If you Google “tips on media production”,  like every other searches, you will come across thousands of articles, video blogs and E-books. Ranging from short videos to professional filmmaking production.

For the purpose of this article, let’s focus on marketing media production because video marketing is definitely the way to go right now, especially with Youtube video ads and the new addition to Facebook video ads. Might be bad news for users, but amazing news for marketers!

So how do we jump on the bandwagon without any intense knowledge on video production? With this ultimate cheat sheet we prepared for you of course. Let’s begin.

 

Video channels and their specialty

Before you even begin to draft your video production, you need to know the platforms and what sort of video to put there. According Brian Peters from Buffer Social, The big five social media video platforms are Facebook, YouTube, Snapchat, Instagram, and Twitter. Let’s break them down.

Facebook:

Video is fun, emotional, and Highly Shareable. If you are looking to develop videos for Facebook, here are the lists of things you will have to consider:

• Make sure to use 1:1 format as studies show that 1:1 outperforms landscape videos by 30-35%
• Captions are a necessity. 85% of videos are viewed on Facebook without sound so you want to ensure viewers understand your video even without the sound.
• Use high-resolution 720p or 1080p HD and export your video in the format and resolution in which is was filmed. So to save time, always film them in high resolution.
• Facebook also recently shows ads every few seconds of the video, so consider which way you are going. Are you posting your own videos? Or are you advertising on other videos?

Youtube:

Why do you want to be here? Oh well only because YouTube gets more than 3 billion searches per month and is the second largest search engine online after Google. Here are some tips to remember if you are developing your video for Youtube:

• Caption your video. Unlike Facebook, it’s not a necessity but YouTube videos may see 40%  more views with captions/subtitles
• The first 10 seconds are your money shot. 20-25% of viewers will watch less than 10 seconds so make the seconds count
• Using strong video descriptions and tagging in addition to meta data will help with SEO rankings
• Choose the right keywords to achieve more channel growth and video views

Snapchat:

The newest to the family yet the most authentic and engaging. Snapchat videos are probably the easiest to produce as it only requires a smartphone however there are still a few things that you need to be cautious of.

• Add text and drawings to your video. Just like Facebook, 33% of videos are viewed on Snapchat without sound and Snapchat app already provides texts and drawings tools.
• Make the 1st Snap count. 22% of viewers drop off after one Snap so if you are posting a series of snaps, make sure they are as engaging as possible.
• Record in a vertical format. Viewers engage more with content that looks and feels natural.

Instagram:

Instagram videos are short an inspiring. Here are some tips to follow if you are producing videos for this platform:

• Like Facebook, always sse “square” or 1:1 format. Studies show it costs 33% less to get someone to engage with square video
• Instagram requires that you “tap video for sound” so come up with a story board that makes sense even without the sound.
• Keep your videos similar to your photo theme. If you are a business selling cakes and always upload a video of your creation than it will make more sense to show how you design your cake rather than your grocery shopping trip.
• Optimize captions & tags as posts with at least one hashtag get 12% more engagement.
• Take advantage of  Instagram Stories by creating behind-the-scenes videos of how your Instagram photo was created.

Twitter:

You may not think Twitter are as big as the rest when it comes to video but Twitter is always innovating its video platform. As a result, 82% of Twitter users watch social video content on Twitter and an additional 41% of them say that Twitter is a “great place” to discover educational video content. Twitter videos are usually short and personal. Here are a few things to remember when producing video contents for Twitter:

• Humanize your videos. Videos showing people in the first few seconds are 2x more like to be viewed
• Tell a story. Videos that have a clear beginning, middle, and end can increase viewership
• Videos that simply aim to entertain your audience can lead to a 15% higher intent to share
• Twitter’s maximum video length is 140 seconds with a file size of up to 512mb so while you want a high quality video, make sure it doesn’t exceed the maximum size.

 

So now that you have all the cheat sheets for different media platforms, explore and keep in mind that only MP4 and MOV video format are supported by mobile apps. So when you are rendering and transferring, make sure these basics are correct.

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