Since the birth and rise of social media, Marketers tried 101 ways to produce engaging content quickly, affordably, and effectively to scale. The solution? Microcontent.
Platforms like Instagram and TikTok have proven that users will consume more content if it is featured in an easily digestible format. TikTok users spend more than 850 minutes per month browsing the app, with an average session length of 10.85 minutes. But producing enough content to feed the social media fire can seem like a daunting and expensive task.
Since 85% of businesses are currently using video as a content marketing tool, the question isn’t whether or not you should continue generating short-form video—it’s how your brand can efficiently produce great video microcontent that can stretch and adapt across multiple social media platforms. Positioning your brand to create consistent, high-quality microcontent that can be repurposed and retargeted based on your audiences’ needs on varying digital channels is the key to optimizing your content marketing resources and maximizing your ROI.
How to Engage Audiences Through Microcontent
Microcontent is not a new marketing concept, but the many potential difficulties surrounding this form of video production can be enough to overwhelm even the most seasoned marketers. In a span of 5 to 30 seconds, microcontent needs to engage your audience and share your brand message in a way that spurs consumers to click, engage, and ultimately move forward through your sales funnel.
So how can your brand produce great microcontent that checks all the boxes without breaking your budget or overworking your marketing team? By understanding that the best microcontent is launched from efficient video production. Creating microcontent through efficient video production will keep your audiences engaged and utilize existing and future video content to its fullest extent.
Here are the top factors to consider when developing your brand’s microcontent strategy and leveraging the best practices of video production:
Think big picture to capture small “bites” during long shoots.
When planning your story board or shot list, look for moments that can also work as shorter “vignettes” or can be re-edited to assist with microcontent. Shooting additional footage, including b-roll, on longer shoots is often the most efficient way to produce microcontent. Developing a content strategy that includes repurposing existing video when shooting longer video spots will provide you the flexibility to parse and edit longer content to create short, consumable video bites for consumers.
Grab video during photo shoots.
Planning to get video content doesn’t have to be a full expensive production – it can fit into your existing content creation plans. If you have a photoshoot coming up, you can find ways to leverage what you’re already using like lighting, talent, and scenes to grab short-form video content in between takes.
Shoot at different angles.
Video content can draw consumers’ attention to minute details, engulf them in an emotional experience, or ignite their passion to connect, grow and learn. Shooting video from a variety of angles will make your video more adaptable when assembling new iterations of video campaigns for differing social channels and target audiences.
Don’t neglect vertical storytelling.
Because microcontent is consumed on mobile devices, producing video that can be viewed vertically as well as horizontally is an integral part of understanding modern consumer demand.
Capture ‘unpolished’ Behind-The-Scenes Footage
Whether you shoot with a professional camera or someone has an iPhone handy on set, showing the behind the scenes of a shoot or event can help humanize your brand so you can connect with your community on a personal level.
Upcycle existing audio as animated text.
Video may be king, but text hasn’t become an obsolete marketing tool by any stretch. Consider transcribing the audio from current and future video content and animating the text to create additional microcontent for text-based platforms like Twitter.
Embrace User-Generated Content (UGC).
Creating a video designed to be a TikTok “Duet” or simply reposting content from your social media community can be an easy way to feed the content machine and make your followers feel heard and appreciated.
Explore using interactive videos.
As consumers spend more time shopping virtually, providing them with interactive videos that harness new tech capabilities of virtual or augmented reality, along with 360-degree videos, can lead to higher click-through and conversion rates.
Crowdsource to understand consumer needs.
Polling target audiences, surveying current customers and utilizing social listening not only provide you with necessary information about how and why consumers might need your products, but it can also spark your creativity and inform your future video content creation and campaign sequences.
Monitor your metrics.
While creating quality content is vital, tracking and adjusting video content based on analyzed metrics is always necessary to keeping your video production as efficient as possible.
If you need a flexible partner in video production, LEAP Spark can help you create effective microcontent to scale using efficient video production techniques.
