In today’s fast-paced digital world, people no longer want to sit through long videos that take up their valuable time. Just look at a platform like TikTok, which has become famous for hosting bite-sized videos that are easy to consume (and share) while on the go.
Why are videos getting so short? The answer is simple—people simply don’t have much time on their hands. Between their busy lives and the superfast pace of the internet and social media, if you can’t capture people’s attention within five seconds, they’re going to simply scroll away from your content.
If you’re a business owner or marketer who wants to harness the power of short videos to drive web traffic and boost sales, it’s time to say goodbye to long videos and try your hand at short-form content.
Whether it’s a quick five-second piece or a more in-depth three-minute video, adapting the way you create content will help supercharge your business and give you the positive results you’ve been searching for.
What Exactly is Short Video Content?
Short video content has become the trendiest marketing to-go tactic for reaching your following and connecting with new audiences. Short videos are usually under three minutes long, with some even as short as a few seconds.
Because of the popularity of platforms like TikTok and Instagram Reels, consumers have become more accustomed to getting the information (or entertainment) they want within minutes. Before the rise of the internet, brands and businesses created “infomercial” type videos which could be as long as thirty minutes in order to highlight the benefits of their product. Those days are long gone.
In the digital world, capturing an audience’s attention means packing your content full of fast-paced excitement and, more importantly, getting your message across as quickly as possible. While this may seem intimidating for business owners and marketers looking to enter the short-form arena, it’s actually good news! Anything—from a promotion to a product showcase to a special offer—can be highlighted through a short video that grabs, hooks and most importantly, converts.
How is Short Form Video Content Better Than Long-Form Content?
Short-form video content isn’t inherently better than long-form content, but it all comes down to the fact that people have changed the way that they consume content.
Twenty years ago, the entire family might sit in front of the television together after dinner. Businesses knew that they had a captive audience, and could therefore pour their marketing budget into creating long-form content. Similarly, newspapers and magazines could create long-form articles because people were accustomed to reading long-form pieces.
It goes without saying that the internet turned all of that upside down. Today, after a family dinner, you might have mom and dad watching TV (while simultaneously scrolling the news on their phones), the son on his computer upstairs, and the daughter chatting to her friends via a social media network on her smartphone. Because the way that we consume content has become so fractured, people are used to getting exactly what they want—now.
Long-form content doesn’t offer people the same immediacy as short-form content. There are thousands of brands, businesses, and forms of entertainment all vying for people’s attention at once, so it’s crucial that your brand is able to stand out from the crowd and grab their attention.
Now that you understand why creating short-form content is such an effective strategy, it’s time to look at how you can harness its power to impact your business’s bottom line.
5 Ways to Use Short Video to Drive Traffic & Sales
1. Bite-Sized Testimonial Videos
Studies show that over 90% of customers read online reviews before making a purchasing decision. Considering that there are thousands of businesses out there vying for their attention, this isn’t surprising because people want to know that they’re making the right choice and getting good value for their money.
Creating short-form testimonial videos doesn’t have to be difficult—in fact, you don’t even need to do it yourself! Reach out to happy customers via email or social media and ask them to upload a short video explaining why they liked your product or service. To incentivise them, you can even offer them a reward or small discount on their next purchase.
2. Jump on the Trends
The world of short-form video content is constantly changing as new trends come and go. If you aren’t sure what the latest trends are, it’s time to download a platform like TikTok and start scrolling!
By leveraging the popularity of current trends, your brand can show consumers that you’re engaged and share the same interests that they do. Because the content is so short, audiences are more likely to watch it, and you can boost it by using relevant hashtags or even putting some budget behind it to promote it to new audiences.
3. Repurpose Your Content
If you’ve just created your first short-form piece of video content and want to post it on TikTok, you’re off to a great start! Now, you should also post it as an Instagram Reel, Facebook Story, and a short on YouTube. Content is made to be shared far and wide, and you’ll want to maximise the reach of every piece of content you create to get more eyes on it.
Want to make your content go even further? Slice up your video into even shorter clips and use them as bite-sized content pieces across your social media platforms.
Because creating content takes a lot of work, you’ll want to repurpose your content as much as possible in order to increase your return on investment. While content remains king in the digital space, repurposing content strategically is your business’s secret weapon!
4. Start Working With Influencers
Creating content from scratch is daunting and can become incredibly time-consuming if you’re doing everything yourself. Good content isn’t about having a big budget, but it does require you to understand the latest trends and memes in order to resonate with your audience.
Luckily, your business has access to highly-skilled professionals who do this for a living—and they have a large enough audience to expose your brand to new followers. Almost every business, from small local ones to large, global brands, utilises influencers in order to connect with new audiences, and your brand can too!
The size of an influencer’s following will correlate to the price tag they charge to promote your brand, so it may be unrealistic for your business to partner with an influencer who has hundreds of thousands (or even millions) of followers. Fortunately, this isn’t a barrier. Even smaller influencers with a few thousand followers have deeply loyal followers who will be receptive to the brands they promote.
If you can’t afford to partner with large influencers, look into micro-influencers in your city. Micro-influencers usually have a following between 10,000 - 50,000 people but even partnering with an influencer who has 5,000 followers can have a massive effect on your business.
5. Skip The Hard Sell
When creating short-form content, it can be tempting to pack your video full of every piece of information about your business that you can fit into thirty seconds. While this strategy worked in infomercials, it won’t have an effect in the digital age.
Today, audiences want value. For your content to resonate with them, they need to understand how it makes their lives better. For example, have a look at the European airline RyanAir’s TikTok account.
They primarily post videos of planes that have human faces imposed over them. If that sounds weird, it’s because it is. These absurd videos sneak in captions and voice overs that make light of their no-frills approach to flying, entertaining audiences while simultaneously educating them about their offering. The result? They currently have 1.8 million followers.
If RyanAir simply made bland informational videos listing their benefits, their followers would likely lose interest and move onto the next video. No matter what industry you’re in, it’s crucial to find a way to communicate vital information that puts the audience’s entertainment first.
Conclusion
If you’re a small business that wants to make a big impact, it’s time to relook your marketing strategy and begin creating content that sells.
There is no “one size fits all” method for creating engaging, results-driven content that will drive website traffic and boost sales. Instead, there is an entire world of strategies that you can explore and play around with. If you aren’t sure where to start, have a look at what your successful competitors are doing and build your strategy from there.
While it can feel daunting to enter the world of short-form video content, audiences simply don’t have the time to engage with long-form content anymore. If you want to boost business, drive sales, and make a positive impact on your bottom line, short-form videos are the tried-and-tested way to reach audiences in this fast-paced digital age.