In today’s era of information overload and ever-shortening attention spans, it’s more important than ever for marketers to find innovative ways to increase audience retention levels.
There’s just too much going on online, and if you can’t capture and hold the attention of your viewers, you won’t be able to stay ahead of the competition.
We’re going to highlight tips to help you make your videos more engaging so you can enhance your reach, build authentic relationships with your audience, and ultimately make more conversions.
1. Hook your audience
One of the most important things you can do to boost your audience engagement levels is to have a strong hook at the beginning of each of your videos. You need to provide information on what the video is about, but you must do so in a way that is compelling. The right editing technique can do wonders for your video. This can be achieved with Instasize.
In essence, you need to dangle the carrot and then give your viewers the carrot at the end. Sparking curiosity in this way is a great way to get them to watch the rest of your video where you can then provide the answer to that curiosity.
See how Binging With Babish hooks their audience.
2. Ensure you have high quality audio
High quality audio is important for an engaging video. If your audio isn’t clear, or if the creator is mumbling in the video, it’s likely that your audience will simply click away to find a more interesting (and palatable) video.
So make sure you’re always clear when speaking and reduce background noise to ensure you only publish videos with high quality audio.
3. Make sure the video production is high quality
In addition to having high quality audio, you also need to make sure the video production looks great.
Video has grown to become one of the most popular sources of entertainment and information for internet users today, but only high quality videos make the cut.
With so much content to choose from, you can be sure that your viewers won’t stay to watch any of your videos if they have poor production value. You may even want to consider working with a professional videographer who can give you strong insights into what makes a great video product.
4. Use engaging visuals
Eye-catching visuals are always a great way to capture and hold your audience’s attention, and using high quality, engaging visuals can improve engagement.
Whether you’re creating explainer videos, tutorials, interviews, testimonial videos, live streams, or any other type of video, always use unique and interesting visuals to make it more likely that your audience will watch your videos until the end.
See how Disney does it.
5. Ensure you have good lighting
Effective lighting is crucial to making an engaging video. It can help capture your audience’s attention, set the desired mood, and enhance your story.
Think about how you want your audience to feel as they watch your video, and then use either natural light or a light kit (or even a combination of both) to make your audience see your videos how you want them to.
6. Use storytelling
Being able to tell a compelling story is key when creating an engaging video.
Storytelling is among the top techniques used by successful content creators on YouTube. By learning various storytelling techniques, you’ll be able to write more engaging scripts that stand out from the crowd and help you share your message in a unique and memorable way.
Not only that, but proper storytelling will indirectly increase your revenue on YouTube because your audience will be served more ads.
See how Ben & Jerry’s does it.
7. Build credibility
The ultimate goal of your videos is to help your business make money. But for people to buy your products or services, they need to trust you.
That can only happen if you prove that you’re credible and trustworthy.
As a content creator, you can do this through your videos. While you work to establish your credibility, over time, your engagement levels will grow as you become the go-to source for information in your niche.
Then, if you want to take it a step further without a lot of effort, you can consider the idea of utilizing PLR courses that you’ve taken to increase your bottom line.
See how Ahrefs builds credibility.
8. Use data and stats
Using data and stats can help improve the engagement of a video by allowing you to see exactly how users interact with your video through engagement graphs.
While large companies have database software to assist with this, smaller companies can use data in places like YouTube to help improve engagement by looking at where viewers click away from your videos and then using specific techniques to help boost engagement in those areas.
Your data may also tell you a lot of other actionable information, such as the video length that resonates the most with your viewers, and so on.
9. High energy coupled with humour
As previously noted, there is an overabundance of videos online today. In order to stand out from the crowd, you need to make your videos as interesting and engaging as possible.
A lot of this comes down to the editing software you use and the capabilities it gives you, but another way to do this is by infusing your presentations with high energy, humour, and personality to keep your audience enthralled and coming back for more.
See how Jon Petz presents his content.
10. Make something people want to share
Making your videos shareable will have a massive impact on your engagement levels. Make it cute. Make it funny. Make it shocking. Whatever the style, pump it up to eleven to make it more likely that your audience will share it with their networks of friends and family. Engaging thumbnails also help here too!
See how Buzzfeed Video make their content shareable.
Another way to make your videos more shareable is to educate people. A good example is a YouTube channel by Railsware where employees share various insights from Google Sheet tips to comprehensive explanations of product development concepts.
Summary
While these best practices are great if you’re trying to grow your own brand and get the attention of followers, these basic principles also work for customer service videos, employee onboarding videos, training videos, or really any type of video you’re creating. Use these 10 editing tips to help make your videos more engaging so you can boost your audience retention and conversion levels when it’s relevant.
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This is a guest post by Prof. Ron Stefanski. He’s an online entrepreneur and college professor who helps people create and market their own online businesses. Learn more about Ron by visiting OneHourProfessor.com
You can also connect with him on YouTube or Linkedin, or on his Facebook Community.