Over the past few months, we’ve stressed the importance of video marketing and why it should be implemented into your overall online marketing strategy. Video is becoming increasingly important in digital marketing. Video watching makes up a third of all online activity. According to a Livestream survey, 80% of people prefer watching live videos from a brand compared to reading articles or blog posts. (Yes, we see the irony considering this is a blog post focusing on video, but stay with us.) This might be at least partly because visual information in image form is processed about 60,000 times faster than words on a page.
However, if more and more businesses are using video marketing, you’re going to need a way to edge out your competition, and animated videos are a way to do that. You might not be aware that animated video, in particular, has a bit of an edge over live-action video. For starters, animated videos can grab and keep viewers’ attention, which is great if you’re vying with competitors’ non-animated videos for the same target audience. This is also necessary for generating leads and converting those into sales.
The Benefits of Animation
Animation can also evoke viewer emotion, particularly feelings of nostalgia. According to research conducted by Krystine Batcho, Ph.D., professor of psychology at Le Moyne College in New York, nostalgia is able to drive out negative emotions, as well as combat depression. This shows that animation can be a great way to connect with your target audience.
Animation also makes it a lot easier for viewers to understand complex subject matter. A skilled motion designer can visually explain difficult ideas or processes in a way that is interesting, easily understood, and more likely to be shared on social media. They can design the animation to show the viewer how certain systems or mechanisms related to your products and/or services work.
There are also really no limitations to what can be displayed or explained with animation. It’s truly just a matter of the skill, creativity, and imagination of the graphic designer(s), as well as the time limit/deadline for creating that animation.
A more quantifiable benefit of animation is that it is cheaper to produce than regular live-action videos. With animation, you don’t have to deal with the cost for video/filming equipment, a filming crew, spokesperson, actors, video editors, etc. Aside from whoever will do the voiceover for the video, the animator does most or all of the work.
How you use animation videos on social media versus your own site (via a vlog post, FAQ page, instructional page for a product or service, etc.) might differ. For the purposes of social media posting, these are the general things to keep in mind about your animation videos.
Short Videos Work Best
While videos that only live on YouTube might vary in length, if you plan to post a video on Twitter, Facebook or elsewhere, keep it short. Facebook videos tend to be only about 10% of the length of YouTube videos. It’s important to note that if you have a longer video being hosted on YouTube or your own site, but you still want to promote it, you can post a short clip from that video on social media. This means you’ll be able to post on sites like Instagram, which only allows 60-second video clips on its feed. (Instagram now has something called IGTV where users can post longer videos. However, even for those videos, only 60-seconds of them are shown on users’ feeds. Users must actively click away from the feed to watch the rest of the video.)
Don’t Forget About Autoplay
Social media sites like Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook’s News Feed will start playing videos automatically, without the ability to turn the autoplay off. This means you need to capture viewers’ attention within the first few seconds, and you have to do it without relying on sound (as almost all social media sites mute autoplay videos by default).
Experiment. Use Various Sorts of Videos on Different Media Channels
If you use a wide variety of videos on various types of social media channels, you’ll have a chance to see how each style performs according to the platform where it was posted. Then you can review and compare video analytics to see what works best for your digital marketing strategy.
Create Videos That Appeal to Viewers and Make Them Feel Good
Be aware of how people will discover your videos on social media. The more it appeals to viewers, the more likely they are to like and share the video with friends, family, coworkers, etc. (especially if liking or sharing that video content makes them look good).
Animate A Variety of Content Other Than Video
Yes, video is the king of content. However, that doesn’t mean it has to be the only type of content that is animated. Consider animating popular sharable content like infographics, lists & “Why” posts.
While you don’t have to use videos that focus exclusively on animation videos for your video content, you should incorporate it for the purposes of improving your marketing strategy, simplifying your products and services for your buyers, and making your videos more enjoyable and consumable overall for anyone who views them.
Barge Marketing has animation services available for your business. You can review some of our video animation here. For more detailed information about those services, visit our Contact Us page to submit a form, or give us a call at 614-401-8800.