Not only does vertical video help to increase engagement in your social content, but it can also be much cheaper to create. Vertical video has now become an integral part of any video marketing strategy, especially with the launch of IGTV in 2018.
Learn more about why vertical video is becoming so popular and why you should be using it within your business's digital marketing strategy.
Let's start with the basics. What are we even talking about when we say vertical video? We promise, it really is as basic as it sounds.
You know how there are two different ways to take a photo with your smartphone. You can hold it straight up and take a portrait, or vertical, photo. Or you can turn it to the side and take a landscape, or horizontal, photo. It goes the same way with video.
For the most part, video has always been horizontal. Professional video cameras take horizontal video clips, we watch movies and TV shows on horizontal screens, and the initial video social media platform YouTube hosts horizontal videos.
But when video started to become more and more popular on social media, people started experimenting. First of all, our smartphones don't automatically take horizontal video. We can easily take a vertical video clip by holding our phones straight up and recording.
Instagram used to only support square photos and videos on its platform, so first, we started seeing square videos pop up in social media marketing. Then marketers expanded the screen even more into vertical video style.
There are a few different reasons why studies show that vertical video performs better when it comes to social media.
1. People are watching on mobile.
The majority of people scrolling social media are doing so on their smartphones. Smartphones are simply perfect for watching vertical video. As we've already covered, smartphones were the reason vertical video really started to be a thing, so naturally, it makes sense that people would prefer to watch a video in the format that best fits their screen.
It also means that they're not having to flip their screens in order to see better. It's already perfectly set up for a mobile viewer.
Vertical video grabs attention better than horizontal (and even square) video because it literally takes up more screen area. It's harder to scroll past a video that starts on auto-play and is taking up a good portion of your screen. Instead of a horizontal video that uses up only a fraction of the screen, vertical videos are very good at capturing an audience and keeping them watching.
Aside from the reason that we just covered (that it works!), let's talk about this. Why would you really want to focus on a completely different format of video when you've been creating and watching horizontal for years and it suits you just fine?
The reason is this: things change. As digital marketers, we've had to understand this from the get go and learn how to adapt quickly and easily in order to learn and incorporate all of the constantly new and evolving strategies that come with the terrain.
So here are a few more reasons to convince you to adopt vertical video into your video marketing strategy.
1. It's cheap and easy to make.
Hey, do you remember all three or four times in this blog article that we mentioned that vertical video came into popularity because it can be easily recorded from a smartphone?
You can use your smartphone to create vertical video content for your business.
You still want to follow your typical guidelines (use natural lighting, a steady hand, and take advantage of video apps readily available), but you can absolutely create a vertical video simply by using the tools you already have. You don't have to invest in huge video production for your quick social content videos.
2. You'll increase your video engagement.
The number one sign of social media success is engagement. So, of course, you want to implement proven strategies to help increase overall engagement. Vertical video is one of them. Start creating and sharing quick vertical video clips on your business's social media profiles and watch as your audience becomes more and more interactive with your content.
Are you ready to get started with vertical video within your video marketing strategy? All you need to do is create a video content calendar with your ideas for what to record (this could be anything from behind-the-scenes footage of your business, educational information, a how-to tutorial, and more) and get your smartphone ready.
You can share these videos on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and IGTV. One thing to keep in mind is that you want to share content that fits the space onto which you're uploading it. So if you're creating content for YouTube, it still needs to be horizontal because YouTube doesn't have vertical video specs yet.
If you're interested in learning about more digital marketing and video marketing strategies for your business, contact us and we'd be happy to chat with you. Until then, grab your smartphone and start recording some video!