Short-Form Videos: The Key to Snackable Storytelling
Today’s social media is all about endless scrolling and instant gratification. Attention spans are dwindling drastically. Content is growing. Hence, it’s a battle for every single second of your audience’s time. So, how do you stand out? The answer is simple: short-form videos.
Whether you’re a marketer looking to shake up your strategy or a business owner aiming to leave a lasting impression, short-form videos are your best bet. These snappy, engaging clips are everywhere – TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts.
In this post, we’ll uncover what makes short-form videos so irresistible. From their benefits to foolproof strategies for crafting your own, get ready to unlock the full potential of this game-changing format.
Short-Form Videos: The ‘What’ and ‘Where’
As the name indicates, short-form videos are short videos up to 1 minute long (or sometimes slightly longer). These are videos designed to deliver a message quickly and effectively.
Remember the days of Vine when 6-second loop videos were a big thing? This was more than a decade ago. Then came Instagram’s move to introduce a 15-second video recording option on the platform. Yes, the golden era when Instagram was Instagram – when the platform was all about photos and video sharing was only an add-on.
Then came TikTok and this platform made ripples in the social media realm. An endlessly scrolling feed with short videos under 1 minute became an instant hit. The rest, as we know, is history.
Fast forward to today, here are some of the most popular short-form video options you will find creators and brands leveraging:
- TikTok videos
- Instagram Reels
- YouTube Shorts
And of course, Facebook, Snapchat, X, and LinkedIn all support short-form videos as well.
The ‘Why’ of Short-Form Videos
- Attention grabbers – short videos are great to instantly captivate your audience in a heavily crowded social media landscape.
- Boost engagement – given the length, short-form videos are known to bring better engagement rates. People are more likely to watch a short video fully than a long one. When they watch fully and grasp the message, they are more likely to engage with it too. In fact, data shows that the retention rate is about 50% higher for videos under 90 seconds.
- Trendy – if you are struggling to establish a conversation with your customers, you need to talk the talk. Short-form videos are undoubtedly some of the trendiest formats on social media.
- Better ROI – data shows that videos that are about 30-60 seconds long bring the best ROI for marketers. So short videos are cost-effective additions to any marketing strategy.
- Brand awareness – for introducing your brand or products, short videos can be highly effective. According to SproutSocial, nearly 44% of consumers like to hear about products through short videos.
Summing up, short-form videos are a mandatory investment in marketing. From boosting awareness to strengthening loyalty, engaging, educating, and entertaining your audience, short videos come in handy for various applications. Let’s now talk about a few ways to use these bite-sized videos in your marketing strategy.
Creative Ways to Use Short-Form Videos in Your Marketing Strategy
1. Promotional videos
When it comes to promotional content it is essential to instantly grab attention and communicate the message. Therefore, short-form videos are great for this purpose.
A well-crafted short-form video allows you to highlight your offer, product, or event in an engaging way, without losing the viewer’s attention.
For instance, the short video from NYX Cosmetics in the below post prompts their new brow pencil quickly and effectively.
2. Shopping guides
Consumers searching for shopping guides look for quick and relevant recommendations. They are often on a time-crunch either because they are shopping last minute or have a long decision making process ahead. In such cases, short video buying guides can provide them with ideas quickly.
For short videos, stick to a single product category or a specific niche audience. You do not want to overwhelm the viewers Blog posts and long videos work better when it comes to discussing multiple categories. For example, this video from Best Buy targets photography enthusiasts.
3. Seasonal posts
Whether it’s a popular holiday, a cultural celebration, or a changing season, seasonal posts aim to capture the spirit of the moment relevantly. Short-form videos excel at this because they allow brands to quickly tap into trending themes, deliver festive messaging, and engage audiences with timely content.
Moreover, customers are bombarded with content during such seasonal celebrations and events. Therefore instead of just another long and cliched content, a short video can capture attention effectively without boring your audience.
Also, the brief format ensures the content is consumed quickly, making it more likely to be shared widely during the short timeframe when seasonal content is most relevant.
Another major advantage of using short-form videos for seasonal posts is that they help you avoid redundancy. Since seasonal campaigns are recurring, audiences might feel fatigued if your content feels repetitive year after year. Short-form videos let you explore creative concepts every time.
The short video here from eBay gives a glimpse of a customer-engagement campaign from the brand for the holiday season. This demonstrates the effectiveness of short videos in seasonal campaigns.
4. To hop on trends
Timing is important when it comes to posts focusing on trends. For most holidays you have a window of a few weeks to months when discussions about the holiday are active on social media. Your seasonal content is supposed to attract attention within this time window. However, with trend-focused posts, you often have a few hours to days to execute the idea. Therefore a short video feels easiest to tackle.
Not only is ideation easier but also the execution part. Besides, Reels and Shorts are great places for reaching new audience by adopting trends.
For instance, the much anticipated season 2 of the popular Netflix show Squid game is close to its launch. Therefore brands and creators around the world are hopping on the trend. Here’s a short video from Dominos centerd around this trend. Such snackable videos are great when chasing trends.
5. Event highlights
Looking to create excitement on the digital channels for your offline events? Short-form videos can be an excellent format for this. Whether this is an annual event or a one-time conference or a tradeshow, short videos providing glimpses into your event are beneficial in many ways.
For the attendees, these short videos act as a tangible reminder of the event. Additionally these short-form videos also excel at creating FOMO (fear of missing out). By showcasing the best parts of an event, such as exciting activities, key speakers, or exclusive offers, these videos encourage viewers to stay tuned for future events. On the other hand, for live events, these short event highlight videos can act as teasers, prompting people to join in real-time or follow up afterward.
The short-video here is from ZARA providing the highlights of one of their recent events.
6. Major announcements
Do you have major band announcements like company milestones, new product launch, rebranding, or even new partnerships? Short-form videos can be attention-grabbing formats to make these announcements. The short format creates a sense of urgency and boosts the excitement around the announcement.
Moreover, since delivering the key details are of utmost importance in such announcement posts, short videos that instantly communicate the message are the most effective.
These announcements could also be short and exciting summaries for targeted niches where viewers might want to share the excitement by sharing the post. And as you know, short videos are some of the most desirable formats with respect to shareability.
For example, this short video from Play Station announces “Best PS5 Game of 2024”. This is a post that connects with gamers and fans of the announced games in particular.
7. Year-end recaps
Short-form videos are excellent for year-end recaps because they encapsulate a period’s highlights in a short yet engaging format. They allow brands to convey a sense of progress, achievement, and community in a visually appealing and easily digestible manner.
The brevity of short-form videos makes them ideal for distilling a year’s worth of activity into the most compelling highlights. Audiences can quickly grasp the impact your brand has made, whether it’s through key statistics, photos, or behind-the-scenes footage.
A good year-end recap post includes diverse details:
- The brand’s crucial milestones
- Major achievements
- Rewards and recognition
- Customer engagement details
- Influential events/conferences
Overall, the idea is to capture your brand’s growth and to reflect on how closer you got to your audience. For such information-dense posts, a snappy video works best.
Here’s a year-end recap from Ferrari demonstrating the power of short-form videos.
Notice the use of diverse elements like photos, animated text, illustrated details, and video clips to create a brilliant and memorable montage. Use visual variety like this to make your year-end recaps more interesting to watch.
8. Demo videos
Demo videos are an essential part of marketing because they help show your product in action rather than just talking about it. Therefore, it gives a clearer picture of your product and its features making it easier for consumers to understand what to expect.
By breaking down complex features into bite-sized, easy-to-understand clips, short-form videos help brands effectively communicate value to potential customers. Moreover, you can do this without overwhelming them with too much information in one video.
Furthermore, short-form videos are ideal for drip-feeding information. Brands can create a series of demo videos, each focusing on a single feature or benefit, to keep audiences engaged over time. Thus giving them clear distinct videos to go back to when they need insights on distinguishing features that set your product apart from the others.
For example, here’s a simple demo video from OpenAI. It accompanied their announcement of the new feature that allows you to chat with ChatGPT on WhatsApp. The video here gives a quick sneak peek into how to get started with this.
To send a message on WhatsApp, just type in 1-800-242-8478 as the recipient. pic.twitter.com/tzFTd7FzUj
— OpenAI (@OpenAI) December 18, 2024
This demo video simplifies the communicated message and narrows down the message to one clear detail – initiating a chat with ChatGPT.
Tips to Design Short-Form Videos That Create a Visual Impact in a Flash
Experiment with diverse camera angles and perspectives
In a format where every second counts, interesting visuals help capture attention and keep viewers hooked. Therefore, incorporating different perspectives and camera angles in video editing can dramatically enhance storytelling, provide visual interest, and keep viewers engaged.
Dynamic camera movements, like panning, tilting, or tracking shots, add energy to your videos and make even static scenes more engaging. Moreover, strategic camera work can emphasize key details. They evoke all the right emotions and create a unique storytelling experience making your video stand out in a sea of content.
Remember to use transitions like fades, wipes, or dissolves to smoothly move between different perspectives or sections of the video.
The video here from Toyota does that creatively.
Use animated typography
Animated text can be a game-changer for short-form videos. Because they help highlight key information and reinforce your message without requiring too many additional visual details.
When using animated typography in short videos, here are a few things to remember:
- Use animated text to draw attention to core details like the CTA.
- Keep the text short and crisp.
- Align the text animations with music beats, sound effects, or narration for a cohesive and engaging experience.
- Use bold, clean fonts that are easy to read on small screens and when animated.
- Too many different transitions and animations can add to the visual strain. Instead, stick to consistent transitions for the text in your short video.
In the video here some are static frames that pan in and out along with animated text appearing on the screen. This demonstrates how simple animation can bring your text to life and make a lively short video even out of static designs.
Mix and match the right filters, lighting, and effects
Filters, lighting techniques, and visual effects can transform the aesthetic of a short-form video, making it a delightful watch. Besides, these are the traits that influence the tone and mood of your short video as well.
Therefore, choose filters and lighting effects that align with your brand personality and resonate with the expectations of your target audience. Bright and cheerful frames appeal to young audiences whereas when conveying a sense of luxury and elegance, muted tones and dim lighting might feel like a better choice. Like the video from Christian Louboutin here. The chic lighting and colors in the video reflect the brand’s sophisticated nature.
Taking cues from this example, select filters that enhance the video’s natural look rather than distorting it. In this case, the lighting and overall visual effects accurately align with the chic products advertised.
KIMP Tip: While filters are impactful, too many can overwhelm your content. It can even make it look amateurish. Besides, inconsistencies in the use of filters can make one frame look different from the other therefore impacting the harmony of your short videos. Therefore, choose a relevant filter and stick to it throughout the video.
Use creative overlays
Incorporating creative overlays like stickers, emojis, illustrated details, and text can transform a basic video into something visually rich and engaging.
Besides, such unique overlays can also tie your visuals back to your brand’s unique personality. For example, if you use a lot of hand-drawn illustrations in your brand designs, you can add hand-drawn details to highlight elements in your short video while also maintaining visual consistency.
In the below short video from the popular tea brand Lipton uses an overlay of emojis to make the video intriguing and unique.
Choose what to animate
When creating a short-form video from raw footage, there’s not much of a confusion. However, when designing animated videos from static images and a compilation of video clips, you need to be careful with what you animate. Animating every single element in the frame can make your video look clumsy and hard to interact with. Moreover, too much animation or movement can be distracting and thus divert your viewers away from the key message.
Consider the relevance of movement in the chosen elements to be sure that your animated video looks more natural and engaging.
For example, in the video here, the animated snowflakes capture the essence of winter and the dancing baubles reflect the festive spirit. Other than these there are no unwanted movements or transitions in the video. Therefore, the animations here are merely to set the mood and therefore they look perfectly in place.
Ready to Transform Your Short-Form Video Strategy? Get KIMP!
To conclude, short-form videos are a format you just cannot ignore. If you do not already have a strong plan of action for short videos now is a good time to work on one. A professional video design team to create your short videos and edit them can simplify the process. That’s where an unlimited video design service like KIMP comes in.
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