6 psychologically backed hacks to create engaging videos

At our one-minute Facebook videos usually get more views than nos longer videos. So how come our third most viewed video right now is almost four minutes long?

Facebook will increase a video's organic reach if it deeply engages viewers . So we knew that our video had to capture our audience from start to finish, especially since it is four times as long as the majority of our other videos. If it didn't captivate them, Facebook could crush its organic distribution.

To maximize audience engagement, we implemented psychology-backed hacks throughout the video. Let's take a look at the takeaways below for how to grab an audience's attention.

6 psychological tips for creating engaging videos

1) Spark Curiosity

To spark curiosity on demand, George Loewenstein, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University, recommends leveraging the curiosity information gap theory .

The theory says that feeling a knowledge gap between what you know and what you want to know forces you to take action to close it, like clicking on a story.

We've piqued the curiosity of our viewers by using a simple yet thought-provoking headline: Entrepreneurship is Back.

This headline may prompt many questions from our audience, such as "Entrepreneurship is gone? ", "What does it look like now? " and "How can I be an entrepreneur in today 's age? ", Increasing the chances that they will click on our video.

By stimulating curiosity and leaving questions unanswered, we may be able to create a gap between what the reader knows and what he wants to learn.

2) Engage your audience

When Facebook analyzed the video consumption data of its users in 2016 , they found that 45% of people who watch the first three seconds of a video will continue to watch. watch it for at least 30 seconds.

It helped us realize that arousing the curiosity of our audiences was not enough to engage them. We had to instantly hook our viewers within the first three seconds. Human attention span is not long enough to be entertained by slow content .

What hooks people up? According to Buffer, an effective video hook visually engages viewers and previews the main message of the video . Hooks are powerful because they can simultaneously grab the attention of your viewers and spark interest in the rest of the video.

During the first three seconds of our video, we quickly cut between nshady Shark Tank pitches. The quick images caught the eye of our viewers. And if they recognized the entrepreneurs, they knew exactly what the video was about.

The narrator also quickly summarizes the main point of the video. It gets right to the point, informing the viewer thatThe video covers the rise of entrepreneurship. Many of our viewers dream of starting their own business, which is why this brief overview of the topic has certainly piqued their interest.

3) Make It Visual

When we were babies, we relied on vision to associate objects with behaviors, like a ball signifying play time. Vision was the only way to find out more about the world.

This is why you can understand visual information in 250 milliseconds (almost twice as fast as the blink of an eye) and why your visual system activates more than 50% of your brain. Watching something has always been the best way to learn.

Since visual storytelling helps people understand concepts and data easily , we decided to complement the text and narration of our video with dynamic graphics, scenes of popular movies and people footagereal.

Whenever our narrator developed a concept or data, our viewers could listen to the information and watch a visual representation of it. This helped them to get a concrete idea of ​​the central idea of ​​the video.

4) Tell a story

When someone tells you a story, they can plant their personal experiences and ideas right into your mind. You start to feel what they are feeling.

Powerful stories evoke empathy because they activate parts of the brain that will function if you have actually experienced the events of the stories . If someone describes eating a plate of lobster mac and cheese, your sensory cortex will light up. If someone says they scored their first touch, your motor cortex comes alive.

Using our memories to recreate the sensory details of the story, we turn its events into our own idea and experience.

Our video told a story about entrepreneurship. More specifically, the history of entrepreneurship, its economic benefits and the reasons for its recent difficult past, current resurgence and bright future.

By weaving these factsin a narrative, our viewers could place themselves in the context of the modern entrepreneur mind. This enabled them to understand the lack of fulfillment that the "work for a living" mentality provides and the impact that their potential entrepreneurial activities could have on themselves and on the world.

5) Inspire your audience

According to Psychology Today, brand preference is largely an emotional decision. Humans associate the same personality traits with brands as people .

Choosing your favorite brand is like choosing your best friend, and as we spend time with the people who make us feel good, we engage with the brands that make us good too.

If you want your videos to resonate with your viewers then they need to spark warm feelings. In fact, happiness, hope and excitement are among the most common emotions.most common that generate viral content .

Highlighting the low costs of entering the digital age market, the decreased need for investors and the ability to effectively develop unprecedented brand engagement through social media, our video inspired entrepreneurs around the world to chase their dreams. Their future has never been brighter.

6) Make it believable

Trust is essential in the world of inbound marketing. If our viewers didn't trust us, they would never consume our video content. And just because we put the mark on the video doesn't automatically validate its points.

This is why we have featured excerpts from Jack Delosa , Founder and CEO of The Entourage , confirming our views on the research of a problem before providing a solution, the goal of starting a business and thehas the power of social media.

He 's an established entrepreneur and an outside source, so his support helps to build the credibility of our video and, to in turn, our audience's confidence in our content.

OnFacebook, video is not king. Engaging video is king. And to create compelling videos, you need to be able to understand and predict human preferences and behavior.

Nowadays, psychology isn't just a prerequisite for college. This is the heart of marketing.