Every brand wants to figure out how to attract people’s attention on social media, and video is one of the most effective ways to do so. Whether you’re just starting to dabble with social media or have an established social presence, creating content for social media can feel a little like fishing with your eyes closed. There’s a lot of guessing involved, it can take far too much time, and there is no guarantee for success.
Figuring out how to get the audience attention isn’t getting any easier either – Microsoft found that humans reportedly have an 8-second attention span, and Gen Z attention span and younger generations are increasingly getting shorter with a preference for visual content.
There is some positive news. Attention grabbing videos are helping brands across industries to cut through the noise and capture that coveted audience attention span, and many of them rely on Wibbitz to do so. Take BET for example, the first cable network to cater to black audiences with programming that champions black representation in music, entertainment, and news reporting.
As viewing habits have changed, BET realized they needed to build a strong audience across social media channels, especially to engage younger audiences like Gen Z. BET decided to use Wibbitz to translate their stories into the type of content that audiences gravitate towards on social media: short-form video.
With their background in media, BET recognized the need for immediacy to stay relevant in the fast-paced world of social media. By using Wibbitz they no longer needed to collect video assets, take it to a video crew, get it edited, get graphics created, and then have it encoded just to create a short video. Now one person with access to their archives can create minute long attention grabbing videos in less than 30 minutes, and get it out to the public immediately.
BET also knows well that what captures attention on broadcast TV likely will not capture attention from the audience on social media, and even what works on one social media platform like Facebook won’t work on another like Instagram Stories. Their team uses Wibbitz to quickly create copies of each video in different formats like square or vertical, and make quick edits to length or content in order to make attention grabbing videos for each social media platform.
BET is creating over 63 videos each month using Wibbitz, and seeing strong results with an average of 110k views and 266 engagements per video on Facebook. Learn more about BET’s video success >
No matter what your social media goals are, the following best practices and video inspiration are surefire ways on how to attract people’s attention on social media, engage them with your brand, and ultimately leverage video to achieve those goals.
1. Use cover images that will elicit clicks
Before the play button gets any love, people get to see your video cover image to decide if they want to take it to the next level — the click. Do your videos a favor and start them off strong with a still shot they’d consider eye-candy, as BET did in this video they created with Wibbitz.
It features the striking Misty Copeland along with bold text stating that she’s set to appear in the next edition of the Pirelli calendar. People love people, so incorporating real humans in your video content can help attract audience eyes on social media.
2. Capture video attention span with clear and compelling titles
Viewers need to know exactly what to expect from your video before they hit play, so let them know right away what they’ll get from watching it with a descriptive title that answers the question “what is this about?”
Get creative and use wordplay that will entice people scanning your social sites to click, like in this Wibbitz video created by Shape Magazine, “Bloomingdales & Everlast Are Knocking Out Breast Cancer.”
3. Stop the scroll with text animations
Audiences often browse through social feeds with their audio off, especially on mobile devices. Text has become an essential part of creating attention grabbing videos for social media, and can be a key way to differentiate your brand in a crowded landscape.
We’re not just talking about just subtitles here, we’re talking about bright, bold, text that is central to the story of a video. See how Covestro chose the Label text style in the Wibbitz platform to juxtapose a bright pink text background with bright yellow text highlights – a combo that will stop anyone in their tracks!
4. Make people think “tell me more” in your intro (and every frame after)
The way to hook viewers to watch your videos from beginning to end is to have each frame serve to entice people into discovering additional details about the subject at hand.
Amtrak crushes it in that department in its Wibbitz video about the Auto Train that transports people and their vehicles from Washington, D.C., to Orlando, Florida, in which each frame elicits a desire to know more about the train until you get the full picture of why it’s so awesome.
5. Use videos with compelling statistics to spark interest
Whether your goal is to improve social reach or post engagement, including powerful statistics within your videos can help catch eyes and build credibility with your audience.
Stats can also help convince prospects to convert, as our star customer SimilarWeb did in the following video they published on YouTube, and within this blog post. Notice how they also included a CTA at the end of the video to encourage viewers to take action — and advance further down the funnel.
6. Drive viewers to take your intended action with clear CTAs
It’s not enough to have a high viewer count on your best social videos; you should also leverage each video to encourage viewers to take action – whether it be following your account or clicking to your website.
That means you must include clear calls-to-action that represent your brand’s messaging and intent, and quickly, at that, if you hope to engage a short video attention span.
RAND Corp. did this well in the following video created with Wibbitz, where at the 7-second mark in the second frame they posed the CTA to “Listen every Friday for insights on the issues that matter most,” which sounds informative as opposed to pushy.
With the right strategy for attention grabbing videos in place, you can capture attention on social media and engage more people with your brand. Set ambitious goals for your brand and see how leveraging video skyrockets your results.
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