What is video engagement?
Engagements are metrics show the interaction of people watching your videos. They are like, share, comment and repost (retweet or remix).
- Likes: Show how much your video impresses viewers.
- Comments: Reflect the level of interest and excitement your video generates.
- Shares: Indicate how useful viewers find your video.
- Repost: Your video is super meaningful to the audience, so they must speak on their behalf about your brand.
Just like in a meaningful relationship, video engagement reflects genuine interest and connection between audience – your brand. Social media is all about communication, and engagement represents the conversations happening between users on these platforms.
Why it’s so hard to boost video engagement?
Everyone wants to boost engagement for their social media videos, and it has to be meaningful, positive engagement.
However, achieving this has become much more challenging. You now face numerous obstacles to ensure your videos perform well on these platforms.
Social media is a distractive world
We live in an era where people are more easily distracted than ever, thanks to the constant flood of mass media. According to Facebook, users spend an average of just 1.7 seconds on mobile and 2.5 seconds on PC per News Feed content. They consume content as quickly as possible, searching for what truly interests them.
If your social media video isn’t captivating enough, users will scroll past in an instant, moving on to something more engaging.
Insane competitive
As of 2024, over 500 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute, amounting to 720,000 hours daily. (according to Wyzowl).This immense volume underscores the challenge of standing out in a vast sea of content.
Studies of 9to5Google indicate that approximately 88.4% of YouTube videos garner fewer than 1,000 views, and only about 0.77% surpass 100,000 views.
Videos achieving higher view counts typically offer high-quality, engaging content and often benefit from paid promotions to enhance visibility.
Therefore, to attain significant reach on social media platforms without resorting to paid advertising, it’s crucial to produce exceptionally valuable and captivating content that resonates with your target audience.
Limitations of Social Media Platform
Popular social media platforms like Facebook and YouTube frequently update their algorithms for displaying videos in News Feeds, significantly impacting how you optimize for video engagement.
Facebook also enforces its Community Standards with vague terms and a “better safe than sorry” approach.
As a result, your video might face limited visibility without any clear explanation, leaving you wondering how to adapt for better engagement.
5 Key Factors to Boost Video Engagement
Before creating video for social media, take a moment to review these 5 key factors. They could help your video gain significantly more positive engagement from viewers!
Targeting Audience
We can’t please everyone. Trying to create a video that appeals to everyone often results not really attractive to anyone.
No attractive means no interaction.
Instead, narrow down your audience group and identify who you understand the most. This will be a group of people who share similar interests and concerns as you. With the right focus, earning their video engagement will come naturally, without excessive effort.
Before producing videos, ask yourself these questions:
- What type of content you enjoy watching? Create that type of content
- Who is this video for? What challenges are they facing? How will my video help them? Focus on solving your audience’s problems.
- What message you want to deliver? It’s 1-line sentence that you want to tell those people.
Target Audience Persona is the final outcome of many research about target audiences.
Learn how to create Target Audience Persona.
Clear and Concise Content
Your video is made for social media, not a feature film or short movie. Keep it as concise as possible, with an ideal length of 30 – 90 seconds for explainer video. For ads video, shorter is better, aim for 6 – 15 seconds.
Audiences are impatient.
Unless you’re their idol, they won’t stick around if your video is overloaded with unnecessary information. Avoid starting with irrelevant details, like your logo. Save those for the end to maintain strong video engagement from the start.
Before creating your video, try these steps to ensure strong video engagement:
- Write a script, even if it’s just bullet points outlining the main ideas.
- Review the script to see which parts can be trimmed while still delivering the core message.
- Share the script with about five people who resemble your target audience and ask for their feedback.
- Gather their insights and make adjustments before moving on to video production.
Your video will achieve better engagement if viewers clearly understand your message.
Delivering Value
People appreciate you for one reason only: the value they get from you. The same applies on social media.
Audiences will share your video only when they see a benefit in it.
The value you provide could be knowledge, joy, inspiration, empathy, or perks. Don’t hold back – share all your secrets to truly boost video engagement.
Share what you know with others. Why should you do this?
- To establish your expertise
- To make a positive impact
- To change someone’s life
- To learn something new
- To grow your audience community
- To create influence and drive engagement
The more value you created, the more people love you, and the more video engagement.
Eye-catching Visual
Your video has just 3 seconds to capture the attention of social media users. Within this short timeframe, it’s difficult for the audience to grasp your content.No matter how great your message is, it won’t matter if no one watches it.
To boost video engagement, focus on creating visually compelling content that instantly grabs viewers’ attention and makes them want to keep watching. Eye-catching visuals act like a magnet, drawing viewers in and encouraging them to stay for the entire video.
It doesn’t have to involve expensive effects or blockbuster-style explosions. Simply understand your target audience and choose a visual style that resonates with them.
For example, if you’re making a coffee tutorial, your audience likely values drinks that look “delicious.” Start your video with a clean, professional brewing space and beautifully presented beverages.
In today’s world, it’s not just about having quality content—it’s about presenting it in a way that looks just as good as it is.
Call-To-Action
Most viewers don’t deeply engage with videos, even if they love the content and visuals. It’s not because they don’t care, they just need a little nudge to leave a comment or share the video.
To boost video engagement, give your audience a reason to interact. Inspire them with a clear prompt or create an opening that encourages them to start a conversation.
You can try these approaches:
- Ask open-ended questions at the end of your video.
- Create content that resonates with your audience instead of focusing solely on yourself.
- Show genuine interest and curiosity about your audience.
Conclusion
Creating social media videos is a challenging task, and achieving strong video engagement can be even more demanding, especially for beginners. Stay calm and patient throughout the process of crafting your videos to encourage audience interaction.
It’s a long-term effort, but as long as you respect the process, the rewards will come.
