Panoramic 360-degree video has stopped being an attraction for technology enthusiasts: brands now shoot it so that viewers do not merely watch a clip but find themselves inside the frame. Producing panoramic video is a relatively straightforward process. If you are ready to use this format for your business, below are eight ideas that boost engagement on social media.
1. Show off your product
Nescafé was one of the first companies to see the rich potential of this technology. Today the brand uses it with a simple goal: to make sure that even a schoolchild knows how its coffee is made. In one of the clips — part of a whole themed series — the company shows users the first stage of the production process, the picking of coffee beans.
In this way Nescafé does more than demonstrate the freshness and natural quality of its coffee harvest. The company delivers excellent branding and at the same time captures the attention of potential customers.
Mercedes is another brand that manages to engage users through panoramic video. This year, at the IAA Motor Show in Frankfurt, the carmaker presented several concepts from its model line-up. Mercedes did not want to limit the audience to those who had come to the event — so it shot a panoramic video to widen reach and raise engagement.
This advertising campaign has a mobile app for iOS and Android where you can watch other clips of the same kind. In addition, the company intends to hand out 10,000 branded Cardboard virtual reality headsets across the markets of 13 countries — during marketing activities and as prizes in online competitions.
2. Advertise places
Tourism is among the most successful areas for panoramic video. Qantas created a highly successful advertisement for a number of Australia's most popular tourist destinations using panoramic filming. The clip was shot with the support of Hamilton Island Resort and Samsung.
In it, Qantas does not simply show a landmark or a location — impressive as it is in its own right — but also demonstrates what it means to travel there using Qantas services. The video also includes footage shot from the pilot's cockpit during take-off and landing, as well as from the passenger cabin.
For large brands
An airline or a resort shows not only the location itself but also the experience of travelling to it: the aircraft cabin, the view from the cockpit, the atmosphere of the destination.
For small creators
You do not have to be a large international company at all. In fact, the popularity of panoramic video is growing fastest among travel bloggers and YouTube channel owners — that is, among people who usually have limited budgets and technical resources. Viewers often trust such creators incomparably more, because they feel a connection on a personal level.
3. Share adventures
Who does not enjoy watching action videos of daring people performing breathtaking stunts? Most of us lack the skill — or the nerve — to attempt bungee jumping, a wingsuit flight or a Formula 1 drive. And yet we are curious about what it feels like to live through such adventures.
Red Bull was arguably the first company to start applying this technology. Without straying far from its strategy of featuring extreme sports in the brand's advertising, it went a step further and allowed users to become part of these incredible pursuits.
Extreme sport can just as easily be used to promote tourist destinations more effectively. That is exactly what the Norway Tourism Office did in collaboration with Red Bull.
Turn the video around — look up at the sky — to see how they work in their branding.A tip from the original review
4. Improve your video blog
You are most likely familiar with the name Zach King — the internet celebrity who became famous for shooting short video clips in which he performs magic tricks himself. Zach now creates panoramic videos with similar content. The viewers' delight has not gone anywhere, but now they also feel part of the action.
Other video bloggers with more traditional subject matter use 360 video to give their viewers a sense of presence in the stories they share. It is an excellent way to increase engagement.
This is precisely the strategy chosen by Louis Cole. Every day he posts videos from his travels around the world. His clips are a good demonstration of how an entirely ordinary topic reaches a new level of substance when viewers can feel themselves inside the action.
- Viewers choose where to look for themselves — and stay with the frame longer.
- The familiar video diary format gains a sense of presence.
- Trust in the author grows, because viewers feel a personal connection with them.
5. Showcase events
Advertising an event usually requires photographs or video of what people can expect from attending it. So would it not be better to let them experience the event virtually?
When YouTube launched panoramic videos in March 2015, one of the first channels to publish content in the new format was Tomorrowland — one of the largest electronic music festivals in the world. That is where the first panoramic clip ever posted on YouTube appeared.
6. Make short films
Some companies shoot panoramic short films not so much to promote their brand as to let people spend time in a reality that happens to include that company's products.
This is exactly what Mini does in its Mini Connected campaign — a series of short films in which viewers can feel themselves inside the story. Mini also engages customers by offering free Cardboard virtual reality headsets to those who want to watch the films in virtual reality, which is a combination of panoramic video and 3D.
Dimension Gate, a company that creates virtual reality video, found an interesting way to promote its own brand. Instead of a standard demo reel of its best work, it shot a series of short horror films — this produced a viral effect and increased the brand's presence online.
7. Shoot music videos
Many artists have picked up the trend for panoramic videos so that a larger number of viewers watch their content, and watch it repeatedly. As we know, the more you listen to a song, the more likely it is to stay in your memory. Yet for most artists it is extremely difficult to make people listen to the same tune over and over again, unless, of course, we are talking about die-hard fans.
3D videos turned out to be an excellent answer to this problem. It is impossible to see everything happening in such a clip in a single viewing, and curiosity pushes viewers to watch it several times. That is how an artist earns repeat plays of their track.
This is exactly what the Swedish musician and DJ Avicii did in one of his music videos. And the Texan rock band Wild Child took the same approach on a modest budget: alternating short scenes created a feeling of immersion, and viewers wanted to watch the video again and again.
8. Create immersive television
The key factor of success on social media is generating engagement from your audience. And there is no better way than simply making the audience a co-author of the content.
The British television show Strictly Come Dancing joined the panoramic video trend by letting its viewers watch the best performances directly from the stage. This way viewers choose the content to their own taste, which increases the number of repeat views.
Another excellent example of immersive television is nature documentaries in which viewers themselves control what they want to see. A telling confirmation is the video from the Discovery channel.
Conclusions
Even though panoramic video is still an innovation on social media, its use is growing quickly — largely thanks to the versatility of the content and the high level of user engagement. What is more, the launch of panoramic videos on Facebook sharpens the rivalry between Facebook and YouTube for leadership in the video content segment. In the hope of attracting more traffic, these social networks may launch additional products, which will make panoramic video an optimal choice for brands and viewers alike.
And here is a short cheat sheet: which brands have already shot a panoramic video and what exactly they showed their viewers.
| Brand | Sector | What they showed in 360 format |
|---|---|---|
| Nescafé | Coffee production | Production stages, including the picking of coffee beans |
| Mercedes | Cars | Model line-up concepts from the IAA Motor Show in Frankfurt |
| Qantas | Tourism and air travel | Australia's tourist destinations, the pilot's cockpit, the passenger cabin |
| Red Bull | Extreme sports | First-person stunts, a joint clip with the Norway Tourism Office |
| Tomorrowland | Music festival | The first panoramic video in YouTube's history |
| Mini | Cars | The Mini Connected series of short films |
This is the first part of the review. The next one will be a translation of the 2016 Social Media Marketing Industry Report, which Social Media Examiner prepared to understand how marketers use social media. We translate the most interesting English-language e-commerce and SMM material and publish it on our blog.
