Video Editing Elements Designed for Viewer Retention

TLDR: Video elements such as hooks, visual effects, background music, sound effects, and captions have different goals. Hooks grab interest, visual effects retain attention, background music sets emotion, sound effects emphasize motion, and captions make your videos comprehensible. Using these elements can lead to more conversions and higher click-through rate for your videos.

One of the most effective ways to generate leads using social media is by creating short-form videos.

According to a 2024 Vidico Report, 49% of marketers in tech create videos that explain complex products, 29% use videos to generate leads, and lastly 24% use them to increase engagement.

Short-form video is a great medium SaaS companies can use to connect and engage with their audience. Whether it's B2B or B2C, short-form videos have proven to be an effective piece of high-converting content.

But, with so many videos uploaded online, it’s very easy to lose your audience’s interest and attention. Your videos need to stand out. And to do that, you need to know how to edit videos for social media.

Using different short-form video styles drives growth and keeps your content diverse. It provides different points of engagement for your target audience. But regardless of the short-form video style, your SaaS videos still need to grab and maintain your audience's attention.

Grabbing attention is how you keep your target audience watching your social media videos. And if you can grab and retain their attention, your videos will have a higher click-through rate and a higher conversion rate.

Being intentional with the videos you make and the elements you use can directly increase your target audience's watch time and emotional connection. And by doing so, increase click-through rates and leads generated through your social media short-form videos.

TABLE OF CONTENT

1. Hooks: Optimized for Grabbing Attention

2. Visual Effects: B-Rolls, Animations, and Transitions

3. Sound Design: Sound Effects and Background Music

4. Subtitles and Captions: Accessibility and Comprehension

5. Final Thoughts

Hooks: Optimized for Grabbing Attention

A scroll-stopping element designed to grab your target audience's attention.

Hooks are visual or audio elements designed to grab your target audience's attention and influence them to engage with your content.

According to Marketing Essentials Lab, you need to hook your audience within the first three seconds. And if not, they will most likely scroll past your video. Hooks are meant to create intrigue. It poses a question, a problem, or a topic to your target audience. A problem that, by the end of the video, you will explain and solve.

There are several different ways to do hooks. But to maximize results, implement your hooks into your video's script. Afterwards, add relevant visual or auditory effects when you're editing the video. Make sure that the hook stands out and grabs attention. \

Here’s a simple but great hook by Notion:

In the video the narrator, Sara, subverts expectations. She starts out in a box, adds sound effects to create emphasis, and introduces the topic of the video. She gives enough information in the first three seconds that her target audience knows what the video is about.

She builds anticipation by withholding the answer. Sara's hook creates intrigue, and intrigue creates interest. This is exactly what a strong hook looks and sounds like.

Hooks need to be adaptable. They need to be creative, and they constantly need to change. Creators on social media create, experiment, and even copy hooks from other creators.

They adapt and edit their hooks to fit the script for their videos. By experimenting and trying different hooks, you can maximize and optimize your videos' engagement and view rate.

Hooks are one of the most important elements in a short-form video. Creating great hooks for your videos can be the difference between scrolling past your video or grabbing your target audience's attention.

Visual Effects: B-Rolls, Animations, and Transitions

Visual effects are used to retain your target audience's interest and make your short-form videos more engaging and visually dynamic.

The truth is, your target audience will most likely have seen a couple of videos before they see yours. They stopped scrolling because of your hook.

Now, they want to see where your video will take them. And even if what the video is discussing is relevant and interesting, you'll need a few elements to keep the video dynamic, engaging, and interesting.

B-rolls, transitions, and animations are visual elements that improve the pace and retain the attention of your target audience.

B-rolls are complementary footage that you add over your main footage. B-rolls can be stock footage from third-party resources or footage you’ve shot that supports the main video. They’re used primarily to help visualize situations and concepts.

Animations on the other hand, are animated elements that enhance and complement your video. Similar to b-rolls, animations can also be used to help visualize situations and concepts.

Lastly, transitions are used to link and move from one scene to the next. It can be as simple as a cut, but it can also be as complex as a film burn or a zoom-in. These three elements can control the pace and flow of your video.

Adding too much of these elements can make your video too fast, and adding too little can make your video too slow. Keeping the pace at a steady rate ensures your target audience can keep up with your video. This video by Asana is a great example.

Based on the video, Asana used visual effects to explain how their product works.

And it succeeds at what it does. It demonstrates the product, and it keeps it visually dynamic by using animations, b-rolls, and smooth transitions. These elements help reflect what Asana is: smooth, seamless, and active.

A video that uses visual effects keeps your target audience engaged. And if your target audience finishes and understands what you’re trying to say, they’ll be more receptive to your offer.

Sound Design: Sound Effects and Background Music

Sound effects and background music are used to direct attention, emphasize movement, and serve as the emotional connection between your video's message and your target audience.

Sound effects and background music are another great way to keep your target audience engaged and emotionally connected. Videos and visual effects engage sight, whereas sound effects and background music engage your target audience's sense of sound.

So what exactly are sound effects and background music?

Starting with sound effects, these are auditory cues that provide sound for animations and movement within your video. They add weight to actions and breathe a little more life into your videos.

On the other hand, background music provides the emotional tone of your video. It helps your target audience emotionally connect and relate to your video.

Videos from content creators like Gannon Meyer use different elements to retain their target audiences' attention. One of which is Gannon’s use of sound effects and background music.

Based on Gannon's video, background music sets the tone and mood. He uses background music to build hype and excitement.

Human beings are emotionally driven. Music that resonates emotionally can be the final push a person needs to make a decision. And using the right background music can do just that.

Sound effects give emphasis to actions and movement and can also direct your target audience's focus.

Individually they accomplish different things. But together they engage and direct your target audience's attention. Background music and sound effects are essential parts of a high-converting short-form video.

By utilizing these two elements, you elevate your brand, influence decision-making, and hold your target audience's interest.

Subtitles and Captions: Accessibility and Comprehension

Subtitles and captions make your videos accessible to your target audience and easier to understand.

Subtitles and captions are the readable text that spells out what the narrator is saying in the video. It’s an incredibly simple and popular element that video editors use to maintain attention.

Subtitles and captions let your target audience watch your video without having to listen to it. Mute viewing (watching a video without the audio) allows them to watch and understand your videos wherever they are.

Utilizing both audio and text also makes information in your videos easier to understand and remember.

Mailchimp is a great example of how subtitles and captions can be used effectively.

Mailchimp video uses subtitles and captions with simple and clean animations. The subtitles and captions add more movement to the video, which helps retain the audience's attention.

Mailchimp also doesn't overdo it; they keep it simple and clean. The way the subtitles and captions are animated also becomes a reflection of their brand: clean, seamless, and easy.

Having subtitles and captions makes the information in your videos a lot clearer. And it reinforces information by visually showing what the narrator or host is saying.

These video editing elements are made for social media to grab attention, engage interest, and influence action. And with SaaS, where products and services can be quite complex, grabbing and maintaining your target audience's attention and interest is crucial.

Video editing elements do just that. They're great at grabbing and maintaining your target audience's attention and have the added benefit of reinforcing your brand's image.

According to The Leap, 73% of consumers prefer to watch short-form video to learn about a product or service.

To keep your SaaS videos interesting, engaging, and relevant, you need to maximize your tools and techniques to ensure that your videos are interesting and easy to understand.

In the HubSpot Marketing Statistics, Trends, and Data report, 96% of users say they watch explainer videos to learn more about a product, and 89% report that this led them to purchase.

As video becomes one of the strongest ways to gain leads and conversions, optimizing a video for your target audience is becoming more and more essential.

Using these video editing elements for high conversions is guaranteed to work if you can maintain your audience's attention and interest.

It's all in how you package it. Understand your audience, make your videos interesting, write scripts that speak to them, and make videos that solve their pain points. Make sure your videos stand out, and always include a call to action (CTA).

CTAs tell your target audience what to do at the end of your video. Whether it's to follow you on social media, download a guide, or to check your website, adding a CTA turns your target audience from a prospect to a lead.

If you can do all of that, you’re bound to see increases in your social media metrics.

Final Thoughts