Interactive Video

Don’t pretend like you have never dozed off during a promotional video or skipped over sections in a training video. We see you out there, don’t be shy. 

Fortunately, the videos are usually not the problem. If you don’t believe us, just think back to high school or college when your teacher would take a break from lecturing to do an engaging activity. The teacher may ask a question or assign a small in-class project. Whatever it was, it re-engaged you and chances are you remember that lecture because of that activity. 

Interactive video is the exact same concept in real-time. In fact, it results in 3 to 4 times greater viewer engagement than a regular video by making a passive user an active participant in your videos. 

I don’t know about you, but we certainly would like for our users to be engaged with a video that we put time, effort, and money into creating. Here are some ways that your audience will benefit from interactive video:

1. Engaging Experience

It is not enough to just have a video anymore. New platforms like TikTok have proven that attention spans are decreasing and your audience is looking for more engaging ways to interact with your content. Interactive video allows you to craft your user experience from beginning to end. Your videos can tell a story and viewers can even create their own narrative through decision-based consequences and actions. These videos help create a personal connection between the content and the learner. 

2. Personalized Learning

We are in the age of personalization and even if you won’t admit it, those hyper-targeted ads you receive that make you rethink your search history are nice (at least once in a while). Everyone wants to feel like they are important and what better way to empower your customers than through interactive video? Interactive video allows each user to choose their own paths and explore their interests. It enables user-driven decision-making that offers your audience an opportunity to make choices and explore unique options. These videos can also allow learners to take on specific roles and fill their respective knowledge gaps. Users can choose how deep they want to delve into a subject, main content, or related topics.

3. Improved Viewer Retention

Did you know that after just one hour, people will retain less than half of the information presented in a video? But before you start freaking out, this is only for videos that do not engage your audience effectively. Just by making your videos more engaging and personalized, that number almost doubles. Since viewers are involved in an interactive video – whether they need to make a series of decisions to forward the story narrative or periodically take quizzes to move to the next level of a training course – you’re already in a greater position to promote engagement. In some cases, where action is required, viewers don’t have the opportunity to zone out.

4. Role Based Learning

Another great feature that interactive video has is the ability to show a 360-degree perspective of a situation, service, or product. For example, you can initiate conversations around different scenarios. You may have a recruitment video that shows what it is like to work as an assembly line worker and then show what it is like to work as a mechanic. You can then show how each role has different opportunities for growth and how they differ from each other. This type of role-based learning brings each role alive and provides a perspective into different situations.

5. Constructive Feedback

If we had a glass ball that could read our audience’s mind we would be millionaires. But until that is rolled out in 2095 the best way to interact and teach your audience is through interactive video. You can create branching scenarios that ‘tell’ the learners if they are wrong, and if they are wrong, how to course correct. Branching scenarios provide more personalized feedback since mistakes differ from one person to the other, and rather than telling them to do this or that, viewers can retrace their steps to the point where they made a mistake and then continue on their journey.

6. Micro-Learning

“Ah yes, I love when I am bombarded with new information all at once. In fact, it is my favorite way to learn anything.” Said no one… ever. That is why microlearning is the latest trend. Interactive videos can break down heavy modules into bite-sized capsules which learners can watch anytime and anywhere. You can also divide your lessons into sessions that offer bite-size pieces of your content throughout your videos.

7. Drives Conversions with Interactive CTAs

Just getting your viewers to watch the video is only half of the battle, the real trick is getting your audience to take action. Do you want them to subscribe? Click the link. Donate? Whatever that might be, at some point the video has to get them to that action. The problem is that the action is usually hard to find… like way to hard to find. But with interactive video, you can place your CTA right on the video and give them a link that increases conversions. 

Should You Use Interactive Video?

Okay, I think we have done enough convincing, now it’s your turn to assess your situation and see if interactive video would work for your messaging. Since interactive video is fairly new, it is still relatively expensive for a great product so here are some questions you should ask yourself before going forward with interactive video:

• How much material do you have to showcase?
• Do your customers/clients/consumers need specialized information?
• Is the information you’re trying to provide linear in nature (one idea built on top of the previous) or specialized based on the viewer’s interests or needs?  

Interactive video is an investment. It’s essentially Video 2.0 which requires another experience in producing the product. Not only do you need the video, but that video needs to be developed with the user experience in mind: from a writing, production, and distribution perspective. That’s a lot of perspectives. 

With that said, after years of being involved in the Production of video, we’re now able to offer services for creating interactive video. So, give us a shout if you want to find out if interactive video is right for you!

Check out our podcast for more information on interactive video!