Social Media: Engage your followers with Animated Content!

Creating content for Social Media does not need to be limited to static images, a social channel can use dynamic content to interact and engage their followers.

Brands, companies, startups and even game studios can be innovative by creating animated characters or mascots that can live on their social channels. These animated characters do not need to appear in every post, but if one were to sporadically share these types of animations it can make their feed more interesting to the viewer.

The key factor when creating an animation for a social network is ‘LENGTH.’ I strongly believe that this type of content that should be snackable. Instagram allows one to share video clips that are 50 seconds in length and that length works perfectly for other social networks. Granted, one could produce longer animations for YouTube for example, but I find 50 seconds (or less) to be the perfect time frame to aim for when creating animations for other channels such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Style is another important aspect when creating an animated characters for social media. If you already have a mascot or animal logo, then it should be easy to develop a character to be animated. If not then one has to think about their audience when developing a character. This does not only include the look and appearance of the character, but also the personality as well. As expert in social media and branding, it is easy for me to gauge an audience when developing a character. A thing to keep in mind during the character development process that audiences like to be informed and entertained. I do not think a monotone character will work, but a character does not need to be ‘slapstick’ comedian either. Gauge your audience and decide what would work best. The character can evolve over time as well, so you can make slight changes depending on the reaction of your audience.

Another thing that can be fun is that the character can be changed to match the season or special events. For example, during Christmas time a character can have a Santa hat. Or company or brand is running a special promotion the clothing or accessories of the character can be adjusted to match. This can be fun when creating characters to promote seasonal events for the social channels of mobile games.

Also, you do not have to be limited to one character. You can always have two characters… for example one could be male and the other female. The possibilities are limitless.

WRAP…

Social media can be more dynamic. One way to do this is creating an animated character or mascot that can live on your social channels.

Length is key. Creating snackable content can be more interesting to your audience. Instagram allows for 50 seconds, which is a good standard for length for channels such as Facebook, Twitter and even LinkedIn. Of course with YouTube it can be longer if one chooses.

Style and personality are also important. Gauge your existing audience and determine what type of character would be interesting for them to interact with.

Below are some examples of animated characters that I created.

The monkey character seen above was created for a live demo for the Adobe Community Professionals Community. In this demo, showcased how one could utilize Adobe Character Animator to bring characters to life. Because it was for an hour long demo the animation is longer than 50 seconds.

Factory Campus is a innovation hub located in Düsseldorf, Germany. It is the home to various businesses and startups. It also houses a co-working space. The idea was to bring Factory Campus’s Ralf Neuhäuser to life to give a virtual tour of the facilities. This became a three part series and was shared on their Facebook page.

This animation was created as a sample when I interviewed with Fluffy Fairy Games. They originally asked for me to create a theme for a seasonal event for their game Idle Miner. I decided that if I am going to design a character in Adobe Illustrator then I am going to allow for that character to be animated as well for social media. Thus, is an example of how mobile game can announce a season event on one of their social channels.

Being an expert in content creation as well as graphic design has paid off for me time and time again. Thus, I hope this inspires other social media managers and community developers to take their marketing to the next level by creating animated characters to enhance their social feeds!

If you are interested in utilizing my services to create an animated character for your business’s social network then send me message here on LinkedIn!