If you’re creating videos and publishing them online, it is really important that you make them as engaging as possible – especially if it’s for a business of yours. The last thing that you want is to be tripped up by a mistake that ruins your video’s engagement, but that happens more frequently than you realize.
To avoid the common mistakes that often derail video engagement, you need to first know what to be on the lookout for:
- Creating videos that are simply too long
While the optimal length for videos is subject to several factors, often videos are created that are simply too long regardless. At the end of the day the longer your video is the less likely it is to retain viewers, and that will result in its engagement level being much lower.
For social media the optimal video duration tends to be up to 1 or 2 minutes at very most, whereas for YouTube or website video content anything longer than 5 minutes is generally pushing it.
- Trying to cram in too many messages
Engaging videos generally focus on a single message. Anything more than that will probably distract viewers, and is bound to make your videos less engaging.
As you’d expect keeping your videos tightly-focused on a single message will help ensure they don’t end up being too long as well – which is why it is important that you don’t make the mistake of adding too many messages to your video.
- Not hooking viewers in the first few seconds
Did you know that the first 8 to 10 seconds of your video are the most critical? It is during that time-frame that most viewers will make the decision whether to keep watching or not, so if you don’t hook them you’re likely to lose them.
A good way to hook viewers is to outline the benefit of the video right at the start and give them a compelling reason to continue watching your video.
- Telling viewers the message instead of showing it to them
The reason videos are so engaging in the first place is because they can visually deliver the message to viewers. Spelling out the message in a voiceover or using text runs counter to that, and will make your video less engaging.
Although this may be unavoidable in some cases, you should always try to make it a point to find creative ways that you can ‘show’ viewers the information that you’re putting across.
- Not optimizing for mobile devices
More viewers are watching videos on mobile devices than on desktop computers. In short if your video isn’t optimized for mobile devices, your chances of engaging the majority of viewers will be much lower.
Because mobile devices have smaller screen sizes, the important elements in your video shouldn’t be too small for viewers to make them out easily. On top of that you may want to use an aspect ratio that is more mobile-friendly, depending on the platform that you publish your video on.
Be sure to create a diverse range of videos that you feel your viewers will find useful and want to watch by not only recording conventional live video footage, but using screen recording, animation, slideshows, and so on. For example, you could use Movavi Screen Capture Studio, if you need a Windows 8 screen recorder.
In any case now that you know the common mistakes could potentially derail your video engagement – you should be able to sidestep most of them. If you do, you should notice the improvement that it makes to your videos’ engagement levels.