How Video Has Kept Up With Generations Y & Z
People often point to the shorter attention spans of each new generation, citing television, videogames, mobile devices, and being inundated with technology in general as the leading cause for concern. Whether technology is the actual cause of this problem (or whether or not it is an actual, quantifiable problem to begin with) is a moot point – Technology, media, and advertising are not going to slow down any time soon because certain individuals perceive a growing problem. Instead, advertisers will find ways to adapt to these perceived changes in society and keep up with them in any way possible.
With the rise of social networking, different components that have traditionally been used in advertising and marketing materials have been introduced one by one. While none of these components were initially introduced to social networks specifically as a means for profit, all were rapidly taken advantage of by advertisers and the media at large in attempts to capture new audiences. First came text, then pictures and sound, but video has struggled to make it’s way into the social media realm in the same way. Users of Twitter and Facebook were used to taking in messages in extremely short instances, often only a spending a few seconds on a particular message, status update, or Tweet.
Studies found that many users, especially younger users, were reluctant to click through to a YouTube video as they didn’t want to invest the time in viewing it. Twitter saw this happening and acquired a service called Vine – a mobile video app that set a max time limit of six seconds for user videos. You read that correctly, only six seconds. Viewers know that these videos are short, so the risk of it being “worthy” of their time is largely thrown out the window – if they click on it, they’ll very likely watch it until the end.
So – how can marketing teams utilize this service when their time allotted to get their message across is so short? It’s simple, create good content with a direct message. Pairing your ideas down to as little as six seconds can be difficult, but using this time creatively will yield the best results. With only six seconds to get your message across, you’ll need to make sure every moment of it is utilized fully.
Many companies have found success on Vine by utilizing humor. You obviously won’t be able to detail your company’s mission statement in six seconds, but you can hopefully make someone chuckle. Others have used Vine as a means of stop motion animation by getting creative with recording techniques. Others used Vine as a “behind the scenes” type of glance at how their company works, establishing trust and a friendlier atmosphere with their audience.
The other important component of Vine is the hashtag, which works exactly like one would on Twitter. Utilizing proper hashtags to label your content allows you to direct your message to the proper audience and even establish a means of branding once you have enough viewers. Even the best content and messages will be lost in the crowd if they aren’t targeted at the proper market. Hashtags are your friend, so make sure to use them.
Recently Instagram joined the fray by introducing video to their services. There is a slight difference though, as they allow for videos to be fifteen seconds long and the app comes with built in filters for filming content, much like the filters for their photographs. While Instagram has a much larger built in user base, Vine is growing extremely rapidly and seems to be the more popular platform with younger audiences. At this juncture, both platforms are worth exploring as a relatively inexpensive means of integrating video into your social media approach.
Source: Maximize Social Business