Think about your own browsing experience. When you’re scrolling your own FB, Instagram, or YouTube feed, what is it that grabs your attention and makes you want to watch a video?
If a viewer recognizes an item, a place, or a person in your video, they are more likely to stop and pay attention.
This might explain why we love those Dollar Store shots! Everyone’s been inside a Dollar Store and knows what it looks like. This also explains why we avoid putting faces at the beginning of videos.
Unless you’re a Kim Kardashian kinda celebrity, people tend to scroll past or click away from faces they don’t recognize.
It also explains why we focus our video projects around highly relatable items most people have, or areas that are common in many homes, like a builder grade bathroom mirror or old carpet stairs.
While there are many factors that contribute to getting your audience’s attention, one of the strongest, most impactful factors that you also have the ability to control, is recognition.
How do you achieve recognition?
1. Show Familiar Locations
[I.E. the Dollar Store aisle and the Target parking lot]
2. Use Relatable Objects
[I.E. show items in their packaging, avoid one of a kind thrift store finds, avoid bright
patterns and colors]
3. No Faces
[I.E. show hands rather than face in the shot, stand with your back to the camera
holding an object up]
What pitfalls should you avoid?
1. Lack of contrast: Make sure there’s strong contrast between the item and the surface. If your surface and item are monochromatic, the item will get swallowed up by the background. For example: if you’re showing white coffee filters, film it on brown butcher paper and not on a white laminate countertop.
2. Messy background: Even the most recognizable item will be swallowed up in a cluttered image. Keep your surface clutter-free to draw attention to the item you want people to recognize.
3. No focal point: Focus viewers’ attention on the item you’re highlighting by carefully considering what else is in the shot and making sure the recognizable item or place “jumps out” as the main thing you see.
The Art of Grabbing Attention
Retaining viewers’ attention throughout your video is highly dependent on your open shots and narrative. The key is to open a curiosity gap that you will close towards the end of the video. Simply put, you want to get people curious about what you’re making and how your project is going to turn out.
The more curiosity you can build at the beginning of your episode, the more people will stick around to see the end result!
How do you open a curiosity gap?
In our last post, we talked about beginning your video by showing familiar objects and places to drive recognition in order to grab viewers’ attention. Your curiosity gap builds on that opening scene by creating a story around the relatable or recognizable object or place. The key is not to divulge too much information about exactly what you’re doing, but still provide enough information to keep viewers interested and watching.
Describe the problem:
Talk about WHY you’re making this project and the problem you’re having, without specifying how you’re solving it. For example: if you’re building a water fountain from a simple Walmart pot, talk about how you don’t have a relaxing spot in your home and how you miss the beach, or how your garden is perfect but really feels like it’s missing something special.
Describe the benefits:
In a nutshell, talk about the value you’re getting without specifying exactly what the project is. Continuing with our Walmart fountain example, talk about how you’re about to create something awesome for your garden that will be so relaxing and look like it costs hundreds of dollars, but don’t specify that you’re building a water fountain! For example:
This will make my garden look amazing
My family won’t believe I made this myself
If I were to buy this at retail, it would cost me hundreds of dollars, but I’m only spending $25.
This is going to become my new relaxation area
Make it look weird! (Use juxtapositions!)
A fun way to make people furrow their brows and lean in closer to watch is to leverage shots that are just plain weird. Items that don’t usually go together like paint and baking soda, a hair dryer and a paint canvas, a toilet and a stencil - are your best friends. Look out for opportunities to leverage juxtapositions. The more you can pair the unconventional in a shot, the longer your captivated audience will stick around to see how the heck this thing turns out!
What pitfalls should you avoid?
Avoid showing the final project until the end!
Make sure you keep your shots changing, relatable, and interesting while you’re describing the problem and or/benefits. This method can backfire if you don’t have compelling footage to back it up.
Don’t overdo it - tease your project in a natural way where the audience is along with the ride and excited to see the outcome rather than feeling they are being toyed with and forced to wait to see the end result.
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