Influence of orientation of ads on Social Media
Introduction:
Social media ads mean we can run advertisements on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok etc. In previous stages, the orientation of the ad didn’t matter but now with the introduction of Instagram stories and Snapchat it has taken both a positive and negative toll on the advertising world.
Orientation:
In television, every ad comes in landscape and a change in this orientation will lead to a complete disaster. Because any other resolution will make the video look either small or will leave a lot of space on the sides or bottom or top.
But on social media platforms like Facebook or Instagram or twitter etc, there are different orientations in every single platform. So according to the requirements of the particulars platforms, the video orientation must be made.
Landscape ads or square ads:
These forms of advertisement will be used mostly on YouTube, the second largest search engine in the world. The major place the landscape ads are seen on desktop viewers. Eg: Computer and Television. Another place for the landscape videos or pictures is the websites, blogs, and landing pages. Now though Youtube consists of major landscape video ads it has options to have other types of format too.
It can be square or even a portrait too. Now according to the data from Heap, Youtube has the lowest conversion rate of 0.5%. Now, these may be due to various factors, the ad itself or orientation or any other stuff.
But people are less likely to turn their phone 180 degrees when a landscape ad come in during their portrait view.
If it is related to websites then banner ads can also lead to higher conversion rates based on many factors. But even in these banners, there is a possibility that the viewer or the consumer gets influenced by the orientation of the particular advertisement.
The landscape advertising can be having an increase in the conversion rate if it is happening in the mid-roll while watching a video.
Portrait ads:
Vertical video ads are watched 9 times more than landscape advertisements. One of the major benefits is the reduction of costs due to the increase in engagement rates. For portrait ads, there are certain placement options.
It is possible on Instagram, Facebook, In-app, Snapchat, TikTok and also on Youtube. Now according to Rocketium Academy Snapchat ads (Portrait ads) are converting 2 times more because of the higher visual attention and full-screen viewing capacity and the automatic audio.
Now Instagram has released IGTV in June 2018 and it is in the portrait form. But inside that portrait format, it can be done in various ratios with either the default background (black) or we can insert a new background (any colour).
But one of the major disadvantages in the portrait advertisement is that not a lot of information about the product cannot be displayed.
But it also acts as a major advantage as it represents only the pain points of the customers as there is research saying that people who find the ad interesting during their first three seconds of their viewing time only will get converted.
That is why even putting a landscape video ad in TikTok will lead to a lower view rate than the portrait video. There are too many details to be covered by the consumer in the landscape advertisement.
But in the case of portrait ads means only those useful information needed by the consumer which are:
Why you have to buy the product?
What are the specs?
But it is a major challenge to compress all the information with the 15 or 45 seconds of the advertisement. But that is where the talent of the advertisement company lies.
The portrait ads or the posts will take a full view of the mobile screen no matter how big the screen is, if the video or photo is shot in a considerably good camera the resolution won’t break.
Conclusion:
The major reason why portrait ads are best is that it’s filling up the screen. Because not a lot of viewers will take an effort to turn their phone when a landscape ad came in the place of portrait one.
Now with black borders ads are being made in the portrait platform then there are several defects:
Lack of clarity in the words.
Lack of video clarity.
Increase in the efforts of the viewers
One of the major things that a social media strategist should consider while preparing any kind of strategy for the content creation he/she should keep in mind that it involves the following two things
More participation of the viewers
With fewer efforts
Thus it can be concluded that with rising portrait orientation activities and formats in the digital world, it will be better if the businesses focus towards this field of ads.
