The Do’s and Dont’s of Explainer Video Production for Social Media

It shouldn’t be news to you anymore that delving into explainer video production and creating your own animated explainer videos are a fantastic way of increasing your online exposure, no matter the size of your business. There are so many advantages to them:

• They help catch the attention of potential customers
• They’re great for explaining even the most complicated aspects of your business
• They increase the time your customers spend on your video landing page
• They can increase your conversion rate

So how do you use them in a way to maximize these benefits? It’s no use hiring a professional explainer video company to create a beautiful hand-drawn whiteboard animation video or colorful 2D animated videos if you’re not going to use them where they can be seen and will be most effective.

The Importance of Social Media

Tiktok, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter: what do they have in common? They’re all massive social media platforms with billions of users tuning daily. According to Datareportal, there are now 4.33 billion social media users. That’s the equivalent of more than 55 percent of the total global population. Those numbers are insane and if you’re not taking advantage of it, you’re losing out on a massive chunk of potential customers who might just be waiting for a product or service exactly like yours. 

And in case you’re worrying about social media users being the younger crowd who might not really have the buying power to take advantage of your product or service, 2021’s social media demographic numbers are here to prove your fears unfounded. According to Sproutsocial, the largest age group on Facebook in 2021 is actually 25-34, while Twitter has an average age demographic of 30-49, and LinkedIn, the social media used by entrepreneurs and professionals seeking to make exactly the connection you want for your product or service, has an average age demographic of 46-55. This means that social media now reaches everyone throughout the world, regardless of age and geographical location.

That’s why we’ve come up with a list of tips and tricks of explainer video production for social media as well as some best practices to make sure your animated explainer videos are optimized to take full advantage of the varied platforms out there. Whether you’re here to educate people about how to use your products, or you’re creating a video about the story of how your company came to be, you’ll need to make sure they’re effective for use on social media. After all, the goal is to increase conversions so lacking a strategy on using your animated explainer video makes it unlikely for the number of leads to increase.

Optimizing Explainer Video Production for Social Media Use

So now you know the importance of putting your video up on the different social media platforms. Yeah, your video landing page is great and all, but first your potential customers will need to know that your website exists in the first place. The likelihood of them finding out about your company through the many social media platforms out there is a lot higher than them just stumbling across your website.

Now, how do you ensure that your animated explainer video will be seen on the different platforms?

• Do keep it short

When it comes to social media marketing, the one thing you’re truly vying attention for is attention. Social media users don’t have the longest of attention spans so if you want to make sure they’re keeping their eyes on your video, make sure it’s not too long. Nothing turns off a social media user than a video that goes on and on about something that can be summarized quickly and snappily. Your videos should therefore be about 1 to 2 minutes long. While you should keep this in mind during the entire explainer video production process, this doesn’t mean you can’t have a longer video, but you might want to shorten them into easily digestible bite-sized videos and turn them into a video series rather than uploading one really long video in one go.

• Don’t be all over the place

Keep what you want to say in mind when creating your explainer video. Do you want to explain your product? Talk about the history of your company? Train your employees about how to use the printer? Whatever your goal is, make sure that the information in your video is focused on getting information about your goal across. Creating an animated explainer video is not the place for long diatribes or irrelevant details.

Your primary goal is to get your potential customers to watch your video from start to finish—if they need additional information, then they can look for it at a later time. On social media, people want to get information quickly—don’t get give them that and they’ll scroll away from your video lickety split. Considering that potential customers spending more time on your website is one of the primary benefits of social media, having them move on too quickly because of a video without focus goes against what you’re trying to accomplish.

• Do write a catchy title for your video

You might be thinking that the title of your video is the least of your concerns amongst all the other elements you need to worry about during the explainer video production process. I’m here to disabuse you of that notion—an attention-grabbing title for your video is a must. A title that appeals to your target customers will make them click on it more than a generic one. Take these two as an example: “This is our company’s latest offering” vs “XYZ: Changing the Way you do Business.”

The first one doesn’t resonate with any emotion or pique interest, while the second one creates importance around the topic of the video as it implies direct benefit to the user. It doesn’t give away information since providing the information is your animated explainer video’s job but it teases enough that it will make people want to click on it, in case they miss something that would truly be useful for their business.

Don’t forget to include keywords in your title since this is how your video will appear in targeted searches for content.

• Don’t choose a boring thumbnail

When deciding how to put your video on social media, always put yourself in your potential customers’ shoes. What would make them decide to click on your video? Considering that video is a visual medium, a thumbnail that’s visually engaging and interesting is most likely what will make them decide that your video is worth their precious time and attention. Make sure to choose one that stands out—if you’ve already hired a professional explainer video company that creates custom animated marketing videos, then this shouldn’t be too hard to do and you can use the most interesting still you have.

• Do add subtitles to your video

It’s 2021—inclusivity should be a priority. Part of your audience base would be people who need the aid of subtitles in order to retrieve information from your video, so adding subtitles makes your video accessible to anyone who wants to get information from it. In addition, as social media is a global phenomenon, there might be people from across the globe watching your video but unable to fully understand what your product or service is about because the audio is too fast for them, having a subtitle in your language, would be a good way to allow people to pause and digest the information in your video. Better yet, include subtitles in other languages as well. You’d be surprised as to how much this opens your product or service to a market you didn’t even know existed for your product.

• Don’t forget your call to action

Forget subtle: say what you want your customers to do out loud. Want them to visit your website, contact you, or head to the nearest store to buy your product? Make that loud and clear in your video, otherwise, your audience might just get lost in the fancy graphics and nice music and completely forget what they’re doing there in the first place. You can even use your video as an instructional demo as to how they can check out more of your products or opt in to your services. Whatever it is, make it clear what you’d like for them to do once they’ve watched the video. If you don’t, chances are that they won’t or not know what to do next even if they wanted to engage more with your company.

• Do get a customized video

We’ve talked about standing out from the crowd, so make sure that you’re getting a video that customized exclusively for your brand. This is why you should make sure you hire a professional explainer video company. It doesn’t matter if you’re looking for a whiteboard animation video or other forms of 2D animation videos, a good video production agency should be able to cater to your needs and fulfill the requirements of your brand. You’ll need to make sure that the video aligns with the branding of your company, through the use of logos, colors, images and title. It’s in this way you’ll be able to stand out from the crowd and show the personality and values of your company.

If you want to take advantage of our expertise, drop us a line.

• Don’t go for a low-quality video

The average internet user nowadays is used to high-quality content. It doesn’t matter which platform they’re using; low-quality explainer video production is easy to spot and makes you stand out in the worst way possible. That’s why you’d want to hire a professional explainer video company that can create high-quality videos—they look like a lot of time was spent on making it, not to mention money (even though that might not be the case at all), which shows that your company is willing and able to use these resources in engagement efforts with their potential users. High-quality videos catch viewers’ attention with engaging and interesting visuals and retain it with smooth and fluid animation.

Let us know if you’d like to find out about how much do animated marketing videos cost.

In conclusion

Animated videos for business look great on your video landing page but you’ll increase your reach exponentially if you put them on your social media channels. However, social media optimization is critical for you to get the most out of your animated marketing videos. You’ll maximize engagement and increase conversion if you keep your videos optimized and get the most out of your investment.