6 Video Trends Taking Social Platforms by Storm

(in no particular order)

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1) User Generated Content (UGC)

Show customers using your products or services! UGC is great because it enhances the consumer journey by promoting brand transparency and does it better than any form of branded content! 

How?

You may know the reason why you made this product and you can explain it ad nauseam, ad infinitum even. But the user that relates their personal problems with potential customers, and showcases your company as a definitive solution, will be a boon to your cause. 

Show me the bennies! 

User generated content can help audiences see the benefits your company can bring to their life. A consumer’s main question is, “How does this product/service enhance my way of life?” Well that answer should be framed within your UGC. Showing customers how your company can improve their daily life, especially coming from a user like them, will better your relationship with consumers.

Hearing and seeing these benefits will attract more attention from consumers because of how they can relate to your UGC creator. Your content creator is the coworker that trusts your company’s storytelling acumen. They’re the neighbor who cherishes moments your photographer captures, and they want their friends to experience those feelings too. 

The best part about showing the benefits of your product through UGC is that it builds transparency with your audience. People will appreciate your honesty and could possibly thank you by making a purchase. 

User generated content delivers a practical message, providing a realistic and unedited feel that audiences crave. Team up with your consumers and transform them into your next brand advocates! 

On top of transparency, UGC comes in all shapes and sizes and can be used to expand audience reach and increase sales conversions.

Use UGC as:

• A vertical video like:
• Facebook stories
• Instagram reels
• TikTok 
• YouTube shorts

or

• A testimonial
• A livestream for your product

Some companies even hire well known UGC creators to use their product so they can give a truthful review about it.

Ultimately, there are countless ways to create UGC as shareable content. You can hire a creative team to develop your video, but that will likely involve a larger budget and proper planning. If you or your company needs assistance in that department, the BW Productions team is always happy to help. Want to find out more on how to optimize UGC? Check out this article on hootsuite!

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2. Get Vertical (Video)!

With Insta reels, Facebook stories, YouTube shorts and TikTok videos on the rise, vertical video has been one of the top trending formats for attracting attention. And for good reason. 

The top being they’re the easiest form of content to consume! Vertical videos mostly exist as a short form video that can last between 5 seconds to a minute, but are sometimes longer. 

Vertical videos are perfect for catching a break in the middle of the work day or on the go. You can scroll continuously through platforms, finding yourself immersed in a sea of vertical vids. 

The short of it all. 

Short form video allows content creators to share on practically any platform, communicating with the audience in a quick and efficient manner. 

Given the abundance of content to consume in only 24 hours, grabbing the audience’s attention and delivering your message efficiently is key for content strategies. Making the video educational, captivating, or comedic, are good ways to retain and grow viewership numbers. 

A great way for businesses to take advantage of short form vertical videos is to create social cuts out of long form content. There are video production companies, like BW Productions, that deliver social cuts alongside your full-length videos.

The key aspects to remember about Vertical Videos:

• Keep them short - 5 seconds to a minute
• Get to the point
• Make it captivating

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3. Going Live

Going Live: the act of presenting oneself in a manner that can be accessed through social channels, i.e. live streaming.

Not to be confused with live - as in to have life, or to be alive. 

With all the updated features on social platforms, companies and influencers alike go live for product launches and tests, presentations, and event gatherings. It’s a great way to build a transparent following with audiences and your industry. 

Get interactive.

Going live can increase audience engagement by allowing your followers to view and interact with you in real time. 

Say you’re going live to do a product reveal. 

Possible consumers will likely have questions about your newest commodity and you’ll have the opportunity to respond right away. Having the ability to deflate any concerns when addressing key uses for your product will ease customer’s minds. 

A great way to combine different trends is having a live form of UGC! Remember that UGC we just talked about? Paying your customers or clients to shoot live content for you lets you perform two trends in one. Teaming up with other content creators or influencers increases your outreach since it’s likely that their followers will be watching alongside yours. 

But don’t let it stop there! Repurpose that content for later. 

Successful content creators who livestream upload bits of their stream onto YouTube at a later time. If you went live on Facebook or Instagram, you can edit portions of that video and turn that into “stream highlights.” 

A hidden “trend” that’s popping up with content creation is community building. Businesses that collaborate with content creators help boost each other’s impact in specific social communities, and they might even create a whole new one together.

4. Caption That

You’ve heard of closed captioning for television. Adding subtitles to your socially shared video content is something you can do to increase your viewing percentage. It’s becoming one of the most utilized tools when it comes to watching videos. 

Why? How? 

Consumers today watch a lot of content with their sound off. 

Imagine you’re on a train. You typically pass the time by watching Instagram reels, but today you forgot your headphones. Watching those reels with your sound off wouldn’t allow you to understand what you’re watching. Insert captions. Now you can read what content creators are saying while watching their reel, and you don’t have to worry about disrupting other passengers.

It’s a win-win. 

Inclusion is important!

Not only do captions provide a way for consumers to watch in silence, but it’s also extremely inclusive. Providing closed captions and subtitles opens your viewership to the deaf community or those hard of hearing. 

Innovative creators started the trend of adding captions, text titles, or a mixture of both to their videos, allowing consumers to receive the information without sound. 

The challenge is creating content that’s visually appealing and stimulating but garners attention and engagement from your audience. Captions let them know that you’re a savvy creator who’s willing to go the extra mile to make your content more easily consumed. 

5. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for Video

While not exactly a video trend itself, it’s definitely associated with the surge of video content consumption. 

After captions, your next step is search engine optimization for video. But why?

Every day, internet users type helpful keywords into their favorite search engine. Did your results recommend a blog article that hits the words relating to your search? Probably, but have you noticed how many videos are appearing on your results page lately? It’s not a coincidence. If done right, the top results feature content and key phrases to match users to answers. But how does this work with video?

• Start with your video. It’s shot, edited and came out exactly how you want it.
• Let’s be inclusive and accommodating by adding those subtitles/captions in.
• Now give it a title.
• At last, hashtag. Don’t forget them when writing your video description.

And voila!

If done correctly, your company has the opportunity to appear as a top result for a key question in your industry. Now you have your very own SEO for video. It takes some work to get the results you want, but it is definitely worth the effort. 

Did you know that YouTube is the second-largest search engine in the world (per researchgate.net)? This came when Google acquired YouTube in 2006 (source Google circa 2006). Typing useful keywords in, say a “how to” question, results in a swath of “how to” videos. It’s a beneficial tool to all in search of answers to life’s most perplexing questions. 

6. Atomizing Content

Atomizing content basically means taking a singular piece of large content and breaking it down into smaller parts. 

Segmenting content allows you to utilize a big idea or theme for your marketing strategy, and spread it out on multiple platforms to increase your brand awareness. By doing this, you’ll reach different audiences, making it look like you’re everywhere. 

Remember the live stream from above? You can cut up the highlights and post them as shorts, stories, or reels. 

These “stream highlights” provide a way for audience members who missed out on your livestream to see what you believe to be the most informative, engaging or entertaining parts. It’s an easy way to set a content schedule for the week, especially after a long stream!

Stay consistent, but mix it up for your audience!

Consistently posting throughout social media helps boost audience awareness and engagement to help you gauge trends and reactions. 

Remember that while you’re staying consistent, you should diversify your language and tone across different social media platforms. Be cognizant of your brand guidelines and how you should adjust when repurposing your content. Seeing a post on Facebook and a carbon copy of it on Instagram or LinkedIn won’t be as effective as you’d think. You probably have different followers across social media, so something that works with your Instagram audience might not work as well with your Facebook following. 

Logic and strategy are important when curating content for your platforms. 

Ensuring that each post is relevant to a specific audience should be your top priority. Who visits your Facebook compared to your blog? What content works better on communications channels like Slack or Discord? Instagram users looking for vertical vids likely aren’t looking for a blog. Atomize and assign for audience appreciation! 

For marketing strategies on how to atomize your content, check out these 47 tactics from convince&convert!

These are the 6 trends that we’ve found to be particularly effective when creating video content for your business, but check out the links below for more trends and concepts that could help you with your social strategy. 

5 Video Trends to Watch in 2021-2023 - massmedia

Top Video Marketing Trends to Jump On in 2023 [from 37 Industry Experts] - wave.video

Top 10 Social Media Video Marketing Trends for 2023 - QuickFrame

8 Video Marketing Trends You Need To Know for 2023 - Marketing Insider Group

Interested in riding the trend wave for video content creation? Work with us! Our team of producers wants to hear about your content goals and help you devise a successful strategy for your marketing plan. We help create content for small and large businesses alike, around the Salt Lake City area and across the country! Last year, BW Productions operated in four different states all in one day!

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