How many days a week do you spend WITHOUT using your smartphone for social media and entertainment? My money’s on less than two days.
We are now living at a period where everything can be done through our phones, from sending text, receiving calls, taking pictures, all the way to transferring money halfway across the world. That level of capability is what makes mobile technology such a fundamental factor for everyone.
The practicality of mobile devices also affects how people consume their daily content like videos, movies, and series.
You’ve read the title of this blog post, and you know what it’s about: vertical videos.
By creating vertical videos, you can create an immersive marketing experience for your followers across many platforms accessible from mobile devices.
Mobile traffic made up around 52% of global internet traffic in Q2 2018 – and the number is predicted to keep increasing until 2020. This data shows that the way the world access internet and consume content is slowly changing into a more mobile-oriented approach.
Nearly every popular social media and video platforms are optimizing their development towards mobile devices. Let’s take a look at a few examples.
However, it’s becoming clearer that Instagram wants to push people into using their “Stories” more by providing various engaging features. Let’s take a look at the most important features and how you can use them to improve your social media marketing:
Highlights
This feature allows you to “pin” the stories that you upload to Instagram (which otherwise would be unavailable after 24 hours). Use this feature to make evergreen stories like tutorials, testimonials, tips, and tricks accessible to your followers anytime until you take them down.
Discovery
You can now search for both Instagram posts and stories through hashtags, places, and stickers. Make sure that you use hashtag stickers on your stories whenever necessary. This feature is especially useful if you’re running a local business like a coffee shop, bakery, photo studio, or any other type of location-specific business.
Poll
You can ask your followers which one is better from two options. This feature is especially useful for measuring what your followers prefer when you want to decide between two campaigns.
Ask a Question
Ask your followers to voice their opinion or ask something in a more casual way. Although it’s not as prominent and reliable as dedicated customer contact center, this feature can be a handy alternative to engage social media followers in a more instant situation.
Swipe Links
This feature allows you to embed a link to your stories, which can be used to bridge Instagram with your main conversion channel (ideally, your website). However, you are free to customize your link to go to any URL, including your Instagram profile or specific post that you’re currently promoting.
Stories Ads
Instagram now offers advertising spots in-between user’s stories. Naturally, the promoted stories can use swipe link feature that allows brands to directly embed a link to specific landing pages. In addition to that, brands get to use various creative tools that Instagram provides to make sure your ads are as engaging as possible. According to their official website, the main selling point of Instagram stories ads are: running stories ads, viewing insights, and immersive viewing.
Facebook has been optimizing their mobile app to be more immersive to prevent them from leaving it. Like their subsidiaries, Instagram, Facebook also has Stories – which is an incredibly useful feature to reach mobile users. Facebook’s version of Stories has most of the features available in Instagram’s version.
In addition to that, Facebook’s video player is also incredibly user-friendly since it adjusts to the dimension of the video both in mobile and desktop.
In early 2018, YouTube launched an update that allows their video player to dynamically adjust to the video’s aspect ratio. This means that if you upload a video that you shot vertically on your phone to YouTube, the player will adjust to it and remove the black bars that you normally see on the sides of a vertical video.
While the majority of vertical videos on YouTube are amateur footage of many kinds of subjects, there have been hundreds of vertical music videos from A-list musicians that naturally generates hundreds of millions of views.
It indicates that musicians (or their team) are beginning to realize that the number views coming from mobile is increasing, and therefore start meeting the demand halfway by creating vertical music videos.
Stories / Snaps
As a mobile social media/messaging platform that relies heavily on videos and images, you can’t forget Snapchat as a channel for vertical videos. Although its popularity is now eclipsed by Instagram’s Stories, Snapchat still has its user base. That said, you should first decide whether your target audience uses Snapchat or not.
Advertising
Much like Facebook and Instagram, Snapchat offers advertising spots for brands in-between stories. The placement of snaps allow brands to present their content in user’s newsfeed in a streamlined manner. Although it’s true that they’re still ads, and therefore can be annoying, placing them in-between stories is an effective way to make the ads more immersive for users.
In this infographic, Breadnbeyond curated statistics, updates, and best practices about vertical video and social media marketing.
Read Next: Ruling Social Media and Internet: It’s All About the Images (Infographic)
We are now living at a period where everything can be done through our phones, from sending text, receiving calls, taking pictures, all the way to transferring money halfway across the world. That level of capability is what makes mobile technology such a fundamental factor for everyone.
The practicality of mobile devices also affects how people consume their daily content like videos, movies, and series.
You’ve read the title of this blog post, and you know what it’s about: vertical videos.
Why Going Vertical Can be the Right Choice for You
Smartphones are oriented as vertical handheld devices, and it’s only natural people hold their phone vertically not only when communicating, but also when they take pictures, watch videos, and scroll through social media. Let’s take a look at a few statistics:- Smartphone users hold their phones vertically about 94% of the time.
- Vertical videos see a 90% higher completion rate compared to horizontal videos.
- Less than 30% of users will turn their phones sideways to watch an ad.
By creating vertical videos, you can create an immersive marketing experience for your followers across many platforms accessible from mobile devices.
Mobile traffic made up around 52% of global internet traffic in Q2 2018 – and the number is predicted to keep increasing until 2020. This data shows that the way the world access internet and consume content is slowly changing into a more mobile-oriented approach.
Related: The Best Video Editing Software for Content CreatorsInevitably, companies that rely on users’ activity to gain revenue will have to change their content strategy as well. Social media platforms are among the types of company that rely heavily on users’ activity. Seeing that mobile technology will keep advancing, they embrace vertical videos instead of avoiding it.
Nearly every popular social media and video platforms are optimizing their development towards mobile devices. Let’s take a look at a few examples.
Instagram and Vertical Video Marketing
As the third largest social media with approximately 1 billion monthly active users, Instagram is one of the powerhouse that generate the demand for vertical videos. When it first launched, Instagram focused on displaying square (1:1) pictures – and it still does that in their newsfeed.However, it’s becoming clearer that Instagram wants to push people into using their “Stories” more by providing various engaging features. Let’s take a look at the most important features and how you can use them to improve your social media marketing:
Highlights
This feature allows you to “pin” the stories that you upload to Instagram (which otherwise would be unavailable after 24 hours). Use this feature to make evergreen stories like tutorials, testimonials, tips, and tricks accessible to your followers anytime until you take them down.
Discovery
You can now search for both Instagram posts and stories through hashtags, places, and stickers. Make sure that you use hashtag stickers on your stories whenever necessary. This feature is especially useful if you’re running a local business like a coffee shop, bakery, photo studio, or any other type of location-specific business.
Poll
You can ask your followers which one is better from two options. This feature is especially useful for measuring what your followers prefer when you want to decide between two campaigns.
Also Read: How Video Content Impacts Marketing (infographic)For example, you’re considering to launch a winter sale between 50% off sweater catalog or 25% off every catalog. Another neat thing that you can do with Poll is measuring how your followers like changes in your brand, e.g old logo vs new logo.
Ask a Question
Ask your followers to voice their opinion or ask something in a more casual way. Although it’s not as prominent and reliable as dedicated customer contact center, this feature can be a handy alternative to engage social media followers in a more instant situation.
Swipe Links
This feature allows you to embed a link to your stories, which can be used to bridge Instagram with your main conversion channel (ideally, your website). However, you are free to customize your link to go to any URL, including your Instagram profile or specific post that you’re currently promoting.
Stories Ads
Instagram now offers advertising spots in-between user’s stories. Naturally, the promoted stories can use swipe link feature that allows brands to directly embed a link to specific landing pages. In addition to that, brands get to use various creative tools that Instagram provides to make sure your ads are as engaging as possible. According to their official website, the main selling point of Instagram stories ads are: running stories ads, viewing insights, and immersive viewing.
Vertical Videos on Facebook
As the biggest social media in the world, Facebook is definitely a force to be reckoned with for any marketing strategy. There’s a big chance that your target audience groups are actively using Facebook.Facebook has been optimizing their mobile app to be more immersive to prevent them from leaving it. Like their subsidiaries, Instagram, Facebook also has Stories – which is an incredibly useful feature to reach mobile users. Facebook’s version of Stories has most of the features available in Instagram’s version.
In addition to that, Facebook’s video player is also incredibly user-friendly since it adjusts to the dimension of the video both in mobile and desktop.
Vertical Videos on YouTube
While it’s true that YouTube is the biggest video related social media, majority of videos that you can find on YouTube is horizontally oriented. However, this doesn’t mean that change is not happening on YouTube.In early 2018, YouTube launched an update that allows their video player to dynamically adjust to the video’s aspect ratio. This means that if you upload a video that you shot vertically on your phone to YouTube, the player will adjust to it and remove the black bars that you normally see on the sides of a vertical video.
While the majority of vertical videos on YouTube are amateur footage of many kinds of subjects, there have been hundreds of vertical music videos from A-list musicians that naturally generates hundreds of millions of views.
It indicates that musicians (or their team) are beginning to realize that the number views coming from mobile is increasing, and therefore start meeting the demand halfway by creating vertical music videos.
Snaps, Vertical Videos and Video Marketing
Snapchat is famous for being the platform that popularize in-the-moment and expiring content.Stories / Snaps
As a mobile social media/messaging platform that relies heavily on videos and images, you can’t forget Snapchat as a channel for vertical videos. Although its popularity is now eclipsed by Instagram’s Stories, Snapchat still has its user base. That said, you should first decide whether your target audience uses Snapchat or not.
Advertising
Much like Facebook and Instagram, Snapchat offers advertising spots for brands in-between stories. The placement of snaps allow brands to present their content in user’s newsfeed in a streamlined manner. Although it’s true that they’re still ads, and therefore can be annoying, placing them in-between stories is an effective way to make the ads more immersive for users.
Are Vertical Videos the Future of Marketing?
There are many more considerations when it comes to whether or not vertical videos should be in your marketing strategy.In this infographic, Breadnbeyond curated statistics, updates, and best practices about vertical video and social media marketing.
Read Next: Ruling Social Media and Internet: It’s All About the Images (Infographic)
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