Short video operation: 8 tips for cover selection

When writing, we all understand that "well begun is half done", so we all understand the importance of the beginning.

Similarly, when creating short video content, a good start is the video cover that first catches the user's eye. The choice of cover directly determines whether there will be a larger number of recommendations, which means whether more users will click to watch. In the era of short videos, the cover is the first window for content to reach users, and it is also the first step for short videos to attract users' attention. When we look at the cover of short videos from the perspective of attention, we will find that there are rules to follow and it is not a difficult task.

A suspense cover uses attractive scenes, pictures, characters, etc. on the cover to make users subconsciously desire to learn more, and they are eager to know the truth and understand the direction of events.

This type of video often starts with an attractive cover, but the content usually has a beginning and an end, cause and effect, and an answer, and is not sensational. For example, one creator shared a scene of a girl playing on a floating mat in a park. The girl needs to run quickly through each buoyancy pad to reach the other side, which means victory. On the contrary, if you make a mistake while running, you will fall into the water and become a drowned chicken.

The cover of this video featured an image of a girl quickly rushing towards a floating mat, coupled with the question "Did she fall into the water in the end?", creating a standard suspense cover. The video was played over 1 million times in just a few hours. In the video, the girl almost fell into the water while running quickly, but she still ran to the other side and won. The suspenseful cover here is the question and expectation of whether the girl can reach the other side, making people eager to know the final answer.

When we choose a suspense cover, we should not deliberately choose a picture that has nothing to do with the content in order to create associations. Instead, it should be part of the content and consistent with its own positioning. We should not choose irrelevant pictures simply to attract people.

The effect cover refers to the short video cover that presents the most beautiful, attractive and best picture after processing, beautification and creation. Such a picture has the effect of brightening the eyes and pleasing to the eye. For example, some food creators will choose the picture of their finished food as the cover of their short video, so that users will want to click on the video when they see the beautiful or mouth-watering food pictures, thereby achieving the purpose of attracting users to watch.

In addition to food creators, creators in fields such as painting and handicrafts will also use their finished products as covers to attract more users to watch.

A reminder here is: when we use an effect cover, we can select the most beautiful, coolest, and most dazzling aspects of things in the video, and match them with appropriate copy. If you feel that there is no ideal cover pattern in the video, you can pose for a picture related to the content as the video cover, provided that it is relevant to the content.

The idea of ​​using the opponent's force to counter attack originated from Tai Chi, which means using the strength of others to benefit yourself. In terms of creation, we can understand it as using external hot spots, characters, events and other elements to attract users to watch, because these elements have their own traffic and can quickly capture the user's attention. Many creators will use photos of themselves with some celebrities as a starting point to attract users, and will also use some hot events and characters as the main elements of the cover. These can all become tools to attract users' attention.

When we choose to leverage the cover, we can take advantage of hot topics or associate with hot people, but the content we create must be meaningful. That is to say, the hot topics on the cover are the introduction to the content, and the real core is our own views and the value we bring to users. This is crucial.

Curiosity is human nature, and it is also a psychological desire to satisfy curiosity by finding and exploring new things. Any content related to curiosity is also very popular with the public, such as adventure films and TV dramas, exploration documentaries, etc., which are good themes that are always popular.

For short video creation, curious covers fill the gaps in users' own understanding of the world with freshness, unknownness and strangeness, opening a window for users to understand the world. Curious covers are often seen in short video content creation such as travel, agriculture, rural areas, etc., mainly based on the creator’s unique experiences during travel, with visual impact as the main feature. For example, a creator traveled to an island and saw for the first time local shrimps as big as washbasins. He then used a picture of himself holding the shrimps in his hands as the cover, which was eye-catching.

In the rural areas, many creators use mountains, rivers and other areas to show places that users cannot reach. Especially when encountering animals, plants, natural scenes, customs and practices that have never been seen before, they will use curious covers to achieve the purpose of attracting people. For example, there was once a creator who pointed to a cave nearby with an expression of surprise and joy on the cover of a video and said that he had discovered a strange animal. The video has been played four to five million times, and the number of likes has soared to one million in a short period of time.

When we use a curious cover, we can create suspense to attract users, but it should be noted that the curious cover can serve as a gimmick, but the user's experience of watching the video cannot be bad. In other words, when users watch videos, they cannot just satisfy their curiosity. They also need to understand the ins and outs of things and events, as well as the final outcome. It is best if the videos are informative and valuable. This will enhance the user's viewing experience and encourage them to follow, like, and share.

The story cover instantly mobilizes the user's emotions, psychological or spiritual resonance through the form of "picture + text". The narrative perspective is often based on the first-person account of personal experience, which is easy to be convincing and also easy to produce a strong appeal.

One creator’s main job is transportation, and he usually travels around the country with his wife. His original intention of shooting short videos was to record and share his daily work. Once, he posted a short video with a cover showing his wife sleeping in the back seat of a truck. He wrote on the cover: "Wife, we're on the highway. You drive. I'm really sleepy. We're only 100 kilometers away!"

This short video has received positive reviews from many users. It is a typical "picture + text" story cover. Through scene-based fragment records, it conveys to users the feeling of how difficult it is to struggle outside, allowing users who are also struggling outside to empathize.

Similarly, a creator who mainly shoots Vlogs of his own life focuses on recording the relationship between husband and wife. Once she shared her inner feelings after an argument with her husband and chose a story cover: the cover showed a haggard woman with tears in her eyes, and the text read "The young working couple has been in a cold war for 7 days. They are so tired and the wife is about to cry." The short video was played over a million times in just one hour, and received two to three thousand comments. In the comments, some people who had experienced the same thing gave her advice, and those who had the same experience also detailed their past emotional experiences.

The story cover can convey strong emotional power to users through the cover and related text information, and can achieve the purpose of attracting users' attention. When we use story covers, we must convey the power of emotions, including happiness, sadness, anger, etc., infect users through the power of emotions and achieve the purpose of attracting people.

A wonderful cover refers to the most exciting moment in a short video or a freeze-frame picture that makes people's eyes light up and their hearts convinced, which can attract the user's attention.

There is a creator who is fond of sports. His usual short videos record sports activities that show his strength and jumping ability. In order to highlight the significant changes brought about by exercise, the content of his videos is generally a complete display of sports events, and he also chooses wonderful covers. For example, when he was recording his jumping ability at home, the video showed him easily jumping from a pile of bricks to the side of a courtyard wall. In fact, simply by looking at such content, users cannot perceive the creator's extraordinary jumping ability. However, he chose a freeze-frame moment of jumping into the air in the picture on the cover, which immediately makes people feel admiration. At the same time, it will also make people click to watch with doubts, wanting to know how the creator did it.

The reason why a wonderful cover is attractive is mainly because it can make people feel admiration and unattainable, and watch the content with doubts.

A reminder here is that you must not sensationalize and choose a gimmicky cover that has nothing to do with the core content, simply to attract users to click, while the actual content has nothing to do with the cover. Such a cover would violate the platform management rules. If reported by a user, it would be removed from the shelves at best, and the account would be blocked at worst.

A character-based cover actually uses real people to convey emotions and information on the cover to attract users. The character cover usually shows the face of the short video creator or the core character, and is matched with relevant information to make the content unified and complete.

For example, a creator of automobiles would include a picture of himself and the car model he is talking about on the cover of each video. If the creator is a woman, she can also match different clothes around different car models to show uniformity.

Some creators will also put some exaggerated expressions of their own on the cover to highlight the fun of the content and attract more users to watch. In his content titled "Counting the Five Major Crimes of the Black Organization in Conan", the creator "Luo Xiang" on Bilibili deliberately put a black-clad man with his own avatar photoshopped on the cover of the video to attract young users.

In fact, when using a character-based cover, you should pay attention to the following two points.

First, deepen the user's impression and enhance self-IP shaping. When we often use our own avatars as a language for external output, it is actually a form of self-brand output, which can deepen users' impression of us and enhance our own IP shaping. However, the appearance of personal image cannot be arbitrary, but should be related to the content and personality. The exposure of personal image is to assist the content and play a role of authenticity and credibility.

Second, when using a character-based cover, the content of the cover must be consistent. If we use the "personality + content" approach as the main theme of the cover, then we should try to use this approach every time. Perhaps we can make some adjustments based on the different content each time, but we must form a fixed exposure method. The purpose is to enhance our brand value in the minds of users.

In addition, during the creative process, sometimes a piece of content will be popular with users, and many users will click to open the author's homepage and continue to browse other content. At this time, if our cover themes all adopt the "personal + content" exposure method, it will present visual unity, leave a good impression on users, and encourage users to pay attention to us.

The key information cover selects the core information in the content in the form of keywords, and then uses eye-catching fonts to convey important information to users, so as to attract users to watch. For example, when a technology creator is telling the past and present of hackers from Country A, he focuses on the contest between hackers from Country A and Country B. The cover he uses is a key information cover, with key information directly stated in large Song-style fonts and a three-paragraph title: World War between Countries A and B, and 80,000 hackers from Country A capture the capital of Country B and successfully plant a flag.

The simple and clear core information and straightforward event content quickly reach the users' hearts and grab their attention. It didn't take long for the number of views of this slightly longer video content to soar to tens of millions.

When we choose a cover with key information, we need to summarize the core information of the content, and then put it on the cover in a simple and clear form in the form of keyword groups, mainly to attract users to watch with the amount of information in the content and increase the number of views.

When selecting key information, you need to pay attention to the following two points.

First, the completeness of content presentation. When we use text as a medium to convey information, we need to maintain the integrity of the content display. That is, whether it is a two-paragraph title or a three-paragraph title, what is presented in the end is complete events and information. For example, the content mentioned in the above example is summarized from three aspects: "who did what", "why" and "what was the ending". Try not to deliberately tell the story with suspense, which will be judged as a clickbait title and will also greatly affect the user's viewing experience.

Second, the keywords on the cover should be popular and interesting. After we summarize the keywords in the content, we need to search again on the corresponding platform to check the popularity of the words to confirm that the content we create is of interest to most people, and not too unpopular or has been banned by the platform.

On the one hand, this will allow us to improve the data indicators of the content and increase the probability of the content becoming a hit; on the other hand, it can prevent the hard-earned content from being ignored. If the content fails to pass the review due to some other reasons, the gain will not outweigh the loss.

Editor's recommendation: Today, short videos have become an indispensable media form for people's work and life, and they also give everyone equal opportunities to demonstrate their own value and gain wealth in life. However, the creative style of many short video creators is like a blind man groping in the dark. They do not understand the underlying logic and methods behind the creation, nor have they systematically thought about self-positioning and planning.

The author of this book, Zhou Wei, was the first marketing director of Kuaishou. He is well versed in the platform's algorithms and rules and has rich experience in front-line short video operations . In this book, the author starts from the three major platforms of Tik Tok, Kuaishou, and Bilibili, and comprehensively interprets the creation, operation, monetization methods and misunderstandings of short videos. It provides practical dry goods + learnable formulas, which are easy to learn and use, making your content eye-catching and refreshing!

Author: Zhou Wei

Source: Zhou Wei