Visual storytelling is an important way to educate, entertain, and make your audience want to come back for more. It gives life to your ideas, your brand’s purpose, and your personalities. It’s going to let you show, not just tell. This article will help you evolve your visual storytelling and engage your viewers through video content. With the help of great tips that these will inspire you, make you laugh, make you cry, and motivate you to try something new. Regardless of the constraints that the pandemic has imposed on all of us.
The new year offers a number of eye-opening ideas for your strategy. We have collected some highlights here that will boost your audience engaging skills. Here’s how you can engage viewers through video content.
Tip 1: Repurpose and promote video content
You have worked hard to research, write, edit, and design your written content. Video allows you to amplify it in new ways. Years ago, Vidyard transformed a marketing e-book into a video that produced more than 300,000 views. The video – featuring a character who embodies the e-book – was smart and fun, and forced people to read the e-book.
Video storytelling has the opportunity to be more emotional and to spark humour, to inspire, to make people really want to re-engage,” says Tyler Lessard, Vice President Marketing at Vidyard. Video storytelling brings emotion, sparks humour, inspires, and makes people want to re-enter your content.
Tip 2: Cut down the sales pitch in your video content
Unleash your customer’s story and not your story. As an example, look at Genesys’ CX Heroes videos on YouTube, some of which he says will lead you to tears. The one that tells the story of Telefónica’s digital services manager, Mexico’s largest communications provider, who helped her colleagues through the earthquake that struck Mexico City in 2017. After the earthquake, she mobilised executives and IT to relocate the company’s contact centre to an undamaged building and had customer service reps back online within hours.
They’re the sort of stories you just want to tell, but they aren’t testimonials. Therefore you unlock the storey of some of those major customers and how they came to be, the challenges they are facing and how they see success without a product placement ad for you. See Uberflip’s creative explanation of videos as an example of how the services are being talked about – and still do so in such a way that one is focused on what the customer needs and not what one wants to say. They are funny and informative, and offer viewers a better understanding of Uberflip.
Check it out on the homepage of Uberflip.
Tip 3: To build empathy and a human feeling, use video content
Talking about tears, Kevin Doherty, Vyond’s Marketing Relations Officer, told the warmth of his grandfather in his session. And he showed us his home video as a kid with his “dad.” Amongst several attendees he created a collective “awwwww,” with some of them mentioning in the chat that he made them tear up. Me too. Me too. Just fifteen days before the webinar his grandfather died – and just two months after his family lost its grandmother.
“And it has been impossible to handle all of this in isolation by a pandemic, wildfires and elections. Hence then he was at a loss when he eventually sat down to end this session. He stated, “I barely understood from the bottom of my sorrow. How can one summarize the difficult abstract story concept?”, shared Kevin.
– Use cognitive empathy to engage viewers through video content
Everyone involved in the session was moved and related to him. . His plot, video and storytelling advice attracted all. It was quite unforgettable, original and real. But more importantly it was human because it was emotional. The British psychologist Edward Titchener, who coined the word ‘cognitive empathy,’ pointed to studies into human cognition.
Cognitive empathy enables one to experience something fully by looking at another human being. This is why, while you have never been a grandparent, when you watch a video at home, you can relate to it. While you may have never held a child, if you look at a video you can practically feel the weight of a swaddled infant. Hence which is why one has to have an insight, if only a glimpse, into what being a parent felt like at any moment. This kind of thing highlights the sense of visual thought. Cognitive empathy enables one to experience something fully by looking at another human being.
In this context, pick something up from each one around you in an authentic and emotional way. Engage viewers through video content in a way that’s at least more meaningful than just promotional or informative.
Tip 4: Promote your video content by going live
Many marketers are speaking of being human and bringing it to a new level through their ongoing discussions on LinkedIn Live, Facebook Live, and other networks. Streaming can be used to build one’s brand, to connect with your audience on a deeper level, and to support the sales process and the sales cycle.
If you mess things up, your audience is going to see that happen. Or perhaps you’re late in some places, the audience will notice. Or when your camera is going to cut out, as it has happened before for many creators out there who go live, your audience will see that. And that’s okay. Of course, like all these little things, you don’t want them to happen. You will want to create this ideal experience. But instead the audience will be seeing reality, and they will notice your authenticity. On top of that there’s nothing that makes it possible for people to get deeper into a business or a person than to see what’s really like behind the scenes, to get to know them and who they really are.
A lot of businesses out there just don’t do that. They’re not taking the plunge because they’re too afraid. Don’t make that mistake and go out there. Engage viewers through video content in a way that it connects with your audience.
– How do you get started on live streaming?
There are some great ideas that you can build upon with the content marketing of the company. More often than not, people start with a live show that focuses on customer problem points and what are their expectations. Answer questions like what do they have to do with? What are they confused about? Are there any requests for features or feedback or concerns?
You can also turn this into a biweekly Q&A session. You can just show up here. And start with very simple, very minimalist graphics but original. You can create a team which will ask their community to answer questions in live streams. Members of the company’s Product, Marketing and Customer Success Teams should come together to discuss the issues.
You can also leverage influencers to help with a weekly live interview show with content creators.Connect with influencers by inviting them to be guests to a weekly video interview series. The strategy should be to focus on other established content creators, partners with people with relevant audiences and communities, and people who are familiar with and interested in the products. So, this is how your marketing influencer programme can be born.
Tip 5: Build your bench and think high to engage viewers through video content
Thomas Madsen-Mygdal, TwentyThree’s Co-founder and CEO, advises businesses to find a way of reinventing conventional materials and video making their business possible. “The real challenge facing everyone is to make video a massive paradigm shift, and not just a new communication channel,” he says.
“All of the comms you’ve done before – press releases, a job ad, whatever – you have to do it with video,” he says. “How could video be focused on each process, each customer touch point? “They are about tools, practise, people, and then it is about continuous learning throughout the journey, as with every kind of facilitation.”
A recent research by TwentyThree shows that 50% of the advertisers investing in 2021 webinars are mostly supposed to be live, video-based and interactive. It’s the human aspect that we so badly need, especially in today’s world. Now is the time to experiment, innovate, start systemizing, and largely invest, and shift your resources to video marketing and video-enabling your organisation.
Achieving ambitious visual storytelling goals may require some additional skills. We recommend three key hires: a programme manager, a video producer, and a video marketer. These are the “change agents” that can help build the appropriate teams to scale the video capability of the organisation.
Tip 6: Get Late Night TV Inspiration
While digital marketing has been a priority for many organisations, more immersive and experiential, the pandemic has promoted it. According to Mark Bornstein, On24 Vice president for content marketing, aspirations are higher.
“These experiences are expected to be the kind of experiences in your personal lives by consumers every time they experience your brand,” he says. “They’re looking for something that is immersive, connected, interactive and which offers something relevant to their particular needs (or which anticipates their needs).
You should hold webinars that involve everything from structured audio PowerPoint presentations to serialized programmes using styles such as coffee discussions, news formats and interviews, the webinars grew similarly to late night talk shows. These shows provide any mix of multimedia content for information, inspiration and entertainment.
– Choose the appropriate platforms to engage viewers through video content
Take the example of what is achieved by Red Whale, a UK primary healthcare provider. They talk about very sensitive health care issues, but in an approachable and human way they wanted to do this in an immersive manner because they talk about something quite serious.
Develop webinars that provide video forums, Q&A, green skits, audio polls, links to future events, etc. Three or four videos could have been visible by the end of a one-hour experience, your conversation could have been watched, you could have been linked to a YouTube page or you could have seen more videos or more content on demand and downloaded content. The days have passed when audio through slides will give your public some personal experience that they anticipate or deserve.
Tip 7: Dedicate your audience and say thank you !
A great combination of visual formats encourages people to watch and return. The inclusion of interactive elements – an incentive for the viewer to query or respond – keeps them involved.
Live video is a little raw, but there is also a chance to obtain feedback in real time. Those who watch will lead the discussion and ask questions, get results straight away and get a feeling for wherever you want to go next.
This is one of the reasons why Goldie Chan, a personal brand expert and warm robots founder, loves LinkedIn. “You can answer questions immediately, particularly if someone tells a personal storey, you get the answer immediately. This becomes really emotional and perfect for your brand and LinkedIn.”
This is excellent news for marketers of content. 96 percent in CMI’s latest B2B research use the organic content marketing platform and two thirds claim that the platform has produced the best results.
-Live video to engage viewers through video content
LinkedIn also allows you to go back and react to comments, while living spaces are currently there, something that is a must-do. With just a simple statement like ‘We appreciate you’re here,’ your audience will be more likely to tune the next time you plan to go live. If you take just 10 minutes after you finish the stream and respond to everyone who commented on your video and let them know and this is an essential contribution.
Live video is a great way to help people who visit LinkedIn to develop their careers. They hosted monthly live streams to help job-seekers build more one-to-one connections. Ample research suggests that people have more to do with ears.
Brian Wallace, founder and president of NowSourcing, points out that consistency in going live is important for interaction. He’s there at 2 p.m. every Friday. ET, and he’s putting his LinkedIn Live broadcast time at the top of his About section to make it easier for people to see.
You should also stress that developing fresh ideas is important. Just take a look at LinkedIn’s algorithm which is constantly looking for a diversity of thought. . So consider other things you can talk about topic-wise along with different formats.
Tip 8: Be on your own and don’t hide from conflict
Speaking of raw live video, Chad Lakin, vice president of Shootsta North America, says it’s okay to be yourself. Authenticity matters, “especially with executives, showing that they’re real people, they’ve got kids screaming in the background, dogs barking all the time, stuff like that,” Chad says. “It makes people go, ‘Oh, you know what, I’m not the only one struggling with this right now.’ And I think that’s really important in this kind of environment.”
Every creator can relate to this. But audiences have been forgiving life in the background during these extraordinary times. So be original and create something that you can call your own. But authenticity is not necessarily equal to the low value of production. You might just have an iPhone camera, but that doesn’t mean you can’t think about things like composition and story arc, real sound and light quality, extra lenses.
At the beginning, like a lot of your response to the original content creation, it can be very reactionary. But after some time, you will realise that you need to adapt to a longer-term strategy. You can get back to the basic building blocks. And if you lose sight of those, that’s where you can lose your audience as well, and your involvement could suffer.
– Relatable video content to engage viewers
Thinking carefully about the building blocks and the structure of the storey can go a long way towards creating purposeful content.
It’s really about helping ideas get into people’s minds. You have to realise that if people are feeling cautious you will never get through. Get them to be comfortable and be approachable. They should lower their shields. And if you try to get an idea into you must know that the shields are there, and this is where telling stories really comes in.
Storytelling can break through the shields of your potential audience and allow your ideas to flow through. There are a lot of plot frameworks you can use, but do not be afraid of conflict.
There’s a lot of organisational bravery to get into the way you speak about conflict. Therefore sometimes you may not want to see any conflict in your bits. You should really concentrate on all that’s going great in the way you roll out our products and content and what it can do for the market. Because people aren’t going to purchase your product unless they have a pain point.
Tip 9: Embrace the constraints you’ll face while creating video content
Speaking of production value you should also think about , taking video production and virtual speaking to a whole new level. Although you don’t all have expertise, poise, equipment, or creative thinking. You can learn from it and get inspired to try new things – just like the constraints from the pandemic prompted many to do so.
The world threw us this giant curveball in the form of this pandemic. Suddenly, people found ourselves constrained. They are constrained to their homes, constrained to their families, and more importantly constrained to their laptops. Furthermore they have been constrained to Netflix, constrained to their home office and constrained to their desks.
This is where people look to content creators for finding inspiration in all sorts of places. This can be kids playing “magic flying mattress” in your neighbourhood, an Instagram storey about a dad who built a makeshift ski slope in his backyard to replace an annual family ski trip, and more. If there’s one thing this pandemic has illuminated , it’s the constraints that create creativity. Think of these constraints as an opportunity to force yourself to come up with new ideas. Think of this as a challenge. It’s a lot of fun to embrace the constraints.
Tip 10 : Choose a clear central message for your video content
A great story usually moves toward a central morality or message. When you make a story, you should have a clear idea of what you’re building to do. If your story has a strong moral component, you’re going to want to guide listeners or readers to that message. Or if you’re telling a funny story, you might be building to a twist that leaves your audience in stitches. Moreover if you’re telling an interesting story, try to increase the dramatic tension and suspense right up to the climax of your story. Irrespective of what type of story you’re telling, it’s important to be very clear about the central theme or plot point that you’re building your story around. Thus by the end of the video your viewers should have a clear idea of what you want to express.
This year to create better content in 2021 read our article !
