This is sure to be an unpopular hot take: some of the biggest do-gooders also produce the blandest social media content. Sure, a humanitarian worker on Facebook, capturing the aftermath of a conflict zone, faces much different pressures than a TikToker participating in the outfit transition challenge.
But consider this:
In five to 10 years, today’s crop of teenagers and young adults will become the target audience for calls to action on some of the world’s most pressing issues. And they’re more media savvy right now than most people over the age of 40. Bad audio and jump cuts can hurt a campaign’s credibility. But a story that doesn’t consider pacing, storytelling devices, and the medium itself… well, if we’re being totally honest, even today’s adults are likely to get bored and click away.
So who has the finger on the pulse of storytelling in today’s social media? As the title of this article suggests, many of us visual storytellers would be wise to mine the content of Jimmy Donaldson, known to just about every kid online as Mr. Beast.
Donaldson started uploading gamer content from his bedroom in 2013, when he was just 12 years old. After a number of failed attempts, his star really took off in 2017, and he’s since become the single biggest YouTuber in the world. His videos, which can cost millions of dollars to produce, have amassed more than 137,000 million subscribers on his main channel alone. His success has led him to open several commercial and philanthropic ventures, including a fast food burger chain, chocolate company, and NGOs that aim to plant trees and clean up our oceans. That’s not to say he hasn’t garnered a ton of controversy during his rise to the top. Just click on here, here and here.
With that said, Mr. Beast’s videos can be a goldmine of valuable tips for any storyteller, especially those who cover serious topics.
1. Deliver on your promises… quickly
Mr. Beast’s intros are on average just a few seconds long. If his thumbnail promises a 50 hour survival mission in Antarctica, you’re taken to the frozen tundra the moment you click on that video. He doesn’t waste time explaining who he is or what his channel is about. Remember, in your case, the audience will already know something about your organization from your account’s bio, about page, or other posts. So, jump right into the topic at hand. Even spending a minute on relatively unnecessary context risks a good chunk of your viewership.
2. Declare the stakes, and keep them coming
Within 20 seconds of his Antarctica video, Mr. Beast tells us the immediate need is to reach a mountain for protection. One minute in, the mission is to set up camp. Then at the 1:26 mark, the new goal post is set at building an ice wall to protect the camp. Whether your video content is a minute, or 12 minutes like this one is, continuously feeding the audience reasons to watch will prevent many of them from clicking off to the next cat video on their feed. Accomplishing such a pace requires editing out footage, tight script writing, and sometimes working backwards. What you may shoot at the very end of the project, might become the teaser line at the very beginning of your video.
3. Have the courage to accept what’s not working
We’re not talking about when your boss, the one with zero charisma, insists on being in the video. Instead, it’s crucial to acknowledge when an editing technique, caption style, or even advancement in tech just doesn’t help tell your story.
It’s why Mr. Beast, despite having the cream of the crop of recording equipment, refuses to export his content in 4K. That’s right. The guy who spent more than $3.5 million dollars on his Squid Game replica video, only allows us to see it in 1080p. The reason is simple. He says highly produced content made his videos feel too impersonal. He felt being too polished actually took the viewer out of the experience.
This is also to say that what might work for the rest of the internet might not work for you. A few ways to identify this is by tracking your content’s analytics to see where there are audience drop offs, being open to feedback, and sometimes ignoring all the naysayers and sticking to your own personal aesthetic.
4. Special effects have a big effect
For the most part, NGO videos rely on static captions to provide mostly dense information. And it’s a missed opportunity.
Throughout every Mr. Beast video are big, bold, words that randomly dance across the screen. They’re used to punctuate important information, spice up an exposition dump, or simply act as a sparkling little cat toy for all the viewers with short attention spans. Not only that, but Mr. Beast also adds in infographics, AR, and even Easter eggs.
Now, whether or not you side on something simple or flashy, captions are essential to the success of videos posted on social media.
Broadcast, whether audio or visual, is a passive medium, which is why it’s so easy to tune out in front of the television, let alone a smartphone. Reading, on the other hand, is active learning. And if the viewer is watching, listening and reading your content at the same time, they are more likely to stick with the story until the end, and more importantly remember the information they just consumed.
