Video marketing is an investment. If you're going to invest in video marketing, you might as well do it in a way that earns your investment back—or quadruples it. Today, people see advertisements everywhere. People have become masters of quickly dismissing content they don't care about. If you want to stand out—if you want to be worth paying attention to, your marketing needs to be able to grab viewers' attention before they can decide they're not interested. Marketing needs to be intriguing. And it needs to be intriguing fast. Here are six tricks that can make your videos stand out, keep viewers watching, and encourage them to share your content with others.


Take Viewers out of "the Scroll"

More often than not, a few words are all viewers take in before scrolling past a video. This is your chance! Let people know that your video is worth watching by introducing it boldly—with equally bold graphics. Your title should present the video's content as something along the lines of "revolutionary" or "essential" or "wow-I-never-thought-I-needed-something-like-this-before-but-now-that-it's-here-I-can't-imagine-my-life-without-it." Word choice is key. Whether or not people give your marketing a chance comes down to its ability to convince them it's worth clicking on.


Start with a Shock

After someone clicks on your video, surprise them with creative effects. If viewers are slightly startled, they'll likely stick around to see what your video has to offer. Get them interested by playing around with images. A bit of shaking, sliding, or bouncing can give your video a more dynamic feel. Even a simple effect, like slowly rotating an image or playing with filters can keep viewers engaged. Most importantly, make sure your effects separate your marketing from what people are used to—and bored of.


Make Sure You Look Good

It's important to invest in the overall quality of your videos for two reasons. First, videos that are designed with as many viewing devices as possible in mind attract more viewers simply because more people have access to them. Second, viewers tend to lose interest faster when watching low-quality videos. Basically, videos that have a low resolution and/or don't function properly limit the total number of people who can watch your content and decrease the viewing time of those who do. In addition to being a solid investment when you look at the numbers, high-quality videos show that your company cares about what it's marketing!


Be Loud, Silently

While the audio quality of your video should be considered, it's important to have a video that can market its content without sound. People often watch but don't listen. For example, as many as 85% of videos on Facebook are watched with the sound muted. Because of this behavior, it's key that your video can attract an audience and inform them about its content with visuals alone.


Encourage Sharing with the "News" Style

After someone views your content, you want them to share it with others. One of the most effective ways to get people talking about your marketing video is by modeling it after the "news" style. Articles from news and media companies are some of the most widely shared. Using the third person—as in "this guy wants X" or "these people use Y"—is one way to make your content more "news-like." Another is to use overlay text to explain an image—which is similar to what media companies do. By imitating the "news" style, your content becomes more shareable.


Be Weird with Confidence

One of the best ways to make your video different is to make it weird. Seeing something completely unexpected encourages viewers to keep watching and share what they see with others. Sparkhouse produced a video for Visit Japan a while back that involves sushi and ramen battling it out to determine which deserves the title of Japan's ultimate food item. It's weird—and better thanks to its weirdness. It's okay for a video to be a bit out there. It's okay to be fun. Actually, it's great to be fun.

Earlier, I mentioned how modern viewers frequently give up on videos after only a few seconds. While it's true that modern viewers can be harsh, they can be just as giving. People are connected more immediately and globally than ever before. Thanks to this interconnectedness, viewers can share content they enjoy at an incredible rate—that's free marketing for you or your brand!

By convincing people to take a break from whatever they're doing, giving them a reason to keep watching, and presenting content worth sharing, your video marketing will not only interest modern viewers but also find greater success because of them.

Now when whether your planning on filming your next video series or you are starting on your first video, make sure to plan your next shoot around any of the tactics we talked about above. Make sure to try different attention grabbers and see what works best for your video marketing.