Thursday Buzz: Vertical Video Is OK

Remember those days when vertical video was a crime? Well, people will let you go these days.

With television sets and computer screens, horizontal video was always the norm. Videographers, designers, and mediaites frowned upon the wave of vertical video. (Mind you, there are still campaigns to shut down  (opens in a new tab) vertical videos.)

However, today’s smartphones and mobile apps have led to the widely accepted adoption of vertical video. Think Snapchat—which sees 2 billion videos  (opens in a new tab) per day—and other video messaging apps  (opens in a new tab) like Vine, Meerkat, and Periscope.

(Even Instagram, the king of squares, is willingly changing up its format. On Thursday, the company announced  (opens in a new tab) that it now allows vertical and horizontal video and photo formats. That’s big news for people who don’t want to be locked into a square frame.)

Vertical video was always going to come into play, because tablets and smartphones (and books before the digital age) have always been oriented vertically to fit our hands better, industry experts told Farhad Manjoo of The New York Times  (opens in a new tab).

As a result, the shape of video is shifting. Facebook now allows  (opens in a new tab) vertical video, as do YouTube’s mobile apps  (opens in a new tab).

Media outlets have even jumped on board. “We find the engagement much higher. Users are more satisfied, and there’s a higher completion rate on them,” Jon Steinberg, The Daily Mail‘s chief executive for North American operations, told the Times  (opens in a new tab).

Gamify Your Event

How to Use #Gamification  (opens in a new tab) at Your Next Association Conference http://t.co/80YUpGzc1E  (opens in a new tab) @EventMB  (opens in a new tab) #assnchat  (opens in a new tab) #eventprofs  (opens in a new tab) pic.twitter.com/X80mQCbxP9  (opens in a new tab)

— IMEX (@IMEX_Group) August 27, 2015  (opens in a new tab)

Wanna bring out your attendees’ competitive spirit? Do it through gamification, and you might end up getting people more involved.

At the Event Manager Blog, Christina Green shares some ways to gamify your event  (opens in a new tab)—by introducing motivation, game play, and rewards. Associations can make the challenges benefit them, and the rewards motivate players to participate and encourage social shares. Be creative!

Additional Links For Your Day

Communication is not just all talk. “It is good communication that allows people to understand and move through a situation,” Laura Otten writes  (opens in a new tab) for LaSalle University’s NonProfit Center site.

Does your organization want to go global? Matthew Brodsky at CMSWire shares  (opens in a new tab) several ways to make multinational marketing happen—offering up tips by Cloudwords CEO Scott Yancey.

A one-page quarterly plan could be the perfect approach for nonprofits to follow. David Finkel lays out the strategy at Inc.com  (opens in a new tab).

(iStock/Thinkstock)