New Year’s resolutions can be hard to keep up with. Losing weight, quitting smoking, and putting away more money are common declarations this time of year, but we came up with a list of goals for 2014 that’s a little different. This year, we’ve made a list of Interactive Video (IV) resolutions to help us stay on track and make the best IVs we can.
The good news is, like losing weight and quitting smoking, we know these resolutions will help us in the long run. No, we won’t be any healthier by sticking to them, but we will be a whole lot better at making IVs that not only increase engagement with viewers, but also improve overall ROI from video in all areas.
From ramping our videos’ social sharing to focusing on mobile, here are our seven New Year’s resolutions for Interactive Video in 2014.
1. Mobile, mobile, and more mobile.
We will shoot all videos and storyboard all concepts with a mobile-first mentality. The touchscreen interface of smartphones and tablets is the ideal way to fully engage with an Interactive Video, so all of our video content will be optimized for a premium mobile experience.
2. No more delayed choice points.
We know that the magic of IV is the power to drive your video, and that only happens if we provide choices right away. No more replication of the old linear video standard – Rapt Media videos will empower viewers with choice from the very first frame.
3. Increased agility: Digital marketing needs to be nimble and responsive.
Analytics will be at the core of our video campaigns, leveraging both Rapt Media’s graph analytics and Google Analytics to track user traffic through interactive projects. With the ability to register each video choice, or node, as a page view, we’ll be able to see exactly what viewers are clicking on and what is working. We’ll then use that info to iterate on the projects and maximize our results.
4. Deep integration: No more video as a closed box stuck on to a website.
We’re going to create ways to easily integrate with marketing automation platforms, analytics platforms, content distribution networks, e-commerce platforms, Learning Management Systems, and social networks so that video becomes the hub for communication and not an appendage.
5. Social all the time.
We’re going to embed social sharing in all of our projects to ensure that they’re easily sharable. Social, social, and more social in 2014.
6. Create a new medium for online communication.
We’ve got a lot in store for 2014, and one of the things we’re most excited about is a technology that will enable the video player to “pair” with the website and facilitate a two-way conversation. This technology will launch very soon, and will create a new medium for online communication and is revolutionizing how video is delivered and consumed – and we want to make use of it in every project.
7. Try new things.
This year, we’d like to try creating new types of Interactive Video. We just shot our first interactive baking video, but there’s more fun to have with IV. To start, we’d like to create a pilot episode of an interactive web series that uses branching storytelling to tell a linear plot from multiple characters’ points of views. We don’t have all the answers just yet, but there’s a formula for creating a hybrid story that could be linear and non-linear at the same time – and that formula needs to be discovered.
Those are a few of our resolutions for Interactive Video in 2014. Interested in learning more about how you can make your own IV? Sign up for a free plan and get started. Happy New Year!
