Shift to Vertical

For over 60 years we’ve watched video horizontally. That’s how the video evolution started thanks to TV and cinema being our main source of consumption. That’s changing. And changing fast – here’s why you should care.

Just as smartphones have changed the way we connect with friends and families, smartphones have also changed the way we view and record video. Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube all now support vertical video. “People just don’t rotate their phones,” said Evan Spiegel, CEO of Snapchat. If you think about it, smartphones have always been designed to be used vertically, not horizontally. When was the last time you caught a friends scrolling through their Twitter feed or a Mashable post with their phone held horizontally.  YouTube, Periscope, Meerkat and Mashable have all caught onto the concept, and creators are finding ways to shoot their video straight up, and directly from their phones.

Vertical Video Drives Results

Advertisers who were first to test-drive marketing on Snapchat found that when their ads were vertically oriented, they saw up to nine times more engagement. This makes sense, since vertical video takes up significantly more space on the screen then horizontal. And, if smartphone users aren’t rotating their phones, then vertical videos are far more powerful and visible. Snapchat is revolutionary in this regard and delivers a wholly vertical style in all of its content.

Advertising has been a driving factor in many of Instagram’s changes to the app in 2015. The most recent being the switch from strictly square photo and video formatting to landscape and vertical. With over 300 million users, Instagram’s own analysis found that 1 in 5 photo and video posts were not natively square. Clearly, Instagram artists and Instagram advertisers yearned for more freedom on the platform. With the August 27th app update, Instagram finally added support for both portrait and landscape oriented photos and videos.

How to Prepare

With these recent changes, and more to come, marketers need to prepare for both the challenges and opportunities that vertical video holds. It’s a different way of thinking, but can be extremely powerful and rewarding if done right. From the pre-production to post, vertical changes the way you approach and execute each creative.

Creating Video Content on Your Smartphone

Video marketing doesn’t have to always be so tedious, time consuming, and require a big budget. In minutes, you can shoot and edit a cinemagraph with Cinemagraph Pro, creating outstanding results. You can even create living photos right on your iPhone with Cinemagraph Pro for iOS. Cinemagraphs look best in video format, working perfectly with auto-play on all of the major social networks.

Maple syrup = liquid happiness. On behalf of Canada, you’re welcome. By @kitchenghosts #Flixel #cinemagraph #pancakes #maplesyrup #breakfast #yum

A video posted by Flixel Photos (@flixelphotos) on Aug 27, 2015 at 2:56pm PDT

In the upcoming months, look out for more vertical video ads in your newsfeed. Get ahead of the curve and start creating your own today!

PS. We love pancake cinemagraphs-sorry if you’re hungry now. Created by the talented Daria Khoroshavina from Moscow.