Like speeches and articles, the structure of short videos also emphasizes “introduction, development, turn and conclusion” and consists of four parts: opening, development, climax and ending.

1. Start: Opening

The opening of a short video is of utmost importance. It must attract the audience within the first 3 seconds. Otherwise, 99% of users will swipe past it before 3 seconds, not to mention getting users to like, comment, forward, or even purchase the product. So we need to carefully design the opening content so that it can attract the audience like a "magnet".

How can you catch the user’s attention within 3 seconds and make him reluctant to swipe away? Here are 6 tips to help you create a stunning opening.

1. Ask questions

For example: You wash your hair every day, but do you wash your scalp?

For example: Did you wash your face white, or did you wash it in vain?

A question-type opening can stimulate people's thinking and make people watch the video involuntarily and look for answers.

2. Hit the pain point

For example: Did you shoot a short video for several hours, but after posting it, it received very few views? For example: Are you worrying about the selection of topics for short videos every day, thinking about it over and over again, but still have no idea?

By analyzing the other party’s problems and pain, fans will immediately be able to find a sense of resonance, and then they will feel that the article can help them, and thus will be interested in reading on.

3. Create a sense of urgency

For example: Extra, Extra! You must not do the following little thing, otherwise you will lose a lot.

For example: Emergency notice! If you still don’t know about this policy, then the 100,000 yuan bonus that belongs to you will be lost.

Urgent titles can arouse the audience's emotions and make them unable to help but click to watch the following content.

4. Inform the benefits and methods

For example: What should I do if I don’t know how to shoot short videos? This video teaches you how to take colorful photos in 7 seconds. For example: Tell everyone 5 ways to quickly learn time management.

Audiences are interested in "benefits" related to themselves. If you tell them directly what they will get at the beginning of the short video, it will attract them to continue watching. This method is suitable for knowledge accounts.

5. Take inventory of your “content inventory”

For example: 8 things you must know before you turn 30.

For example: If you want your skin to be white and glowing, you must stock up on these 5 whitening products.

Mentioning the “content list” at the beginning of the short video caters to people’s “hoarding mentality” and gives people a feeling that “others have carefully selected it for me” and they just need to collect it. Then they will like or download it, so this method can increase the like rate and forwarding rate.

6. Be clear at the outset

For example: Sometimes, the order of speaking is more important than the content of speaking.

For example: two people together is love, three people together is home.

The opening goes straight to the point, which is very suitable for the dissemination of fragmented knowledge.

7. Pre-conflict

For example: Have you accomplished the challenge of completing 100 orders in 10 days?

For example: Hey, I’ll teach you how to bankrupt a street with just 100 yuan.

This method can build up the audience's expectations and make them stick around to watch the film.

The above method is more suitable for sharing short videos. How should the beginning of other types of short videos be set to make them attractive? Here are some methods that apply to different types of videos:

1. Design a familiar scene in which a conflict occurs or some suspense is created. This method is suitable for drama series and can give the audience a feeling of "Oh, there's something interesting to watch." For example: A woman went shopping with a man arm in arm, and the woman said sadly: "I'm almost 30, how many more years can I wait?" The man said loudly: "Without a house, how can I marry you?" The woman cried and said: I don't care!" Then, the plot unfolds...
2. Choose a piece of music that you can tell there will be a twist as soon as you hear the beginning. It is suitable for funny short videos.
3. Putting beautiful scenery at the beginning of the video is suitable for travel-related short videos.
4. Put the finished tutorial at the beginning of the video, which is suitable for short videos about food.
5. Using an exaggerated performance or a small surprise to pique the user's interest is quite common in videos that promote products. For example, Li Jiaqi’s “OMG”.

The above are some tips for setting the beginning of short videos. As long as you watch more, you can summarize many different categories of short video beginnings. In addition to attracting the audience's attention, the beginning also plays a role in screening fans and attracting targeted users. Once fans are attracted, they will see the second stage of the short video: acceptance.

2. Inheritance: Development

The content of this stage serves to connect the previous and the next, to follow up the beginning, and to prepare for the "climax". So, we can design three different forms of development.

1. Share content in a “bullet-style” manner along the way

Through key points such as 1, 2, 3..., information can be quickly conveyed and the audience's sense of gain can be enhanced.

For example: One of the issues of Mo Da Xia’s Interesting Marketing Talks is titled “How can people at the bottom of the social ladder counterattack and become elites?” ”, which introduces four methods in sequence:

1. Point 1: Develop a habit of reading: Reading can help you escape from mediocrity and increase your confidence and experience.
2. Point 2: Identify a sharp point and then invest overwhelmingly: dig deep into one field.
3. Point 3: Organize your house: The essence of organizing is to change the chaotic state of life. Spread out - classify - delete - put back, this is actually a process of change.
4. Point 4: Talking to strangers: This small action includes courage, intuition, rationality, affinity and many other things.

This content by Mo Daxie adopts a point-by-point sharing method, giving people suggestions one by one. This method has clear logic, distinct key points and is easy to remember.

2. Lay the groundwork for the story

For short videos with a plot, a very important method is to "lay the groundwork" for the story. This is similar to writing a talk show, which is: foreshadowing + punchlines. The "foreshadowing" can create an expectation and establish a certain cognition for the audience, which is convenient for breaking later, thus producing an effect beyond expectations.

For example: Zhong Ting XO's short videos are very good at laying the groundwork in the form of dialogue in the front, and then revealing the "memes" in the back. Kuaishou beauty blogger "Mao Mao Has Super Good Skin" also has a video that lays the groundwork very well.

3. Create suspense and arouse curiosity

Sometimes the "suspense" of the content is placed in the "development" stage of the plot. You can take a look at the account "Meng Po Shiqi", which contains mostly plot-based content. You can see suspense in every episode, which makes people want to finish it.

There are many ways to create suspense: for example: telling the story of an event that happened without giving the outcome of the event.

For example: Saying half of something and not giving a conclusion...

The key to using these methods is to make people "uncomfortable" and want to finish watching the video quickly to find the answer.

3. Transition: Climax

The foreshadowing has been done well, and the "climax" part is when the "memes" are revealed, which is also the most exciting part of a video. The commonly used technique for this part is "reversal".

It is not an exaggeration at all that the product becomes a hit only because of the reversal. Reversal can easily create a dramatic effect and make the audience feel like they are immersed in the story, creating a wonderful psychological experience. Reversal is a story structure in which the plot changes from one situation to the opposite situation, or the character's identity or fate changes in the opposite direction. It is often used in narrative.

Reversal creates contrast, contrast creates contrast, and contrast will awaken people's emotions and trigger action.

For example: Taking the example of the male and female protagonists "peeling apples", how should an ordinary video be reversed?

• If the man takes the first bite of the apple after peeling it (he is a scumbag)
• If after peeling the apple, the man takes the first bite, and the woman is about to scold him, but the man feeds her mouth to mouth (showing that he is a warm man)
• If after peeling the apple, the man takes a bite first, and the woman is about to scold him, but the man feeds her mouth to mouth. When she is about to feed it into her mouth, suddenly another man rushes in and shouts: How dare you do this to your sister-in-law (man is a thief and woman is a prostitute)

Generally speaking, the production formula of story segments = familiar scenes + unexpected twists, and the number of reversals must be 2-3 times to attract users to watch repeatedly.

Here you can refer to the beauty account "Bankrupt Sisters and Brothers" or the story account "Your Eleven". Their story twists are very exciting and make people enjoy watching them.

4. Conclusion: Ending

The ending of the short video plays the role of "interaction and emphasis". On the one hand, it can interact with the audience and guide their attention; on the other hand, it can also emphasize one's own values ​​and enhance the recognition of the account. How to do it specifically?

1. Raise questions and make the audience think

The ending can raise questions to the audience and deepen their thinking about the content.

For example: What other cooking tips do you know? Feel free to share it in the comment section! For example: What skin care products do you ladies usually use? Welcome to leave a message!

This method can increase the comment rate of the video and also make it easier for content creators to extract a lot of "UGC" content from it as a source of creativity for the next content.

2. Issue a call to action

At the end, you can issue "action instructions" to the audience, guiding them to like, follow, comment, and forward.

For example: If you find it useful after reading this, please like and collect it!

For example: If you think this cooking secret recipe is useful, you can send the video to your friends who love cooking.

A mistake many video creators make when creating a call to action is to put some personal message at the end of the video.

For example, they would do something like this:

"XXX is an expert in Internet marketing. He graduated from XX University and has served 100 industries in the past 15 years with performance growth of 10-500 times! If you want to know more about XXX, you can visit XXX"

No one cares who you are or what you do with your life. The only thing they care about is what problems you can solve for them and what value you can provide.

How can you help them? What if we modify the call to action!

"Are you having trouble finding customers, sales are declining, or business is hitting a bottleneck? Have you tried everything and nothing works? Visit XXX to find out how to easily develop 2,000+ accurate customers in 7 days."

This is what fans want to see: solutions to their problems. They don't care who you are. They just want their problems to be solved once and for all.

Here’s a simple blueprint for a call to action that can work wonders.

• Remind them of their pain
• Give them a platform
• Tell them what they will get when they come to the platform

3. Use classic sentences to express values

If you want to convey values ​​at the end, it is recommended to quote more classic quotes as the ending, which will make the video look more textured. For example, "Xue Hui Xiao Qingxin" will say at the end of each short video: I am Xue Hui, I hope the ignorant will become powerful, and I hope the powerful will move forward.

To sum up, the "structural main line" of a video is designed in this way. The [introduction, development, turn and conclusion] are well constructed, and each part of the beginning, development, climax and ending is designed with an "attractive point" to give the audience an irresistible feeling. Then, the short videos you produce will have the opportunity to enter the platform’s high-level traffic pool, and you will not be far from “going viral”.

Author: Copy Hunter April

Source: Copy Hunter April

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