10 Tips for Rocking Vertical Video on Social Media in 2021

Video is a powerful advertising tool that one could add to their marketing toolbox. Whether you want to purchase or sell something, most of us would agree that video is the right way to go. Check out these amazing stats of video marketing.

• More than 85% of businesses use videos as a marketing tool.
• More than 93% of the marketers who use videos believe that they’re quite important for marketing.
• More than 90% of the consumers watched a video about a service or product of their interest.

By looking at these amazing stats, you can clearly understand the importance of video marketing. The chances are high that you’re even using them as your marketing tools, but are you using them the right way?

The concept of using vertical videos was quite criticized back in the day because of their reduced size when compared to horizontal videos. It was considered an amateur practice and not professional, but that’s now a thing of the past.

With the world getting more access to handheld devices, the concept of using vertical videos for marketing purposes has gained popularity to the point where they’re considered better than horizontal videos in any way possible. Even the greatest of explainer video production company believes that vertical videos rock on social media when it comes to advertising and marketing.

In this piece, we’ll discuss the ten tips for rocking vertical videos on social media. So let’s begin.

10 Tips for Rocking Vertical Video on Social Media

Choose The Right Aspect Ratio

The very first part of having a vertical video that rocks are to have the right aspect ratio. Just for a reference, any aspect ratio that is taller than wide could be considered vertical, but you need to choose the aspect ratio that suits best for smartphones and tablets. The ideal aspect ratios for vertical videos are 4:5, 2:3, and the fully vertical 9:16.

Technically, the 9:16 aspect ratio is considered better than the others because it utilizes the entirety of the vertical screen.

Now there are two ways to get these aspect ratios. You can either set the aspect ratio of your camera before shooting the video or edit and crop the video to your desired aspect ratio once the video has been shot.

You can also crop down a horizontal video to the vertical aspect ratios, but we’d recommend that you not do it as the video would look pixelated and awkward.

Grab The Viewers’ Attention

Social media is fast, and people scroll through their feeds quite swiftly. Even if your products are of world-class quality and your video is great, if you can’t manage to grab their attention towards it, they’re mostly like to scroll past it without even noticing your existence.

Therefore, it is important to grab your audience’s attention in the first initial seconds of the video and get them hooked.

Try to put the most provocative pieces of your content, colors, and visuals in the initial seconds of your video to grab your audience’s attention.

Split The Screen

If you find your vertical screen too tall for the content, there’s a great way of covering it up. You can split the screens by creatively stacking together multiple horizontal videos on top of each other. You can use natural lines and patterns in these clips to seamlessly blend and look natural.

Moreover, you can even use more than two clips by adding diagonal lines.

Give Your Video Some Headroom

Typically, most of the action shot in a vertical video is positioned in the center. You might not even notice, but it can sometimes cause parts of the video to be cut off awkwardly, which people scroll through their feed.  By giving your video some headroom, you can make sure that your video’s subject is always in front and center without being interrupted by any built-in text from the users’ device interface.

Moreover, you can always use text, emojis, and stickers in that space.

Fill Up The Vertical Space

If your video’s subject is vertical-friendly, you can automatically fill the space within the frame if you move closer to the subject. However, if the subject is personal, then there are many creative ways to fill up the vertical space.

Raise your shooting device high and tilt it down towards the subject as it will allow you to shoot a deep frame to film stuff like long roads or streams etc. Ultimately, it would give you a bird’s eye view and fill up the vertical gaps.

Leverage The Law Of Thirds

The law of thirds is a photography rule, which suggests that the video’s subject shouldn’t be placed in the center of your frame. Instead, it says that you should draw imaginary lines, divide the frame in thirds, and place the subjects on either the lines or where they intersect. Following this rule would allow you to get more dynamic results.

Working according to this rule is quite easier as most smartphone cameras allow you to use Gridlines when taking images or videos.

Avoid Moving Your Camera Fast

The stability of the frames is one thing that you need to make sure is excellent, as doing the contrary would ruin your video’s overall experience. The fair reason behind this is that they cause distraction and affect the quality of your video.

Since your vertical video already has lesser screen real estate on both sides, it is especially important not to move your camera side-to-side too fast.

Your Shot Types And Angles Should Vary

Try and mix up your camera angles and shot types within the frames when creating a vertical video. Doing this would make your video more interesting and engaging. Especially if you’re shooting a video like a Vlog or an interview, you can break up the on-camera talking and add an engaging close up of the subject that takes up the entire frame.

Make Good Use Of Text And Graphics

Using texts within your video where your subject isn’t would complement the visuals. Moreover, they can enhance your audience’s experience if you add small pieces of graphics and stickers to make it look more engaging and fun.

Optimize Your Vertical Video For Viewing Without Sound

Most of us watch videos under the blanket or kill time while sitting in a hotel or commuting. If your video makes sense with sounds only, you need to optimize it for viewing without sounds. Even the major social media platforms like Instagram have muted videos by default, plus, nobody likes to bother pulling out headphones every time they want to watch a video.

You can add brief texts in your video that can highlight the basic idea of the video. Also, you can add a description of the video in the caption.

So there you go. These were the ten tips that you can follow to create vertical videos that rock on social media. Leverage them and reap off maximum results.

Author Bio

Jane Collen is a distinguished and highly experienced industry voice. She is an incredibly eager learner and is always excited to write about new and trending topics, but her field of expertise are 2D animation, app development, emerging tech like AI, Big Data, and the field of outsourcing for businesses.