Video Marketing Data Blog #1: It’s About The First 3 Seconds!
Time: According to the latest marketing stats by Facebook, people spend 1.7 seconds on average on a piece of content on mobile compared to 2.5 seconds on a desktop pc, before they scroll on to the next piece of content in their news feed. Therefore, if you want to grab your viewers’ attention with a video, the first seconds of your video count the most. It’s mandatory that your audience starts looking at your video. It sounds trivial but it’s always: Bind them first to the video (in these 1.7 seconds) and after that start with your video/message/value…or whatever.
Value: The value of your video content is established within the first 3 seconds and increases with duration: 65% of people that watch the first 3 seconds of your video on Facebook will watch it for at least 10 seconds. 45% will watch a video for 30 seconds. Thus if you can bind your audience for more than 3s to your video, you will have a 45% chance that they will watch it for 30 seconds – enough time to show your entire video.
Therefore, here are the four most important rules you should follow to catch the audience attention within the first 3 seconds of your video:
Before the video: Capture attention with your video’s thumbnail image(s), text and graphics. Make sure not to add too much text onto the video’s thumbnail because Facebook or YouTube will rate the thumbnail as less attractive (check it with this tool).
Open the video with the top-shot: Emotional, action-packed, thrilling! Don’t follow the chronology in your videos anymore. If you start low in your first 3s, your potential viewer is watching already the next video in his newsfeed. Example: Go to Red Bull Facebook page and check out all their videos. You will find the same pattern every time.
Don’t cut the top-shot. Many platforms start the videos automatically and it will take the viewer about 0.5 to 1 second to scroll and follow the action in your video. If you already made a cut in the first seconds, you lose your top-shot.
Name/show your brand or product in the first 3s (better 1.7s)! You have your impression of your brand or product anyway and it’s not only some random, non-branded clip in a newsfeed.
DataBlog is a five-part blog series where we’d like to show the latest marketing stats in videomaking. Include these steps in your video marketing strategies and you will be ready for the video marketing 2018. Check out the other four data blogs:
#1: It’s About The First 3 Seconds! The importance of the first 3 seconds of your video.
#2: Plan Your Video Without Audio! 85% of Facebook videos are watched without sound.
#3: Four Types of Video Lengths! 56% of all videos published in the last year have been less than 2 minutes long.
#4: Timing! What’s the best time to release a video on social media.
#5: Distribution! Once your video is uploaded you want the biggest possible reach.
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