Social media feeds can be ruthless. People very easily scroll past content they do not consider interesting. It can be painful if you have spent hours and hours creating engaging content and people scroll past it.
Social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and Youtube have endless scrolls. That means more incentive for users to skip content. From most of the studies conducted to understand user behavior, it is clear that video content is more engaging.
Anything that moves gets noticed better. Creating video content to share your marketing message is a great way to start. This article will discuss using this rich form of content most effectively to pay attention and engage.
Where is Text Inserted in Social Media Videos?
There are several places where text can be inserted to get your marketing message clearly to the viewers. The most common areas where text is added are closed captions, text directly on visuals of the video, and text describing the video on social media.
#1 Closed Captions
The closed caption is the scrolling text that describes what the characters in the video are discussing. Most video platforms and social media platforms support them. These captions can be either added manually or auto-added by the platform itself.
Closed captions have several uses. Most social media platforms turn off sound by default while the user scrolls. It is important to have more video content and have this format with closed captions to catch the user’s attention.
This gives a chance to the users to quickly know what the video is about before clicking to know more. Data shows that this sharing format has significantly higher engagement when compared to videos without closed captions.
An interesting case study on linguistic abilities shows that closed captions increase engagement in users who cannot understand the language well. Without these, you will not be able to capture the attention of this category of users.
# Text on Videos
Marketing messages can be directly added to the video stills to get marketing messages out clearly. This is most common for videos made as trailers or ads for a product or service.
One example of using text directly in the video shots is displaying contact information for leads. Another great way people use this method is to tell their viewers to subscribe to their channels and turn on notifications.
# Text Describing the Video
This type of text is used to describe the video being posted. Many content creators specializing in social media strategies add text to video online. This allows the creator to continue a dialog with the visitors beyond the video itself.
Many cooking videos post the recipes of what they are cooking as text in the description box. This is done apart from the closed captions that are provided to explain the step-by-step process of cooking the dish.
Another way creators use the description text is by adding related content. If a video is a part of a multi-episode sequel, the description text can easily point to previous episodes if the user is interested. This drives more traffic to old videos though you have published new content.
Finally, description text is used for giving credits. Music videos, in particular, share the credits of who wrote the song, who sang it, and which music company published it. This is done to avoid any copyright claims resulting in the video being taken down. Plus, it is informative.
# Hashtags
Everything people do on social media is an attempt to go viral. Virality depends on how easy it is for a video to be discovered. Videos get discovered in multiple ways. Some are a part of the social media organic process, while some are deliberate strategies content creators adopt.
The hashtag is a great tool to get discovered. Hashtags are text related to the video with words most likely to be searched by users. If you post regular Ballet dance videos, using a hashtag called ‘#ballet’ will make your video show up when someone searches for this hashtag.
The key to adding this kind of text is to know what search query you are optimizing for. People mindlessly add hashtags that do not reflect the search phrases and render discoverability efforts a complete waste.
Best Practices for Adding Text to Videos
Choose a color and style that aligns with your company’s color scheme. Consistency shows sophistication. Even if it is the color of text, Clashing colors give an impression of the quality being sub-par.
Choose the right size. There is a case study on a popular TikTok/reels influencer who creates videos asking people what they do for a living. While the concept is very interesting, the closed captions were too small to read.
When the influencer increased the font size, his engagement dramatically improved. The interesting thing is, most of his visitors are English speaking. Despite that, they valued the closed captions.
Use appropriate animations and move text around. A video with a boring font placed in the same spot will lose the user’s attention. Use text transitions to catch the eye of the visitor. Once you have their attention, move the text around and animate appropriately.
Use negative space smartly. Do not cram your text into every possible space. It looks classy to leave open spaces so the focus can be on a small number of things in the video.
Use the Right Software
You can use the text inserter feature in most editing tools to add text to videos. An alternative to that is to use native text adding capabilities of the social media platform itself.
Social media platforms may not give as much variety of fonts, colors, and styles. You are better off making text insertion a part of your editing process. Using the right software makes framing and positioning of the text easy.
Conclusion
Social media platforms understand the value of video content and are doing everything possible to push the content right to the top. This also increases competition. One way of winning it is by having appropriate text in the video, description, and using relevant hashtags. These steps are mandatory if you want to stand out and promote on YouTube.
Do not restrict yourself with just a bold line broadcasting your marketing message. Weave the message into the video in the form of engaging, well-designed text. Treat every video as an advertisement of your product and service and cater to all possible users. With these best practices, you are ready to add text to your videos to improve engagement and differentiate your content.