For years, viewers have been trending toward mobile video rather than desktop viewing. Even in the B2B marketplace, a lot of searches come from mobile devices. Viewers are consuming a growing amount of content on the go, so the video is adapting to shorter attention spans.
Video content, especially when you’re creating it for social media, is more effective when it’s short, which is where the concept of micro-video becomes relevant.
The following are six things to know about micro-videos.
Contents
6 Things to Know About Micro-Videos
1. What They Are
A micro-video is like a regular video but simply shorter. They might be anywhere from three to 30 seconds, and if your goal is to create a micro-video, shorter is going to be better. You might see micro-videos on YouTube pre-roll ads and on social media. The length of the video is what the micro-video is referring to—not the platform or the file format.
Micro-video platforms can include Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat. Also, check out How To Create A Perfect Wedding Video On Your Own?
A good micro-video, along with being short-form, will meet whatever the desired outcome is, whether it’s a call-to-action or knowledge transfer.
2. The Role of Cognitive Load
There’s science behind the effectiveness of a micro-video. For them to be effective, they have to reduce the cognitive load of the person watching them. Cognitive load refers to the amount of information your brain is processing.
We receive pictures and sounds as we watch a video, with representations that last for just a few seconds. The interpreted information moves from our sensory memory to our working memory, where it’s held for around 20 seconds. Eventually, the information is stored in our long-term memory.
The reduce our cognitive load, images and sound can include any incidental media, which is a distraction.
The non-scientific way to put this is that a short, well-done video doesn’t have any distractions that take away from understanding. The reduction in cognitive load increases the likelihood of an audience retaining the information in a micro-video.
3. Keep It High-Quality
While the effectiveness of micro-videos might convince you to churn out a lot of low-quality videos, this is the exact opposite of what you should do. The shorter your video, sometimes the more important having a compelling story and high production value becomes.
You’re grabbing more attention, and you’re only asking for a tiny sliver of someone’s time, so they’re more likely to take the risk to give you that attention that you’re asking for.
Once you entertain or inform someone with your tiny bit of video, they’re more likely to share it.
4. Limitations Lead to Creativity
When you’re working within very specific restraints or parameters, it can force you to be more creative. With micro-videos, your constraints are the limited amount of time you have. That can make you refine your message and pare it down only to what’s most impactful.
You can become more focused and efficient in what you’re presenting, and you’re a more effective communicator as a result.
5. The Formula
There’s usually a formula you can follow with micro-videos. You start by gaining attention through an emotional pull. Then you want to show a need which is when you’re priming the viewer. You’re telling them they have a need for the knowledge or the product or service you’re about to show them.
Your content is the satisfaction element of the formula. You’re going over how the product or service is going to benefit the person watching the video. Visualization is next, which is when you’re describing what someone’s new reality looks like with the product or service.
Finally, the last step in the micro-video formula is often action. You’re making an emotional push, so your audience knows the steps they need to take next to put the new reality into action.
6. Best Places for Promotion
After you create micro-video content, you have to decide where you’re going to promote it.
There are a few places that tend to work well for this format, the first being YouTube. YouTube has more than a billion unique visitors and six billion hours of videos watched every month. Any time you’re creating video content, you need to be uploading it to YouTube.
Facebook is another place to post video content, and finally, don’t forget about Instagram. In fact, Instagram is one of the most visual platforms there are, so it’s perfect for video content, and it has more than 500 million active users. TikTok is also built entirely on the concept of short-form videos.
You can follow a strategy where you’re promoting your micro-video content organically and also through paid ads to improve traffic, leads, and sales.
