What makes a great social media video ad ?

Hey lads,
I have just wanted to share with you few tips about makes great social media ad based on my experience.
I own digital agency where we offer marketers and businesses unlimited video ads & graphic design service at 345 dollars/month. That being said I am not pushing here my service . Of course I would love people to use it because it is awesome but I also want to share some valuable info.
If photo says thousand words then how many words does video say ? Well, I would say a million...
The times where the only option for digital marketers were static ads , search ads and banners are long gone.
Nowadays we have different options to successfully reach and communicate to our potential customers.
Hallelujah!
As you have probably guessed it is a video that is a much better way to attract your potential clients, communicate your values and solutions to them.
Lets be honest here, we all know that just a moving pictures are not gonna make people go crazy for your product right ?
So, what makes a great video ad that attracts and converts clients?
First lets look at some interesting statistics about video ads from 2018:

• Social video generates 1200% more shares than text and images combined....WOW
• Views on branded video content have increased 258% on Facebook and 99% on YouTube as of June 2017 (via tubularinsights).
• Viewers retain 95% of a message when they watch it in a video compared to 10% when reading it in text.
• 85% of Facebook videos are watched without sound.
• The average user spends 88% more time on a website with video.

Some of these facts are quite shocking. There is such a difference among static images and video ( moving images ).
Without further ado lets get into the tips.

1. Storytelling
   This step is the crucial element of video ad that makes an impact on your potential customer. Storytelling is everything. The greatest salesman in the world are all great storytellers. Imagine a customer as a hero of the story. In this story, hero wants to achieve something great. That is your customer who wants to be successful but... as in every story, there is a villain. The villain represents pains and obstacles your customer faces & needs to get through to achieve this great success. In every great story the hero has a mentor who gives him advice and helps him to achieve his great success. In this scenario, that is your company. With your amazing solution for your customer problems.
   I am not gonna get into the details but this is the structure you should stick to to make an impact on your target audience.
2. User-centered
   This step is directly connected to the first one but I have separated them to make it perfectly clear because it is super important. This story that you are trying to tell your potential customers. It is not about how awesome your company is. It is about them, their struggles, pains, obstacles and needs. They probably feel horrible facing their problem. Then you come with the perfect solution for their problems. How will your solution make them feel after solving their problem. Make sure to communicate that in the video ad... Also, what will happen if they don't buy from you ?
3. Emotions
   Why emotions? I can name you 500 reason why you should by my product and you will go meeeh...
   Compared to communicating how will my solution make you feel? Will you make more money and then you can finally take your wife and children to this amazing vacation that you were dreaming about? Or help your mother.... More time for your friends that you haven't seen in ages?...what happened?
   People are social and emotional beings. We want to be understood, respected and loved by our family and community. These are all emotions but to make successful social media ad we need to go deeper. We also need to think about the platforms where we plan to advertise. Why do people visit this specific platform that I want to advertise on? Do they come to connect , stay in touch, stay informed , get inspired or...? These are all things that you need to take into account if you want to create successful social media video ad. The bottom line is it needs to hit their emotions. If you have a look at the most successful video ads by HubSpot, the majority of them hits your emotions and make you go all soft or excited. That is the ultimate goal.
4. Keep it short and sweet
   83% of the most successful video ads are shorter than 1 minute and the best performing ones are only 15 to 30 seconds long. In 2018 attention span has decreased to only 8 seconds. That is crazy my friends. In general, video ads in the range of 15-30 seconds performs the best. With that being said, focus on the first 8 seconds. This is your chance to get your audiences attention. Be creative. Challenge status quo. Ask yourself ? How do I differentiate my video ad in the first 8 seconds. It can be something shocking they wouldn't expect or beautiful, emotional as I have said...be creative and test. There is no recipe for this. Just testing and with that, learning about your target audience and what works for them .

Thats it guys, I hope it helped at least one of you. If you have any questions then comment down.
If you are interested in what do we do for businesses you can check us out at gradexi.com or hit me up with PM.
All the best!