How To Make Your Videos The Most Engaging Content On The Web

I'm excited to share great post today from Andy Havard, an executive from Skeleton Productions.  When I asked Andy about making content more engaging, he gave me more than I could have hoped for.  Listen in as he provides great tips for marketers and businesses.

The Set-Up

Today’s online video world enjoys videos shot in high definition with great audio and a good standard of lighting. Your video will need to follow this trend if it wants users to engage viewers successfully.

In terms of the content of your video you’ll want to abide by the key ingredients for making engaging and successful video content; create content that is informative, entertaining or educational, worth sharing amongst social audiences, unique or surprising. Ticking off some of those areas in your video, regardless of its length will put your audience on track to enjoy an engaging viewing experience.

The Content
When it comes to creating engaging content you want to adhere to the three golden values of great video making: Entertain, Inform, Educate

Audiences on and off the web hope to get those prestigious three values out of every video they watch. If your video can provide one, two or maybe even all three of those values your video will be well on its way to being a success.

The Viewing Experience
The experience a viewer has with your video means everything to its success. A great way of giving viewers a pleasurable viewing experience is to make your video content interactive.

Make use of Annotation tools that sites like YouTube offer to turn your video into a “video game”, an interactive video or even provide a simple feedback option for viewers to voice their feelings on the video. By connecting with your viewer within your video you can really enhance their viewing experience.

Social Media Convergence
Connecting your video to your social media platforms is essential. All video sharing sites be it Vimeo, YouTube or Daily Motion allow for convergence with your social media profiles. This convergence allows users to engage with your video through a Like, Share or Comment on their social platforms, which will really make a big difference to your videos popularity.

Call To Action
A call to action in your video encourages uses to engage with your product, brand or service after they've watched the video content. This extra engagement will help you to get more out of your video and give viewers an opportunity to find out more about you.

Measure Your Success
Always remember that measuring the current success of your video is your fast-track ticket to future success. Try to review your campaigns monthly to keep a close eye on how it is developing over time. Beware checking your content too regularly though as this could give misleading results. Allow enough time for your video content to have ran the majority of its course and make amends accordingly. 

Use tools like Google Analytics, SEOmoz, HootSuite, Wistia to give yourself a clear view of how well your video campaign is engaging with your audiences. Once you've reviewed its progress start to plan how to capitalise on its current success to make your next video even better.

Andy Havard is a Marketing Executive at Skeleton Productions, a UK based corporate video production company.