The devices we use dictate the way we interact with the features inside them. This gives a very powerful indication on how the rise of a certain type of device can usher in a major paradigm shift that many thought could never happen, and nowhere does this hold true more nowadays than in the tremendous rise in popularity of vertical videos.
If, back in 2012, someone would’ve suggested a marketer or a major brand to make a video in Portrait mode or in a vertical viewing style, their opinion would have been viewed with derision and rightly so. Till then, horizontal or landscape mode ruled the roost on all videos being made and that’s because they were being majorly viewed through devices that suited horizontal videos perfectly.
Televisions and desktop PCs made horizontal videos appear pleasant to view and vertical videos frustrating. Back then, a vertical video felt like it was made by someone unprofessional, perhaps an amateur. For corporate videos, movies, ads or any other thing “Video”, horizontal or landscape format was seen as better suited and highly professional.
However, with the rise in the number of people using smartphones, vertical videos soon gained traction and nowadays, they are the most suited to all types of videos being made.
Smartphones make it incredibly easier to not just record videos in portrait mode but also view them in it, and this is something that any brand trying to build a result oriented video marketing strategy in 2020 just cannot ignore.
If you too are a brand that’s planning to aggressively spend on your video marketing, then here five major reasons why you should start pursuing vertical video production for your social media based videos:
1. There’s No Better Way To Put Videos Out For Mobile Users:
By November 2018, 62% of users watched online videos on their mobile and this number shouldn’t come off as a surprise to you at all. Smartphones are now everywhere and users are using them consistently to do a wide range of tasks. From writing emails to talking with friends, we have our smartphones in our hands all the time now.
And mobiles are “Vertical” i.e. they are best suited for viewing videos in portrait mode. Just tilting your smartphone to watch a video horizontally doesn’t make any sort of sense from a UX perspective. Nowadays, on social media, if a video comes during scrolling through the feed, it should play instantaneously in order to retain user interest and that can only happen with a vertical video.
Horizontal videos are just not suitable for smartphones at all, so if you are looking to target social media channels in your brand strategy, then you need to use vertical video for it. We hold our mobiles vertically 94% of the time, so just go with the flow and get a vertical video made to suit user and device preferences.
2. Social Media Channels Prefer Vertical Videos For Marketing & Ads:
Just answer this, if you want to resize a video to put on IGTV for Instagram, would you choose a vertical video or a horizontal one? Vertical right? And that’s because Instagram wouldn’t accept a horizontal video for IGTV.
It’s not just Instagram that’s doing it, Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, all have started accommodating vertical ads. YouTube has even rolled out major updates to its video player to ensure that videos suit the aspect ratio of the devices they are being viewed in.
When these big social media brands do something like this, businesses will take it up and so should you, if you want your video marketing strategy to be successful in the long term.
3. Global Corporate Brands Are Leveraging Vertical Video In Their Marketing Campaigns:
See this video by Adidas.
Now see this trailer for Mad Max Fury Road
See something? Both of them are in the vertical video format.
Big global brands have some of the best marketing talent with them, they have huge budgets and even bigger audiences to reach out to, and if they are doing something, it means it’s worthwhile.
Smaller brands can be known as “Trend watchers” i.e. if a bigger brand does something, it’s bound to be emulated by them. These top global brands are now increasingly looking forth towards leveraging the vertical video format because they believe in its power to reach the end goal.
Mercedes Benz saw its brand recall rate jump 9 staggering points on the back of a vertical video marketing campaign.
Big brands don’t invest in experiments, they invest in things if they deem them good enough to be invested in and nowadays, vertical videos is one of them. If you own a brand too, then follow the lead of the bigger brands and invest in vertical videos now.
4. Vertical Video Now Brings Better Returns:
The main purpose of any tool in marketing is to ensure that it plays its role in engaging customers more than other tools in order to mandate its use. So is vertical video just something exciting or does it actually bring in better returns?
Well, while the jury is still out on that, there are still really promising evidences that vertical video does bring in stellar returns.
Snapchat saws its vertical videos are watched 9 times more than its horizontal ones. If you want your audience to watch a video with sound, Facebook’s research says that chances of that happening increase through vertical videos. Another research from Facebook Business itself, says that 65 out of 100 users will rate your business as innovative if you use vertical videos on a regular basis.
So it can safely assumed that vertical videos don’t just power convenience, they actually bring in results so they are definitely trustworthy.
5. Social Media Is Itself “Vertical”
Have you ever used Facebook in horizontal or landscape mode? Instagram? Snapchat? Doesn’t seem natural to even think of it, right?
That’s because, social media itself is vertically aligned. Scrolling requires the screen to be elongated. It can’t be any other way. So would you like to disturb this UX harmony through pushing out a video that requires your social media platform to appear horizontal? Not quite, right?
UX principles say that vertical video suits a vertical platform, and no matter what your old school 2D animation company or says, this is what it is.
Even a small additional “Flip” requirement could mean the difference between success and failure, so why take this risk?
Wrapping Up:
What does this all mean for you as a brand looking to get engagement from your social media marketing strategy? It’s clear i.e. you need to start producing Vertical videos for your social campaigns, period!
And if you don’t want to fully transform your video strategy, then you can, at the very least, push out some videos in the vertical form and see how they perform. Let us promise you, the results wouldn’t just be promising, they would be spectacular enough to make you rethink your video marketing strategy in favor of vertical videos for 2020.
