Short Videos vs. Long Videos

It`s probably no surprise that short videos are more engaging and effective than long videos. Heck, we’ve built a business on this knowledge, but the stats recently reported by Wistia, a hosting service  for thousands of videos, are out of this world!

They first compared two videos by one of their clients. “The red line in the graph represents the engagement of their 30-second video. The blue line is the engagement graph for a 90-second video. It’s expected that these two videos would have different engagement graphs, but what’s odd is that the first 30 seconds of both videos are identical!”

The results? “Even though viewers were exposed to the same exact content, the drop-off rate of the 90-second video was much higher. By the end of the 30-second video there were about double the number of viewers than at the same point in the 90-second video.”

This means that just knowing the video is longer is discouraging enough to viewers to quit watching earlier on than they will if they know the video is short. It’s really a fear of commitment!

It’s also interesting how Wistia measured these results on a larger scale including many of their clients to see how many people watched videos of different lengths all the way through.

While viewing length continues to drop after 30 seconds, the big drop begins at two minutes plus. It seems that this is the point where many attention spans timeout and lose interest. If it’s important that your viewers make it to the end of your video for say, a call to action then this two-minute time line is one to aim for.

Depending on your goals for your video the length will vary, but the better you can simplify your message into a shorter, more engaging video - the better the response you’ll receive.

Check out the full article titled Does length matter? It does for Video!

A Simple Video about Simple Video

Here it is… the moment you’ve all been waiting for.

Our completed video on the power of simple video!!

If you didn’t get a chance to read our last post on the psychology behind simple video, now is the time to do so. Or, if you don’t feel like reading - just watch the video!

We think our Creative Director Chris Dacol did a brilliant job on this video! What do you think?

Psychology Behind Simple Video

There’s no doubt that videos are cool and fun to watch - certainly more fun than reading page after page of text let’s face it. It’s become rather well known that having a video on your website that explains what you do, what you offer, why people should choose you or how you work, will get a better response from your audience.

But, why?

Aside from being more exciting than text, there are underlying reasons hidden deep within the brain that make video an extremely valuable tool for business owners.

Let’s start by looking at it in terms of time. You have about 8 seconds to capture the attention of a visitor to your website. If they don’t leave by then what are the odds they are going to leave understanding, let alone remembering your message?

Well, if you only provide text or audio, your visitor will only remember 10% of what they read 72 hours later. How much will they remember if they watch a video? Wait for it…..

68 percent!   

To understand this a little more we looked into recent research being done in cognitive psychology and found out that the brain works in a pretty fascinating way. We discovered that when trying to captivate an audience’s attention, keep their attention and send them home with a message they remember, there are three important factors to keep in mind.

1. Keep it simple.

Only include relevant information and movement. Our brain stores working memory, which only has a certain capacity. Non essential information will take up that space and distract from the learning and this is why we make sure our videos aren’t too busy - to keep the viewer focused on the message.

2. Know your audience.

Your viewer’s prior knowledge is important to know. That’s because new knowledge is built on that foundation. Also it’s much easier to retrieve at a later time, when it’s attached to   something they already know and understand. This is why we use analogies in our videos so often. 

3. Use powerful learning tools.

Dual coding theory is key! What is it?
Combining audio and visual information together for the purpose of learning.

Don’t forget that your viewer will remember 58% more when you teach through both these senses.

As our attention spans get increasingly shorter, the time you have to captivate your audience and explain what you do also becomes shorter.

That is why simple, explanatory video is such a powerful business tool.  Don’t forget to check out our final video on December 10th that you can share with all your video friends!

Web Video for B-to-B Marketers

If you take a look at our portfolio you’ll notice a lot of videos produced for business to consumer marketers, but you’ll also see some of the videos we’ve created for business to business marketers.

B-to-B companies are utilizing the power of simple video to boost business and increase sales, and it’s working!

Recently, Daniel Sevitt wrote a blog for ReelSEO that included Brightcove’s recently published “Top 6 Reasons B-to-B Marketers Need Video”

1. Grab people’s attention instantly
2. Tell your story in less time
3. Bring your ideas to life
4. Make your site stickier
5. Create a buzz with viral video
6. Bring your website into the 21^st century

Parsing that list into three types of video based on their natural homes – embedded offsite, on the site’s homepage and within the site – helped to identify the three kinds of online video for business:

• Viral Video
• Conversion Video
• Educational Video

Check out the full blog post on reelseo.com to learn more about the three types of video mentioned above.

We Don’t Pay Attention to Boring Things

This is Brain Rule #4 in Dr. John Medina’s New York Times Bestselling Book ‘Brain Rules’ - We don’t pay attention to boring things.

Obvious, right? We think so, but most teachers and learning institutions still teach the majority of their lessons orally without visual stimulation or effective visual stimulation. Medina, a Brain Scientist and Developmental Molecular Biologist, says that anywhere between one third to one half of the brain is devoted to visual processing! Now, you might be thinking that many people use graphs and slides in presentations but Medina says that’s not good enough. He says the brain wants a “rotating, moving, three-dimensional image.”

Watch this interview with him on YouTube to learn more about the significance of visuals in a learning atmosphere.

He also performs an experiment using the McGurk Effect to prove that the more senses involved in a lesson, the more the learner retains. He says, “When multiple senses are stimulated simultaneously, the brain begins to experience an information rich learning experience and laps it up like ice cream. Watch the experiment to see how he demonstrates this point.

Web video uses animated illustrations to engage the viewer and provide them with information that is not only enjoyable to watch and learn, but information that will actually be remembered for longer than a few minutes. In Brain Rules, John Medina writes that, “If information is presented orally, people remember about 10 percent, tested 72 hours after  exposure. That figure goes up to 65 percent if you add a picture.”