Vertical Video Best Practices
As a videographer, I’ve spent my entire adult life convincingly persuading people to turn their phones sideways (Landscape) when they are filming video. Why? Because you can fit more people into the frame, it gives you more room for error correction, you can catch more of the action at a sporting event or in a group setting, and when you watch it back on your television (16:9 ratio), you don’t have two thick black bars on each side of your screen. I was a firm advocate for this PSA (below) by BentoBox about Vertical Video Syndrome.
“But, today’s mobile users and advertisers are fighting back against this stereotype… and winning.”
It’s Simple Ergonomics…
It’s a hard pill to swallow for a videographer with 20 years of experience creating 16:9 video for television viewers. But, in 2023… most people are not watching their video creations on their TVs. More people than ever have cellular phones with cameras. And it is frankly more comfortable and ergonomically suitable to raise your phone and manipulate your camera controls with one hand vertically.
This is a familiar concert scene for anyone born before 1980 but with one large difference… the lighters have been replaced by vertical cell phones and are creating a new concert experience.
Not a One Size Fits All Solution…
Though incredibly popular, vertical video is not always king. Streaming services like NetFlix, YouTube, and Amazon Prime (much like modern movie theaters) still lean heavily toward a widescreen format. It will be a long time before the “Mobile Phone Motion Pictures Academy” holds its first Oscar Awards ceremony. (*not totally confident in that statement).
This is a screen grab from the Vertical Video Syndrome PSA (link above) teasing the idea of a vertical screen inside a movie theater.
Cell Phone Dominance…
Look at the trend line from this study conducted by eMarketer.com. According to Social Media Today, consumers are spending more time on smartphones than they are watching TV.
Trend line showing mobile device usage overtaking television viewership over the past 8 years…
In 2023, the most popular online social media platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat paved the way for vertical videos. It’s a trend that’s here to stay. So, let’s look at some best practices for taking advantage of this style of videography.
Are you Ready for your Close-Up?
Intimacy is one of the keys to a successful vertical video. Be it a make-up tutorial, Snapchat filter, or solo TikTok dance, there is no way to hide from the High Definition lens. Use this to your advantage as you showcase your best moves and maybe take a lighting tutorial to learn some tricks for making the most of your close-ups.
Fewer Distractions…
One of the more obvious benefits of vertical video is the ability to connect with users the way users connect with their phones. There is no need to tilt your screen or turn your head to view content. This has real-time benefits as some research has shown that vertical video seems to keep users’ attention longer than landscape video.
Here are some stats from wyzowl.com about vertical video usage.
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Snapchat may not be the fulcrum of business video it was once tipped to be, but it’s interesting to note that, of the 10 billion plus vertical video views per day on that platform, they’re watched, on average, 9 times more than their horizontal counterparts.
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Because nearly all social browsing is done on phones…and the majority of phone use, as we’ve established, is vertical, social media is increasingly a vertical phenomenon.
According to Facebook Business, 65% of consumers consider brands that advertise with vertical video ‘more innovative’ and 79% of ‘novice video consumers’ prefer the vertical format and consider it more engaging.
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In simple terms, it means rethinking the way you do video on social media. It’s time to take a step back from doing what you’ve always done, and consider that your audience is now predominantly browsing vertically. Your videos should match that experience!
It means challenging a lot of popular logic around social video production. If you film video blogs, for example, every ‘how to’ guide will teach you that you need to hold your camera or mount your smartphone horizontally.
Follow the Money…
One way to confirm a trend is getting traction is to look at the advertising dollars.
Snapchat led the way gaining huge viewership and popularity with vertical Snaps. Instagram, TikTok, and Youtube followed… with Stories, Reels, and Shorts building huge audiences and providing advertising tools to complement vertical video syndrome.
Snapchat is credited with pioneering the trend of vertical video Snaps as early as 2011.
Know Your Audience…
The best advice for what video format to choose is to know your audience. If you want to capture people where they are at any hour, go vertical because phones travel with people 24/7. If you want to reach people in their homes and desire a longer duration format, there are still plenty of immersion strategies that favor a 16:9 widescreen format. Be creative… and make your content your own!!!
About the Author…
Bill Quigley is a multimedia producer and interactive designer. He has spent the last 20+ years since grad school working for different training organizations to integrate video, graphics, and animation to better engage employees and improve the online immersion experience. This trend in vertical video is interesting and relevant for today’s mobile first audiences. Bill is also a graduate student at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh studying Educational Technology.
References
Gu, C., Lin, S., Sun, J., Yang, C., Chen, J., Jiang, Q., Miao, W., & Wei, W. (2022). What do users care about? Research on user behavior of mobile interactive video advertising. Heliyon, 8(10), e10910. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2022.e10910
Wyzowl. (2022, March 28). 5 Reasons to Start Using Vertical Video on Social Media https://www.wyzowl.com/vertical-video/
Social Media Today. (2019, June 7). People Are Now Spending More Time on Smartphones Than They Are Watching TV. https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/people-are-now-spending-more-time-on-smartphones-than-they-are-watching-tv/556405/