When it comes to watching video, we do it often. We watch video at work, at home and on our daily commute. Sometimes we watch them for instructional purposes, but most of the time it's to keep us entertained.
But one thing is clear: There is no denying the impact of video on social media. We watch video on our phones more than ever before!
Why Are We So Obsessed With Video? Find Out, Here.
We watch video on our phones more than we watch actual TV. In fact, Nielsen reported that adults over 18 years old are glued to their phones for periods that average 25 hours and 7 minutes per week; that’s ⅙ of our week watching Facebook, IG, or YouTube videos!
While we are spending a lot of our time watching video on mobile, the problem marketers encounter is keeping audiences interacting with their videos/brands. Nielsen also reported that we spend only about 1.8 minutes watching a video on our smartphones, while we spend an average of 82.1 minutes watching TV.
In other words, yes, we are watching video on our phones, but we are not actively watching these videos… We are merely passing time on our phones.
According to our good friends at Mighteor, this problem has to do with the formatting of our videos. Our phones were designed to be operated vertically, but we often have to flip them horizontally to watch our favorite videos.
On top of that, we millennials don’t really bother to flip our phones when watching videos, according to Mighteor’s surveys.
To solve this problem, Mighteor started resizing their videos to meet the platforms in which the content was published, no longer doing a traditional 16:9 horizontal video, but rather experimenting with vertical and square videos more often.
The results registered a dramatic increase in the number of views for their videos. And most importantly, the number of minutes their audience stayed tuned for their videos also increased.
“Facebook has disrupted the concept of traditional 16:9 models. We’re starting to see more square or 1:1 content and that trend has been driven almost entirely by Facebook and Instagram.”
— Liz Giorgi, Mighteor
In conclusion, YES! THE SIZE OF YOUR VIDEO MATTERS!
If you want to make your videos responsive to your social media platforms, these are the models (sizes) you can use.
Video Size Guide For Social Media Platforms
16:9 Traditional Landscape
If you have content tailored for a desktop screen or laptop, YouTube, Vimeo, or more traditional platforms, you may want to stick to this traditional platform.
2:3 Mobile & 1:1 Square
Any content tailored for mobile, including Facebook, Instagram or Twitter, can use either 2:3 vertical sizing and/or a 1:1 square format.
We recommend using both. For example, you can use a 1:1 square video to publish on Instagram, but you can make a 2:3 promo for your Instagram Story.
2:3 Facebook Timeline (820 x 462 pixels)
Recently, Facebook rolled out a new feature for publishing video on your page’s timeline. This is a great feature to communicate a strong message in a very simple, catchy format.
The recommended format for a Facebook Timeline video is 820 x 462 pixels.
Finding the right format for your video will:
- increase the number of impressions on your content
- and engage your audience to stick around for more content.
Now that you have this video size guide for social media, go forth and make better videos! And happy videoing!
Thank you for reading!
Illustration | GIF by Christon Niemann, @abstractsunday on Instagram
