Stop motion video of a woman with a t-shirt posing in the street
Growing on social media in 2021 takes more than posting an image of your product to your feed.
According to Statista, 90% of U.S. businesses are using social media marketing for their business and in 2020, over 3.6 billion people were on social media.
Needless to say, there is huge potential but how do you navigate a crowded space and stand out?
With the continuing rollout of new features within our most popular social media platforms such as Reels and Guides on Instagram, to excel on social media requires authentic and creative content but produced at a fast speed as trends are coming and going on daily. One type of creative content that is trending, but surprisingly easy and quick to create, is stop motion videos. In this article, we are going to cover why you should be using it in your content creation on social media to grow your business in 2021.
What Is Stop Motion
Stop motion’s origin is a film technique where individually captured images are pieced together at high speed to create an animation video, such as the claymation film Wallace and Gromit. The technique has been used for decades and still continues to be used in modern-day films. With video now being an essential part of social media, stop motion naturally has been brought in as creators look for creative ways for storytelling.
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Why Does Stop Motion Videos Perform Well on Social Media?
Facebook cover video maker with a stop motion animation style
There are more brands using stop motion on social media than you realize including large brands like Starbucks, Target, and Amazon. In fact, this short case study of Starbucks’s video content strategy on Instagram found that their stop motion videos performed 16% better compared to their other videos. Now here are just a few reasons why stop motion is the best type of content to use on social media:
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- Videos autoplay in the feed. This is the case across all social media platforms so as your viewer is scrolling through a sea of static images, videos capture their attention and stop the scroll
- The video has 39% higher engagement on Instagram compared to a photo post found by Hootsuite
- 92% of people do not listen to audio or videos on social media according to a report by Verizon Media and Publicis Media. Without audio or text, you’ll need to eliminate a lot of types of video content from your roster of techniques, but for stop motion, the narrative is visual so you can tell a story without audio
- Stop motion is short and loopable which increases your engagement and watch time when there is no clear ending to a video
- 1.7 seconds is the amount of time you have to capture someone’s attention while they are scrolling on a mobile device according to Social Media Today so video content is effective when it comes to stopping that scroll among static images
Using Stop Motion Videos for Your Product-Based Brand on Social Media
Product-based businesses should add stop motion to their marketing toolkit immediately. Stop motion for product-based businesses is great because you do not need to rely on models/people or narration to tell your product story. The beauty of stop motion is you can bring your products to life, giving the illusion of magic and having them move on their own. Here are some ideas you can use:
Show Your Product in Action
Book gift unwrapping itself standing on a pink environment in stop motion
For example, if you sell cups, add liquid to the cup in each photo you capture. When you play it back, it will look like it’s filling up on its own. Do you sell totes? Animate a bunch of items getting added into the bag in a flat lay.
Simple Motions
Don’t overcomplicate it. Adding a simple motion is enough to grab the attention of your followers and will be much more eye-catching than a static image. Simple motion ideas include sliding from left to right or vice versa, have the item slide in, create a pause effect, and then slide out, spin the object, etc. Use a poster board from the dollar store or a local craft store with your brand colors to keep your feed in sync.
Show Product Variation
Create a video flipping through the styles and colors you offer with one product.
Create a Flat Lay
Tell your product’s story with a flat lay – what are related products to yours that would paint the picture well? For example, if you sell t-shirts, create a variety of flat lays showing how one t-shirt can be styled. Add pants, shoes, and other accessories. Start by completing a styled flat lay and then, slowly slide each product out of the frame. Reverse the project in the editor so it starts empty and stuff gets added.
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How to Create a Stop Motion Video
Video of round-neck t-shirts hanging on a clothing rack
There are a few ways to create stop motions but when thinking about creating video content for social media, speed is key which is why we recommend using your phone and a stop motion app like Life Lapse. With the increasing quality of cameras on mobile devices, both Android and iPhone users can create stop motions on their phones with Life Lapse. In addition, Instagram compresses videos and photos if they are too large at the time of upload to save on bandwidth and storage space, so they need to capture on a DSLR isn’t always necessary when it comes to social content. Take a look at the rise of TikTok and see how authentic video content can still get viral results. Remember, 1.7 seconds is the amount of time someone spends on your content so focus on the quality of your content and story. Other methods of creating a stop motion video for your product business are to hire a stop motion artist or video marketing agency, or you can create with a DSLR and desktop software equipment like Dragonframe.
You can also try stop motion templates from Placeit. There are stop-motion mockups to feature your products and stop-motion social media templates to post incredible content! Both are super easy to use and never leave your browser.
To Wrap It Up
Stop motion is a marketing secret and now that you’re aware of the benefits of using stop motion to grow your business on social media, you’ll begin to see it everywhere from all of your favorite brands. Video content creation becomes more and more creative and more importantly, more effective. Will you be trying out stop motion? Let us know in the comments!
About the Author
Sarah Boland is the Founder and CEO of Life Lapse, the easiest stop-motion app empowering small business owners, creators, and influencers to create eye-catching videos for social marketing using their phones. As a former professional videographer and marketer, Sarah helped brands create and integrate video into their social media strategies. She knows firsthand how expensive video marketing can be and set out to help small brands create eye-catching videos using their phone by creating Life Lapse in 2017. Now, Life Lapse has over 1.5 million users from around the world and is available on iOS and Android. Download Life Lapse for free or upgrade to Life Lapse Pro for its in-app camera and editor to create quality stop motion videos comparable to $15,000+ worth of cameras, computers, and professional editing software, and to create videos 10x faster.