Challenge Tips: 5 Ways to Optimize Videos for Mobile

Thanks again to everyone who participated in our Social Video Bootcamp. If you didn’t – or missed some of the challenges – you can find everything you need to take part right over here.

Jason, our Chief Video Officer (and Bootcamp star!) will be back next month with something new, but in the meantime, we wanted to share an extra challenge with you. Cyndi, Head of Animoto for Business, shares the challenge in the video below.

The Challenge: Optimize a video for mobile.

90 percent of Facebook users log in from mobile devices. That’s why it’s super important to make sure your videos look great on mobile. Your challenge is to take an existing video — or create a new one — and optimize it for mobile using the following tips.

Tip #1: Go square.

Square videos get more likes and shares than landscape and they’ll take up 78% more space in the mobile news feed, helping you stand out. You can easily create square videos using our Marketing Video Builder. Read more here.

Tip #2: Make the text big.

Make sure your text is large and legible. Remember that when people are on mobile they’re watching on a small screen, so you’ll need to compensate by making text larger than you might for people viewing on a larger screen.

Tip #3: Preview it on mute.

85% of the video on Facebook is watched without any sound. That’s why it’s important to make sure your videos make sense when played back on mute. Looking for more tips? Check out the tips from the third challenge in our Social Video Bootcamp – Say it with text.

Tip #4: Preview it on mobile.

If you’re optimizing a video for mobile, there’s no better way to see if you’ve succeeded than by watching your video on a mobile device! You can also post your video in our Facebook group, where we’ll be encouraging members to preview each other’s videos on mobile and share feedback.

Tip #5: Keep it short.

Our last tip is to keep your video as short as possible. Mobile viewers’ attention spans aren’t long. We recently released a report on The State of Social Video that mobile viewers were willing to watch videos for significantly less time that viewers on desktop. So cut out the fluff and make your video just as long as it needs to be to get the point across.

Once your video is done, don’t forget to share it in the Animoto Social Video Marketing Community on Facebook for feedback (or just join to be inspired by the videos other group members are posting). We can’t wait to see what you do with this challenge!