That's exactly it. If you're on social media or Youtube you absolutely expect audio so if in a quiet place you know to mute your device. But if you're browsing a shopping site or a news story or help article and suddenly have unexpected blaring sound because you unknowingly activated a video, that's horrible. BTDT too many times and I hate it. That's my problem with the product videos on Zazzle. If you're just clicking the preview thumbs not realizing one is a video, you end up with unexpected sound with no way to stop it or mute it. You have to know to quick click on a different thumb. If you click into the expanded/zoomed view, then there is a mute and volume option. But by then it's too late - if a page is blaring unexpected sound at me, my first instinct is to close that browser tab as fast as possible so bye-bye viewing whatever it's selling. But if I'm scrolling Insta Reels or FB Shorts or such and there is no audio then I think something is wrong. If I want to be entertained then yeah I want & expect sound. If I am just browsing around window-shopping or researching something, sound is a big no unless it is off by default and I have to knowingly turn it on.
I'm (kinda) going along with Leah concerning personal preference because what could be worse than browsing a site during work hours and than the sound coming out of your laptop will tell everyone in the office what you are doing during office hours (instead of working for the company) - yicks!
However I figure that with most social media platforms (I use) the sound is automatically muted and you as a visitor will have to trigger the video to hear the sound so therefore I do add sound.
Now keep in mind that I am still a total Zazzle beginner. I have opened my store a few months ago (in November '23) and honestly I still have little clue what I am doing here. I still need to find my niche and structure my store correctly but it all takes time - I'll get there eventually. I have been watching several Zazzle YouTube channels and of course I followed the wrong influencers at first (so, so many liers out there and tons of click-bait too, sigh). Had I realized as an example that it will take three to six months for the Zazzle algorithm to even just index your listings correctly I think I never would have started, lol. But I do like the platform and product offerings so I will stick around a bit. The only thing I absolutely don't understand (and it bothered me from day one back in November last year) is that Zazzle runs ads for Temu. I guess Temu pays generously but I still don't quite get it.
Now to your question. I currently use eight social media platforms. Since I won't get Zazzle traffic right now (I'm still to new) I will have to put more effort into promotion. Not every social media platform gives me data - Facebook as an example will not provide insight unless I have 100 followers and I have two on Facebook right now, rofl. This will take years since I started each social media account with zero back in November.
Here are my stats and I know they seem so random and make zero sense but anyhow, here it goes:
217 products (oldest 11/13/2023, newest 3/3/2024), 6 sales, 1 referral.
Eyeballs on Social Media
------------------------
Platform, Pins/Videos, Views (fewest to most per video)
Pinterest 41 pins: 4 | 421
YouTube 33 videos: 0 | 83
TikTok 29 videos: 0 | 1895
Instagram 32 videos: 0 | 20
Facebook 21 videos: 1 | 11
X 26 videos: 27 | 419
All videos with sound.
I know. This data looks very random to me, lol.
Some experts (I know Leah is one) should chim in. 🙂
As far as promotion and posting videos to social media, using original sounds plus trending audio (a good mix, not both on every video) is very important to increase your reach on those platforms. The better your reach, the more people who will see your video. But they also have to be interesting and eye catching for places like IG and TikTok. The honest truth is that most people will scroll on by product videos unless they happen to be in the market for them. Those social media platforms are where people go to be entertained so a soundless product video is not likely to do well or be seen by many people. I would add those types of videos to Pinterest or use them here on Zazzle because people are looking for the products primarily and the video will be secondary or not a factor to their overall goal of finding what they want- just a means to maybe get more visibility via the platforms simply for the fact that they are video.
That's exactly it. If you're on social media or Youtube you absolutely expect audio so if in a quiet place you know to mute your device. But if you're browsing a shopping site or a news story or help article and suddenly have unexpected blaring sound because you unknowingly activated a video, that's horrible. BTDT too many times and I hate it. That's my problem with the product videos on Zazzle. If you're just clicking the preview thumbs not realizing one is a video, you end up with unexpected sound with no way to stop it or mute it. You have to know to quick click on a different thumb. If you click into the expanded/zoomed view, then there is a mute and volume option. But by then it's too late - if a page is blaring unexpected sound at me, my first instinct is to close that browser tab as fast as possible so bye-bye viewing whatever it's selling. But if I'm scrolling Insta Reels or FB Shorts or such and there is no audio then I think something is wrong. If I want to be entertained then yeah I want & expect sound. If I am just browsing around window-shopping or researching something, sound is a big no unless it is off by default and I have to knowingly turn it on.
I know people are saying they don't like sound on videos, but that is a personal preference. If you take peoples personal likes and dislikes out of the equation, the fact is that soundless videos will NOT perform well on social media platforms- specifically in regards to Instagram and TikTok where entertainment is king. The platforms themselves would not favor video with original sound and trending audio if research showed that silent videos or posts performed better. Content creators that are making money with their platforms/and/or selling products are making their posts and content either informative or entertaining and garnering attention to the posts in that way.
I am among those that have a hard time coming up with decent content and end up posting a lot of mock up product images, but I can tell you those posts don't get much reach or attention. I get far more new visitors when I post something like a process video that is more entertaining. Find something like that to post once a week or so to find your target audience and get followers to your page and then you can make product posts daily as well. Maybe jump on one of the silly trends and work your product into a fun video like that or show some of the things that inspire you as a designer or artist or that inspired a particular design.
