How to Create Engaging Video Content: 5 Tips for Success.
Summary/Overview
Creating engaging video content is key when marketing your brand online. They trigger emotion, hammer home messages and can often capture the attention of your UK audience far more successfully than text or photo-based posts. In fact, videos on social media are 12 times more likely to be shared than static equivalents.
In this guide, we’ll explore how to make engaging video content, and how to utilise video in your small business marketing campaigns. From your first steps to understanding your audience, to having fun with visuals, it’s time to get creative.
Jump into our 5 key steps that’ll help you produce effective, engaging video content.
1. Understand your audience.
The first step is to understand and define who you’re creating video content for. ‘My audience’, you might reply – but who exactly is your audience?
The best way to start building an image of your prospective viewers is by conducting some analysis. Start by gathering as much information as possible, so you know you have a solid, accurate base from which to start creating engaging videos. You could do this by:
- Looking at your social media analytics. This will give you a good idea of who’s engaging with your brand. Analytics are also a great way to learn more about audience behaviours.
- Sending out questionnaires. Feedback is one of your most vital tools. Listening to your audience is one of the best ways to learn more about them. So, why not upload a few polls on your social channels, or send out a questionnaire as part of your customer journey.
- Researching your platforms. Each platform will have a different base of users. For example, around 29% of Instagram’s 34 million UK users in 2023 were aged between 25 and 34.
It’s important to note that this process might take some trial and error. But learning from mistakes and audience reactions is key to making relevant and engaging videos – so experiment and see what happens!
2. Define your brand.
Understanding who you are is just as important as understanding who your audience is. Before you start to produce engaging video content, your brand image needs to be solid. This doesn’t just mean crafting your brand’s physical presence, but also your tone of voice. Knowing who you are will help you understand where you fit in the UK market.
Similar to defining your audience, conducting market analysis can help you understand where you place among your competitors. You’ll need to understand what type of video content will be most relevant to you, before you jump into the creation process.
As mentioned above, different platforms attract different users. This means some video types may be fitting for your brand, and some won’t be. For example:
- TikTok videos. The largest demographic of TikTok users are those aged between 18-24 (36.7%). The short, collaborative video formats tap into reactive Gen-Z trends. This could be a good platform for creative, digital or retail brands who want to target a younger audience. Take a look at brands like Ryanair and Innocent Drinks for engaging video content ideas and inspiration.
- YouTube videos. Millennials aged 25-34 make up the largest proportion of YouTube users (21.3%). However, the platform is a little more evenly spread across demographics than others. YouTube is the perfect place for engaging long-form videos, which suits product announcements, how-to guides or vlogs. Check out Waterstones as a prime example of YouTube video content done right.
- Instagram Reels. Instagram usage is pretty evenly matched across Gen-Z and millennials. 31.8% of 18-24-year-olds and 30.6% of 25-34-year-olds use the platform, so it’s a great place for new and exciting small businesses to market themselves. The Reels format is similar to TikTok – snappy, scrollable videos that can utilise trends and social hype.
Editable video templates to inspire your creativity.
3. Conduct a competitor analysis.
So, now you know who you’re creating video content for – and who you are – it’s time to understand your competitors. Competitor analysis can help you gain important insights into other brands in your market.
It can help you understand more about their products and marketing and sales tactics. Importantly, it helps you see what works when looking to produce engaging video content – and what doesn’t.
This can feel like quite a big job, and it’s not always easy to know where to start. Let’s break it down with a few simple steps.
- Make a list of your competitors. Start by simply identifying who your competitors are. If you run a bakery, you might look at coffee shops on your local high street, while a clothing brand might be competing with bigger brands online. Make a list of around 10-15 and begin from there.
- Watch their most popular videos and make notes. Think about things like the type of content they’re making (tutorials, product releases, trends) and what they’re making the videos about. Look into the stats behind video length, views and popular content.
- Pick out any obvious strategies used. Are they utilising popular keywords in their descriptions, titles or tags? What hashtags do they tend to target?
- Analyse audience feedback. How are people reacting to their content? This will give you a great insight into the possible tactics you could replicate.
- Identify gaps, failures and successes. Moving on from the above, where are they falling short? How could you improve on their strategy? Write it all down!
4. Practice crafting narratives.
Whatever your video content is about – and however short – it should follow some form of narrative. Video storytelling is an important tool, as it can help provide that initial hook and keep people watching. A great narrative can tell a story about your brand or the products you create and lead your audience towards a conversion more effectively.
You can create effective video narratives by:
- Defining the story arc. Where do you want the narrative to end? E.g. is your aim to encourage people to buy? Do you want to entertain, inform? How do you plan to get there?
- Practicing editing. Seamlessly sequencing your narrative is important – so it’s time to start practicing pulling it all together. Platforms like Adobe Express have all the tools you need to get started, whatever your experience.
- Getting creative. One of the more creative aspects of creating engaging videos is making them look amazing. Keep to your defined brand image, but have fun with graphics, animations and illustrations.
5. Have fun with creative visuals.
Moving on from the above, creating engaging visuals for your video content is vital. Not only can images and graphics appeal to your audience, but neuroscientists have actually found that the human brain processes images 60,000 times faster than text. So, how do you capitalise on this as a brand?
It’s important to hook your viewers at the start of your video. Creative video thumbnails are a key way to do this, as they are instantly processed and used to form an impression of your brand. This is why, increasingly, short-form videos with an instant ‘hook’ are becoming more popular.
In fact, videos less than a minute in length are more likely to keep viewers engaged. This is often more frequently the case across short-form video platforms like TikTok and Instagram Reels. However, utilising engaging visuals in a short amount of time is becoming a more desirable skill when creating video content across all platforms.
Free engaging video examples from Adobe Express.
Useful things to know.
How do you engage viewers in a video?
The first step to engaging viewers is to understand who they are. Once you’ve defined your audience, you can start creating targeted, engaging video content that appeals to their attitudes. It’s a good idea to create an initial hook that plays on their preferences, and provides an instant emotional connection.
How do you make an attention-grabbing video hook?
The key to creating an engaging video hook is keeping it simple. Use straightforward language and/or attractive visuals to tease a concept or topic, which can help pique people’s interest. Depending on the platform, snappy transitions can also be key to keeping people engaged.
How do I make my video stand out?
Bold visuals, an effective, relevant hook and a solid narrative are all key when looking to create videos that stand out. It’s also a good idea to take a look at what your competitors are doing, so you can see where your videos might fit within the market.