How do I make my videos more interesting?

Providing entertaining videos is difficult. When we consider that over 500 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube every single minute (equating to 30,000 hours of video per hour), making yours stand out enough to be viewed by your target audience can seem overwhelming.

One thing that video marketers really struggle with within this densely populated field is how to keep viewers engaged. If you don't manage to pique a viewer's interest, then your video marketing strategy just isn't going to be effective.

Now, there are a number of ways in which we can keep viewers engaged, and I will cover these in this post.

Five ways to increase engagement

 Here are the most effective ways to keep viewers tuned in to the video you create:

1) Avoid long intros

Lengthy video introductions that add no value are the quickest way to make a viewer scroll past or click off your video. Engagement drops off sharply after the first 30-seconds, which is enough time for viewers to decide if they will gain anything from your video and if it is worth watching.

Take viewers straight to the point at the very beginning and inform them what they'll gain if they stay tuned. Viewers are looking to you to provide a solution or answer to their problem, so address at the start that this is what they'll receive from your video.

A great way to captivate viewers' attention is to leverage motion. People's eyes are drawn quickly to a screen that has moving images. Eye-catching visuals, plus motion, such as aesthetically appealing animations, can grab the viewer's attention long enough to prevent them from clicking off your video.

2) Add text

On social media platforms, almost 85% of video is watched without audio; people on the commute, viewers sitting with friends and family, those multi-tasking, or people without headphones.

If these viewers can't receive the message you're trying to get across, then they're simply not going to stay tuned in.

Text or captions are a sure way to communicate your message to those who don't have audio on.

In addition to this, text can also make your videos more accessible by overcoming language barriers and helping those to understand your regional dialect if it is particularly strong.

By providing captions, subheadings, and subtitles, you're ensuring that every kind of viewer can receive your message and remain engaged.

3) Change angles

A great way to keep a viewer's attention is to constantly change the shot; this is called the rule of eight. The rule of eight basically means that every eight seconds, you should provide a new thing for the viewer to see.

This could be a closer shot, a new angle, introduction of a new prop, graphics or animation. What this does is effectively reset a viewer's mind and have them re-engage with your video. 

You could try different backgrounds (every eight seconds) as the video unfolds. One trick (for a more established set-up) is to shoot yourself from three cameras, and when editing the videos regularly change the angles.

4) Tell a story

Storytelling has become an important tool in the world of online marketing, as this is something an audience really relates to. You can humanise your content by telling a story. When consumers feel that they can relate to you, a feeling of trust starts to build - which can be great for business.

You don't necessarily need to go into your life story here or even the backstory of your brand, but these can contribute to building a picture up in a viewer's mind of who you are and what you're about.

Maybe you could detail your journey to developing a product, why you saw a need for it, and how the venture went - warts and all.

Online viewers are bombarded with adverts and sales pitches; when you tell a story, you're more likely to come across as more authentic and relatable.

5) Educate

Most people go online to learn, and by providing insights such as facts and stats, this is catering to that desire. Unsurprisingly, since around January 2020, the most popular Google search terms have been around Covid-19, but these search terms have all been questions: how, what, when, where, why.

If you can provide answers that people seek, then your video will be considered interesting, and people will leave it with a new piece of knowledge, which is what they came for. You are the expert in your field, so talk about what you know about, and you won't go far wrong.

Rounding up

Video marketing is time-consuming, there's no doubt. The behind-the-scenes preparation and post-production editing take up so much more time than the actual shooting. Still, all have an even bearing on how the video will come across and, fundamentally, how interesting it will be.

When you get straight to the point, include text, tell a story and provide changing visuals, your engagement rate will definitely approve, and you will likely attract more viewers. When viewers are more engaged with a video, they spend longer viewing it, which is a wonderfully organic way of increasing your rankings within the major search engines.

Jeremy is an expert on all things video. Connect with him on Enterprise Nation now.