapchat. Where do we begin? Well let’s assume you've tried it. You have tried it haven't you? You thought 'what the hell is this?' Its too complicated right! And you gave up. Well I'm going to try and change your mind. Why? Because its currently the fastest growing social media platform that already boasts 150 million daily active users and billions of monthly video views. According to a recent industry report 22% of marketers have stated they're going to spend more resource on Snapchat 2017. It is clearly already a serious marketing channel. So…do you want to be on the right side of Snapchat history? thisisreel.co is a social video storytelling consultancy providing creative content solutions and training for agencies and brands. website: http://thisisreel.co twitter: https://twitter.com/moiazam instagram: https://www.instagram.com/moiazam/ snapchat: https://www.snapchat.com/add/moiazam email: hello [at] thisisreel [dot] co

The most common question I get asked is 'How do you tell a video story?’ It's a really difficult question to answer because most people think about video in terms of the technical aspects rather than the storytelling element. And these are two very different things. Production is only possible if you can see a story before you hit the record button. But effective storytelling also means more than production. Confused? Don't be. I'm going to share a model with you that will hopefully will help you towards creating a video stories for your social channels. Its called PREP and its a life saver. ======================================================= thisisreel.co is a social video storytelling consultancy providing creative content solutions and training for agencies and brands. website: http://thisisreel.co twitter: https://twitter.com/moiazam instagram: https://www.instagram.com/moiazam/ snapchat: https://www.snapchat.com/add/moiazam email: hello [at] thisisreel [dot] co

As a video storyteller I can tell you for a fact you do not want your video to go viral. Now that may seem counterintuitive but there's a very good reason why I say this and its this; viral videos almost always create a spike of interest which then dissipates very very quickly without offering any kind of meaningful engagement. Now is that really what you want? If social media is about engagement, if social media is about developing deep relationships, if social media is about attracting interest and building relationships over the long term then what is a stand alone viral video really going to achieve? Watch video here: thisisreel.co/blog

On the 14th of November ‘Buffer’ the social media sharing service released their much-anticipated annual report into the state of social media in 2016 and what we can look forward to according to marketers in 2017. Its a survey of 1252 businesses both large and small — I’m not exactly sure whether the sample group is only from the US or whether it included other businesses internationally — but in any case its a monumental piece of work. At the last time of counting it had been shared over 30,000 times so clearly a hugely respected and influential source. So what was the key takeaway from Buffer’s report? And what could it mean for social video production and marketing in 2017? Watch video here: thisisreel.co/blog