How to Create Compelling Videos to Enhance Business Growth
From left to right: Jonathan Vit (Head of Video from VICE Asia), Byron Perry, moderator (Founder and CEO of Coconuts Media), Tessa Wong (Video Journalist from BBC News Online), Chung Lyn-Yi (Supervising Editor from CNA), Joyce Hau (Head of News Partnerships from YouTube Asia Pacific)
Video content is a powerful tool for marketers and producers to tell complex stories that engages their viewers. According to Cisco’s Visual Networking Index, video traffic will account for 82% of the global web traffic by 2022. With video consumption on an upward trend, it is no surprise that YouTube is the second most visited website in the world. To keep up, media publications and businesses are generating more video content to attract and engage their audiences.
As an Associate Member of The Society of Publishers in Asia (SOPA), PR Newswire was invited to attend the SOPA Singapore Media Insider event held on 30 Aug 2019 in Singapore. I attended to learn from media professionals about the latest video production trends and how businesses may produce compelling corporate news videos.
There was a panel discussion and the speakers touched on topics such as strategies for creating high-quality news videos and the latest video production trends. The panel discussion comprised the following speakers:
- Joyce Hau, Head of News Partnerships from YouTube Asia Pacific
- Jonathan Vit, Head of Video from VICE Asia
- Chung Lyn-Yi, Supervising Editor from CNA
- Tessa Wong, Video Journalist from BBC News Online
- Byron Perry, Founder and CEO of Coconuts Media (Moderator)
Here are my takeaways from this event:
- The level of video engagement
Engagement levels are critical metrics. Upon video upload, the speakers shared they would monitor to see if it’s doing well in terms of the following metrics:
- number of views
- number of likes
- number of comments
- view time (total amount of time viewers spent viewing the video)
- average view duration (the average time spent viewing the video)
- average completion rate (the average percentage of the video viewed)
- Sequencing makes or breaks video content
The speakers shared that most audiences stop watching if it doesn’t catch their attention within the first 10 seconds on social media platforms and YouTube. For longer videos like documentaries, the digital teams will analyze the engagement levels and pinpoint the specific timestamp where most viewers stop watching. By analyzing the timestamp, it may reveal tiny details such as when the documentary shows the back of the speaker’s head, viewers are more likely to feel disengaged and stop watching. Video producers may then optimize accordingly when they are shooting their next video.
When shooting videos, take as many shots as you can, wide medium and close-up, of the action. When editing, you will have additional choices to put together the most exciting sequence.
- Creating video content for different platforms
There are many different platforms to share videos such as YouTube, Vimeo, Dailymotion, Twitch, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok. Each platform will have its unique positioning and attract different audiences. YouTube, Vimeo and Dailymotion would most likely have the widest variety as they have a general target audience. For social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok, the content is often bite-sized, fun and exciting to promote the likelihood of shares.
Some media publications seek to target the younger generation; hence they are placing more emphasis on multimedia news stories with lighter content such as lifestyle news. Ultimately, they need to study video consumption behaviors and tailor their video content style to attract targeted audiences.
When producing a video, businesses should plan how a single piece of video content can be re-purposed and used across multiple platforms.
- How YouTube combats fake news
Fake news remains to be one of the biggest issues for some readers as most of the articles that are published on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and YouTube do not state the source of the information. Most panelists (BBC, CNA, VICE Asia and Coconuts Media) are media representatives except for YouTube. YouTube is an open video platform and that there isn’t an editorial team that vets and fact-checks content before publication.
Joyce Hau, Head of News Partnerships from YouTube Asia Pacific, said that the platform was continuously trying to improve themselves to become a more trusted news source for viewers:
- Promotion of news content from established news media publications
- Introduction of a “Breaking News” shelf – This only appears when there is a significant news event
- Monitor for spikes in the number of views for videos and then proceed to validate the source of the video – the aim is to make credible news more accessible and improve the news experience
- Subtitles are a must – Most social media videos are watched without audio
This was an interesting fact that one of the speakers shared – 85% of Facebook videos are watched without sound according to Digiday. This is also the way I consume video content whilst on my daily commute to and from work. Therefore, it is critical to add some form of text or subtitles within videos to help provide context to the audiences that are watching these ‘silent’ videos.
After the panel discussion ended, I asked Ron Leung, Multimedia Producer at PR Newswire about his professional opinion as he helps our clients create multimedia press releases – comprising interactive, visually appealing content – that attract journalists and is easy to share on social media. He added, “With the growing trend of mobile devices usage, audiences are most likely consuming video content on smaller screen sizes. To stand out from millions of videos, using fonts and styles that look good on small screens is critical.” He provided an example comparing two different subtitle fonts below:
Open Sans (did you guess correctly?) and Helvetica are good examples of san-serif typefaces that work well as subtitles even on smaller screens.
Keen to leverage video content as part of your communications strategy? Get in touch with us to learn more about PR Newswire’s Video News Release product.
This blog post is contributed by Stephanie Lau, Senior Audience Development Executive at PR Newswire. Stephanie leads PR Newswire’s audience development team in Singapore. She oversees media partnerships, media database and organizes media events and interviews. Prior to joining PR Newswire, she had three years of experience working in PR agencies.
Stephanie.Lau 