A Little Motion Goes a Long Way
There are many things to consider when developing a brand including a kick-ass visual style, an ownable tone of voice, and a website with the user journeys so on point the user has bought your product before their morning coffee’s even had a chance to go cold.
But often, the power of motion gets forgotten (or at least skipped over due to preconceptions of cost.) But here’s the secret, you don’t need huge budgets for motion to be worth your while because a little motion goes a long way.
What do we mean by a little motion?
Have a look at your favourite website, your phone, your social media channels, and you’ll find motion everywhere. It will be in the most obvious places, in the guise of social posts or about us videos, but you’ll also find it hidden away powering every interaction you have. And the reason for that is simple, humans evolved to notice movement, however small (part of our innate fight or flight response).
We’ll come onto using motion as actual pieces of content shortly, but let’s take a dive into the small pieces of motion across the digital landscape, or as they’re better known, let’s look at ‘micro-interactions’.
Micro-interactions
From the early websites that simply turned a link purple on click to today’s micro-interactions we’ve come a long way. And these small touchpoints provide a chance to showcase your brand personality and offer little moments of delight that could make a user remember you over your competition, as well as providing visual feedback or hinting at the effect of an action to inform users ahead of time.
The key things to remember with micro-interactions is they should be unobtrusive, simple, and on brand. If in doubt remember just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.
Examples of micro-interactions
Top-left source. Top-right source. Bottom-left source. Bottom-right source.
Bringing social media to life
Arguably the area that’s seen the biggest adoption rate for motion is social media and it’s easy to see why. In the endless fight for likes, clicks, and eyeballs, static assets are easily scrolled passed but humans by their very nature, are drawn to movement.
Bringing motion to your channels doesn’t have to be difficult, sometimes it’s the little things that make the biggest impact. We’re talking animated text, looping videos, and stop-motion videos alongside your bread and butter posts to add a point of difference and bring your personality to life in a small way.
Examples of small-scale social motion
Top-left source. Bottom-left source. Right source.
Motion as texture
On the web subtlety can often reign supreme, and opting for a softer approach to motion can transform a brand from everyday consumer product, to aspirational, and luxury experience. Textural motion often, but not exclusively, takes the form of cinemagraphs, a style of video where the majority of it is still but a part of it is subtly moving. This technique can keep file sizes down as well as offering a payoff to users when they notice the moving elements.
In addition to cinemagraphs, textural motion can be used for background elements, either as animation or video assets. To elevate the creative and provide further context to users - as the old adage goes, a picture is worth a thousand words, so how many could video be worth?
Examples of textural motion
Motion as an ownable asset
We’ve looked at some uses of motion for your business, but it’s important to note that motion is also an ownable asset. What we mean by this is by developing a unique style for video and animation as part of your brand, you can create another element that portrays your brand values and personality, and allows users to recognise your content at a glance without relying on your logo or brand name themselves. This gives you more flexibility with content creation, and continues to elevate you above the competition.
What does the future hold?
Looking ahead, the use of video in digital products and marketing is only going to grow, with 79% of companies that aren’t currently using motion as part of their marketing strategy expecting to start using video as a marketing tool in 2022.
So now is the perfect time to look at your strategy and product roadmaps, and start using motion as part of your ongoing marketing strategy. But also as part of your brand toolkit, bringing life and personality to your brand through another lesser used ownable asset.
Not sure where to start or think it’s prohibitively expensive? Get in touch with us today, and discuss how a little motion can go a long way.